The Catholic Church’s Most Influential Religious Military Orders

For centuries, Christians and Muslims were embroiled in one of the most infamous territorial disputes of all time, viciously and relentlessly battling one another for the Holy Land. In the heart of Jerusalem sat one of the shining jewels of the Christian faith, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Legend has it that this was where their Savior had been buried before his fabled resurrection. What was more, it was said to house the very cross Jesus Christ had died upon. It was for precisely these reasons that fearless pilgrims, near and far, risked their lives and made the treacherous trek to Jerusalem.

The Order of the Temple of Solomon, also known as the Templars or the Knights Templar, is one of the best-known and least-understood groups in history. They appear prominently in everything from novels (The Da Vinci Code) to films (as the Knights of the Cruciform Sword in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) to videogames (Assassin's Creed). In these stories, they are a sinister cult that manipulated historical events since the Middle Ages, via intimidation and assassination. They are usually connected to the Freemasons and, sometimes, to other historical cults like the Hindu Thuggees.

The real Templars were both more mundane and more fascinating than the myths and legends. They were the first military religious order — monks who were also knights. The founding members were veterans of the First Crusade in Palestine and their main goal was, in fact, benign. They formed their group as a small tertiary order (Lay people who took monastic vows, but lived in the larger community) in Jerusalem, policing the pilgrim routes and shrines of the Levant and protecting travelers from the many bandits that infested the area. Even though they were used as the core of Crusader armies during the later crusades, the Templars never wavered from their original goal.

The Templars were split into knights (about ten percent of the Order), sergeants and chaplains (the other ninety percent), with the non-noble sergeants comprising the majority of the Order, according to historians like Malcolm Barber in his history of the Order, The New Knighthood. The knights fought in the main part of the Templar army, but the sergeants appear to have backed up the knights in battle, both as horsemen and as a small infantry. The sergeants also worked as servants and in non-military support functions on the Templar farms (granges) that supported the Order. The chaplains were a small group of priests who were rotated into the Order on a temporary basis and served the monks' religious needs.

As the dissipating fog gave way to an unnerving sight, the mass of frightening figures clad head to toe in gleaming armor would have been enough to take anyone's breath away. Some of them were mounted on the backs of handsome stallions, while others leaned forward with squared shoulders, ready to attack. In one swift motion, the men unsheathe their swords and raise it over their heads, their weapons winking as the glare of the sunlight bounces off the blade. To the somewhat trained eye, these warriors in Norman-inspired gear would have appeared to be one of the Crusader forces, but it is that bold black cross painted across their chests and shields that give them away. These men were none other than the fabled Teutonic Knights. The knights of the Teutonic Order have since been compared to the surreal creature that appeared to the biblical Ezekiel, one that bore 2 faces — one of a man's, and one of a lion's. The human side of the creature is said to symbolize the order's charity, whereas the lion was a metaphor for its valor and gallant spirit, which they relied on to vanquish the heathens of the world.