KNIGHTS TEMPLAR
The poor fellow-soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, commonly known as the Knights Templar, were the one of the most powerful of the western Christian military orders in the middle ages.
Begins:
After the first crusade and the captured of Jerusalem in 1099, many Christians pilgrimages to various holy places in the holy land. The thing was that, even though Jerusalem was very secure, the rest of the Outremer was not. There were a lot of bandits attacking the Christians in their pilgrimages.
In 1119, the French knight Hugues de Payens approached to King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem asking to do a monastic order to protect the pilgrimages. The king and the Patriarch agree and gave then a headquarters in the temple Mount, which was mystical, because was known for being the ruins of the temple of Salomon.
After 50 years of their creation and for the increasing number of members, they star moving to other places apart of the Holy Land, like France, Germany, United Kingdom, Spain and Portugal, increasing their richness, the biggest in the kingdoms of Europe.
The Knights Templar also participates in the second crusade, which they protect the King Luis VII of France, after the defeats that him suffer from the Turks.
But, after the defeat against the Saladino, the Sultan of Egypt, they retreat. In the battle of “The fourth horns of Hattie” in 1187, in the Holy Land, the grand master of the order was taken prisoner, Saladino took Jerusalem, but for the pressure of the third crusade and the efforts of King Ricardo I from England, made an agreement with Saladino to convert Jerusalem in to a free city for pilgrimage.
After that all go downhill until the order move to Chipre.
