FW: [MR] Templar challenges Osama

[Duane Moore]

Hi Soffya!

Thought I would make a couple of comments on the note
you forwarded from your friend, to correct a couple of
minor mistakes, and clarify a couple of points. (Since
study of the Military Orders is a hobby of mine...) 

--- Jeanne <jeanne at atasteofcreole.com> wrote:
> >From a friend who is an archeologist:
> 
>         Unfortunately this would appear to be yet
> another pious forgery,
> not on par with the Donations of Constantine or the
> Shroud of Turin, but
> in the same vein. The first and foremost problem is,
> of course, that the
> Knights Templar are officially out of business. The
> Order was disbanded
> by His Holiness Clement V, in 1312 A.D. A Papal Bull
> officially disbanded
> the Order and transferred all property and
> non-accused Knights to the
> Order of the Knights Hospitalier. 

Their estates went to the Knights of St. John (there
had already been substantial talk of combining the two
orders for several years before, and relations between
the Hospital and Temple were always closely
associated. For example, if a Knight Brother were
separated from the Beausant, the banner of the Order,
he was first to rally to the Hospitals banner, should
he be unable to return to his own. Also there is a
provision in the rule for the brothers to eat and
drink with members of the Hospital, virtually the only
place that they were allowed to do that outside of
their own House.) I don’t have the Barber, etc. here
at work, but I’m fairly sure that a largish amount of
their property and especially cash reserves in France
went to Phillip le Bel, the chief architect of the
Templars downfall. 

Though the
> Portuguese Langues formed a
> new Order, under a different name, and some Templars
> fled to Scotland to
> hide out, the Order was officially out of business
> by that time.

Denis of Portugal created the "Knights of Christ", his
own order for the remaining Templars in his country,
and in Spain many joined the orders of Montese and
Calatrava. In England they were pensioned by Edward II
and joined several different monastic estates in small
numbers. In Scotland, they held out the longest, and
it is from those remaining templars that the Masons
claim origin. 


> 
> Now for
> the nit picky, internal inconsistencies that prove
> its a forgery. First,
> Prior and Grand Prior are terms for monks. The Order
> was run by Knight
> Commanders, who answered to Preceptors, who in turn
> answered to the Grand
> Marshal.

Hm, slight correction here, the Marshall was actually
third in line behind the Seneschal and The Grand
Master. The Marshall being primary concerned with
command and organization in the field, the Seneschal
who was an administrative second in command, and the
Grand Master, who was the head of the Order.
Individual Commanders had pretty broad powers within
their own Houses, however. 


 Second, no member of the Order referred to
> himself as Chevalier,
> or Sieur, or Sir. They were a religious Order, armed
> monks actually, and
> referred to each other as Brother. Finally, members
> of the Order never,
> ever, referred to themselves as Templars or Knights
> Templar. They were
> the Poor Knights, or, on formal occasions, the Poor
> Knights of Christ and
> the Temple of Solomon.
> 
> Unfortunately for the author of this forgery, the
> Poor Knights do have a bad reputation for not
> keeping their word, since
> Grand Master Gerard de Ridefort, starting in 1186,
> did his damndest to
> destroy the Crusader States in the Middle East. He,
> along with secular
> lord Sieur Raymond de Chatelaine, lord of Karak,
> came to the astounding
> conclusion, in contradiction to the Order's rules,
> and the general
> regulation of Christianity, that now oath made with
> a non-Christian was
> binding. This led to the disaster at Nazareth, where
> Brother Gerard
> convinced King Guy of Jerusalem to attack a vastly
> superior Muslim force,
> resulting in the destruction of the Crusader army
> almost to the last
> man(de Ridefort survived by fleeing with King Guy.)
> 
> Then, against the
> advice of Count Raymond of Tripoli, de Ridefort
> persuaded the Crusaders
> to violate the truce with Saladin, that Saladin had
> kept scrupulously,
> and attacked the Sultan at Hattan, resulting in the
> wiping out of entire
> Army of Jerusalem and the loss of Jerusalem to the
> Egyptians. Saladin
> pardoned most of the captured knights, even letting
> many go without
> ransom. The Templars he had executed, because they
> had broken their word
> to him too many times, and he felt they should have
> known better.
> 

Actually there are a couple of more recent theories
that vindicate a lot of the decisions made by the
barons in 1187, and show that they mirrored past
successful strategy for the Latin Kingdom. ‘Crusading
Warfare, 1097-1193 by RC Smail is one excellence
source. I must disagree that Saladin kept the truce
‘scrupulously’. I get the sense from your letter that
you ascribe to the modern sentiment that the Latin
States were inherently ‘bad’ and the Muslim ones
‘good’. Much like the current situation in Palestine,
the issue is a bit grayer than that. Politics was very
much a part of the struggle between the lords of
Tripoli and Karak. Raymond certain gets better press,
doesn’t he?

Several of your opinions mirror those of the
contemporary authors of the day, but it would be
unwise not to remember that those writers had
political affiliations that influenced the way that
they ‘wrote the history’. (William of Tyre and Roger
of Howedan certainly had their complaints) I haven’t
read that Saladin executed the Templars because of
their treachery, but perhaps you are familiar with a
source that I am unfamiliar with. Most accounts state
that they were executed because Saladin knew that
their devotion and discipline made them too dangerous
to leave alive. As late as 1250 the Master of the
Temple was an important figure in the eyes of the
Moslem community and commended enough respect from
them that he was still considered a major figure in
negotiations. Certainly within the Kingdom, before and
After El Hattin, the Masters of the Hospital and the
Temple were very important, as they held some of the
largest standing armies.

> Besides, no true knight who lived accordingly to
> chivalry would ever
> stoop to challenging a diabetic old man, who is
> missing a kidney. A
> champion of his maybe, but not the man himself. A
> true knight does not
> make war on the infirm, women, children, or the mad.
> The author's
> knowledge of chivalry leads a little to be desired. 
  

I and others have raised this point elsewhere, but
depending on the period of study and evolution of the
code of chivalry you speak of Bin Laden perhaps would
fall outside the boundaries of that Code. (Being that
he was not Christian. Certainly, if you are looking at
it from a Money = Power issue alone, he would qualify
as wealthy as he is...)

Personally, I find it misleading and distasteful to
call the slaughterer of thousands a weakling. Bin
Laden has proven his strength again and again.
Regardless, a murder, a liar, and a apostate to his
own religion is beyond the protection offered in most
of the Codes accepted in period. 
The author is most correct in stating that there is no
current Master of the Temple, from a strictly
historical standpoint. What you need to understand
however, is there are many, many organizations that
either claim direct decendantancy from the Order, of
use the name for various charitable causes, historical
recreation, and the like. For instance:
http://www.ordotempli.org/ is the home of ORDO
SUPREMUS MILITARIS TEMPLI HIEROSOLYMITANI® The
Magistral Grand Priory of The Holy Lands (Notre Dame,
Saint Mary of Magdalene), a group that supports and
encourages both historical research as well as
charitable events.(Note that this group uses Priory
instead of Preceptory, which might be some sort of
anglicizing of the word. ) 
Other groups that use the Title Knight Templar include
the Freemasons, where it is a rank for service. 
Most likely, the gentlemen who wrote the orginal
letter falls somewhere into one of those groups. 
As a side note, I was amused at my vigil by an old
knight/laurel who told me that one of my songs
particularly touched him, since he was in fact, a true
Knights Templar. I bit back my reply that he looked
pretty good for being over 700 years old then! Perhaps
he had gotten a chance to guard the Grail too, eh?
Kind Regards, 
Duane Moore
Known in the SCA as Bryce de Byram, OL and sometimes
as Brother Gui de Byram
(www.geocities.com/atlantiantemplar/)



> 
> Soffya
> Chatelaine
> Argent, a patriarchal cross between three crescent
> gules on a chief sable
> three fleur-de-lys Or
> Order of St. Roche
> Incipient Canton of Sudentur
> Barony of Stierbach
> Kingdom of Atlantia
> 
> 

=====
Bryce de Byram,OL (Duane M. Moore) 100%Peer-Evil
http://www.geocities.com/brycedebyram/
Read my RANTS at: http://bdeb.diaryland.com/
“I am still learning” – Michelangelo

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