710 years after the Templar demise on March 18, 1314

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It was the final act of the Templar Trial which would set the stage for the legends that the Templars have survived to this day. On March 18, 1314 (although also March 11 has been mentioned as the most probable date), Jacques de Molay, Geoffroi de Charney, the Preceptor of Normandy, and two other high Temple officials were brought out to confess their sins in public ceremony on the Ile des Javiaux island in the Seine River, Paris, before being sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. Things went differently.

How were the medieval Cistercians different?

The basis of the Cistercian way of life was traditional, in that they, like other monks, followed the Rule of St Benedict. Indeed, the reason given for the decision in 1098 to leave Molesme for Citeaux was the failure of that community to observe the Rule properly. So in what way did the Cistercians differ from the Benedictines?

Details of the Templar compound on Temple Mount Jerusalem

What did Temple Mount look like during Templar times, so between about 1120 and 1187? Theoderich, who visited Jerusalem probably in 1169, describes the Templar buildings in great detail. 

The Templars' religious presence in Medieval Europe

Still very little is known about the military orders’ religious functions in the dioceses in medieval Europe in which they held ecclesiastical possessions. What were relevant aspects of Templar religious involvement in medieval society in general and the reactions of senior clergymen to the Templars’ religious engagement on the parish level in particular? How did the Templars expand their network of parish churches and engage with the lay public? 

The Latin Liturgy of Jerusalem: a mixture of old and new, Occidental and Oriental

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The 12th century liturgy of Jerusalem was immensely important in the newly created socio-cultural and sacral landscape. Unique rites were established and formed part of a large project aimed at transforming the post-Byzantine Muslim city of Jerusalem into the Latin capital of their Kingdom and a spiritual centre of the Christian world. How was this accomplished?

The Templar compound on Temple Mount Jerusalem

 "Shortly after the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, the Al-Aqsa mosque became the residence of the Frankish kings of Jerusalem. But the kings were not able to maintain the building in the condition in which they had found it." Perhaps that is what inspired king Baldwin II to lend the site to the young Templar Order. A reconstruction.

Jerusalem - Templar purpose and alibi in Bernard's "De laude novae militiae"

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De laude novae militiae, the famous eulogy written by Bernard of Clairvaux during the stay of Hugues de Payns in Europe in 1127 or 1128, contains several thoughts about the functions of the new Templar chivalry and the battles that the Templars are waging in the East. What details about the headquarters of the order exist and what the conception of Jerusalem prevailed in the clerical consciousness of the first half of the 12th century? (...)

Historiography of the Knights Templar - fact and fiction

 "The historiography of the Knights Templar is long, complex, and generously laced with fiction and legend. It overlaps with the historiographies of The Masonic Temple, the myths of the Grail, and the legends surrounding somewhat more concrete relics, such as the Shroud of Turin, and the splinter of the True Cross, which was captured by (and disappeared under) Saladin. How to distinguish between fact and fiction?