Recent movies and books have brought the Templars into public awareness. What follows are the first few pages of my own book on the Templars, which I wrote years ago because of the perceptive questions of a lady named Julie, who was studying magick with me at the time. The book is available on line by clicking the title on the right, or by going to www.Lulu.com and putting Douglas Buchanan in the Search box.

The Dilemma
With any work on the Knights Templar the writer has a dilemma about where to begin. This is best explained through Buchanan’s Laws, which are proverbial sayings in my family. Law One says that “Before you can do anything, you have to do something else.” And the Second Law shows us how to deal with the First. It says, “The first thing to do is everything.”

How then to deal with the Templars who were all these things, and more: amazingly ferocious warriors, dedicated monks, without personal property yet the richest community in Europe, owners of the biggest commercial fleet in the world, builders of wonderful castles and ports, builders and financiers of many cathedrals to their Mary, the Magdalene using esoteric knowledge, worshipers of the Black Virgin, a Christianized form of Isis, worshipers of John the Baptist, the first bankers, the first to build an international financial network independent of languages, the people who discovered the treasure and documents hidden under the Temple of Solomon in the 12th century because of secret knowledge passed on for a thousand years, the generating influence behind the Tarot deck, the Rosicrucians, the Freemasons and the Grail legend, the famous soldiers of Christ, accused of heresy, and persecuted by the Church, and much, much, more as the glossy ads say.

So let’s begin with a brief look at the apparent accident of history that produced the amazing man who gave impetus to the movement and made it unique in the feudal world of the time. In so doing he changed the world for ever. This was Bernard of Clairvaux; the time was in the 12th century, and the country was France.

Bernard of Clairvaux
Just a year before the forces of the First Crusade entered Jerusalem and massacred thousands, an Abbot named Robert of Molesmes, in the Benedictine Order of monks became fed up with the general laxity and lack of discipline in his abbey as compared with the conduct required by the Benedictine rules. Taking some twenty of the more serious monks with him, he founded a new abbey and a new Order, the Cistercians, at a place called Cîteaux, with the idea of having a real abbey, with real monks, who really led the rigorous life that the Benedictine rules demanded. That was on March 21st 1098

The abbey he had left behind missed their stern Abbot and asked the Pope to send him back. This happened, and Robert left the new abbey in the hands of Alberic who died a year later. The third Abbot of Cîteaux was Stephen Harding.

He was the abbot who changed the Cistercians’ habits to white, instead of black, worn by all other monastic orders. He had just taken charge of the tiny group in 1113 when a young religious enthusiast named Bernard of Fontaines, turned up at the gates with thirty of his relatives, all from noble families in Burgundy, and all seeking admission to the new Cistercian Order.

Stephen welcomed the newcomers, thus more than doubling the size of the new order, and giving it family connections with many very important people. This entry of Bernard, and the reason behind it, changed history in a way that has only recently been appreciated.

A Grail association begins in the same period. Malory brought out his famous Morte D’Arthur, a version of the story of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in 1485. In the preface of that book he mentioned the three outstanding commanders of previous generations. One was Arthur, one was Charlemagne the Great, and the third was Godfroi de Bouillon.

It was this Godfroi and his relatives who led the First Crusade. After the massacre of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, during which the horses of the knights rode in blood up to their knees, Godfroi was offered the position of King of Jerusalem.

He declined it and took the title Guardian of the Holy Sepulchre. His son Baudoin had no such scruples about it and took the title of King Baudoin I (Baldwin I) when Godfroi died very soon after.

The important thing about this incident is that we now know that the families who wanted, and organized the Crusade were almost certainly all related in some way, either to the 24 priests of the priesthood of the Temple of Jerusalem, destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 C.E., or to the Merovingian dynasty of France.

This dynasty of kings, all of whom were healers, traced its bloodline back to Jesus, whose wife the Mary Magdalene, and his children, came to the South of France with her brother, Lazarus some time after the crucifixion.

This connection has been the subject of many, many books in the last twenty years, starting with Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh. It’s about twenty years ago too that I finished work on the last letter in the Bill Letters, a monograph which explained to my stepson Bill, who Jesus really was, from my point of view. That Jesus was married in a dynastic marriage to Mary of Magdala, and that she and her brother and children journeyed to France, has long been a given in some initiatic circles.

The inner group of the Crusaders was re-establishing what it considered the rightful heirs of Jerusalem to their proper place, but for spurious reasons which would appear plausible to the Church.

Additionally, the family traditions had kept intact, by mouth to ear, for a thousand years, knowledge of where the Temple treasures of precious metal, stones, and documents, had been hidden during the Roman siege.

But those few who knew the secret could not just dig it up in full view of the rest of the world, which meant the full view of the Church that treated Jesus as an ascetic, who never married, and had no descendants. This matter is dealt with thoroughly in Rex Deus by Hopkins, Simmans and Wallace-Murphy, and The Second Messiah by Knight and Lomas.

It was through the Bernard connection that this problem was solved. And the creation of the Templars was the solution. This is where Bernard comes in. So back to Bernard, and these other matters will be fleshed out as we go along. This is what I meant by saying that the first thing to do is everything.

Bernard was born in 1090 at Fontaines, near Dijon, in France. Both his parents were both members of the highest nobility of Burgundy. Bernard was the third of seven children, six of whom were boys. He was treated with special care from infancy because the Virgin in the church of Fontaines was a Black Virgin, and when the baby Bernard was presented to her, so the story goes, her statue expressed three drops of milk. Then, rather like the story of Simon in the Temple, a very devout person prophesied that an amazing religious career was in store for this fortunate child.

The Black Virgin becomes very important in this story because Bernard was fascinated with her and later preached over 90 sermons on the first two chapters of the Song of Solomon, wherein Wisdom sings to the daughters of Jerusalem that she is black and comely, in chapter 1 verse 5. All told, he
preached about 300 sermons using this book as his text source.

I too have a special regard for the Song of Solomon, since I am here because of it. When my father courted my mother he wrote her saying that everything that could be said about how he loved her had already been said by Solomon. He handwrote the whole thing and addressed it to her. They were married shortly after.

For those who are Biblically challenged, the Song , comes after Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, in the Old Testament. In some Bibles it is called Canticles.

So the young Bernard turned up at the abbey of Cisteaux with thirty noble relatives, and was accepted by Stephen as a monk and a member of the new order of Cistercians.

Bernard was brilliant and dedicated, and within three years Stephen was wise enough to send him as the head of a band of monks to take charge of another, recently established abbey. This was in the Vallée d’Absinthe, or Vale of Bitterness in the Diocese of Langres. Bernard renamed it Clairvaux, which means Bright Valley. And ever after that, whatever was going on, he was called Bernard of Clairvaux.

Bernard’s noble family connections and friends soon produced the personnel, land grants, and money to make the Cistercian order a very strong voice among the orders.

Meanwhile back in Jerusalem some frustrations were surfacing. The various families who had special connections with the priesthood or the Jesus bloodline were finding it difficult to figure out a way in which they could do the necessary digging under the foundations of the Temple of Herod, where their tradition told them the treasures were.

Clearly they couldn’t just dig on a holy site with the Vatican watching closely, and the king Baldwin I didn’t want to be the focus of papal suspicion, so he commanded caution.

Keep in mind too that Pope Urban had preached the Crusade at the insistence of the nobility. He was pretty much a nobody in history at the time. He had even been kept out of Rome by an ‘anti-pope’ named Clement III. But as soon as all the noble families of the group gave him their support he became very important.

Neither Pope nor Baldwin therefore wanted to see the boat rocked, and of course, the Pope didn’t know that the real reason behind the Crusade was not to wrest the Holy City from the infidels, but to give another whole group of heretics, who behaved like devout Christians, access to their own inheritance. Knowledge of this would have rocked Christendom.

There is documentary evidence that in 1104 Hugues de Payen (a great friend of Bernard, so remember that name), and Hugh de Champagne, his feudal lord, made a visit to Jerusalem. They were both in the know, and talked with Baldwin, and returned to France with a set of drawings of the area of the Temple.

In 1113 a group of genuinely Christian knights formed an order called the Knights Hospitaller. They established themselves as the protectors of a hospital built in Jerusalem before the First Crusade, and as a bonus they swore to defend Jerusalem as well as the hospital.

This gave Hugh and Hugues an idea which they thought might work. Back they came in 1114 to discuss their plan with Baldwin I. This was the plan. They wanted to start an order like the Hospitallers under the pretext of defending pilgrims. They wanted their base to be on the site of the stables of Herod, because there they would be out of sight, and at a lower level than the other buildings. This would help when they began digging into the foundations.

Baldwin the cautious said “No!” and they went back with not much regard for him. They got in touch with the cousin of the king who was next in line. He was also called Baldwin. However, having been a prisoner of the Moors for four years, he had a different attitude from the established king.

The Nine Knights
Four years later Baldwin I died and Baldwin II became king. Within a few weeks a small group of nine knights were established on the site of Herod’s stable, under the protection of the king, and with the publicly announced goal of protecting pilgrims from attack.

One historical point needs clarification. The main source of material about this episode is in the history of the Templars written about 70 years after these events by Guillaume de Tyre.

He says that the nine knights presented themselves to Baldwin I and were given the stables as they requested. However, Baigent and Leigh in their Holy Blood, Holy Grail point out that the official historian of Baldwin I, Fulk de Chartres, didn’t mention any of this. The explanation seems to be that the knights came as mentioned above, and Baldwin I said no. As soon as he died it was the other Baldwin who said yes.

The generally accepted list of the names of the nine knights who began the work is this:
Hughes de Payen, André de Montbard, Geoffroi de St Omer, Payen de Montdidier,Achambaud de St-Amand , Geoffroi Bisol, Gondemar, Rossal, and Godfroi.

A few details about these men will begin to shed some light on what was going on.
Hughes de Payen was a middle rank noble in Champagne, and therefore vassal of Hughes I of Champagne. He married Catherine St Clair, daughter of Baron Henri St Clair. The St Clairs turn up again and again in this story, particularly in the Scottish branch of the family.

The English, in their sloppy way, don’t usually say St Clair. They meld it into Sinclair. That has happened to many foreign names. A famous landmark in London used to be called Infanta de Castilla centuries ago, after a princess of Castille in Spain. The English corrupted it into Elephant and Castle, in a century or less.

André de Montbard was another vassal of Hughes of Champagne and ALSO uncle of Bernard of Clairvaux.

Geoffroi de St Omer was son of the nobleman Hughes de St Omer, and second in command.

Payen de Montdidier was related to the ruling family of Flanders, so was Achambaud.

Geoffroi Bisol is unidentified at the moment.

With Gondemar and Rossal we meet with Bernard again. A previously secret Templar archive has been made public since the publication of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. It comes from Seborga in northern Italy. There has been a story that Bernard founded a monastery there in 1113. The reason given was to protect a ‘great secret.’

The Abbot of the monastery was named Edouard, and among his monks were two knights who had been in the group with Bernard when he joined the Cistercians. They had taken the names Gondemar and Rossal as their new spiritual names.

The document says that in 1117 Bernard himself came to the monastery and released both monks from their vows, and blessed them and the other seven prior to their trip to Jerusalem. Note that Bernard is still only twenty seven years old but in a position of great authority.

The same document says that Bernard chose Hugh de Payen to be the grand master of the group, later to be known as the Militia of Christ. The Abbot, Edouard consecrated Hugh in this position.

Nothing has been found to date about the last Godfroi.

So now the nine knights, all from noble families, are members of the new order The Militia of Christ, and under the protection of the king of Jerusalem began in secret to dig down into the foundations of the Temple, using information gleaned from the traditions of their respective families.

Straws in the wind. Evidence of hidden plan.
Pope Urban and Godfroi de Bouillon both died very soon after the taking of Jerusalem. That arouses suspicion in some students of these matters. Their job was done, they say. They were no longer needed in the long term plans, particularly because Godfroi refused to be called King.

Urban had been persuaded that it was the time of the fulfilling of the prophecies about Jerusalem being freed. That was why he went along with preaching the First Crusade.

It may be coincidence that the White Monks, as the Cistercians were now called, wore the same colors as the early followers of Jesus, the Nazoreans who wore white as a symbol of the Resurrection. Maybe it was a way to make true the prophecy in Revelations that the martyrs would be resurrected in a thousand years.

And the amazing Bernard had become abbot of a monastery at Clairvaux which had been built for him by Hughes de Champagne, who visited Baldwin I with Hughes de Payen. Bernard’s uncle André, remember, was also one of the nine. Abbeys don’t spring from the ground overnight, and since Bernard was only twenty five years old when he became master of Clairvaux, it doesn’t take much to figure out that the building of the abbey was started as soon as Bernard entered Cïteaux as a novice.

Note too that his elder brother, the Count of Fontaine was originally vigorously opposed to the idea of Bernard becoming a monk. And the opinion of elder brothers in those days was nearly equal to that of the father.

Something changed his mind however, because he was one of the very group that entered Cïteaux with Bernard. So by now it is clear that Bernard is part of a very complex plan on the part of someone or someones. Let’s go back to Jerusalem and see how the knights were doing.

They spent years on the digging. Don’t forget that they used hand tools. The tunnel they dug to reach the tunnel they knew was there under the foundations, was about 80 feet long, and went through rock all the way...