They were pledged, it is said, to commit their lives and work to a strict code of rules and on the face of it were simply ordained to ensure the safe passage of pilgrims to the Holy Land. The knights request this task of the first King Baldwin of Jerusalem, who refuses. He then dies supposedly under mysterious circumstances only to be replaced by Baldwin II who then almost immediately grants them this privilege. For the next nine (there’s that number again) years the
knights excavate beneath the Temple of Solomon (which didn’t ever exist) in complete secrecy and the Grand Master returns to Europe, supposedly with secrets that have been hidden for hundreds of years. Very quickly the knights achieve a special dispensation from the Pope to allow them to charge interest on loans – indicating their swift path to wealth. Soon the great Cathedral building period arrives across Europe with the new found architectural “secrets” discovered by the crusaders. This new found knowledge may very well have
come from some of the discoveries made by the Templars, especially when we consider that the man responsible for energizing the building program was none other than St. Bernard – the same Bernard who gave the Order of the Knights Templar their rules and who was related by blood to various members. The same St. Bernard indicated in the propaganda of the Arthurian and Grail literature.
The Templars grew in wealth and power. Their land holding and banking system made them one of the most powerful and feared groups in Europe. Virtually nobody could match their international strength. According to George F. Tull in Traces of the Templars they were also “well placed to obtain relics” as they held the respect of nobility and had many strategically placed premises across the Holy Land. assemblies of god church builders
Near Loughton-on-Sea in England there are several Templar connected sites. The Temple here was “well provided with liturgical books, plate and vessels of silver, silver gilt, ivory and crystal, vestments, frontals and altar cloths. Among the relics kept there were two crosses containing fragments of the True Cross and a relic of the Holy Blood” whatever that might have been – it was not a bloodline. Tull also tells us of how some of these relics entered Britain, “Sometimes the ships returned with more specialized cargo, as when in 1247 Br. William de Sonnac, Master of the Temple in Jerusalem, sent a distinguished Knight Templar to bring to England and present to King Henry III ‘a portion of the Blood of our Lord, which He shed on the Cross for the salvation of the world, enclosed in a handsome crystalline vessel.’ The relic was authenticated under seal by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the bishops, abbots and nobles of the Holy Land.” In Surrey the Templars held land known then as Temple Elfold with 192 acres of arable land. Here again in 1308 there was mention of a grail and a chalice. It is therefore obvious that part of the wealth of the Templars came from the propaganda tools of the medieval reliquary business, proving their astute business acumen and their ability to root out those tools. They were also incidental in spreading the cult of St. George, especially when we consider that they knew of his shrine in Lydda.