The order of the Knights Templar: Formation, structure and trial of the order

The Poor Fellowship of Jesus Christ and Solomon's Temple or better known as the Templars was a military-religious based order which was formed within the Latin Kingdom established in Jerusalem area captured by the Christians after the First Crusade. The order, whose founding-purpose was to protect the pilgrims visiting the Holy Lands, consisted warrior priests who devoted themselves to the Christian monastery life. Despite their basic principles of deprivation and poverty, the order reached a great prosperity thanks to the high amount of donations by European nobles right after they were acknowledged as rightful order by the Papacy. Getting even richer by the numerous estates and vast lands, the Templars were lending large sums of money to European kings and noblemen. They can also be counted as the pioneers of modern banking in regard of their money transfer system carried out by the Templar houses in both Europe and the Holy Lands. But they were held accountable for the continuous military failures in the Holy Lands despite their quick success in earning money. The fall of Templars, who had affected the religious, military, economic, social and architectural structure of medieval Europe for almost 200 years from its foundation, was as fast as its rising. Caused by the accusations of heresy, disgracing the Holy Cross, Satanism and denial of Jesus Christ issued by King Philippe IV, who was holding most of the modern France at the beginning of the 14th century and having a great debt to the Templars, many members of the order including the last Grandmaster Jaques de Molay was arrested. After being found guilty by the Inquisition, they have wiped out from the official history with the execution of the last Grandmaster. In our study which we follow the footsteps of the Templars from its foundation to their vanishing point of the stage of the history we point out the attempts of the Holy Roman Church to establish a divine authority and to provide basis for the Crusades by shaping a Holy war phenomenon within Christendom. The organization scheme of the Templars in which the monastery life and knighthood were forged together, their actions and the Inquisition process has formed the 2nd chapter of our study.