A to Z of the Knights Templar E-Book

Gordon Napier

• Herausgeber: Spellmount
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

The Knights Templar was the foremost Military Order of the Crusades. In about 1118 these warrior-monks were appointed custodians of Temple Mount, and defenders of Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. Endorsed by the Catholic Church in 1129, the Order became a favoured cause across Europe. Templar knights, distinguished by their white mantles with red crosses, constituted some of the most disciplined and efficient fighting units in successive crusades. The expanding Order acquired extensive estates in the West, and served as financiers and advisors to the great and good. In the East the Templars garrisoned cities and castles, helping to sustain the Frankish presence in the Orient for almost two centuries. Support for the Order faded after the final loss of the Holy Land. King Philip IV of France, seizing on the Templar's habitual secrecy, plotted their destruction and confiscation of their assets. Bending the Papacy to his will, he secured the arrest and trial of Templars throughout Christendom, on grounds of heresy and diabolical corruption. In France the Inquisition extracted damning confessions from the arrested brethren. In 1312, under continuing pressure from the Philip, Pope Clement V formally disbanded the Order. Two years later the last Grand Master was burned alive in Paris after renouncing his confession. The Order's suppression amid such sinister circumstances gave rise to myth and speculation which keeps the Templar name alive to this day. This highly readable and informative A-Z guide is an invaluable reference to the places, people, and themes of the Crusades, the Knights Templars and their legacy.

Leseprobe

A to Z of the Knights Templar

A TO Z OF THE

KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

A GUIDE TO THEIR HISTORY AND LEGACY

by

Gordon Napier

This book is dedicated to fellow enthusiasts of the Order of the Temple, especially my esteemed associates Stephen Dafoe, Christian Tourenne, Christine Leddon and Rachael Parry.

First published in 2008

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2011

All rights reserved

© Gordon Napier 2008, 2011

The right of Gordon Napier, to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 7362 8

MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 7361 1

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

Introduction: The Knights Templar

Select Chronology of Templar History

The Templar A–Z

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

Endnotes

Bibliography

Introduction: The Knights Templar

In Jerusalem, in the wake of the First Crusade and its bloody triumph, there was born a religious brotherhood of a kind never seen before. In about AD 1118 this embryonic Order, comprising a handful of men, established itself on the site of the ancient Hebrew Temple. They became known as the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, the Knights Templar, or simply the Templars.1 Setting themselves apart from other knights and nobles, the Templars took religious vows before the Patriarch of Jerusalem. They renounced worldly comforts and committed themselves to a harsh, monastic way of life. It was to be monasticism with a difference, however, for they were to retain their arms and armour and become warrior monks. This union of monasticism and militarism was a new concept within Catholic Christianity, and some observers were troubled by the contradiction. Others were concerned lest the Templars neglect the internal battle against spiritual forces of darkness while they engaged in physical warfare against those deemed infidels and enemies of Christ. Yet others had no such doubts and viewed the Templars’ path as eminently worthy.

The Templars lived communally, devoted themselves to prayer, and embraced poverty, chastity and obedience. In addition they pledged their swords to the defence of pilgrims, guarding them from the bandits and marauders of the roads and guiding and sheltering them along the arduous way to the sacred places. The early Templars received enthusiastic support from Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, the charismatic and visionary leader of the Cistercian Order, who was later to be canonised. St Bernard’s endorsement resulted in the Templars’ incorporation into the heart of the ecclesiastical establishment. They received their formal Rule, as well as general recognition by the clergy, at the Council of Troyes in 1129. A great noble, Count Hugh of Champagne, meanwhile, gave the Order an aristocratic seal of approval by joining it himself. He swore allegiance to their founding Grand Master, Hugues de Payens, who had embarked for the East as the count’s own vassal. Before long, Church edicts were issued, giving the Templars such extensive powers and privileges that in theory they answered only to the Pope.

The Holy Land had been recovered for Christianity from the Muslim powers. While enduring much suffering and spilling much blood, the Crusaders had effectively created a Christian confederation there, comprised of the four states of Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli and Jerusalem. The fledgling Kingdom of Jerusalem became pre-eminent, but was surrounded by enemies and remained in peril. In that age of faith, the scene of Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection was held sacred by all of Christendom. Once Jerusalem was won, the struggle became to retain it. It soon became clear that the Order of the Temple could serve an additional function contributing to the defence and expansion of the kingdom’s frontiers. The Templars’ potential was also appreciated in the principality of Antioch, to the north, where they received some of their earliest castles. Catholics with sufficient means also made generous donations of land and capital to the Order. They believed that by making such endowments they aided the Holy Land’s physical defence, and also helped to assure spiritual salvation for themselves and their families. Pious nobles also proved ready to join the Order as knights, while commoners joined as sergeants or serving brothers. Soon the Templars evolved into a formidable army, spearheaded by knights in white mantles emblazoned with red crosses. An Armenian chronicler wrote of them as Christ-like paladins, who appeared ‘as if sent by Heaven’ to defend the Christians from Turkish marauders. The Templars’ martial activities in the Holy Land were facilitated by an expanding support network in France, England and other kingdoms, where soon the Order became a familiar presence in society.

After 1144, when Edessa fell to the resurgent Muslims, the Second Crusade was proclaimed. In the course of this campaign the Templars came of age as a fighting force. They contributed leadership and financial assistance to the expedition of Louis VII of France as it crossed Anatolia, saving the King’s contingent from certain annihilation. At around this time the Order also began to commit knights to battle against Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula, the reconquest of which was coming to be portrayed as a second front in a virtually ongoing Crusade. The Templars and their counterparts, the black-clad Knights Hospitaller, continued to bolster secular armies fighting on the frontiers of Christendom. They fought in Spain against the Almohads and in Eastern Europe against the Mongols, as well as against the Turks, Arabs and Mameluks in the Levant. Their foe was often equally zealous and invariably possessed a significant numerical advantage. On a number of occasions the Templars fought to the brink of their own extinction.

The Templars’ most famous defeat was at Hattin, against the Sultan Saladin, the nemesis of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Poor and divided leadership – not least, perhaps, the failings of the Order’s own Grand Master Gerard de Ridefort – propelled the Christians towards this disaster in midsummer of 1187. The Christians were lured to Tiberias, through the blistering desert, past poisoned wells. The Franks of Jerusalem fought gallantly despite the terrible condition they were in. Eventually, though, Saladin captured their leader King Guy and (what was worse) the True Cross. The Christians had carried the sacred relic into the battle, as they had into many through the years. Before, it had brought them victory against all odds, but not this time. After the battle, the Sultan executed his Templar and Hospitaller captives. So many other Christian knights had been killed or taken prisoner at Hattin that there were few left to defend the towns, castles and cities, which capitulated to Saladin’s might over the ensuing months. Eventually came the turn of Jerusalem, and soon the Muslims again controlled the Holy City.

Europe had not yet lost its Crusading enthusiasm, however. The Third Crusade, led by King Richard the Lionheart of England, restored the coastal cities of the Holy Land to Christian rule. Meanwhile new knights came to replace the fallen brethren of the Military Orders, who were considered martyrs. The Orders played an active role in the fight back, especially at the Battle of Arsuf, where Saladin’s army was scattered. The Christians might have followed up this victory by retaking Jerusalem, but realised that they had insufficient men to hold on to it afterwards. Having reached a stalemate, the conflict was suspended and a truce was made.

The Templars avoided participation in the infamous Fourth Crusade, which veered off course and pillaged Christian Byzantium. Likewise they kept out of the Albigensian Crusade, which ravaged the Languedoc in the name of eradicating heresy. They were, though, active in the ill-fated Fifth Crusade in Egypt, and in the Sixth, when the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II secured – through diplomacy – the restoration of Jerusalem to the Christians. In the second quarter of the thirteenth century an internecine power struggle between the Pope and the Emperor led to political Crusades being preached within Europe against Frederick II himself; Frederick being viewed as a threat to the Papal States, which his domains encircled. The Templars as a rule disdained to fight against other Christians, even on the Pope’s behalf. In 1244 in the East, meanwhile, allies of the Sultan of Egypt, the Khoresmians, took Jerusalem by storm, and subjected it to rapine and pillage. Soon afterwards the Christians suffered another heavy defeat, at the Battle of La Forbie, where almost all the Templars were killed or captured. Though the Order would again resurge, it was perhaps the beginning of the end.

The Seventh Crusade – that of the saintly King Louis IX of France – was greatly delayed. Louis invaded Egypt with Templars as his vanguard, but was not fated to achieve great success. The Templar contingent, after initial triumphs, was decimated when it accompanied Louis’s bellicose brother in a fateful charge into the town of Mansourah. The knights were trapped and massacred. The victorious Mameluks, a caste of slaves-turned-warlords, soon seized power. Lauded by a Muslim chronicler as Islam’s Templars, these Mameluks subsequently burst out of Egypt into Syria and Palestine and, after defeating the Mongols, turned against the Christians. In unrelenting campaigns, they whittled away the territory of the Frankish settlers. Europe, meanwhile, had turned in against itself. Successive Popes were distracted by their wars in Italy and Sicily. They offered indulgences to those prepared to take up the sword for the Guelf cause against the Ghibellines. Papal wars against Frederick’s successors absorbed money and manpower, much to the detriment of the Latin East and to the dismay of Templars such as the poet Ricaut Bonomel. The condition of the vestigial Kingdom of Jerusalem continued to deteriorate as the thirteenth century wore on. In 1291, when no Crusaders came to reinforce them, the Templars there perished defending the last corner of the last major Christian stronghold, the city of Acre. They fought on almost until the walls of their fortress tumbled around them. Yet even after this final failure of the Eastern Crusades, the Templars survived as a powerful organisation throughout Europe, at least until the fateful events of 1307.

The Templars still possessed their widespread and lucrative estates, and since coming into being had also branched out into banking and other commercial enterprises. Yet having been founded for the defence of the Holy Land, with the fall of Acre they had lost their principal raison d’être. Even as they continued making valiant attempts to regain a foothold on the Syrian shore, they were more vulnerable than they imagined to being attacked from the rear. They had become, perhaps, both an uncomfortable reminder to Europe of its failure in the long-neglected East, and a handy scapegoat for this failure.

King Philip IV of France (called Philip the Fair) suddenly accused them of betraying the Christian cause. He claimed that they were guilty of secretly repudiating the faith and of performing nocturnal rites both blasphemous and depraved. Royal agents seized every Templar in France following dawn raids carried out on Friday 13 October. The Templars were soon delivered into the hands of the Inquisition – an institution founded to stamp out religious heresy, but by this time subservient to the Capetian state. At the same time Philip sequestered the Templars’ property.

Pope Clement V was originally outraged by the King’s action, and tried to halt the heresy trials. By then, however, many Templars had confessed under torture. The Pope, under sustained pressure from Philip, had little choice but to go along with the destruction of the Order. Clement sealed the Templars’ fate by calling for them to be arrested in every land where they were established, and to be held and put on trial in the name of the Church. Thus commenced perhaps the largest trial in world history. In France many Templars, who had retracted their initial confessions, were burnt, protesting their innocence and their loyalty to Christianity. Their international brethren, meanwhile, from Ireland to Cyprus, were seized and brought before Episcopal tribunals, and though not all could be convicted, the Order’s name was widely tainted with suspicion.

In 1312, Clement V convened the Council of Vienne, where the Templars’ fate was to be decided. The Pope, having imposed silence on the unhappy congregation, issued vox in excelso, a solemn proclamation that abolished the Order of the Temple for all time. Two years later, in Paris, the last Grand Master was called to publicly repeat the confession that had been forced from him some years before, and to hear his sentence. Jacques de Molay used the occasion instead to retract his confession and to insist that the Order of the Temple was wholly innocent. He declared himself ready to die in atonement for the moment of weakness in which he had confessed to lies through fear and torture. Geoffroi de Charney, a fellow Templar dignitary, supported him in this stand. Before the day was through the furious King had ordered both men to be burned alive. It was the end of the Knights Templar. Both King Philip and Pope Clement were dead within the year, and soon after that the King’s line died out amid strife and betrayal. In the imagination of many, however, either vilified or turned into martyred heroes, the Templars lived on.

Author’s Note

This book is intended as a dictionary of the Knights Templar, a reference concerning their historical legacy and their mysteries. It is an attempt to explain the story of the Templars and the Crusades and the place of the Knights Templar in history, mythology and culture. It outlines the places and themes significant to the Templars, as well as telling the stories of the individual Templars themselves, and of their allies and their enemies. Individuals are listed in order of first names. Words in the text in bold print are those names and topics that have individual entries. Saints are listed by first names (eg. George, St), unless in a place name, (eg. Sainte Eulalie de Cernon). Contrary to recent convention, I have tended to give names and dates as they would have been familiar to those involved in the subject of this book; hence, for example, Jacques de Molay instead of the Anglicised James of Molay, and the traditional AD.

About the Author

A graduate of University College, Worcester, Gordon Napier is currently studying the cult of Mary Magdalene in the context of the Crusades for his PhD. He is an acknowledged expert on all things Templar, as well as the European witch hunt of the Middle Ages. Alongside poetry and fiction, Gordon is the author of the best-selling The Rise and Fall of the Knights Templar: The Order of the Temple, 1118-1314.

Select Chronology of Templar History

Event

Year

First Crusade invades Holy Land

1098–9

Baldwin II comes to throne

1118

Foundation of the Order

c. 1118

Field of Blood

1119

Council of Nablus

1120

Council of Troyes

1128–9

Templars gain castles near Antioch

1136–7

Omne Datum Optimum

1239

Second Crusade

1148–9

Crusaders capture Ascalon

1153

Amalric I’s campaigns in Egypt

1163–9

Templar ambush of Assassin envoys

1173

Saladin comes to power

1174

Battle of Montguisard

1177

Fall of Jacob’s Ford

1179

Battles of Cresson and Hattin

1187

Saladin takes Jerusalem

1187

Third Crusade

1188–92

Fourth Crusade sacks Byzantium

1204

Albigensian Crusade begins

1209

Fifth Crusade

1221

Sixth Crusade (that of Frederick II)

1228–9

Foundation of the Inquisition

1231

Richard of Cornwall’s Crusade

1240

Battle of Liegnitz

1241

Strife between Military Orders in Acre

1241

Khoresmians take Jerusalem

1244

Battle of La Forbie

1244

Seventh Crusade

1247–54

Ain Jalut (Mongols v. Mameluks)

1260

Mameluks invade Holy Land

1261

Edward I’s Crusade

1271–2

Fall of Acre

1291

Arrest of the Templars

1307

Trials of Templars

1308–10

Council of Vienne

1311–12

Burning of Jacques de Molay

1314

The Templar A–Z

A

Aaron

(c. thirteenth century BC)

Aaron is mentioned in the Old Testament book as the elder brother of the prophet Moses, a Levite and the first high priest of the Jews. He mediated between Moses and Pharaoh, and seems to have been influential in Egypt. During the Exodus he is attributed with the making of the idol of the golden calf while Moses was on Mount sinai receiving the Ten Commandments from God. Oddly Aaron seems not to have incurred God’s wrath, and later served as priest to the Tabernacle, the portable Temple, in which was kept the Ark of the Covenant. Meanwhile, Aaron’s two sons, Nadab and Abihu, were destroyed by fire that went out from the Ark, as punishment for offering ‘strange fire before the Lord which he commanded them not.’(Leviticus 10:1)

AbacusseeBaculus

Abbasids

The Abbasid dynasty reigned as Caliphs in Baghdad. The Abbasids were the spiritual leaders of the Sunni Muslim world, recognized throughout the Middle East as the successors of Mohammed. The Crusaders understood the Caliph to be the Pope of the Saracens, however by this time Abbasid power had waned. In 1055 the Caliph had been reduced to little more than a symbolic figurehead, with a Seljuk Sultan holding the real power.2 Even so the Caliphs retained an aura of semi-divinity. The Mongols deposed the thirty-seventh and last Abbasid Caliph, al-Mustasim, in 1258, after the sack of Baghdad. The Caliph died along with eighty thousand of his people, who were slaughtered by the Mongol hordes.3Hulagu supposedly had al-Mustasim trampled to death beneath horses’ hooves, having rolled him in rugs so that none of his sacred blood would splash on the ground. A scion of the Ayyubid dynasty was installed by Baybars as Caliph in Cairo in 1261, to provide a veneer of legitimacy for the Mameluk regime. The Ayyubid Caliphate in Cairo (the former seat of the rival Fatimid Caliphate) survived until 1517.

Abbey of Notre Dame de Mont Sion

The Abbey of Notre Dame de Mont Sion appears to have been the home of a small religious Order operating in the Holy Land during the era of the Crusades. The community served the abbey on Mount Zion in Jerusalem and also had a monastery on Mount Carmel, which later became the seat of the Carmelites. The monks of the Abbey of Sion, according to Jacques de Vitry, were Augustinians, linked to the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre – the same religious Order as that which had custody of the Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount, and that supported the foundation of the Knights Templar. The Abbey of Mount Zion itself probably predated the Crusades and originally had an Eastern Orthodox monastic community. It is thought that after the success of the First Crusade the Latin brethren arrived, possibly being the same mysterious Italian monks who had founded the Abbey of Orval and then suddenly departed from it. There is some suggestion that these monks could also have had links to Peter the Hermit and Godfroi de Bouillon.4 When the Crusaders lost the Holy Land, the monks of the Abbey of Zion evacuated to Sicily and were apparently absorbed by the Jesuit Order in 1617. It is unclear whether this historical Abbey of Sion had any direct links to the Templars, or whether it was connected in any way to the Prieuré de Sion, an organization featuring in various conspiracy theories.

Abbotsford see Walter Scott

Abraxas

The Abraxas (or Abrasax) is an enigmatic figure, depicted as a warrior with a cockerel’s head and with snakes for legs. The creature holds a round shield and a flail whip, supposedly representing wisdom and strength. Gnostic sects apparently used small stones, carved with images of the Abraxas, as magical charms, in the first centuries AD. (‘Abraxas’ may be the root of the magic word ‘Abracadabra!’) Abraxas images were used by the Basilidean sect of Alexandria, whom the early fathers of the Catholic Church condemned as heretics. Abraxas is said to have represented the supreme deity, from whom emanated the angels, one of which, as the Gnostics thought, was the flawed Jehovah who created the material world. Obviously to medieval Catholics all this would have constituted grave heresy, and the chimera-like image would have appeared outlandish and demonic. The issue of whether there was a secret group within the Templars, which diverged from Catholic Orthodoxy, is perhaps still an open question. An intriguing indication that this might be the case is a version of their seal bearing the image of the Abraxas. Around it is the legend Templi Secretum. Whether the Templars knew the true meaning of the Abraxas, or merely used it as a heraldic device, is hard to assess.

Absolution

Absolution is the act of forgiving sins. This is linked to the duty of confession. A priest would declare one forgiven after one had confessed and performed any penances imposed. One of the accusations against the Order was that Templar Masters (who were laymen) heard confession and bestowed absolution. This was presented as an affront to the ordained clergy, which claimed exclusive spiritual authority. There may have been some basis of truth in this accusation, but it probably arose through confusion or ignorance of official dogma on the matter, coupled with a failure on the part of the Templars to keep up with doctrinal developments. Galcerand de Teus, a Spanish Templar interrogated in the Kingdom of Naples, admitted that lay absolution was practised in Templar Chapter meetings. He said that the absolving Master of the Temple would pray for God to pardon the brother’s sins as he had pardoned St Mary Magdalene and the thief who was on the cross. It is arguable whether such information can be relied upon, coming from a possibly forced confession. (Other Templars’ testimony supported this claim, but made no mention of the ‘thief’.) Elsewhere, meanwhile, for example in England, there was controversy over whether the presiding Preceptor would say ‘I pray to God that he may pardon your sins’, which would have been acceptable, or ‘I pardon you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’, which would have been illicit.

Accusations against the Order

The Knights Templar in France were arrested on Friday 13 October 1307, three weeks after King Philip the Fair had issued secret instructions for this, saying it was necessary because the Templars were guilty of terrible, supremely abominable crimes. According to the accusations, though the Templars were outwardly a respectable Christian brotherhood, secretly, they were blasphemers and heretics. The accusations were subsequently made public. The definitive list was drawn up only in August 1308 and was probably the work of the King’s minister Guillaume de Nogaret. It contained many items; mostly covering practices allegedly taking place during the Templars’ initiation ritual. The list was well calculated to besmirch the Order’s reputation and to rouse popular revulsion. The main charges were as follows:

That the Templars denied and renounced Christ, and made initiates spit at (or otherwise defile) the Cross during their secret reception ceremony. They taught that Christ was a false prophet and not God.

That the Templars did not perform or believe in the sacraments of the Catholic Church, and their priests failed to speak the proper words during the mass.

That the Templars were guilty of idolatry and unholy worship. They worshipped severed heads (some had three faces, some one, some a skull. The idol had the power to bring them riches as well as to make the trees flower and the land germinate). A black cat also manifested.

That the Templars wore chords around their middles, which had touched these idols.

That at their receptions initiates were made to give or receive obscene kisses by the presiding Master, and afterwards encouraged to engage in sodomy.

That the Templars were sworn to secrecy. Those who refused to go along with these things were killed or imprisoned. The rest were forbidden to confess to anyone except to a brother of the Order.

That the Templars held that the Grand Master and other lay brothers could absolve sins.

That the Order was greedy and corrupt and sought to enrich itself by any means legal or otherwise.5

The Templars in France were cruelly tortured by the Inquisition and by royal agents. Confessions (to some or all of the above charges) were secured from many of them by these means. The accusations were apparently first made by a former Templar called Esquin de Floyran. Little if any material evidence could be produced pointing to Templar guilt, and none of the spies apparently sent into the Order by King Philip seem to have been called to testify.

Accursed Tower see Acre

Acre

Acre is an ancient Mediterranean port long seen as the gateway to the Holy Land, if not part of the Holy Land itself. The Crusaders, under King Baldwin I, captured the city in 1104. After the Battle of Hattin in 1187, Acre was one of the many Christian cities that fell to Saladin. The beleaguered Guy de Lusignan, having been captured at Hattin and subsequently released, was turned away from Tyre by Conrad of Montferrat, and so took his meagre forces to besiege Acre, establishing a fortified camp on the beachhead. This was in turn surrounded by Saladin’s army, but held firm, and became the nucleus of the Christian fight-back that became known as the Third Crusade. Many died of disease and injury, but supplies and reinforcements continued to arrive from Europe. The English and French Crusaders under Richard the Lionheart and Philip II Augustus eventually joined the Christian camp, and recovered the city in 1191, having successfully kept Saladin’s relief force from the besieged Muslim garrison.

The Siege had been long and bloody (it was compared to the mythic siege of Troy). The Grand Master of the Templars, Gerard de Ridefort, had died in the course of the fighting, and Queen Sibylla of Jerusalem and her two young daughters died during an epidemic in the Crusader camp. After the Crusaders’ victory, the Muslim prisoners were executed on Richard’s orders.6 With Acre secure, Richard was able to march south, and to defeat Saladin again at Arsuf. Acre, meanwhile, became the effective capital of the vestigial Kingdom of Jerusalem. It lacked the spiritual draw of Jerusalem itself but was more important strategically, and it became the political and economic hub of the Christian territory, also playing host to Muslim merchants, for the Holy Wars did not long put a stop to commerce.

To the north of Acre was the suburb of Montmausars, created to accommodate the Christian refugees from the Muslim conquests who swelled Acre’s population during the thirteenth century. The whole city was surrounded by formidable fortifications and was a tough nut to crack for any enemy. The ‘Accursed Tower’ was part of these defences, on the inner of two walls. The name dated to the costly siege of Acre during the Third Crusade. The outer wall had towers named after their sponsors, including the Towers of the Patriarch, the Legate, King Henry II, the English, the Countess of Blois, the Hospitallers and the Templars.7

The Templars had their compound in a fortress by the sea in the south-western corner of the promontory on which the city stood. According to the Templar of Tyre, the towers of the Templars base at Acre were topped by four gilded lions, which were ‘a noble sight to look upon’. A grand palace for the Grand Master also lay within the enclosure (perhaps indicative of the onset of a degree of decadence). The Templars’ compound had as neighbours the districts controlled by Genoa, Venice and Pisa, the Venetian quarter dominating the harbour. Each mercantile group had a fondaco or market square. The Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights also had their headquarters in the city.

The Bishop of Acre, Jacques de Vitry, newly arrived from France, found the city full of vice and corruption. Acre was also often the scene of acrimony between various Christian factions. There would be strife between supporters of the French, German and Cypriot claimants to the throne, and the Palestinian Frankish barons, as well as between the Italian merchant communes. The Military Orders became embroiled in some of these internecine quarrels, symptomatic of the Christian state going into meltdown before its final destruction. Despite being without stable government and being torn by factionalism, however, the city survived until the siege commenced by the Mameluks in 1291. Even today it contains Crusader remnants, including parts of the Hospitaller Citadel and a Templar tunnel. The Templar fortress by the sea at Acre was the last part of the city to fall under the Mameluk onslaught. Its ruins are now under the water.

The Siege of Acre of April to May 1291 was effectively the Christians’ last stand in the East. The Mameluk sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil, the son of Qalawun, brought a mighty army out of Egypt and the defenders of Acre, largely abandoned by the West, perished on the walls.8 The Grand Master of the Templars, Guillaume de Beaujeu led a daring sortie out and he and his brethren subsequently fought off sustained assaults on the fortifications. The city’s moat filled with dead bodies as the Muslims pressed the offensive. When the Accursed Tower fell, Guillaume rushed to lead the counter attack, where he was mortally wounded. At last the Mameluks gained entry to Acre. As desperate street fighting raged, many of the citizens streamed to abandon the doomed city by sea. The Patriarch, Nicholas of Hanape, took so many refugees onto his boat that it capsized and he was drowned, while the unscrupulous Templar captain, Roger de Flor, founded a career in piracy by extorting vast sums from any who would flee on his own ship. Other Templars fought on, under Peter de Sevrey their Marshal. They guarded the citizens who could not escape in their citadel by the sea, once the Muslims cut off the harbour. On 18 May 1291, they made such a determined resistance that al-Ashraf offered terms, and the Templars agreed to surrender in return for the safe passage away of the refugees among them. On 25 May, a Mameluk Emir with a hundred warriors was dispatched to oversee the surrender, and raised his banner over the citadel. His men at once began to molest the women and children, provoking the Templars to kill the Mameluks and tear down their banner, hoisting again their own flag, the Beauseant.

That night De Sevrey ordered Theobald Gaudin to take the Templars’ treasure to Sidon by boat, and most of the civilians were also evacuated by sea, though others volunteered to stay to help in the fight. The next morning de Sevrey and his staff left the citadel under a flag of truce, having been invited to renewed negotiations. When they reached Al-Ashraf’s camp they were seized and beheaded. The remaining Templars fought on against the final Mameluk assault for three more days, until the undermined walls collapsed around them and the Mameluks poured in to finish them off. The Mameluks then systematically demolished much of Acre. Those citizens who survived the massacre but who failed to escape were taken as slaves. The fall of the capital so demoralised the remaining Latin Christians that soon afterwards Sidon, Tortosa and Pilgrim’s Castle were evacuated for Cyprus. After this time Acre went into steep decline, and it is today little more than a backwater.

Adam de Wallaincourt

(died c. 1310)

Adam de Wallaincourt was a Templar referred to in a document produced by the Templars during the Paris trials, defending the Order from the accusations made against it. The document claimed that this brother Adam de Wallaincourt had wished to find a harsher religious Order and had entered the Carthusians, for a while. However he had found it unbearable, and had returned to the Order of the Temple, subjecting himself to humiliating penances in order to be accepted back. (His penances had included fasts, eating on the ground, being flogged by the priest and crawling naked before the altar during masses). The brothers defending the Order called for this man to be brought to testify in its defence, as it was unlikely that someone would have suffered all that to return to an Order guilty of all that the Templars were charged with.9

Ad Extripanda

Ad Extripanda was the title of a Papal Bull issued by Pope Innocent IV in 1252. It granted the Inquisition the authority to use torture against suspected heretics, in order to extract confessions. The edict also gave the secular authorities the right to seize a portion of the property of the condemned heretic. This was in accordance with ancient Roman Law, a harsh and authoritarian system that was making a return to the statute books. Ad Extripanda also officially sanctioned the practice of passing convicted heretics ‘to the secular arm’ for execution by burning alive at the stake. The custom of burning to death unrepentant or relapsed heretics was already in place.10

Adhemar of Le Puy

(died 1098)

Adhemar de Monteil, Bishop of Le Puy was Urban II’s legate with the First Crusade. His death in Antioch deprived the Crusade of an effective spiritual leader.

Admiral

After the loss of Acre and the last Christian territories on the Syrian mainland, it became clear to the Military Orders, based initially on Cyprus, that future crusading operations would need to have a largely maritime character. Thus both the Templars and Hospitallers appointed officers to command the fleets they expected to build up. The Templar Admiral was first mentioned in 1301.11 The Templars seem to have had little time to develop a fleet before the suppression, however, and only the Knights of St John, based on Rhodes after their seizure of the island, evolved into a formidable sea power.

AdmissionseeInitiation Ceremony

Ad Providam

Ad Providam was the title of a Papal Bull issued by Clement V on 2 May 1312. This was towards the end of the Council of Vienne. It granted most of the property of the Order of the Temple (which had been abolished and outlawed in the bull Vox in Excelso) to the Order of the Hospital, so that the Hospitallers could use it for the purposes for which it had originally been granted to the Templars. It also transferred all the Templars’ former privileges. The various Kings, who had hoped to retain the confiscated land, were compelled to go along with the decree, for the most part. Exempted were the Templar lands in Iberia. There the land would go to other, smaller Military Orders; some of were newly founded ones that rose from the ashes of the Temple.

It was a coup for the Catholic Church that it managed to retain the Templar lands for the Hospitallers and not see them dissipated by the kings and distributed to their favourite courtiers. The bull called the Hospitallers ‘athletes of the lord’ and praised them for bearing hardship, danger and heavy losses in the defence of the faith overseas. The Templars were surely no less worthy of these praises, though. Their service to Christendom had been equally as devoted, and it is ironic that these words appear in a document drawn up to strip them of their belongings. Instead, Ad Providam states that the Templars were spattered with indecent errors and crimes, and blemished and stained with depravity.12 The transfer was confirmed in another bull entitled Nupter in Concilio. However, this bull of 16 May emphasized the exception of the properties in Iberia.13 Other bulls from this time, meanwhile, reveal that owing to pressure from the Bishops, the Hospitallers’ new privileges were suspended.

Ager Sanguinis seeField of Blood

Agnes de Courtenay

(1136–84)

Agnes de Courtenay, Countess of Jaffa and Ascalon, was an influential figure in Jerusalem in the mid- to late twelfth century. She was the daughter of Joscelin II de Courtenay, the Count of Edessa, the sister of Joscelin III and the wife of Amalric I, although the marriage was annulled for political reasons on his succession to the throne, after which she married first Hugh of Ibelin and then Reynald Grenier, the ‘ugly, intellectual’ lord of Sidon.14 Her children by Amalric were King Baldwin IV and Queen Sibylla. Agnes was the power behind Baldwin IV’s throne. Her decisions had a critical bearing on the fate of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in several respects. She secured the appointment of Heraclius as Patriarch. She also encouraged Sibylla to marry Guy de Lusignan, and along with Gerard de Ridefort, leader of the Templars, engineered Sibylla and Guy’s accession to the throne. William of Tyre called Agnes a ‘grasping woman, detestable to God’.15

Agnus Dei

Agnus Dei is Latin for ‘Lamb of God’. It is a symbol of the martyred Christ, and Christian sacrifice. The lamb has a halo and holds a banner bearing a cross. Sometimes in Christian iconography, the lamb was also depicted bleeding, with its blood flowing into a chalice resembling the Holy Grail. The Agnus Dei is also associated with St John the Baptist, who proclaimed Jesus to be the Lamb of God, which takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). The Templars and the Hospitallers both used the symbol, in carvings around their buildings and on their official seals. Some believe that as well as its conventional interpretation as a symbol of Christ, the Agnus Dei was chosen because of the word’s relation to the Latin Agnito meaning ‘knowledge’. In London, carvings of the lamb can be seen on St John’s Gate, which is all that remains of the Hospitallers’ Grand Commandery in Clerkenwell. It can also be seen around the Inns of Court, off the Strand, where the law society of the Middle Temple inherited the lamb device from the Templars, along with the premises, which had formerly been the Templars’ British headquarters. The other legal society using the site, the Inner Temple, adopted the winged horse Pegasus as its arms, possibly taken from a badly drawn or weathered image of the two riders.

Agriculture

The two Templar barns at Cressing in Essex are monuments to the grand scale of the Templars’ architectural operations. In their early years the Templars were donated land by royal and noble patrons, scattered across a wide area of Europe. These lands were granted so that the profits would help support the Templars continuing work in the Holy Land. Some of these grants were of underdeveloped, marginal land, which the Templars worked to bring to productivity. They also engaged tenant farmers, collecting rents and tithes – usually a tenth of all goods produced. During the late twelfth century, however, in some areas, it became more profitable for the Templars to cultivate the land themselves, because of high inflation.16 Following the Cistercian lead, the Templars also became great sheep farmers, and developed their own wool trade.17 They kept great flocks in northern England. Much of their wool found its way to Belgium to be processed. It was then sold at the Champaign Fairs, or at other markets.

Aigues Mortes

Aigues Mortes was the port built by Louis IX for the embarkation of his Crusading expeditions. It was the only Mediterranean port then under French royal authority.

Ain Jalut

The Battle of Ain Jalut, fought in Palestine on 3 September 1260, was a Mameluk victory over the Mongols. The Mongols under Hulagu had conquered Persia and Mesopotamia, massacred the population of Baghdad, and received the submission of Damascus, Aleppo, Antioch and Armenian Cilicia. In 1259 Hulagu had returned to Mongolia with most of his horsemen, in order to advance his interests following the death of the great Khan, his brother Mongke. He had left an army in the Middle East under General Kitbuqa. The Mongols remained an imminent threat, therefore. Kitbuqa’s ambassador arrived in Cairo, and delivered the usual ultimatum. He demanded the Mameluk regime offer total submission to the Mongol Empire or await its fate. The Mameluks responded by sending back the envoy’s head.

Led by the Sultan Kurtuz and by the general Baybars, the Mameluk army marched out, crossing the Christians’ territory of southern Palestine. The leaders of the vestigial Kingdom of Jerusalem were unsure whether to involve themselves directly, and (as it is usually claimed) declined Kurtuz’s offer of an alliance, although they agreed not to impede the Mameluk army’s progress.18 One chronicle says the Christians did become actively involved. According to the annals of St Rudbert of Salzburg, the Sultan ‘of Babylon’ joined to himself Templars, Hospitallers, Teutonic Knights,‘and all the Church overseas’, and did battle with the Tartars (Mongols), and God granted that he defeated them.19

Kitbuqa had been held up by a Muslim insurrection in Damascus. The Mameluks had headed for Acre, where they learned that the Mongols had crossed the Jordan, and possibly picked up the Christian allies alluded to in the annals. (The Templars had defended Sidon from a Mongol attack at around this time). The Egyptian-led force intercepted the Asiatic horde at Ain Jalut (the pools of Goliath) in Galilee, though Baybars kept the bulk of his troops hidden behind ridges. He organized a classic Mameluk feigned withdraw (also a favoured Mongol tactic), and then unleashed the hidden reserves against the apparently unsuspecting enemy. For once the Mongols were on the receiving end of slaughter, and soon Kitbuqa himself was captured and beheaded. The Mongol threat to the Franks of Syria/Palestine was over, replaced by the threat of the ascendant Mameluks. Soon Aleppo and Damascus were in Mameluk hands, and Baybars had killed Kurtuz and become Sultan himself. Having driven off the Mongols, he was poised to begin the destruction of the Christian states, beginning with Antioch.

Aketon see Armour

Al-Adil

(1145–1218)

Abu-Bakr Malik al-Adil was an Ayyubid Sultan. The Crusaders knew him as Saphadin. He was a younger brother of Saladin, and had negotiated on his brother’s behalf with Richard the Lionheart, thus being instrumental in the treaty that brought the Third Crusade to a conclusion. Previously a proposal had been on the table that would have seen al-Adil ruling the Kingdom, married to Richard’s sister Joan.20 The lady’s objections to marrying a non-Christian and al-Adil’s disinclination to convert put a stop to that idea, and it is unlikely the Muslims ever took the proposal seriously. Al Adil eventually succeeded as Sultan in Syria, having defeated his rivals and disinherited his nephews, apart from al-Zahir Ghazi who retained Aleppo, recognizing al-Adil’s suzerainty. Al-Adil also ruled in Egypt.21 He favoured a policy of peaceful relations with the Franks in the East. He also established trade links between Egypt and the Maritime Republics, especially Venice. Meanwhile the pragmatic Grand Masters of the Temple, Gilbert Erail and Philip de Plessies signed and preserved treaties with al-Adil, which preserved the peace in the years before 1217, when the Fifth Crusade invaded Egypt. Al-Adil, in declining health, failed to prevent the Crusaders from investing Damietta. He divided his empire between his sons. Al-Kamil took Egypt, and later succeeded in trapping the Crusaders near Mansourah, with the help of his brothers, al-Muazzam of Damascus and al-Ashraf of the Jazira (northern Iraq).

Al-Afdal

(died c. 1200)

Al-Malik al-Afdal was a son of Saladin. He was the Muslim commander who led a strong raiding/reconnaissance force across Galilee in 1187 and defeated the Templars and Hospitallers either at Cresson or Sephoria. He also fought at Hattin. He later made a bid for power in Syria but in 1200 was defeated in battle at Belbies by his uncle al-Adil.

Alamut

Alamut was a remote fortress in northern Persia (Iran), an eyrie in the mountains south of the Caspian Sea. Its name meant the eagle’s perch. It was long regarded as impregnable. It became synonymous with the Shi’ite Muslim sect the Nizari Ismailis, better known as the Assassins or Hashishin. In 1090 the sect had infiltrated the garrison, and from then until 1256 it served as their stronghold. They held numerous other castles in the area besides, as well as in Syria. The Assassins in Syria were subordinate to the leader in Alamut, and probably acted on his orders, or at least with his permission when moving against Templar lands or assassinating Crusader barons. Followers of the Assassin sheik (the first of which was Hassan I Sabbah) were ‘brainwashed’ into becoming ruthless murderers, usually targeting Sunni potentates. Their leader expected them to embark upon their bloody missions without expectations of returning alive. Then as now it is hard to account for such fanaticism, but the promise of paradise and houris was a strong motivation. Legend has it that there was a beautiful secret vale near Alamut, an earthly paradise where novice Assassins were taken, to be entertained by beautiful young women trained in the arts of gratifying male desires. The young men, after a short stay in this garden, were drugged, and then they revived elsewhere, and told that they had been in paradise. They would naturally be filled with a longing to return. However they would be told that the only way they could do so was to show blind loyalty to the leader of the sect. They had to perform the murder he ordered and be captured and executed as a result, thus achieving martyrdom. Marco Polo, who passed Alamut while on his travels to the East, recorded the legend of this phoney paradise. By then however the castle was a ruin and the Assassins had been scattered by the Mongols.

Alanus Marcel

(died c. 1228)

Alanus Marcel (or Alan Martel) was a Templar Master or Grand Preceptor of England, presiding from around 1218. He is commemorated in a modern stained glass window in Temple Church, London. He was the recipient of a letter from Peter of Montaigue, telling of how the Fifth Crusade had been trapped in Egypt, leading to the surrender of Damietta, and appealing for help. The letter was copied in the chronicle of Roger of Wendover.22

Al Aqsa Mosque

The Al Aqsa Mosque is an Islamic place of study and worship in Jerusalem. This large building occupies part of Temple Mount, adjacent to the Dome of the Rock. It comprises part of the sacred complex of buildings known to the Muslims the Al-Haram al-Sharif. It was built in the years from AD 674, possibly on the site of a Byzantine Church. The mosque was a scene of slaughter in the wake of the capture of Jerusalem by the First Crusade.23 It seems that subsequently King Baldwin I began to convert the building into a royal palace. Baldwin II eventually assigned part of it to the nascent Order of the Temple. Hugues de Payens and his associates set themselves up there and subsequently used the building as their base. Later Templars probably added the building’s great porch, with its central Gothic arch, which can still be seen, as well as extensive additions now lost. The building remained in Templar hands until the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin, who had it ritually cleansed and restored as a mosque. The Templars never returned to this their first home, even after Frederick II negotiated the return of Jerusalem to the Christians. Part of the Emperor’s treaty with al-Kamil had stipulated that the mosques of Temple Mount were to remain in Muslim hands. The Crusaders sometimes referred to the Al Aqsa Mosque as the Temple of Solomon, while calling the Dome of the Rock the Temple of the Lord. (This does not necessarily mean that they believed the Mosque actually to be the original Temple built by King Solomon).

Alarcos

The battle of Alarcos, July 1195, was a victory of the Almohads over the Castilian forces of Alfonso VIII, which included knights of Calatrava. The battle’s verdict was later reversed at las Navas de Tolosa.

Al-Ashraf Khalil

(died 1294)

Al-Ashraf Khalil was the Mameluk Sultan of Egypt who brought about the annihilation of the Crusader state by capturing the Christians’ last major stronghold at Acre in 1291. He was the son of Qalawun who had already much reduced the Crusader holdings and destroyed various cities. Qalawun mustered his armies for the final assault in 1290, but died before he could lead them against Acre, passing that distinction to al-Ashraf. Al Ashraf united the forces of Egypt and Syria. He imprisoned the envoys from Acre, including a Templar called Bartholomew Pizan, who attempted to negotiate, and proceeded to commence the siege, bringing over a hundred siege towers, trebuchets and ballistas to bear. Though the defenders fought valiantly the cause was hopeless. Al Ashraf Khalil destroyed Acre and its Christian population, taking many into slavery, and completed his sweep by taking Sidon, Tyre and Beirut, before returning to Cairo. He later entered Damascus in triumph, preceded by 280 fettered prisoners.24 He would meet a violent end. Khalil favoured Circassian Mameluks over Turkish ones for promotion, and this led to his assassination by a disgruntled Turk.

Albert Avogadro

(1149–1215)

Albert Avogadro was the titular Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. He was appointed to the position by Pope Innocent III, who also made him his legate in the Holy Land. Avogadro seems to have been something of a diplomat, having previously mediated between Pope Clement III and the Emperor Frederic I Barbarossa, and between warring city-states in his native Italy. Soon after becoming Patriarch in 1204 he found himself acting as an intermediary between the much-reduced Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Cyprus and between the Templars and the Armenian princes of Cilicia. He also drew up the Rule for the Carmelites. Because Jerusalem was in enemy hands, Avogadro established his base in Acre. Here he was murdered in September 1215, by a disgruntled former servant, while processing to the Church of St John of Acre. Subsequently the Patriarch was made a saint, probably owing to his role in establishing the Carmelites.

Albert I of Habsburg

(1255–1308)

Albert of Habsburg held the titles King of Germany, King of the Romans and Duke of Austria. He was the son of Rudolf of Hapsburg, who set the family on the path to pre-eminence. His title King of Germany was contested by Adolf of Nassau-Wielberg, whom Albert defeated in battle in 1298. In 1303 Boniface VIII recognized Albert as future Holy Roman Emperor. Clement V, however, turned down Albert’s appeal to be so crowned. At the time there was a movement afoot to bestow the office on Charles of Valois, but in the event it went to Henry of Luxembourg. Albert expressed doubts concerning the accusations against the Templars and like James II of Aragon was reluctant to move against them in his lands before being formally requested to do so by the Pope.25 Albert was murdered on 1 May 1308 by a disgruntled nephew, while en route to suppress a revolt in Swabia.

Albert Pike

(1809–1891)

Albert Pike was a Boston-born (USA) Freemason of the Scottish Rite, who did much to promote the Rite as well as stamping his influence on ‘the Craft’ in America. He was also an attorney, a writer, and a General in the Confederate Army during the US Civil War, when he commanded Native-American Indian troops allied to the southern states.

As a Freemason, in 1859, Pike was elected Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite, southern jurisdiction. He wrote a book on the ‘Morals and Dogma’ of the Rite, containing his esoteric philosophies. He claimed that Freemasonic lodges were temples of religion and refers to ‘Lucifer, the Lightbearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness …’ In the context, however, ‘Lucifer’ seems to refer to the Morning Star. Pike was the subject of the anti-Masonic campaign of the French Hoaxer Léo Taxil. Taxil forged documents showing that Masons were involved in lurid acts and unholy worship, but later confessed to the stunt he had pulled. Pike was nonetheless a controversial character, a holder of pro-slavery and anti-Catholic views. He is sometimes alleged to have been involved with the white-supremacist Ku Klux Klan though there is no evidence of this association. Pike died in Washington in 1891.

Albigensian Crusade

The Albigensian Crusade was a military campaign called by Pope Innocent III in 1209 and dragging on for many decades. It was directed against the dualist Cathar sect in Occitanspeaking south-western France, and the nobility of Toulouse and the Languedoc who sheltered and defended the Cathars and refused to persecute them. Its pretext was the murder of the papal legate Pierre de Castelnau, and one of its leaders was another uncompromising churchman, Arnaud Amaury.26 Innocent III promised the French-speaking, northern knights who embarked on this war the same spiritual rewards as it did those who made their way to fight the Muslims in the Holy Land. Initially Count Raymond VI of Toulouse had born the Church’s condemnation and had been excommunicated for his reluctance to stamp out the heretics.

Raymond VI of Toulouse managed to deflect the initial wrath of the French host away from Toulouse and towards the territory of his nephew Viscount Raymond Roger Trencavel. The Catholic armies stormed the Town of Béziers, pushing an ill-planned sortie back in through a gate unwisely left open. They slaughtered the population indiscriminately on St Mary Magdalene’s day, even massacring those sheltering in churches. They then moved on to Carcassonne. After a worthy defence, Viscount Trencavel was lured out of his city to negotiate. He was seized and died a prisoner while his people were dispossessed. Simon de Montfort, one of the leading Northerners, took over Carcassonne and continued the war, pursuing the Cathars and the southern nobles (for example the Count of Foix) who opposed him. Simon took Toulouse itself, and even defeated Pedro II of Aragon when Pedro intervened on the Occitan side. Later De Montfort’s skull was crushed by a rock hurled from a catapult operated by women on the walls of Toulouse. He had gone there to recapture the city, which had risen up against his harsh rule following the return from exile of Count Raymond VI and his son Raymond VII. This reversal inaugurated a few decades of Occitan resurgence. However a Church-sponsored trade embargo impoverished the area, while renewed French campaigns including the royal Crusade of 1226 brought more massacres and gradually brought Occitania to its knees.

Captured Cathars were routinely burned in large numbers during the Albigensian Crusade. It may be that the Military Orders sheltered some fugitives, but on occasion they were also compelled to play host to De Montfort and his allies. De Montfort stayed with the Templars in Montpellier in early 1215 while on campaign, for example. The Templars endeavoured to preserve their neutrality, in the main, nonetheless, despite their avowed loyalty to the Pope. They were mindful that their true calling was in the Holy Land, and were loath to take up arms against their neighbours in the Languedoc.27 The effect of the war was to pull the Occitan-speaking region into the orbit of Capetian France rather than Aragon. Catharism was brutally persecuted. From the 1230s onwards, the people of the ravaged region were subdued by the fearful and intrusive presence of the Inquisition. In a sense the attack on the Cathars was a prelude to the attack on the Templars. Out of the Albigensian Crusade was born the ruthless institution that would be the Templars’ nemesis.

Alcántara Knights

The Knights of San Julian Alcántara were a small Leonese Military Order, also known as the Sanjulianistas, or the Knights of San Julian de Pereiro. Founded before 1170, they were linked to the Order of Calatrava, but their Prior was elected and not a Cistercian.28

Aleister Crowley

(1875–1947)

Edward Alexander ‘Aleister’ Crowley was a prominent and notorious occultist. He tried to found a new pagan religion called ‘Thelema’ based on individual will. He adopted the maxim ‘do what thou wilt’, and was a member of such occult groups as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Ordo Templi Orientis. Courting controversy, he identified himself with the Beast, and sometimes used the name Baphomet, linking himself to the idol allegedly worshipped by the Templars. He was influenced by the ideas of Eliphas Levi.

Aleppo

Aleppo was a great city in Syria, which the Byzantine Empire lost to the Arabs and in AD 637. It was a little to the south of the midway point between Antioch and Edessa, and was a threat to both the principality and the county. It became the seat of a Seljuk Turkish ruler. The Franks under Baldwin II unsuccessfully besieged it with Muslim allies in 1124. Aleppo became even more of a thorn in the Crusaders’ side when it was united with Mosul in 1129 by Zenghi. Zenghi was succeeded in 1146 by Nur ed-Din, who made farther inroads into the Christian territory from there. In 1138 Aleppo’s people fell victim to a terrible earthquake, which killed many. The city was later ruled by the Ayyubid dynasty, and then occupied by the Mongols. Aleppo is famous for its great medieval citadel, which still dominates the city.

Alexander IV, Pope

(1199–1261)

Reginaldo Conti was elected Pope in 1254, succeeding Innocent IV, and assumed office as Alexander IV. He was a nephew of Gregory IX. He tried to persuade the kings of England and Norway to embark on a campaign against his Hohenstaufen enemy Manfred, the son of Frederick II, offering Crusade indulgences in 1255. Armies of Guelfs and papal mercenaries attacked Lucera in Apulia, where Manfred was sheltering amid the largely Muslim population, but Manfred emerged the victor. Later Alexander himself lost control of Rome to Ghibelline sympathisers and fled to Viterbo where he ended his days. He was succeeded by Urban IV.

Alexandretta

Alexandretta (now Iskanderun in eastern Turkey) was a port in between Armenian Cilicia and the Crusader principality of Antioch. In the early 1150s it was taken from the Armenians by Reynald de Chatillon, on behalf of Manuel I. Reynald subsequently gave it to the Templars for their assistance in his campaign. Soon after Reynald and the Templars allied with the Armenians.29

Alexandria

Alexandria is a port city at the mouth of the River Nile in Egypt. It was founded in antiquity by Alexander the Great. It was a centre of Greek culture, with an active Jewish community. The city also became important to early Christianity, and was a centre of Gnostic thought. It was conquered by the Muslims in AD 640, but remained the seat of a Christian Patriarch. It declined somewhat in the Fatimid era after the founding of Cairo, though it continued to be a rich and important city. During the period of the Crusades it was perhaps the most important port in the eastern Mediterranean. It traded with the Levant, Byzantium and the Italian Maritime Republics, who maintained mercantile outposts there. Their presence in this Muslim city scandalised pious minded Muslims as well as Christians, the latter being particularly alarmed by the Italians’ readiness to trade in weapons and other war materials.30 (In some sense this reflected the realities of trade. Similarly Muslim merchants were no strangers in Acre and other cities in the Latin East.)

Alexandria was several times raided by Crusaders and even briefly occupied by them. Saladin first fought the Crusaders in a battle near the city. Alexandria’s famous Pharos Lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was still standing at this time,31 though its ancient library was long lost. Alexandria was also the original burial place of St Mark, until his body was stolen and smuggled out by merchants of Venice. Venice retained particularly strong links with Alexandria and rather than jeopardise these steered the Fourth Crusade away from this its intended target.

Alexius I Comnenus

(1048–1118)

Alexius I Comnenus was the Byzantine Emperor at the time of the First Crusade. He seized the throne from Nikephorus III in 1081. It is he who appealed to Pope Urban II for western military assistance against the Seljuk Turks, but he got more than he bargained for. Alexius insisted upon receiving oaths of loyalty from the Crusade’s leaders when they passed through Constantinople