The Secret History of Freemasonry

5

The Crusades and

the Templars

The eight Crusades, which took place from 1096 to 1291, had
a profound social, economic, political, cultural, and religious effect on
Western Europe. And from the beginning to the end of the Crusades,
the Templars were among the Continent's most important and effective
agents in all these areas of experience.
The Order of the Templars, derived from its true name, the Militia
of the Temple, was created in Jerusalem in 1118 or 1119 by nine
noblemen who were, as Guillaume de Tyr writes in his history of the
Crusades, "distinguished and venerable men":* Hughes de Pains or
Payens, their leader, who adopted the title of master of the Temple and
who was customarily called grand master; Geoffroy de Saint-Omer;

• Guillaume de Tyr, Histoire des Croisades, vol. 2 (Paris: Editions Guizot), 202.
  Guillaume was born in Jerusalem around 1130 and became counselor to Amaury of
  Jerusalem and tutor of his son Baudoin, royal chancellor in 1173, and archbishop in

1174. He fulfilled numerous missions and attended the Council of Latran in 1176. He
      died from poisoning in 1193. His testimony of the strong campaign against the Templars
      that was based on a conflict over ecclesiastical rights makes Guillaume's history of the
      Crusades particularly valuable. In his Historia Orientalis (written in the thirteenth cen-
      tury), Jacques de Vitry, bishop of Acre, who was closely aligned with the Templars,
      ceaselessly refers to Guillaume's book.