The Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem is an ecumenical Christian knighthood, whose roots stretch back to 1118 AD and the Crusades when nine Knights vowed to protect pilgrims on the roads leading to Jerusalem. These Knights gained the favor of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem who granted them part of his palace for their headquarters. The palace was located on the Temple Mount, and the area given to the Knights was believed to be the former site of "Solomon's Temple". The Knights were originally known as the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, or, more simply, as the Knights Templar. The legacy of the Knights Templar is SERVICE.

According to St. Bernard, in his treatise "De laude novae militiae", written in the 1130's, the Templars were a "new species of knighthood, unknown in the secular world," who waged a double conflict against both flesh and blood against the invisible forces of evil. To him, they were a unique combination of knight and monk; to later historians, they were the first military order, soon imitated by the Knights Hospitaller, by several Spanish orders and, by the end of the 12th century, by the Teutonic Knights. They originated in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, probably in 1118, when two French knights, Hugh dePayns and Godrey de St. Omer, responded to perceived need to protect pilgrims traveling from the Port of Jaffa to the shrines in and around Jerusalem. Encouraged by King Baldwin II and Warmund of Picquigny, Patriarch of Jerusalem, they were originally seen as a component of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. Their services were welcomed in a land where, since its conquest by the First Crusade in 1099, the Latins had failed to achieve an acceptable degree of internal security, not the least because they lacked sufficient manpower.

It was at the Council of Troyes in Champagne, held in January, 1129, that their status underwent a dramatic change for here they were officially accepted by Matthew of Albano, the papal legate, and they were given a proper Rule, written in Latin by Bernard of Clairvaux which ran 72 clauses. The impetus given by papal approval and the publicity generated by the visits of the leaders to France, England and Scotland in the months before the council ensured that the "New Knighthood" would long outlive its founders. Papal recognition at Troyes was followed by the issue of three key bulls, which established the Temple as a privileged Order under Rome. Omne Datum Optimum (1139) consolidated the Order's growing material base by allowing spoils taken in battle to be retained for the furtherance of the holy war, placing donations directly under papal protection, and granting exemption from payment of tithes. It also strengthened the structure of the Order by making all members answerable to the Master and by adding a new class of Templar priests to the existing organization of knights and sergeants. The Templars could now possess their own oratories, where they could hear divine office and bury their dead. Milites Templi (1144) ordered the clergy to protect the Templars and encouraged the faithful to contribute to their cause, while at the same time allowing the Templars to make their own collections once a year, even in areas under interdict. Milita Dei (1145) consolidated the Order's independence of the local clerical hierarchy by giving the Templars the right to take tithes and burial fees and to bury their dead in their own cemeteries.

As these privileges indicate, during the 1130s, the fledging Order had attracted increasing numbers of major donors, for it proved to be especially popular with that sector of the French aristocracy which held castles and estates and could mobilize vassals, albeit on a modest scale. Moreover, the rulers of Aragon and Portugal, confronted directly with the problems of warfare on a volatile frontier, realized their military value more quickly than most others. The Templars therefore began to accumulate a substantial landed base in Germany, and Dalmatia and, with the Latin conquests of Cyprus from 1191 and of the Morea from 1204, in those regions as well. By the late 13th century they may have had as many as 870 castles, preceptories and subsidiary houses spread across Latin Christendom. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries these properties were built into a network of support which provided men, horses, money and supplies for the Templars in the East. They managed or were associated with 9000 estates. The development of a role as bankers arose out of these circumstances, for they were well placed to offer credit and change specie through their holdings in both east and west. It was a short step to move into more general finance, unconnected to crusading activity by the 1290s their house in Paris could offer a deposit bank with a cash desk open on a daily basis and specialist accountancy services of great value to contemporary secular administrations. The Templar structure was cemented by effective communications including its own Mediterranean shipping.

The Templars thus became the first permanent army and defenders of the Latin settlements of the East, increasingly entrusted with key castles and fiefs. By the 1180s, there were approximately 600 knights in Jerusalem, Tripoli and Antioch, and perhaps three times that number of sergeants. No major battle took place without their participation. In the thirteenth century, the Order was the only institution capable of building great castles like Athlit (Pilgrims' Castle) (1217-21) on the coast to the south of Haifa and Safed (early 1240s) dominating the Galilean Hills. Such military and financial power, together with the extensive papal privileges, gave them immense influence in the Latin East and, at times, led to conflict with other institutions. William, Archbishop of Tyre, the most important native chronicler of the twelfth century, upset by what he believed were violations of episcopal rights, alleged that they forgot their original humility, and describes a number of incidents in which they appear to have disregarded royal policy. King Amalric (1163-74) was particularly incensed when, in 1173, a group of Templars murdered an envoy from the dissident muslim sect of the Assassins with whom he had been negotiating, thus wrecking the King's attempt to achieve an alliance. In the thirteenth century, as their relative strength increased, they were involved in further conflict, most notably in the vicious civil war which arose from a dispute between the Venetians and the Genoese over the possession of the monastery of Saint Sabas (near Acre) between 1256 and 1258. The Templars took the Venetian side, while the Hospitallers backed the Genoese. Such incidents have reinforced their modern reputation for headstrong behavior, a reputation which derives in part from the advice given by the Master, Gerard of Ridefort, to King Guy in July, 1187, which culminated in Saladin's overwealming victory at the battle of Hattin. However, Templar aggression has often been exaggerated; most of the time they were intrinsically cautious, for they were well aware of the continuing precariousness of the Latin states in the Levant. It was, for instance, largely on the advice of the leaders of the military orders that the English King, Richard I, abandoned his advance upon Jerusalem in January 1192.

The Latin Rule of 1129, which had been influenced by a monastic establishment with little experience of practical crusading, soon proved inadequate for such an expanding organization. New sections, written in French, were added, first in the 1160s, when 202 clauses definted the hierarchy of the Order and laid down its military functions and then, within the next twenty years, a futher 107 clauses on the discipline of the convent and 158 clauses on the holding of chapters and the penance system. Between 1257 and 1267, 113 clauses set out case histories which could be used as precedents in the administration of penance. The existence of a version of the Rule in Catalan, dating from after 1268, shows that efforts were made to ensure that its contents were widely understood within the Order. Although the Order never underwent a thorough internal reform, these developments indicate that the Templars were not oblivious to the need to maintain standards.

The loss of Acre in 1291 and the Mamluk conquest of Palestine and Syria have often been seen as a turning-point in Templar history, for the Order was apparently left without a specific role in a society still profoundly imbued with the idea of its own organic unity. Indeed, the failure of the military orders to prevent the advance of Islam had attracted criticism since at least the 1230s with the loss of the Christian hold on the mainland, opponents were provided with a specific focus for their attacks. The more constructive of these critics advocated a union of the Temple and the Hospital as the first step in a thorough reassessment of their activities, although the Orders themselves showed little enthusiasm for such schemes. There was, however, no suggestion that either order be abolished. In fact, the Templars continued to pursue the holy war with some vigor from their based in Cyprus for they did not see the events of 1291 as inevitably presaging the decine of crusading. The attack on them by the King of France, Philippe the Fair, in October 1307, ostensibly on the grounds of "vehement suspicion" of heresy and blasphemy, therefore owes more to the potent combination of a king afflicted by a morbid religiosity on the one hand and an administration in severe financial trouble on the other, than it does to any failings of the Templars. In the end, neither the limited intervention by Pope Clement V nor an energetic defense by some Templars, could save the Order, which was suppressed by the papal bull Vox in excelso in 1312. Its goods were then transferred over to the Hospitallers. Although the Order was suppressed, many of the knights went underground, joined other Orders, or went to areas where they we not persecuted. A recent find in the papal archive, and written by Clement V in 1308, exonerated the Order of the French King's charges.

The Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem is patriotic, being committed to the betterment of our country. Our Order is devoted to the preservation of Liberty, which is essential to freedom of conscience and religion for all and to the efficient performances of good works. The principal mission of the modern Templars is Charity. The Order accomplishes its mission through charitable works (both locally and in the Holy Land), which help people to help themselves, thereby enhancing Hope.

Today the order is a secular-military order of chivalry - a Knighthood which is intended for accomplished Christian military and civilian men and women (Dames), who have demonstrated that they possess high ethical and moral principals and who wish to carry on the traditions of the Temple.

The Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem, incorporated in the United States, is autonomous and independent. The Order, in an age of democratic materialism and secular humanism, seeks, by reconstituting an ancient chivalric order, to adopt an organization of proven effectiveness in capturing the allegiance and spirit of dedicated leaders, and to show that spiritual idealism is most certainly relevant and not inconsistent with a sensibility for tradition, nor inconsistent with patriotism nor civic duty.

Note: The early history of the Order has been open to conjecture, myths and suppositions. Recent discoveries of documents, for example, the Chinon Parchment, and others - have shed considerable new understanding on the period from 1118 through 1314. The recently discovered material is available to those that are avid researchers and/or archivists but it has not been included - as yet - in the common historical record.

At the Priory of the Light this material is introduced during Postulant training and the Vigil.