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A Touch of History
This will mostly contain history stuff.
The Templars
They were a military order of monks, founded to help defend the Holy Land. They were based in the Holy Land, though they had places around Europe to recruit men, money, and supplies in support. This is how they got into banking. People would leave there stuff at a Templar chapter house when they left on Crusade. The Order got rich, lending money out and through donations, but the primary mission was always defense of the Holy Land. Over time, the Templars learned to ally with the sane Islamic kingdoms against the dangerous ones. This let them concentrate resources on real threats while keeping Pilgrim routes open to those of all faiths. They did this through a series of treaties and safe conducts that allowed everyone to visit their religion's holy sites.

The problem was, the folks who lived in Palestine were stretched really thin and couldn't afford to turn away Crusaders from Europe, for the most part, illiterate adventurers intent on looting, raping, and making their fortunes. These goobers were there to kill Arabs and didn't care which kind. They were horrified by Templar "collaboration" and basically thought they'd gone native. They'd come, pillage awhile, and go home, leaving the locals to clean up the mess.

This pattern continued until a French king found himself deeply in debt to the Templers and in desperate need of ready cash. He cashed in on all the European distrust of Templer fraternization with the Arabs and cut a deal with the Inquisition, whereby they split half the confiscated goods. They tortured the Templars, and even so got only the flimsiest of evidence, so flimsy that people of the time were skeptical. It looked too much like blatant greed. The charges were sodomy and blasphemy, BTW. Typical.






User Comments: [1] [add]
BatWulf
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Thu May 29, 2008 @ 12:19pm
Some of the Templars escaped to Scotland, and built Roslyn Chapel to hide the Holy Grail! They became Freemasons! I saw it on the History Channel! (I've also read the theory in numerous books on the Grail, though almost every one of them dismisses this theory for various reasons)

You forgot an important part of the lore. The order to arrest the Templars was carried out on Friday the thirteenth (of April I believe, though I may be misremembering), which is the origin of the fear of said date. There are those who claim that Friday has been unlucky since the time of Christ, since the Friday was the day of the betrayal and crucifixion. Thirteen, sacred to many pre-Christian faiths, was also the number of people at the Last Supper, thus making it unlucky. Put them together, and you get an unlucky date. However, history does show that the arrest order was carried out all over France on Friday the thirteenth, and there's no historical evidence that the date was considered unlucky before that.


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