Templars
3 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Templars. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1920)
The Knights Templars of the Temple of Solomon were a military order, founded by a Burgundian, Hugues de Payns, and Godeffroi de St. Omer, a French Knight, in 1119, for the purpose of protecting pilgrims journeying into the Holy Land . They were soon joined by other knights, and a religious chivalry speedily gathered around this nucleus. Baldwin I., King of Jerusalem, gave them as headquarters a portion of his palace, contiguous to a mosque which tradition asserted was part of the Temple of Solomon, and from this building they took their designation. One of the purposes of the Society was to convert and render useful knights of evil life, and so many of these entered the order, as to bring it under the suspicion of the Church, but there is every reason to believe that its founders were instigated by motives of the deepest piety, and that they lived in a condition akin to poverty, notwithstanding the numerous gifts that were showered upon them, is the best proof of this. They had properly constituted officials, a Grand Master, knights, chaplains, sergeants, craftsmen, sensechals, marechals, and commanders. The order had its own clergy exempt from the jurisdiction of diocesan rule, and its chapters were held as a rule in secret. The dress of the brotherhood was a white mantle with a red cross for unmarried knights, and a black or brown mantle with a red cross for the others. The discipline was of the very strictest description and the food and clothing stipulated were rough and not abundant. By the middle of the twelfth century, the new order had got a footing in nearly all the Latin kingdoms of Christendom. Its power grew apace, and its organisation became widespread. It formed, as it were, a nucleus of the Christian effort against the paganism of the east, and its history may be said to be that of the crusades. Moreover it became a great trading corporation, the greatest commercial agency between the east and west, and as such amassed immense wealth. On the fall of the Latin kingdom in Palestine, the Templars had perforce to withdraw from that country, and although they continued to harass the Saracen power they made but little headway against it, and in reality appear to have undertaken commercial pursuits in preference to those of a more warlike character. When the Temple was at the apogee of its power, its success aroused the envy and avarice of Philip IV. of France , who commenced a series of attacks upon it. The election of Pope Clement V., who was devoted to his interests, and a denunciation of the order for heresy and immorality gave Philip his chance. For several generations before this time, strange stories had been circulating concerning the secret rites of the Templars which were assisted by the very strict privacy of these meetings, which were usually held at day-break with closely-guarded doors. It was alleged that the most horrible blasphemies and indecencies took place at these meetings, that the cross was trampled under foot and spat upon, and that an idol named Baphomet (q.v.) (Baphe metios, baptism of wisdom) was adored, or even the Devil in the shape of a black cat. Other tales told of the roasting of children, and the smearing of the idol with their burning fat, and other nonsense was wildly promulgated by the credulous and ignorant. A certain Esquian de Horian, pretended to betray the secret" of the Templars to Philip, and they were denounced to the Inquisition; and Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master, who had been called from Cyprus to France, was arrested with one hundred and forty of his brethren in Paris and thrown into prison. A universal arrest of the Templars throughout France followed. The wretched knights were tortured en masse, and as was usually the case, under such compulsion, confessed to the most grotesque crimes, and the most damning confession of all, was that of the Grand Master himself, who confessed that he had been guilty of denying Christ and spitting upon the Cross, but repudiated all charges of immorality in indignant terms. 66 The process dragged on slowly during more than three years, in consequence of the jealousies which arose among those who were more or less interested in its prosecution. The pope wished to bring it entirely under the jurisdiction of the church, and to have it decided at Rome. The king, on the other hand, mistrusting the pope, and resolved on the destruction of the order, and that none but himself should reap advantage of it, decided that it should be judged at Paris under his own personal influence. The prosecution was directed by his ministers, Nogaret, and Enguerrand de Marigny. The Templars asserted their innocence, and demanded a fair trial; but they found few advocates who would undertake their defence, and they were subjected to hardships and tortures which forced many of them into confessions dictated to them by their persecutors. During this interval, the pope's orders were carried into other countries, ordering the arrest of the Templars, and the seizure of their goods, and everywhere the same charges were brought against them, and the same means adopted to procure their condemnation, although they were not everywhere subjected to the same severity as in France. At length, in the spring of 1316, the grand process was opened in Paris, and an immense number of Templars, brought from all parts of the kingdom, underwent a public examination. A long act of accusation was read, some of the heads of which were, that the Templars, Templars at their reception into the order, denied Christ (and sometimes they denied expressly all the saints) declaring that he was not God truly, but a false prophet, a man who had been punished for his crimes; that they had no hope of salvation through him; that they always, at their initiation into the order, spit upon the cross, and trod it under foot; that they did this especially on Good Friday; that they worshipped a certain cat, which sometimes appeared to them in their congregation; that they did not believe in any of the sacraments of the church; that they took secret oaths which they were bound not to reveal; that the brother who officiated at the reception of a new brother kissed the naked body of the latter, often in a very unbecoming manner; that each different province of the order had its idol, which was a head, having sometimes three faces, and at others only one; or sometimes a human skull ; these idols they worshipped in their chapters and congregations, believing that they had the power of making them rich, and of causing the trees to flourish, and the earth to become fruitful; that they girt themselves with cords, with which these idols had been superstitiously touched; that those who betrayed the secrets of their order, or were disobedient, were thrown into prison, and often put to death; that they held their chapters secretly and by night, and placed a watch to prevent them from any danger of interruption or discovery; and that they believed the Grand Master alone had the power of absolving them from their sins. The publication of these charges, and the agitation which had been designedly got up, created such a horror throughout France, that the Templars who died during the process were treated as condemned heretics, and burial in consecrated ground was refused to their remains. When we read over the numerous examinations of the Templars, in other countries, as well as in France, we cannot but feel convinced that some of these charges had a degree of foundation, though perhaps the circumstances on which they were founded were misunderstood. A very great number of knights agreed to the general points of the formula of initiation, and we cannot but believe that they did deny Christ, and that they spat and trod upon the cross. The words of the denial were, Je reney Deu or Je reney Jhesu, repeated thrice; but most of those who confessed having gone through this ceremony, declared that they did it with repugnance, and that they spat beside the cross, and not on it. The reception took place in a secret room, with closed doors; the candidate was compelled to take off part or all of his garments (very rarely the latter), and then he was kissed on various parts of the body. One of the knights examined, Guischard de Marzici, said he remembered the reception of Hugh de Marhaud, of the diocese of Lyons, whom he saw taken into a small room, which was closed up so that no one could see or hear what took place within; but that when, after some time, he was let out, he was very pale, and looked as though he were troubled and amazed (fuit valde pallidus et quasi turbatus et stupefactus.) In conjunction, however, with these strange and revolting ceremonies, there were others that showed a reverence for the Christian church and its ordinances, a profound faith in Christ, and the consciousness that the partaker of them was entering into a holy vow. M. Michelet, who has carefully investigated the materials relating to the trial of the Templars, has suggested at least an ingenious explanation of these anomalies. He imagines that the form of reception was borrowed from the figurative mysteries and rites of the early church. The candidate for admission into the order, according to this notion, was first presented as a sinner and renegade, in which character, after the example of St. Peter, he denied Christ. This denial was a sort of pantomime, in which the cross. novice expressed his reprobate state by spitting on the The candidate was then stripped of his profane clothing, received through the kiss of the order into a higher state of faith, and re-dressed with the garb of its holiness. Forms like these would, in the middle ages, be easily misunderstood, and their original meaning soon forgotten. Another charge in the accusation of the Templars seems to have been to a great degree proved by the depositions of witnesses; the idol or head which they were said to have worshipped, but the real character or meaning of which we are totally unable to explain. Many Templars confessed to having seen this idol, but as they described it differently, we must suppose that it was not in all cases represented under the same form. Some said it was a frightful head, with long beard and sparkling eyes; others said it was a man's skull; some described it as having three faces; some said it was of wood, and others of metal; one witness described it as a painting (tabula picta) representing the image of a man, (imago hominis), and said that when it was shown to him, he was ordered to "adore Christ his creator." According to some it was a gilt figure, either of wood or metal; while others described it as painted black and white. According to another deposition, the idol had four feet-two before and two behind; the one belonging to the order at Paris was said to be a silver head, with two faces and a beard. The novices of the order were told always to regard this idol as their saviour. Deodatus Jaffet, a knight from the south of France, who had been received at Pedenat, deposed that the person who in his <case performed the ceremonies of reception, showed him a head or idol, which appeared to have three faces, and said, "You must adore this as your saviour, and the saviour of the order of the Temple," and that he was made to worship the idol, saying, "Blessed be he who shall save my soul." Cettus Ragonis, a knight received at Rome in a chamber of the palace of the Lateran, gave a somewhat similar account. Many other witnesses spoke of having seen these heads, which, however, were, perhaps, not shown to everybody, for the greatest number of those who spoke on this subject, said that they had heard speak of the head, but that they had never seen it themselves; and many of them declared their disbelief in its existence. A friar minor deposed in England that an English Templar had assured him that in that country the order had four principal idols, one at London in the sacristy of the Temple, another at Bristelham, a third at Brueria (Bruern in Lincolnshire), and a fourth beyond the Humber. Some of the knights from the south added another circumstance in their confessions relating to this head. A Templar of Florence declared that, in the secret meetings of the chapters, one brother said to the others, showing them the idol, "Adore this head. This head is your God, and your Mahomet." Another, Gauserand de Montpesant, said that the idol was made in the figure of Baffomet (in figuram Baffometi); and another Raymond Rubei, described it as a wooden head, on which was painted the figure of Baphomet, and he adds, "that he worshipped it by kissing its feet, and exclaiming, Yalla," which he describes as "a word of the Saracens " (verbum Saracenorum). This has been seized upon by some as a proof that the Templars had secretly embraced Mahometanism. As Baffomet or Baphomet is evidently a corruption of Mahomet; but it must not be forgotten that the Christians of the West constantly used the word Mahomet in the mere signification of an idol, and that it was the desire of those who conducted the prosecution against the Templars to show their intimate intercourse with the Saracens. Others, especially Von Hammer, gave a Greek derivation of the word, and assumed it as a proof that Gnosticism was the secret doctrine of the Temple. Templars The confessions with regard to the mysterious cat were much rarer and more vague. Some Italian knights confessed that they had been present at a secret chapter of twelve knights held at Brindisi, at which a grey cat suddenly appeared amongst them, and that they worshipped it. At Nismes, some Templars declared that they had been present at a chapter at Montpellier, at which the demon appeared to them in the form of a cat, and promised them worldly prosperity; and added, that they saw devils in the shape of women. Gilletus de Encreyo, a Templar of the diocese of Rheims, who disbelieved in the story of the cat, deposed that he had heard say, though he knew not by whom, that in some of their battles beyond sea, a cat had appeared to them. An English knight, who was examined at London, deposed, that in England they did not adore the cat or the idol to his knowledge, but he had heard it positively stated that they worshipped the cat and the idol in parts beyond sea. English witnesses idolatry." It was of course deposed to other acts of cross. 66 the demon, who presented himself in the form of the cat. A lady, named Agnes Lovecote, examined in England, stated that she had heard that, at a chapter held in Dineslee (Dynnesley, in Hertfordshire), the devil appeared to the Templars in a monstrous form, having precious stones instead of eyes, which shone so bright that they illuminated the whole chapter; the brethren, in succession, kissed him on the posteriors, and marked there the form of the She was told that one young man, who refused to go through this ceremony, was thrown into a well, and a great stone cast upon him. Another witness, Robert de Folde, said that he had heard twenty years ago, that in the same place, the devil came to the chapter once a year, and flew away with one of the knights, whom he took as a sort of tribute. Two others deposed that certain Templars confessed to them that at a grand annual assembly in the county of York, the Templars worshipped a calf. All this is mere hearsay, but it shows the popular opinion of the conduct of the order. A Templar examined in Paris, named Jacques de Treces, who said that he had been informed that at secret chapters held at midnight, a head appeared to the assembled brethren, added, that one of them "had a private demon, by whose council he was wise and rich." The aim of King Philippe was secured; he seized upon the whole treasure of the temple in France, and became rich. Those who ventured to speak in defence of the order were browbeaten, and received little attention; the torture was employed to force confessions; fifty-four Templars who refused to confess were carried to the windmill of St. Antoine, in the suburbs of Paris, and there burnt; and many others, among whom was the Grand Master himself, were subsequently brought to the stake. After having lasted two or three years, the process ended in the condemnation and suppression of the order, and its estates were given in some countries to the knights of St. John. It was in France that the persecution was most cruel; in England, the order was suppressed, but no executions took place. Even in Italy, the severity of the judges was not everywhere the same ; in Lombardy and Tuscany, the Templars were condemned, while they were acquitted at Ravenna and Bologna. They were also pronounced innocent in Castile, while in Arragon they were reduced by force, only because they had attempted to resist by force of arms; and both in Spain and in Portugal they only gave up their own order to be admitted into others. The pope was offended at the lenity shown towards them in England, Spain, and Germany. The order of the temple was finally dissolved and abolished, and its memory branded with disgrace. Some of the knights are said to have remained together, and formed secret societies. The result, in effect, was the same everywhere. Convicted of heresy, sorcery, and many other abominations, the wretched Templars were everywhere punished with death by fire, imprisonment, and their goods escheated to the various crowned heads of Europe, nearly all of whom followed the avaricious example of Philip of France. Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master, brought out on to a scaffold erected in front of Notre Dame in Paris, and asked to repeat his confession and receive sentence of perpetual imprisonment, flared into sudden anger, recanted all he had said, and protested his innocence. He was burnt, and summoned the Pope and the King with his dying breath, to meet him before the bar of Heaven. Both of these dignatories shortly afterwards died, and it remained in the public mind that the outcome of the Grand Master's summons had proved his innocence. As has been said, there is every reason to believe that there was some foundation for the charges of heresy made against the Templars. Their intimate connection with the East, and the long establishment of the order therein had in all probability rendered their Christianity not quite so pure as that of Western Europe. Numerous treatises have been written for the purpose of proving and disproving the Temple heresy, to show that it followed the doctrines and rites of the Gnostic Ophites of Islam (Baphomet being merely a corruption of Mahomet), and it has been collated with various other eastern systems. Hans Prutz, in his Geheimlehre furthered the view of the rejection of Christianity in favour of a religion based on Gnostic dualism, and at once raised up a host of critics. But many defenders of the order followed, and it was proved in numerous instances the confessions wrung from the Templars were the result of extreme torture. In not a few cases were they acquitted, as in Castile, Aragon, Portugal, and at many German and Italian centres. It has also been shown that the answers of a number of the knights under torture were practically dictated to them. In England, out of eighty Templars examined, only four confessed to the charge of heresy, and of these two were apostates. The whole question may perhaps be summed up as follows. The Templars, through long association with the East, may have become more tolerant of paganism, more broadminded, in their outlook, than their bigoted stay-at-home countrymen. Expressions as regards the worthiness of Saracen nations, among whom the Templars had many friends, would be regarded askance in France, Spain and England, and habits acquired by residence in the East would probably add to the growing body of suspicion regarding the loyalty of the order to Christianity. It it even possible that the Templars introduced into their rites practices which savoured of Gnosticism or Mahomedanism, but that is unlikely. They were, in short, the victims of their own arrogance, their commercial success, and the superstitious ignorance of their contemporaries. It has frequently been asserted that on the death of Jacques de Molay a conspiracy was entered into by the surviving Templars which had for its objects the destruction of papacy and the several kingdoms of Europe, and that this tradition was handed on through generations of initiates through such societies as the Illuminati and the Freemasons, who in the end brought about the French Revolution and the downfall of the French throne. Such a theory, however enticing to the pseudo-occultist, the defender of the theory that occult tradition has descended to us through a direct line of adepts, or the fictioneer, can receive no countenance here, and must be dismissed as a mere figment of enthusiasm or imagination.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a famous military order, which, like the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights, owed its origin to the Crusades. In the year 1119 two comrades of Godfrey de Bouillon, Hugues de Payen and Geoffroi de Saint- Adhémar, bound other French themselves and knights to guard pilgrims to the holy places from the attacks of the Saracens , taking before the patriarch of Jerusalem solemn vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. King Baldwin II . gave them for quarters part of his palace, which was built on the site of the Temple of Solomon close to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Hence they took their name as Templars, and the houses of the order, as at Paris and London, that of the Temple. At the Council of Troyes (1128) Bernard of Clairvaux drew up its rule in 72 statutes, substantially the groundwork of the statutes as finally revised in the middle of the 13th century. The order at first consisted of knights alone, but later its members were grouped as knights, all of noble birth, chaplains, and men-at-arms (fratres servientes), besides mercenaries , retainers, and craftsmen affiliated and enjoying its protection. The knights took the vows for life or for a certain period, and they alone wore the white linen mantle, with the eightpointed red cross on the left shoulder (granted by Pope Eugenius III.) , and white linen girdle; black or brown garments were worn by all others. The seal of the order showed the Temple , later two riders-a Templar and a helpless pilgrim-on one horse. The discipline of the order was austere, excluding all needless luxury or display in food, dress, or armor, and all worldly pleasures were forbidden . At the head of the whole order stood the Grand-master; under him Masters, Grand Priors, Commanders, or Preceptors ruled the various provinces of Jerusalem, Tripoli, Antioch and Cyprus, Portugal , Castile and Leon, Aragon, France and Auvergne, Aquitaine and Poitou, Provence , England, Germany, Italy ( Middle and Upper), Apulia and Sicily. Second in command to the Grandmaster stood the Seneschal, his deputy; next the Marshal , whose business, moreover, was to provide arms, horses , hor and all the material of war. The Templars were by a papal bull in 1172 rendered independent of the authority of the bishops, owning allegiance to the Pope alone. Their houses enjoyed right of sanctuary, and they often preserved the treasure of kings and nobles. The Templars, at once knights and monks, realized the two dearest of mediæval ideals, and men of the highest courage and purest devotion flocked into their ranks, bringing with them their wealth to fill their coffers. Already by 1260 the order is said to have numbered 20,000 knights, and these perhaps the finest fighting men the world has seen. Charges of pride, of immorality and impieties, of secret heresies, and even of betraying Frederic II. to the infidel (1229) and St. Louis to the Sultan of Egypt (1250) were yet to be hurled against the order; never, from the beginning to the end of their two centuries of history, was a Templar charged with cowardice before the enemy. The most famous successors of Hugues de Payen (died 1136) were Bernard de Tremelai, who fell at Ascalon in 1153; Eudes de Saint-Amand (died 1179), who won a glorious victory over Saladin at Ascalon (1177), only to fall next year into the Sultan's hands after a disastrous battle; Gerard de Riderfort, who suffered a terrible defeat near Nazareth in 1187, a second at Hittin two months later, and died in battle under the walls of Acre in 1189; Robert de Sable, who aided Richard Cœur de Lion to gain a glorious victory in the plain of Arsouf (1191), and bought from him the island of Cyprus, which was soon transferred to Guy de Lusignan, whereupon Acre became the seat of the order, the famous stronghold of Pilgrim's Castle being built, whose st ilt, whose stupendous ruins exist to this day; Peter de Montaigu, whose courage helped to take Damietta in 1219; Hermann de Perigord, who rebuilt the fortress of Safed; Guillaume de Sonnac, slain beside St. Louis at the Nile in 1250; Thomas Berard, an Englishman, under whom Safed was lost in 1266, Jaffa and Antioch in 1268; and Guillaume de Beaujeu, who lost Tripoli in 1290, and fell in the bloody capture of Acre in 1291. The remnant of the Templars sailed to Cyprus, and the latest dying gleams of the order's vigor in the East were the rash attempts to capture Alexandria (1300), and to establish a settlement at Tortosa (1300-1302) under the last and most ill-fated of its grandmasters. The Templars had failed in their work; their usefulness was past; the order had now only to sink into extinction in one of the darkest tragedies of history. Their wealth and pride had sowed a harvest of fear and hatred; their loyalty to the Pope and their exceptional privileges had long since aroused the jealousy of the bishops; their bitter quarrels with the Hospitallers, which blazed into open warfare in Palestine in 1243, had shocked the moral sense of Christendom; and the exclusiveness and secrecy with which all their affairs were conducted opened a door for all manner of sinister suspicions among the populace. Philip the Fair of France was a king who covered with a thin veneer of piety a character of complete unscrupulousness; he had succeeded in placing Clement V., a miserable creature of his own, on the papal throne (1305), and in his minister Guillaume de Nogaret and the officers of the Inquisition he found servants of character unscrupulous as his own. In the wealth of the Templars he saw a tempting prize, and the train of treachery was soon complete. The Grand-master Jacques de Molay was summoned from Cyprus by the Pope in 1306; he went taking with him the treasure of the order, and awaited his fate in France. On Oct. 13, 1307, the Grand-master and 140 Templars were seized at the Temple and flung into prison. Two degraded Templars supplied some of the charges the king required; tortures, infamous beyond the infamies of the Inquisition, provided the remainder. In August, 1308, Clement sent throughout Christendom the 127 articles of interrogation for the accused, and evidence in detail self-contradictory beyond all parallel was quickly accumulated. In the 225 witnesses sent to the papal commission (1310-1311) from various parts of France the depositions, as Mr. Lea points out, occur most suspiciously in groups of identity according to the bishops from whose preliminary tribunals they had come. Philip held a so-called national assembly at Tours (May, 1308) which obsequiously expressed its approval of the condemnation. The Pope now took the formal responsibility upon himself by personally examining 72 Templars brought before him, when those who had already confessed under torture confirmed their confessions, knowing well that the penalty of retraction was burning forthwith as a relapsed heretic. The Pope contended that the fate of the order as an institution must be submitted to a general council. Meantime, to the public commission appointed to examine into the charges at Paris, there came (March, 1310), as many as 546 Templars who offered to defend the order against all the charges. Four of these were at length commissioned to be present at the investigation on behalf of the order, mills, when suddenly the commission was plant. startled council of by Sens the news that the provincial pitals, was about to sentence without further hearing those Templars who had offered to defend the order. On May 12, 1310, 54 knights were slowly burned to death. The commission at once suspended its sittings, but at length, after many delays, on June 5, 1311, transmitted its report to Clement to help the General Council in its deliberations. The closing act in this drama of papal duplicity was Clement's failure to gain over the Council at Vienne, and the suppression of the order without formal condemnation, by the bull "Vox in excelso" (March 22, 1312). The bull "Ad Providam" (May peculiarities. 2) laid it under perpetual inhibition, and transferred its property to the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. The persons of the Templars were handed over to the provincial councils, with the exception of the chiefs of the order, who were reserved to the jurisdiction of the Holy See. On March 19, 1314, Jacques de Molay and the gray-haired Geoffrey de Charney, Master of Normandy, were brought from prison to receive judgment, when, to the dismay of the churchmen and the astonishment of all, they rose and solemnly declared their innocence and the blamelessness of the order. That same day, on the Isle des Juifs in the Seine, they were slowly roasted to death, declaring with their last breath that the confession formerly wrung from them by torture was untrue. In England the trials were conducted with much less inhumanity. The charges for the most part failed to be established, and most of the prisoners were granted penances and permitted to escape with a formal abjuration, while a fair provision was made for their support. The last Master of the Temple in England, William de la More, died a prisoner in the Tower, to the last maintaining the inno- Rome. cence of the order. The memory of the various preceptories and possessions in England, Scotland, and Ireland survives in place names; the round Temple Church in London, consecrated in 1185, was restored by the Benchers of the Inner and Portugal and Germany the order was found innocent; almost everywhere in Italy, save in the case of six at Florence, the charges broke down.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
tem'plerz, a military order known also as knights templar or knights of the temple. The order was formed in 1118 during the Crusades, and had its headquarters for a time in the temple at Jerusalem. It undertook to protect pilgrims and to defend the Holy Sepulcher. The members wore a white mantle marked with a red cross . The order embraced knights, men-at-arms, and chaplains. It included no little part of the wealth and chivalry of western and southern Europe. Seats were established at Acre, Jerusalem, and Cyprus, and at Paris as well. In its best days the templars did much for the cause of Christendom, but later the order fell into disrepute and was dissolved in 1312 by command of the church. The account of the templars given in the closing chapters of Scott's Ivanhoe depicts the lust and debauchery of their fallen estate. The term has been revived in the Knights Templar of the Masonic order. Masonic authorities are of the opinion that the medieval order with 15,000 members, 9,000 manors, and the medieval knights with armor, lance, and barb, with gorgeous vestment and brilliant pageantry, were more than a background for the modern Knights Templar. Indeed, writers assert that when ordered to disband, the Scotch and English Templars took refuge under various names, Knights Hospitalers, Royal Order of Bruce, etc., and were incorporated finally in Masonry. At all events, the modern knights have adapted the insignia, ceremonial, and organization of chivalry to their own needs and form a large and powerful body of Masons. The original or oldest English charter is held by the encampment of Bristol. The traditional head of the British Templars is the Prince of Wales , but the present grand master (1910) is the Duke of Connaught, uncle of King George V. Knight Templarism was introduced into the American colonies, it is claimed, during the Revolutionary War by the officers of an Irish regiment. The earliest patent dates from Charleston in 1783. A grand encampment of Templars was held in Philadelphia in 1797, and a general grand encampment in New York in 1816. The Chicago encampment of 1880 drew 150,000 visitors to the city. The triennial encampment in Denver was attended in 1892 by 10,000 Sir Knights. The number of Knights Templar in America is placed at about 173,000. To be eligible for membership, a Mason must be a Master Mason and Royal Arch Mason in good standing and a member of both lodge and chapter. Among the prominent American knights De Witt Clinton and Henry Clay may be mentioned.