The Knights Templar and the Cathars
Were the knights linked to a notorious heresy?
Greetings Gold and Silver Level Templar Knights! The Cathars were heretics who terrified the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. Some believe the Templars were linked to the Cathars - is this true?
In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic church went to war against a group of Christians who had rebelled against the pope's authority - claiming that Rome and its bishops and priests were rotten to the core. Cities, towns, and villages rejected the church's sacraments and the people became Cathars. They believed the universe was a battle between a good God and a bad God - and that all our material possessions, and even our bodies, were corrupt and should be rejected.
This movement struck terror into the popes in Rome for nearly two hundred years. Eventually, Pope Innocent III called for a full-blown crusade against the Cathars. He literally sent armies of Christian crusaders against French and Italian Christians who dared to question his authority.
Christians killing Christians
In July 1209, a massive crusader army besieged the French city of Béziers. The commander turned to the papal legate, the pope's representative, who was there to witness the taking of the city. He asked him a simple question. Once they had stormed the walls and were inside Béziers, how would they distinguish between loyal Roman Catholics and heretical Cathars? The papal legate, Arnaud Amalric, just shrugged his shoulders and replied:
Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius
Which means, translated from Latin, "Kill them All, for the Lord knows those who are His". The church was determined to drown the Cathars in their own blood. And if some Catholics got accidentally killed in the process, that was just unfortunate collateral damage.
It's often forgotten that while the main Crusades were against Muslim enemies in the Holy Land and on the Iberian Peninsula, there were other crusades launched by the Roman Catholic church that targeted Christians. The three main examples are the crusades against the Russians, led by the Teutonic knights; the sacking of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, which was a Greek-speaking, eastern orthodox city; and the Albigensian crusade against the Cathars.
All enemies of the pope could find themselves at the receiving end of a crusade.
What did the Cathars believe?
Cathars believed in two co-equal divine principles, one good and one evil. They thought the good God created the spiritual realm, while the evil god, often identified as Satan, created the material world. Due to their dualistic view, Cathars rejected the physical world, seeing it as inherently evil and a prison for souls. Cathars lived a strict ascetic lifestyle, often abstaining from meat, eggs, dairy, and alcohol.
Within the Cathar movement, there were "perfect" leaders who lived an even stricter ascetic lifestyle and were seen as intermediaries between the spiritual and material worlds. A rite of passage into the Cathar community, the "Consolamentum," was a form of baptism and was considered to be a soul's salvation.
Growing power of the Catholic popes
From the 11th century, the papacy had been on a power grab. The so-called Gregorian Reforms, begun by Pope Gregory VII, were all about strengthening papal authority over the Christian monarchs and princes of Europe - as well as addressing previous scandals within the church (nothing ever changes you see!).
While the church certainly got its say, it also provoked huge resentment. As the power of the popes increased, so did the number of heresies, and rebellions against the church. By the 1200s, Rome was getting absolutely paranoid about the weird sects and cults that were proliferating in the Catholic world. The Cathars were the most widespread and successful example of this.
Crushing the Cathars - dress rehearsal for crushing the Templars
The Knights Templar began as the poster boys of the Roman Catholic church - men prepared to go into battle with a sword in one hand and a bible in the other. They were championed by many in the church including Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. But by the early 1300s, things had turned sour. The Holy Land had been lost. The Crusades were in the doldrums. And those who had never liked the Templars very much were spreading malicious rumours about them.
When they were arrested across France in 1307, the knights were immediately sent to be interrogated, tortured, forced to confess, and some unfortunates burned to death at the stake. The machinery for carrying out this grisly task - the papal inquisition - had been developed against the Cathars.
Were the Templars and Cathars linked?
For mainstream historians, the fact that the methods used against the Cathars were then deployed on the Templars is merely a coincidence. But among esoteric writers and conspiracy theorists, there is a strongly held view that the Cathars and Templars were in some way linked. Typical claims include the following:
The Knights Templar and Cathars were linked by ties of blood and kinship
The Templars took a very "neutral" position during the Albigensian crusades and may have even sheltered Cathars at their preceptories
Some have alleged that Cathars flooded into the Knights Templar. It's said that in the Languedoc Temple, officers were more Cathar than Catholic
This Cathar/Templar presence in southern France was what worried King Philip IV of France - a body of armed men, with dangerous views, over whom he had no control
The Templars adopted gnostic and dualist religious views as a result of contact with the Cathars
Much of this is bound up with the idea that the Templars possessed sacred relics like the Holy Grail; that they had obtained knowledge of true Christianity in the east; and that from the outset, the Templars may have been pursuing an agenda at odds with the Roman Catholic church.
An extreme example of this thinking is the writings of the Nazi-employed archaeologist and medievalist Otto Rahn who developed a rather confused theory about the Templars and Cathars fighting for an ancient pre-Christian religion based on the worship of Lucifer, the light bringer, opposed by the Judaeo-Christian world. In Rahn's very racist view - typical of the Nazis - Jesus was cast as an Aryan, as were the Templars and Cathars. So, be aware that these theories have been supported by some unsavoury characters.
If you would like to know more about the Knights Templar, then get your hands on a copy of my book: The Knights Templar – History & Mystery. Published by Pen & Sword and available on Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, and WHSmith. Don’t miss out on your copy!
