First Templar Nation Read online

  For my goddess

  FIRST

  TEMPLAR

  NATION

  “In this well-told story, author Freddy Silva has filled a long-standing need for a real understanding of the Templars’ early history, their search for treasure in the Temple of Solomon, and the creation of an independent Portugal with a Templar knight as king. First Templar Nation is a fascinating contribution to the body of knowledge of the Order.”

  STEVEN SORA, AUTHOR OF THE LOST TREASURE OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR, THE LOST COLONY OF THE TEMPLARS, AND SECRET SOCIETIES OF AMERICA’S ELITE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The late André Jean Paraschi, who inspired me to ask more questions. Wendy Craig for the oversights. My overworked editor, Mindy Branstetter. And to the fact-checks. The librarians I overworked, particularly those in the Houghton and Widener Libraries at Harvard University; Jessica Thomas at the Portland Public Library; the archivists in Sintra and Tomar; Torre do Tombo in Lisbon; the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; John Reid, Malcolm Barber, and Susan Gonzales; the helpful people in Tomar. Sorry if I’ve forgotten everyone else. I’m over fifty, I’m allowed.

  May this work finally bring me home and peace.

  Contents

  Cover Image

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Acknowledgments

  Author's Note

  Chapter 1: 1125. An oak table in a large hall in a small county named Portugale . . .

  Chapter 2: 1095. November. In the Auvergne, a mountainous region in central France . . .

  Chapter 3: 1096. August. Constantinople, capital of the Holy Roman empire . . .

  Chapter 4: 1096. August. With the northern army, preparing to depart . . .

  Chapter 5: 1098. On the desert road near Antioch . . .

  Chapter 6: 140 BC. In a land in western Iberia called Lusitania . . .

  Chapter 7: 1099. June. Outside the gates of Jerusalem . . .

  Chapter 8: Thirty years earlier. Orval. A town downriver from Bouillon . . .

  Chapter 9: 1114. Braga. A very old city in Portugale . . .

  Chapter 10: 1100. Jerusalem. In the palace of the new king . . .

  Chapter 11: 1100. Braga. Hearing foreign voices . . .

  Chapter 12: 1117. Bethlehem. At a ceremony . . .

  Chapter 13: 1117. Guimarães. In the court of Countess Tareja . . .

  Chapter 14: 1126. Clairvaux. A very, very, very modest abbey in Champagne . . .

  Chapter 15: Seven Years Earlier. Clairvaux. A special moment on June 24 . . .

  Chapter 16: 1125. Late Autumn. Porto. Disembarking after a long sea voyage . . .

  Chapter 17: 1127. Autumn. Aboard a galley in the Mediterranean . . .

  Chapter 18: 1128. April. Braga. An office where lots of documents are signed . . .

  Chapter 19: 1128. January. A major gathering at Troyes, a town in Champagne . . .

  Chapter 20: 1128. Back in Clairvaux. Upon the conclusion of the conclave . . .

  Chapter 21: 1128. April. A chamber in the royal residence of Guimarães . . .

  Chapter 22: 1128. Meanwhile in Champagne . . .

  Chapter 23: 1128. June 24. A battlefield outside Guimarães . . .

  Chapter 24: 1129. March. Afonso reveals himself . . .

  Chapter 25: 1139. Ourique. Preparing to battle the Moors . . .

  Chapter 26: 1139. Clairvaux. Early dawn, outside the chapel . . .

  INTERMEZZO

  Chapter 27: 1867. Jaffa. A mule train heading toward Jerusalem . . .

  Chapter 28: 1146. Coimbra. At home with Afonso and his new bride . . .

  Chapter 29: 1147. April. Braga. The mysterious Prior Arnaldo in his new abode . . .

  Chapter 30: 1119. Temple Mount. A tunnel, eighty feet beneath . . .

  Chapter 31: 1147. Braga. Gualdino Paes also moves into his new domicile . . .

  Chapter 32: 1121. Saint-Omer. In the home of a cryptographer named Lambert . . .

  Chapter 33: 1947. Qumran. Two goatherds, in a cave, by the Dead Sea . . .

  Chapter 34: 1159. Ceras. A pile of rubble near a dilapidated town . . .

  Chapter 35: 68 AD. Mount Sion. Men in white, hiding scrolls and other important things . . .

  Chapter 36: 1159. Coimbra. The king of Portugal’s desk, part I . . .

  Chapter 37: 1159. Coimbra. The king of Portugal’s desk, part II . . .

  Chapter 38: 1159. Coimbra. The king of Portugal’s desk, part III . . .

  Chapter 39: 1160. March 1. A dawn ceremony on the promontory above Thamar . . .

  Chapter 40: Present Era. April. Inside the rotunda of Tomar . . .

  Chapter 41: 1865. The Vatican. Pope Pius IX gets all steamed up . . .

  Chapter 42: Present Era. April. By the rotunda, amid the secrets of the beehive . . .

  Chapter 43: Present Era. April. Musing outside the beehive . . .

  Chapter 44: 1165. Monsanto. Peculiar behavior on an unusual hill . . .

  Chapter 45: Present Era. Monsanto. And other places for musing . . .

  Chapter 46: 1147. Sintra. A funny thing happens on the way to the castle . . .

  Chapter 47: Present Era. Sintra. In the Forest of Angels . . .

  Chapter 48: Present Era. April. In the shadow of a statue in Tomar . . .

  Chapter 49: 1153. Gossip in the alleyways of Jerusalem . . .

  Chapter 50: 1312. Southern Portugal. The templars enjoy a six-year vacation . . .

  Chapter 51: Present Era. Aksum. A feast day when the Tabotat are seen in daylight . . .

  Chapter 52: Present Era. Tomar. Staring at the rotunda . . .

  Chapter 53: Present Era. A circular hall in a small country named Portugal . . .

  EPILOGUE: Lusitania. Where knowledge is stored, guarded by a goddess whose symbol is a triangle . . .

  Image Credits

  Also by this Author

  Footnotes

  Endnotes

  Bibliography

  About the Author

  About Inner Traditions • Bear & Company

  Books of Related Interest

  Copyright & Permissions

  Index

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Over a decade of research went into this book, by which time I felt as though I could feel the people and events involved. Which is just as well, because although there are many good books on history, so many are dry and lack a human touch. I have therefore written this work in a style that is closer to that of a novel to make the reading experience more enjoyable for you. However, all the people, events, and facts portrayed are true, as the copious bibliography will testify.

  If you are not familiar with the geography of Europe, do not be troubled; I have included numerous maps to help you keep track of where you are.

  Just a few points to bear in mind: In this era Europe is a cornucopia of duchies, counties, and kingdoms. There is no Spain, no Italy, and France is still fragmented and mostly made up of autonomous duchies and provinces, including the kingdom of the Franks; Germany is part of the Holy Roman Empire. And in place of today’s Portugal there is the county of Portucale, named after its main city, Porto. So whenever I refer to France or French or Spanish I use the terms as generalizations and to avoid lengthy explanations.

  Provinces often pledged allegiance to a neighboring king or duke. Thus, a suzerain was a sovereign or state having control of another state that was internally autonomous. A vassal was a person or country subordinate to another. A fief was land held under a nobleman’s sphere of control or a person under such control.

  People’s names were often spelled in different ways and different languages. I have tried to keep most names as they would have generally appeared in the twelfth century, except where they cause confusion in
the text.

  As for the Knights Templar, the terms Procurator, Commander, Preceptor, Master, and Brother were regularly used terms referring to members of the Order in Europe. All were subordinate to the Grand Master, Hugues de Payns.

  If one does not understand how the body he wears came to be, he will perish with it . . . whoever does not understand how he came will not understand how he will go.

  GOSPEL OF TRUTH, NAG HAMMADI LIBRARY

  I pray to the end of the universe and the beginning of the beginning, to the object of man’s quest, the immortal discovery.

  DISCOURSE ON THE EIGHTH AND THE NINTH, NAG HAMMADI LIBRARY

  1

  1125. AN OAK TABLE IN A LARGE HALL IN A SMALL COUNTY NAMED PORTUGALE . . .

  The aged velum parchment is a donation of a small town near the city of Braga.

  It reads, “I, Queen D. Tereja give to God and the Knights of the Temple of Solomon the village called Fonte Arcada . . . with all its rights and benefits, for the good of my soul.”1

  The generous donation includes no less than seventeen additional land grants by local families.2 Meticulously written in pen and ink, it is signed, “I, Guilherme, Procurator of the Temple in this territory, receive this document.”

  The signatory holds the key to a mystery. As Procurator of the Temple, Guilherme Ricard is invested with the power and authority to conduct transactions on behalf of the Grand Master of the Knights Templar in Jerusalem, Hugues de Payns. But he is much more than that. His name appears on a second grant—this time as Magister Donus Ricardus—for half the estate of Villa-nova, donated by Affonso Annes “to God, and the brotherhood of the Knights Templar.”3

  This Guilherme Ricard is also the first Master of the Knights Templar in a small county named Portugale.4

  These events are extraordinary because the year is 1125 and no members of the Knights Templar are known to exist outside Jerusalem, least of all in a region on the opposite side of Europe. Stranger still, in 1111, seven years before the Templar brotherhood came into existence, the knights were awarded a strategic property in this same territory.

  Three things are certain.

  One: the Knights Templar pledged allegiance not to the pope but to an influential monk in the French county of Champagne.

  Two: in a document addressing the Templars, a young man destined to be king of a land that will be known as Portugal reveals that “within your Brotherhood and in all your works I am a Brother.”

  And three: during interrogation by the Holy Inquisition, a Templar knight made a cryptic statement: “There exists in the Order a law so extraordinary on which such a secret should be kept, that any knight would prefer his head cut off rather than reveal it to anyone.”

  And virtually all captured Templars proved this by being burned alive at the stake.

  What follows is the true and untold story behind the first Templar nation.

  2

  1095. NOVEMBER. IN THE AUVERGNE, A MOUNTAINOUS REGION IN CENTRAL FRANCE . . .

  The growing assembly of abbots, bishops, archbishops, princes, nobles, lords, and laymen gathered inside the great church hall in Clermont and awaited the arrival of the pope. When they finally caught sight of his tonsured head ambling down the aisle, it was clear that Urban II was less than happy. The long year of touring had carried the pontiff to several French and Mediterranean regions, then to northern Italy, where an ecclesiastical conclave at Piacenza tested his patience and the results were far from what he had expected. And besides, Piacenza in the spring had been far more climatically rewarding than the bitter November cold of Clermont, in this the year of our Lord 1095.

  Urban II rose from his seat and addressed the council, beginning with his report on the church’s situation in the Near East. Aside from the problem of the Seljuk Turks having overrun Asia Minor and seizing control of much of the Levant—including the city of Jerusalem—these troublesome people had also shut off access to the Christian holy places, contrary to their more tolerant Arab predecessors.

  And he was not finished. Urban also had a problem with the Christians. He had seen clerics trafficking in church property, nobles and monarchs, at home and abroad, who, wallowing in luxury, constantly violated the laws of the church on peace by picking fights with Arabs purely for material gain. And as for their knights, well, they were behaving more like mercenaries.

  After his rant—some would argue a justifiable one—Urban worked up enough zeal among the assembled throng to initiate a crusade and reclaim the Christian holy places from the infidels and thus channel all this destructive energy into something worth fighting for: “I, or rather, the Lord, beseech you as Christ’s heralds to publish this everywhere and to pursue all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. I say this to those who are present, it is meant also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it.”1

  Having warmed up, the pope then made his way out of the church, ascended a wooden platform, and began to address an even larger gathering whose numbers had strained the available meeting area of the Champet and the services the town was able to provide: “This land which you inhabit, shut in on all sides by the seas and surrounded by the mountain peaks, is too narrow for your large population; nor does it abound in wealth; and it furnishes scarcely food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder one another, that you wage war, and that frequently you perish by mutual wounds. Let therefore hatred depart from among you, let your quarrels end, let wars cease, and let all dissensions and controversies slumber. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulcher, wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves . . . God has conferred upon you above all nations great glory in arms. Accordingly undertake this journey for the remission of your sins, with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the Kingdom of Heaven.”2

  Shouts of “Deus vult, Deus vult” rose agreeably above the frozen fields of Clermont.3 “God wills it, God wills it.” Soon this would fester into a purulent propaganda slogan for the recruitment of thousands of foot soldiers.

  Despite the languid air, Urban’s motivational speech seemed to be having a far more resuscitating effect than it had had back in Piacenza. So he continued, with an added flourish of rabble-rousing: “They overturn and desecrate our altars . . . they will take a Christian, cut open his stomach, and tie his intestine to a stake; then stabbing at him with a spear, they will make him run, until he pulls out his own entrails and falls dead on the ground.”4

  The pope then employed bait guaranteed to rally the swelling of participants to his cause.

  All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested. O what a disgrace if such a despised and base race, which worships demons, should conquer a people which has the faith of omnipotent God and is made glorious with the name of Christ! With what reproaches will the Lord overwhelm us if you do not aid those who, with us, profess the Christian religion! Let those who have been accustomed unjustly to wage private warfare against the faithful now go against the infidels and end with victory this war which should have been begun long ago. Let those who for a long time, have been robbers, now become knights. Let those who have been fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against the barbarians. Let those who have been serving as mercenaries for small pay now obtain the eternal reward. Let those who have been wearing themselves out in both body and soul now work for a double honor. Behold! On this side will be the sorrowful and poor, on that, the rich; on this side, the enemies of the Lord, on that, his friends. Let those who go not put off the journey, but rent their lands and collect money for their expenses; and as soon as winter is over and spring comes, let them eagerly set out on the way with God as their guide.5

  Curiously, for all of the pope’s talk addressing the liberation of the H
oly Lands, including his letters that followed, hardly any mention was made of two of its most important holy places. The chronicler Fulcher de Chartres, who was present during the speech at Clermont, makes no mention of Urban II discussing the liberation of Jerusalem or its holiest temple, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher—the site of Christ’s burial—only of him asking to “aid promptly those Christians and to destroy that vile race [the Turks] from the lands of our friends.”6

  But exactly how much aid did those Christians need? Following the conquest of Palestine by the Arabs in AD 637, only a quarter of Jerusalem, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, was left in the hands of Christians. Naturally, this only swelled the numbers of Christian pilgrims to this and other sites associated with the life of the avatar Jeshua ben Joseph, otherwise known as Jesus. However, not only was access to the sacred sites allowed and maintained under the Arabs, Christian worship was tolerated too; even Mohammed directed his followers to face the site of Solomon’s Temple during prayer,7 for it was also respected by Muslims as a place of great sacredness. This tolerance prevailed into the tenth century under the caliphs of Egypt, who solemnly promised protection for travelers. In fact, life under the infidel was not as tough as expected; even the tax burden was lighter than under previous Christian rule.

  But in 1065 this optimistic picture changed when the Arabs’ unruly Turkish neighbors, led by the barbaric Emir Ortok, conquered and plundered the city of God, whereupon three thousand citizens were massacred. Ortok violently suppressed any remaining Christians, and then for sport imprisoned or killed visiting pilgrims unless each paid one piece of gold as the price of admission into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

  That is assuming any pilgrim even reached the city alive. Due to the political destabilization, bands of lawless brigands roamed the plains of Palestine seeking hapless tourists, while Bedouin horsemen led desultory attacks on pilgrims from beyond the River Jordan. Not surprisingly, such behavior engendered strong sympathy and fervor from many of the European bishops and barons stirred by Urban II’s impassioned speech to assemble vast armies on a crusade to wrestle formerly Christian sites from the Seljuk Turks and give safe passage to pilgrims.