A captivating look into the medieval (and modern day) society of the Knights Templar The Templar Code is more than an intriguing cipher or a mysterious symbol – it's the Code by which the Knights Templar lived and died, the Code that bound them together in secrecy, and the Code that inspired them to nearly superhuman feats of courage and endurance. If you know a little or a lot about the Templars, read The Da Vinci Code (or saw the movie), or are a Catholic wanting to know the church's official stance on the Templars, you're in the right place. The Templar Code For Dummies reveals the meaning behind the cryptic codes and secret rituals of the medieval brotherhood of warrior monks known as the Knights Templar. With this comprehensive and user-friendly guide, you'll learn: What part the Knights Templar played in the Crusades How the Order started as protectors of pilgrims The myths of the Holy Grail, and how they're connected to the Knights Templar How the Knights Templar rose so high and fell so far How the fraternity of the Freemasons' modern Order of Knights Templar figures in Why the Catholic Church didn’t like Dan Brown's version of the Templar story The Catholic Church's relationship with women and the connection with the Knights Why the Knights Templar still captures our imagination today Whether the Knights had a real part to play in historic events such as the French Revolution and the American Civil War You can learn about all of that and so much more, including sites where the Holy Grail might actually be, what you can’t miss if you’re sightseeing in Templar territory, and potential hiding places of Templar treasures. Get your copy of The Templar Code For Dummies to learn more about the fascinating history of this intriguing group of knights.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 About This Book 3 Conventions Used in This Book 4 What You’re Not to Read 5 Foolish Assumptions 5 How This Book Is Organized 6 Part I: The Knights Templar and the Crusades 6 Part II: A Different Kind of Knighthood 6 Part III: After the Fall of the Templars 6 Part IV: Templars and the Grail 7 Part V: Squaring Off: The Church versus the Gospel According to Dan Brown 7 Part VI: The Part of Tens 8 Icons Used in This Book 8 Where to Go from Here 9 Part I: The Knights Templar and the Crusades 11 Chapter 1: Defining the Templar Code 13 Knights, Grails, Codes, Leonardo da Vinci, and How They All Collide 14 The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon 16 Defining knighthood 17 Defining monasticism 19 Warrior Monks: Their Purpose 20 A vow of nine crusader knights 21 Don’t leave home without it: The Templars’ role as international bankers 22 Builders 24 Templars in Battle 24 Betrayed, Excommunicated, and Hunted 25 So where’d everybody go? 26 The riddle of Templar symbols 26 Templars in the 21st Century 28 Templars and the Grail quest 28 Templars and the fringe 28 Chapter 2: A Crash Course in Crusading 31 Getting a Handle on the Crusades 32 A Snapshot of the 11th Century 33 Fealty, fiefs, and feudalism 33 Pilgrimage 34 Y1K: The end of days 36 The Spanish ulcer 37 The dilemma of the second son 39 Piracy and trade 40 The First Crusade: A Cry for Help, a Call to Arms 40 Meet the Byzantines 40 Go East, young man! 41 Peter the Hermit 43 Get out the beer, we’re here! 44 Forward ho! 45 The massacre of Jerusalem 46 The founding of Outremer 48 Let’s Give It Another Shot: The Second Crusade 49 A dynamic new Muslim force 51 Jerusalem falls 52 The Third Crusade 52 The celebrity crusade 54 Richard and Saladin 54 The Final Curtain 55 The Fourth Crusade 55 The Fifth Crusade 56 The Sixth Crusade 56 The Seventh Crusade 56 Chapter 3: The Rise of the Knights Templar 59 The Perils of Pilgrimage 60 Why bother? 61 St Helena discovers it all 62 Medieval muggers 63 Where’d everybody go? 65 A New Knighthood 67 “The Poor Knights of Christ” 67 The Knights Templar 68 Keeping their oath 71 A Simple Mission Creates a Powerful Institution 71 Digging in the temple 71 A windfall of money and power 72 Bernard of Clairvaux 73 The Council of Troyes 74 Opposition to the Templars 75 The Explosion of the Order 76 New gifts 77 Eyes of the pope 77 International Bankers 78 Check, please 79 Building boom 80 Imitation, the Sincerest Form of Flattery 80 The Knights Hospitaller 81 The Teutonic Knights 82 Livonian Brothers of the Sword 83 Up Where the Air Is Thin: The Templars Reach Their Zenith 83 Part II: A Different Kind of Knighthood 85 Chapter 4: Living in a Templar World 87 A Standard Unlike Any Other 87 The Templar Rule 88 Warriors and monks 90 Templar do’s and don’ts 90 A Templar day planner 91 No women allowed 93 The pride and the power 93 Punishment and penance 94 Who’s in Charge around Here? 94 Grand Master 95 Master and Commander 95 Seneschal 95 Turcopolier 96 Marshal 96 Under-Marshal 96 Standard Bearer 96 Knight 96 Sergeant 97 Treasurer 97 Draper 97 Squires 97 Lay Servants 97 Chaplain brothers 98 The Templar Commandery: Medieval Fortress and City 98 City within a city 98 The signature round churches 98 Symbols of the Templars 100 The red cross 100 The Beauséant 102 Skull and crossbones 103 Chapter 5: The Poor Knights Crash and Burn: The Fall of the Templars 105 The Seeds of the Fall in the Nature of the Order 106 A little independence goes a long way 107 Money: The root of all evil 108 Huge tracts of land 109 Cracks in the Armor 110 Getting a little too chummy with the heretics 111 Templar bashing: The latest game from the Holy Land 113 Playing politics 114 A new and deadly enemy: Saladin 115 The Treacherous Kingdom of Jerusalem 119 Ethics by Borgia, politics by Shakespeare 119 The horns of Hattin 121 The final curtain 123 The last Crusader 124 Dark Clouds Converge over France 125 King Phillip “The Fair” 125 Pope Clement V 127 The setup 128 October 1307: An unlucky Friday the 13th 129 The Accusations 130 The Confessions 130 The End 131 Chapter 6: Cold Case Files: The Evidence against the Templars 133 The Chief Accuser 134 Opening Move: An Illegal Arrest 136 The Charge Sheet 138 The caliber of the witnesses 141 Dangerous foreign entanglements 141 Blowing Away the Charges, One by One 142 Desecrating the cross 142 Denying the sacrament of the Mass 143 Sodomy 144 Embezzlement 145 Baphomet 146 Heads up: So what was it? 148 The Pope Knuckles Under 149 Secretly Absolved 151 Part III: After the Fall of the Templars 153 Chapter 7: Templars Survive in Legend and in Fact 155 The Templar Fleet 156 Sailing up the Seine 156 La Rochelle 156 So where’d they go? 157 Talking Treasure 157 Cold, hard cash 158 Treasure more mystical than cash? 159 The Scottish Legends 160 Battle of Bannockburn 161 Rosslyn Chapel 162 Templars Part Deux: Return of the Living Knights 166 Portugal and the Order of Christ 166 Spain and the Order of Montesa 167 The Hospitallers 167 Switzerland 168 The Greatest Templar Myths 169 Templars possessed the Ark of the Covenant 169 A Templar connection to the Shroud of Turin 170 Templars discover America! 171 The Templars Survived! 176 The Larmenius Charter 176 The Priory of Sion 179 Rex Deus 179 Templars spawn the modern-day conspiracy theory 180 Chapter 8: “Born in Blood”: Freemasonry and the Templars 183 The Masonic Fraternity: Who Freemasons Are and What They Believe 184 A quick tour of Masonic history 186 The brotherhood code of the lodge 188 Identifying the Possible Templar Origins of Freemasonry 189 Rosslyn Chapel and the Masons 191 The Templars’ sacred subcontractors 194 The Masonic Knights Templar and Where They Came From 195 Chevalier Ramsay begins a knightly legend 196 Freemasonry’s mysterious “Unknown Superiors” 197 Templarism in the American colonies 198 Templar drill teams: The origins of Masonic Knights Templar military costumes 198 Skulls and crossbones! 199 The Templars’ place within Freemasonry 200 Chapter 9: Modern-Day Templars 203 Modern Templar Orders 204 Order Militia Crucifera Evangelica 204 Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi Hierosolymitani 206 Ordo Novi Templi 207 Ordo Militia Templi 209 Chivalric Martinist Order 209 Order of the Solar Temple 209 Ordo Templi Orientis 213 Knights But Not Templars 213 Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem 213 Order of the Grail 214 Sovereign Military Order of Malta 214 Most Venerable Order of St John of Jerusalem 216 Deutscher Orden (Teutonic Knights) 217 Order of Christ 217 Teetotaling Templars of Temperance 218 Templars of Honor and Temperance 218 International Order of Good Templars 218 Part IV: Templars and the Grail 221 Chapter 10: The Templars and the Quest for the Holy Grail 223 The Holy Grail: A Ten-Century Quest 224 The Quest Begins 225 Chrétien de Troyes 225 Robert de Boron: The Grail becomes holy 228 Perlesvaus 228 Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival 229 The rest of the story 229 The Templars and the Grail 230 The Real Grail? 231 Chapter 11: The 21st Century Dawns with a New Grail Myth 233 Holy Couple: The Search for the Bloodline of Christ 234 The biblical account of Mary Magdalene 234 The legend 235 Holy Blood, Holy Grail: The Legend Rediscovered 235 The Priory of Sion 237 Rennes-le-Château 238 The peculiar Pierre Plantard 241 The priory exposed 243 Was any of it real? 244 Part V: Squaring Off: The Church versus the Gospel According to Dan Brown 245 Chapter 12: Templars and The Da Vinci Code 247 The Secret Societies of Dan Brown 248 The Da Vinci Code’s “facts” of the Priory of Sion 249 The “Da Vinci” Templars 252 Opus Dei 254 Leonardo da Vinci and His Last Supper 256 John or Mary? 257 The “missing” Grail found 258 Chapter 13: The Suppression of the “Feminine Divine”: Truth or Feminist Fiction? 261 Defining Divine Femininity 262 The “lost bride” 263 The mysterious Magdalene 265 Mary’s Marriage: Pros and Cons 272 Pros 273 Cons 275 Goddess Worship and the Sacred Feminine: Do We Really Want It Back Again? 279 The women who worshipped goddesses 279 The women who worshipped the male God of Israel 282 The Catholic Church’s Relationship with Women 288 The real burr in the saddle 289 Victorianism 290 Facing the future 290 Chapter 14: Getting Our Acts Together: Constantine and the Council of Nicaea 291 Fiction, History, and the Early Church 292 Early Christianity: A secret society 292 Dan Brown’s version: Teabing does the talking 294 What Boring Old History Books Say 295 The Christian conversion of Constantine 295 The real Council of Nicaea and what happened there 297 “Closing the Canon”: Determining the books of the Bible 300 Conflict over celibacy 303 Part VI: The Part of Tens 309 Chapter 15: Ten Candidates for the Site of the Holy Grail 311 Glastonbury Tor, England 311 Hawkstone Park (Shropshire, England) 312 Takt-i-Taqdis, Iran 313 The Santo Caliz (Valencia, Spain) 314 Sacro Catino (Genoa, Italy) 314 Rosslyn Chapel (Roslin, Scotland) 315 Wewelsburg Castle (Buren, Germany) 315 Montségur, France 317 The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City) 318 Castle Stalker (Argyll, Scotland) 318 Chapter 16: Ten Absolutely Must-See Templar Sites 321 Where It All Began: Temple Mount (Jerusalem, Israel) 322 Temple Church (London, England) 323 Royston Cave (Hertfordshire, England) 325 Rosslyn Chapel (Roslin, Scotland) 325 Kilmartin Church (Argyll, Scotland) 326 Chinon Castle (Chinon, France) 327 Templar Villages (Aveyron, France) 328 Tomar Castle (Tomar, Portugal) 329 Domus Templi — The Spanish Route of the Templars (Aragon, Spain) 330 Where It Ended: Îsle de la Cité (Paris, France) 331 Chapter 17: Ten Places That May Be Hiding the Templar Treasure 333 Rosslyn Chapel (Roslin, Scotland) 333 Oak Island Money Pit (Nova Scotia, Canada) 334 Temple Bruer (Lincolnshire, England) 334 Hertfordshire, England 335 Bornholm Island, Denmark 336 Rennes-le-Château, France 336 Château de Gisors (Normandy, France) 337 Switzerland 338 Trinity Church (New York City) 338 Washington D.C.’s Rosslyn Chapel 339 Index 341