The hidden world of the Knights Templar
It was rush hour on a weekday and I was weaving my way down the Strand, one of central London Canada Goose Online most famous thoroughfares. The street hummed with tourists, students and lawyers. Double decker buses rattled. Cyclists sweated. Black cabs swerved.
View image of Stone archway to Temple (Credit: Credit: Amanda Ruggeri)
Just east of the where the Strand turns into Fleet Street, beyond the 19th century legal bookshop of Wildy canada goose and Sons, stood a small stone archway. Compared to the imposing structure above it a canada goose factory sale timber framed, Jacobean townhouse it was almost unnoticeable. I turned in.
canada goose store Here, on tiny Inner Temple Lane, was a hidden world, one that was lovely, leafy and serene, overlooked by graceful Gothic and Victorian buildings and patchworked with gardens and miniature courtyards. canada goose store
View image of Courtyards and gardens (Credit: Credit: Amanda Ruggeri)
Canada Goose Outlet The area, known as Temple, remains far less known to tourists than other nearby attractions like St Paul Cathedral or Trafalgar Square. And most of those who do find their way here don realise Temple biggest secret: this whole area was once the stronghold of the Knights Templar. Canada Goose Outlet
canada goose The medieval order, known for their role in the Crusades and as one of the Middle Ages most powerful and wealthy religious Canada Goose Coats On Sale orders, lived, prayed and worked here from about 1185 up until their dissolution in 1312. canada canada goose coats goose
They built monastic dormitories, chambers and two dining halls now known as Middle Temple Hall and Inner Temple Hall, though they been rebuilt many times over the years and, most famously, Temple Church.
buy canada goose jacket cheap View Canada Goose online image of Temple Church entrance (Credit: Credit: Amanda Ruggeri) buy canada goose jacket cheap
cheap Canada Goose lived right here, said Robin Griffith Jones, the reverend of Temple Church and a historian of the Knights Templar. (In a sign of how historic and traditional this area is, his official title is Reverend and Valiant Master of the Temple). hall of the Templars was what is Inner Temple hall Canada Goose Parka now right over there. And the priest house was where my house is. But even while the holy city was safe, the pilgrimage routes to get there were not. Travellers were routinely attacked, robbed and even killed. cheap Canada Goose
Canada canada goose store Goose Jackets canada goose outlet A handful of knights took monastic vows and devoted themselves to protecting the pilgrims and their routes. In return, the king of Jerusalem gave them headquarters on the Temple Mount. The Knights Templar was born and they were soon world renowned for their courage. Canada Goose Jackets
canada goose coats on sale were a very disciplined fighting force and hugely self sacrificial. If there was a disaster in battle, they were decimated. They didn run away. They just got killed, said Griffith Jones. canada goose coats on sale
They also became extraordinarily rich. As well as owning land and other assets, they didn have to pay tithes. They were also the first to issue what today we would call cheques. If a pilgrim was leaving home, they could give the Templars all the money they want in the Holy Land, get a promissory note in return and collect that amount when they arrived. By 1191, they were so wealthy they were cheap canada goose uk able to buy the island of Cyprus.
canadian canada goose uk black friday goose jacket View image of Round nave of Temple Church (Credit: Credit: Amanda Ruggeri) canadian goose jacket
Canada Goose Parka Little surprise then that by the mid 12th Century they needed a grander headquarters for their London chapter. By 1185, they had built Temple Church. Canada Goose Parka
Today Temple Church doesn seem that grand, particularly when compared to nearby St Paul or Westminster Abbey. uk canada goose outlet The surrounding buildings dwarf it, making its dome invisible from just a short distance. The circular nave in the west, which was built first, is just 17m in diameter. There is no elaborate gold gilding, no side chapels, no mosaic or paintings.
View image of The original stone entrance of Temple Church (Credit: Credit: Amanda Ruggeri)
canada goose black friday sale But as a round church modelled after the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem (there are only three others in Britain), Temple Church had one of the grandest claims of them all: to those in the Middle Ages, walking through it was the closest you could get to Jerusalem without actually undertaking the dangerous pilgrimage to get there. canada goose black friday sale
canada goose deals View image of Ceiling of the round nave (Credit: Credit: Amanda Ruggeri) canada goose deals
Inside, the round nave has the fortress like walls, small windows and heavy, pointed arches of the early Gothic. Effigies of some of the knights including canada goose clearance sale William Marshal of Pembroke, https://www.getcanadagooseoutlet.com without whom England Magna Carta may not exist lie grasping their swords in the stone.
Canada Goose sale The chancel, built 65 years later, extended the church east, this time with canada goose coats on sale all the hallmarks of the fully flowered Gothic style: thin, graceful columns, wide span arches and huge windows that flooded the interior with light. Canada Goose sale
buy canada goose jacket In the time of buy canada goose jacket the Knights Templar, the painted walls and metal plated ceiling would have shimmered in the candlelight. The floor was tiled. There were canada goose uk outlet probably banners down the columns. And the windows, now mostly plain, may have been made of stained glass. buy canada goose jacket
View image of The new chancel cheap Canada Goose (Credit: Credit: Amanda Ruggeri)
Canada Goose online It was in that lovely, light filled canadian goose jacket environment that the English order of the Knights Templar would meet and worship. It was also here that they would be initiated into the order. According to charges levied against them in 1307, when King Philip IV ordered the arrest of the Templars in France, the initiation rites included spitting buy canada goose jacket cheap on the cross, denying Christ, and kissing each other on the mouth, uk canada goose belly button and base of the spine. Canada Goose online
canada goose coats By that point, the knights were no longer needed as crusaders. Their military stronghold of Acre, in present day Israel, had fallen in 1291. The knights were still engaging in smaller scale raids, but the Crusades had effectively ended and, for the Church, had not ended well. canada goose coats
As well as no longer having any military purpose, the Knights Templars wealth had made them potential enemies of some powerful people including King Philip IV, who owed them a vast sum of money.
canada goose clearance The charges of devil worship in canada goose black friday sale their initiation Canada Goose Jackets rites quickly followed. Scores of knights were arrested on Friday 13 October 1307, and those canada goose clearance who wouldn confess were burned at the stake. The rest scattered. In 1312, the order was dissolved Canada Goose Outlet canada goose clearance.
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