CHAPTER XXVIII

FREEMASONRY AND THE CRUSADES


IN all the legendary history of Freemasonry there is nothing more
interesting or more romantic than the stories which connect its origin with
the Crusades; nothing in which the judgment and reasoning powers have
been more completely surrendered to the imagination of the inventors of
the various theories on this subject or to the credulity of the believers.

Before proceeding to discuss the numerous phases which have been given
by different writers to the theory which traces the origin of Freemasonry to
the Crusades, to the chivalric orders of the Middle Ages, and especially to
the Knights Templars, it will be proper to take a very brief view of those
contests between the Christians and the Saracens which, under the name
of the Crusades, cost Europe so vast an amount of blood and treasure in
the unsuccessful attempt to secure and maintain possession of the Holy
Land.  This view, or rather synopsis, need not be more than a brief one, for
the topic has been frequently and copiously treated by numerous
historians, from Joinville to Michaux and Mills, and must therefore be
familiar to most readers.

About twenty years after the Moslems had conquered Jerusalem, a recluse
of Picardy in France had paid a pious visit to the city.  Indignant
at the oppressions to which the Christians were subjected in their pious
pilgrimages to the sepulchre of their Lord, and moved by the complaints
of the aged patriarch, Peter the Hermit - for such is the name that he
bears in history - resolved on his return to Europe to attempt to rouse
the religious sentiment and the military spirit of the sovereigns, the
nobles, and the populace of the West.  Having first obtained the sanction
of the Roman pontiff, Peter the Hermit travelled through Italy and France,
and by fervent addresses in every place that he visited urged his
auditors to the sacred duty of rescuing Palestine from the hands of
infidels.  The superstitious feelings of a priest-governed people and the
military spirit of knights accustomed to adventure were readily awakened
by the eloquence of a fanatical preacher.  In every city and village, in the
churches and on the highways, his voice proclaimed the wrongs and the
sufferings of pious pilgrims, and his reproaches awoke the remorse of
his hearers for their past supineness and indifference to the cause of
their brethren, and stimulated their eagerness to rescue the sacred
shrines from the pollution of their Saracen possessors.

The spirit of enthusiasm which pervaded all classes of the people -
nobles and priests, princes and peasants - presented a wonderful scene,
which the history of the world had never before and has never since
recorded.  With one voice war was declared by the nations of western
Europe against the sacrilegious Moslems.  Tradesmen and mechanics
abandoned the pursuits by which they were accustomed to gain their
livelihood, to take up arms in a holy cause; peasants and husbandmen
left their fields, their flocks, and their herds; and barons alienated or
mortgaged their estates to find the means of joining the expedition.

The numerous conflicts that followed for the space of two hundred years
were called the Crusades, or, in French, Croisades, from the blood-red
cross worn by the warriors on the breast or shoulder, first bestowed at
the council of Clermont, by Pope Urban, on the Bishop of Puy, and ever
afterward worn by every Crusader as a badge of his profession.

The first detachment of the great army destined for a holy war issued, in
the year 1096, from the western frontiers.  It consisted of nearly three
hundred thousand men, composed for the most part of the lowest
orders of society, and was headed by Peter the Hermit.  It was, however,
a huge, undisciplined mob rather than an army, whose leader was
entirely without military capacity to govern it or to restrain its turbulence.

The march, or rather the progress, of this immense rabble toward Asia
Minor was marked at every step by crime.  They destroyed the towns
and plundered the inhabitants of every province through which they
roamed in undisciplined confusion.  The outraged inhabitants opposed
their passage with arms.  In many conflicts in Hungary and in Bulgaria
they were slaughtered by thousands.  Peter the Hermit escaped to the
mountains, and of his deluded and debased followers but few reached
Constantinople, and still fewer the shores of Asia Minor.  They were
speedily destroyed by the forces of the Sultan.  The war of the Crusades
had not fairly begun before three hundred thousand lives were lost in the
advance guard of the army.

The first Crusade was undertaken in the same year, and speedily
followed the advanced body whose disastrous fate has just been
recorded.  This body was composed of many of the most distinguished
barons and knights, who were accompanied by their feudal retainers.

At the head of this more disciplined army, consisting of a hundred
thousand knights and horsemen and five times that number of
foot-soldiers, was the renowned Godfrey of Bouillon, a nobleman
distinguished for his piety, his valor, and his military skill.

This army, although unwieldy from its vast numbers and scarcely
manageable from the diverse elements of different nations of which it
was composed, was, notwithstanding many reverses, more fortunate and
more successful than the rabble under Peter the Hermit which had
preceded it.  It reached Palestine in safety, though not without a large
diminution of knights and soldiers.  At length Jerusalem, after a siege of
five weeks, was conquered by the Christian warriors, in the year 1099,
and Godfrey was declared the first Christian King of Jerusalem.  In a
pardonable excess of humility he refused to accept a crown of gems in
the place where his Lord and Master had worn a crown of thorns, and
contented himself with the titles of Duke and Defender of the Holy
Sepulchre.

In the course of the next twenty-five years Palestine had become the
home, or at least the dwelling-place, of much of the chivalry of Europe. 
The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem had extended eastward from the shores
of the Mediterranean Sea to the deserts of Arabia, and southward from
the city of Beritus (now Beirut), in Syria, to the frontiers of Egypt, besides
the country of Tripoli, which stretched north of Beritus to the borders of
the principality of Antioch.

The second Crusade, instigated by the preaching of the monk St.
Bernard, and promoted by Louis VII. of France, was undertaken in the
year 1147.  The number of knights, soldiers, priests, women, and
camp-followers who were engaged in this second Crusade has been
estimated as approaching a million.  At its head were the Emperor
Conrad III. of Germany and King Louis VII. of France.  This effort to
relieve and to strengthen the decaying Christian power in Palestine was
not a successful one.  After a futile and inglorious attempt to lake the city
of Damascus, whose near vicinity to Jerusalem was considered
dangerous to the Latin kingdom, Louis returned home with the small
remnant of his army, in 1149, and was followed in the succeeding year
by the Emperor Conrad.  Thus ended abortively, the second Crusade,
and the Christian cause in Palestine was left to be defended by the
feeble forces but invincible courage of the Christian inhabitants.

The next thirty-five or forty years is a sad and continuous record of the
reverses of the Christians.  They had to contend with a new and
powerful adversary in the person of the renowned Saracen, Sal-
lah-ud-deen, better known as Saladin, who, after sixteen years of warfare
with the Christian knights, in which he was sometimes defeated but
oftener a victor, succeeded in taking Jerusalem, on the 2d of October, in
the year 1187.

Thus, after a possession by the Christians of eighty-eight years, the city
of Jerusalem and the holy shrine which it contained fell again into the
power of the Moslems.

When the tidings of its fall reached Europe, the greatest sorrow and
consternation prevailed.  It was at once determined to make a vigorous
effort for its rescue from its infidel conquerors. The enthusiasm of the
people for its recovery was scarcely less than that which had preceded
the first and second Crusades under the eloquent appeals of Peter the
Hermit and St. Bernard.  The principal sovereigns of Europe, Spain
alone excepted, which was engaged in its own struggles for the
extirpation of the Moors, resolved to lead the armies of their respective
nations to the reconquest of Jerusalem. Thus was inaugurated the third
Crusade.

In the year 1188, innumerable forces from England, France, Italy, and
other counties rushed with impetuous ardor to Palestine.  In the year
1189 one hundred thousand Crusaders, under Guy de Lusignan, sat
down before the city of Acre.  The siege lasted for two years, with a vast
consumption of lives on both sides.  At length the city capitulated and
the Mussulmans surrendered to the victorious arms of Richard the
Lionhearted, King of England.

This third Crusade is remarkable for the number of European sovereigns
who were personally engaged in it.  Richard of England, Philip Augustus
of France, Frederick Barbarossa of Germany, and the Dukes of Suabia
and of Burgundy, had all left their dominions to be governed by regents
in their absence and had joined in the pious struggle to redeem the Holy
Land from Mohammedan rule.

But, notwithstanding many victories over Saladin in hard-fought fields,
and the conquest of many important places, such as Acre, Ascalon,
Jaffa, and Caesarea, the Crusaders failed in their great design of
recovering Jerusalem, which still remained in the possession of Saladin,
who, however, having made a truce with King Richard, granted, as one
of the terms, free and undisturbed access to all pilgrims who should visit
the holy city.

Thus terminated the third Crusade.  It can scarcely be called an absolute
failure, notwithstanding that Jerusalem still remained in the hands of the
infidels, but the total ruin with which, at its commencement, the Latin
kingdom had been threatened was averted; the conquering progress of
the Mussulmans had been seriously checked; the hitherto victorious
Saladin had been compelled to make a truce; the greater part of the
seacoast of Palestine, with all its fortresses and the cities of Acre, Jaffa,
Antioch, and Tyre, remained in the possession of the Christians.

Saladin had survived the truce which he had made with Richard but a
few months, and on his death his dominions were divided between three
of his sons and his brother Saphadin.  The last of these, to whom most
of the veterans who had fought under Saladin adhered, secured for
himself a sovereignty in Syria.

The death of their renowned and powerful foe had encouraged the
Christians of Palestine to make renewed efforts to recover Jerusalem as
soon as the truce had expired.  To aid in this design, a new Crusade
was invoked in Europe.  The appeal, heard with apathy in England and
France met with more favour in Germany.  Three large armaments of
German chivalry arrived at Acre in 1195. The campaign lasted, however,
less than two years, and the troops, having effected no decisive results,
were recalled to Germany in consequence of the death of the Emperor
Henry VI.  This, which has been dignified by some writers with the name
of a fourth Crusade, has, however, more generally been considered as a
mere episode in the history of the Holy Wars.
   
The fourth Crusade proper began in the year 1203, when a large
armament of knights and men-at-arms of France, Germany, Italy, and
Flanders sailed for Constantinople in transports furnished by the
Venetians and commanded by the blind Doge Dandolo. The throne of
the Byzantine Empire had been usurped by the elder Alexius, who had
imprisoned his brother, the legitimate monarch, after having caused his
eyes to be put out.  The first object of the Crusaders was to dethrone
the usurper and to restore the government to Isaac and his son, the
younger Alexius, who had instigated the enterprise and accompanied the
expedition.

The siege and the conquest of Constantinople is told in the graphic
language of Gibbon; but it is so wholly unconnected with the subject of
our present inquiry as not to claim further attention.  It is sufficient to say
that by it the Crusaders were entirely diverted from the great object for
which they had left Europe.  None ever reached or sought to reach the
land of Palestine, and the fourth Crusade terminated without a blow
having been struck for the recovery of Jerusalem and the deliverance of
the Holy Sepulchre from the pollution of its Paynim possessors.

The fifth Crusade commenced in the year 1217.  In this war the
Crusaders attacked Egypt, believing that that country was the key to
Palestine.  At first they were successful, and besieged and captured the
city of Damietta.  But, influenced and directed by the cupidity and
ignorance of the papal legate, they refused the offer of the Saracens,
that if the Christians would evacuate Egypt they would cede Jerusalem
to them, they continued the campaign with most disastrous results, and,
finally abandoning the contest, the Crusaders returned to Europe in
1229, never having even seen the shores of the Holy Land.

A sixth Crusade was undertaken by the French in 1238.  They were
subsequently joined by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, the nephew of Richard
the Lionhearted.  The military capacity and prowess of this able leader
led to successful results, and in 1240 to the restoration of Jerusalem to
the Christians.  The Crusade ended with the return of the Earl of
Cornwall to England in 1240.

The fortifications of Jerusalem were rebuilt by the Knights Templars, but
the necessary measures for defense had scarcely been completed when
the Christian kingdom was attacked by a new enemy.  The descendants
of those barbaric tribes of Tartars who, under the name of Huns, had
centuries before overwhelmed the Roman Empire, now commenced their
ravages in Asia Minor. Twenty thousand Turcoman horsemen, under
Barbacan, their chief, assisted by Egyptian priests, were enabled in 1242
to wrest Jerusalem from the Christians, who never again recovered it. 
The war continued with scarcely varying disasters to the Christians. 
Palestine was overrun by the barbarous hordes of Turcomans.  The
Moslems of Damascus, Aleppo, and Ems, forgetful of their ancient
hatred and religious conflicts, united with the Knights Templars to
oppose a common enemy.

But the effort to stay the progress of the Turcoman invasion was vain. 
Every city of the Latin kingdom, such as Tiberias, Ascalon, Jaffa, and
others, were conquered.  Acre alone remained to the Christian chivalry,
and the Holy Sepulchre was again in the possession of the infidels.

A seventh Crusade was commenced in 1245, to recover what had been
lost.  It was undertaken by the chivalry of England and France.  Louis IX.
commanded the French portion of the forces in person, and William
Longsword, who had distinguished himself in the fifth Crusade, with
many other English knights and nobles, vowed that they would serve
under his banner.

Egypt was again made the objective point of the expedition, and after an
unnecessary and imprudent delay of eight months at Cyprus, Louis
sailed, in 1248, for Egypt, with a force of fifty thousand men.  The history
of this Crusade is but a narrative of the defeats of the Christians, by the
arms of their enemies, by famine, and by pestilence.  At Mansora, in
1250, the Crusaders were totally routed; thirty thousand Christians were
slain, among them the flower of the French and English chivalry, and
King Louis himself was taken prisoner.  He was only ransomed by the
surrender of Damietta to the Turks, the conquest of which city had been
almost the only successful trophy of the Christian arms.  The king
proceeded to Acre, almost the only possession of the Christians in Syria,
and soon afterward returned to France, thus ending the seventh and
penultimate Crusade, in the year 1254.

For fourteen years Syria and Palestine were left to the inadequate
protection that could be afforded by the Knights Templars and
Hospitallers, two Orders who even in the face of their common foe could
not restrain their own bitter rivalry and dissensions.  These feelings
culminated at length in a sanguinary battle between them, in which the
Templars were almost completely destroyed.

The Latin kingdom of Palestine being thus enfeebled by the intestine
broils of its defenders, city after city was surrendered to the Moslems,
until Acre alone remained in the hands of the Christians.  In 1268 the
heaviest blow was inflicted by the fall of Antioch, the proud capital of
Syria.  Forty thousand Christians were slain at the time of its surrender
and one hundred thousand were sold into slavery.

The fall of the Christian state of Antioch was a catastrophe that once
more aroused the military ardor and the pious spirit of Europe, and a
new Crusade was inaugurated - the eighth and last - for the recovery of
the Holy Land, the restoration of the Latin kingdom, and the extirpation
of the infidels from the sacred territory.

This Crusade was conducted entirely by Prince Edward, afterward
Edward I. of England. It is true that Louis IX. of France, undeterred by
the disasters which had previously befallen him, had with undiminished
ardor sought to renew his efforts for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre,
and sailed from France for that purpose in 1270.  But he had stopped
short at Tunis, the king and people of which he had hoped to convert to
Christianity.  But, although no decisive battles took place between the
Moors and the Christians, the army of the latter was soon destroyed by
the heat of the climate, by fatigue, by famine and pestilence, and the
king himself died but little more than a month after his arrival on the
shore of ancient Carthage.  Prince Edward had joined the French army
at Tunis with a slender body of knights, but, after the death of the
French monarch and the abandonment of the enterprise, he had sailed
for Syria with an army of only one thousand knights and men-at-arms,
and landed at Acre in 1270. But the knights of the chivalry of Palestine
gathered eagerly around his standard and increased his force to seven
thousand.  With this insignificant body of soldiery, weak in numbers but
strong in courage and in the capacity of their leader, Edward attacked
the immense horde of Moslems who had been besieging Acre, caused
them to retire, and, following them to Nazareth, captured that city, after a
battle in which the infidels were defeated with great slaughter.

But the reduction of Nazareth closed the military career of Edward in
Palestine.  After narrowly escaping death from a poisoned wound
inflicted by a Moslem assassin, he returned to England, in 1271, having
first effected a truce of ten years with the Sultan of Egypt. 

The defense of Palestine, or rather of Acre, the only point occupied by
the Christians, as the titular capital of the Latin kingdom, was left to the
knights of the three Orders of Chivalry, the Templars, the Hospitallers,
and the Teutonic knights.  By them the truce was repeatedly violated
and peaceable Moslem traders often plundered.  Redress for these
aggressions having been demanded in vain, the Sultan at length
determined to extirpate the "faithless Franks," and marched against Acre
with an army of two hundred thousand men.

After a siege of little more than a month, in which prodigies of valour
were performed by the knights of the three military orders, Acre was
taken, in 1271, by assault, at the cost of sixty thousand Christian lives. 
The inhabitants who did not submit to the Moslem yoke escaped to
Cyprus with the remains of the Templars, the Hospitallers, and the
Teutonic knights who had survived the slaughter.

Thus, after a sanguinary contest of two hundred years, the possession of
the Holy Land was abandoned forever to the enemies of the Cross.

Thus ends the history of the Crusades.  For fifty years afterward the
popes endeavoured to instigate new efforts for the recovery of the holy
places, but their appeals met with no response.  The fanatical
enthusiasm which had inspired the kings, the nobles, and the knights of
Europe for two centuries had been dissolved, and the thirst for glory and
the love of arms were thenceforth to be directed in different channels.

It is not my intention to inquire into the influence exerted by the
Crusades on the state of religion, of education, of commerce, or of
society in Europe.  The theme is an interesting one, but it is foreign to
the subject of our discussion, which is the possible connection that may
have existed between them and the origin of Freemasonry.  But, in so far
as they may have favoured the growth of municipal freedom and the
perpetuation of the system of chivalry, it may be necessary in a future
part of this discussion that these points should demand some attention.

In the present point of view, the most important subject to attract our
attention is the organization during the Crusades of three military Orders
of Knighthood, the Knights Hospitallers, the Knights Templars, and the
Teutonic Knights.  It is through these, but principally through the second,
that the attempt is made to find the origin of the Masonic institution in
the time of the Crusaders.

Whatever may have been the origin of the institution of chivalry, whether
from the equestrian order of the Romans, from the Scandinavians, the
Arabians, the Persians, or, what is far more probable, from the peculiar
influences of the feudal system, it is certain that form of knighthood
which was embodied in the organization of religious and military orders
took its rise in Palestine during the wars of the Crusades, and that before
that era no such organizations of knighthood were known in Europe.

The Knights Hospitallers of St. John, now better known as the Knights of
Malta, was the first of the military and religious Orders that was
established in Palestine.  Its origin must be traced to the Hospitallers of
Jerusalem, a purely charitable institution established by certain
merchants of Amalfi, in the kingdom of Naples, who, trading in the East,
built hospitals in Jerusalem for the entertainment and relief of poor and
sick pilgrims, about the middle of the 11th century.  After the first
Crusade had begun, many knights, laying aside their arms, united with
the Hospitallers in the pious task of attending the sick.  At length Gerard,
the Rector of the Hospital, induced his brethren to assume the vows of
poverty, obedience, and chastity, and to adopt a peculiar costume
consisting of a black robe bearing; a white cross of eight points on the
left breast.  This was in the year 1099.  The knights, however, continued
their peaceful vocation of attending the sick until 1118, when Gerard,
having died, was succeeded by Raymond de Puy as Rector.  The
military spirit of Raymond was averse to the monastic seclusion which
had been fostered by his predecessor.  He therefore proposed a change
in the character of the society, by which it should become a military
order devoted to the protection of Palestine from the attacks of the
infidels.  The members gladly acceded to this proposition, and, taking
new vows at the hands of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the military Order
of Knights of St. John of Jerusalem was established, in the year 1118.
The Order continued to reside in Palestine during its occupation by the
Christians of the Latin kingdom, taking an active part in all the wars of
the eight Crusades.

When the city of Acre fell beneath the victorious army of the Sultan of
Egypt, the Hospitallers, with the knights of the other two Orders, who
had escaped the slaughter which attended the siege and followed on the
surrender, fled to Cyprus.  Thence they repaired to the island of Rhodes,
where they remained for two hundred years under the title of the Knights
of Rhodes, and afterward permanently established themselves at Malta,
where, with a change of name to that of the Knights of Malta, they
remained until the island was taken possession of by Napoleon, in the
year 1798.  This was virtually the end of the career of these valiant
knights, although to this day the Order retains some remnant of its
existence in Italy.


The Order of Knights Templars was established in the year 1118 by
Hugh de Payens, Godfrey de St. Aldemar, and seven other knights
whose names history has not preserved.  Uniting the characters of the
monk and the soldier, they took the vows of poverty, chastity, and
obedience in the presence of the Patriarch of Jerusalem; Baldwin, the
King of Jerusalem, assigned them as a residence a part of his palace,
which stood near the site of the former Temple, and as a place for an
armory the street between the palace and the Temple, from which
circumstance they derived their name of Templars.  The Templars took a
most active part in the defense of Palestine during the two centuries of
the Crusades.  They had also established houses called Preceptories in
every country of Europe, where many of the knights resided.  But the
head of the Order was always in Palestine.  At the close of the contests
for the conquest of the Holy Land, when Acre fell and the Latin kingdom
was dissolved, the Templars made their escape to Europe and were
distributed among their various Preceptories.

But their wealth had excited the cupidity and their power the rivalry of
Philip the Fair, King of France, who, with the assistance of a corrupt and
weak Pope, Clement V., resolved to extirpate the Order.  Charges of
religious heresy and of moral licentiousness were preferred against
them; proofs were not wanting when proofs were required by a King and
a Pontiff; and on the 11th of March, 1314, De Molay, the Grand Master,
with the three principal dignitaries of the Order, were publicly burnt at
the stake, fifty-four knights having suffered the same fate three years
before.

The Order was suppressed in every country of Europe.  Its vast
possessions were partly appropriated by the different sovereigns to their
own use and partly bestowed upon the Knights of Malta, between whom
and the Templars there had always existed a rivalry, and who were not
unwilling to share the spoils of their ancient adversaries.  In Portugal
alone they were permitted to continue their existence, under the name of
the Knights of Christ.

The Teutonic Knights, the last of the three Orders, was exclusively
German in its organization.  Their humble origin is thus related: During
the Crusades, a wealthy gentleman of Germany, who resided at
Jerusalem, built a hospital for the relief and support of his countrymen
who were pilgrims.  This charity was extended by other Germans coming
from Lubeck and Bremen, and finally, during the third Crusade, a
sumptuous hospital was erected at Acre, and an Order was formed
under the name of Teutonic Knights, or Brethren of the Hospital of our
Lady, of the Germans of Jerusalem.  The rule adopted by the knights
closely resembled that of the Hospitallers or Templars, with the
exception that none but Germans could be admitted into the Order.

Like the knights of the other two Orders, they remained in Palestine until
the fall of Acre, when they returned to Europe.  For many years they
were engaged in a crusade for the conversion of the Pagans of Prussia
and Poland, and afterward in territorial struggle with the Kings of Poland,
who had invaded their domains.  After centuries of contests with various
powers, the Order was at length abolished by Emperor Napoleon, in
1809, although it still has a titular existence in Austria.

In an inquiry into any pretended connection of the Crusaders with
Freemasonry, we may dismiss the two Orders of the Knights of Malta
and the Teutonic Knights with the single remark that in their organization
they bore not the slightest resemblance to that of Freemasonry.  They
had no arcana in their system, no secret form of initiation or admission,
and no methods of recognition.  And besides this want of similarity,
which must at once preclude any idea of a connection between the
Masonic and these Chivalric Orders, we fail to find in history any record
of such a connection or the faintest allusion to it.

If Freemasonry owed its origin to the Crusades, as has been asserted by
some writers, or if any influence was exerted upon it by the Knights who
returned to Europe after or during these wars, and found Freemasonry
already existing as an organization, we must look for such connection or
such influence to the Templars only.

The probabilities of such a connection have been based upon the
following historic grounds.  The Knights Templars were a secret society,
differing in this respect from the other two Orders.  They had a secret
doctrine and a secret ceremony of initiation into their ranks.  This secret
character of their ceremonies was made the subject of one of the
charges preferred against them by the pope.  The words of this charge
are that "when they held their chapters, they shut all the doors of the
house or church in which they met so closely that no one could
approach near enough to see or hear what they were doing or saying." It
is further said, in the next charge, that when they held their secret
chapter "they placed a watchman on the roof of the house or church in
which they met, to foresee the approach of any one."

Again, it is supposed that the Templars had held frequent and intimate
communication with some of the secret societies which, during the
Crusades, existed in the East, and that from them they delved certain
doctrines which they incorporated into their own Order and introduced
into Europe on their return, making them the basis of a system which
resulted, if not in the creation of the entire Masonic institution, at least in
the invention of the high degrees.

While it may not be possible to sustain this theory of the intercommunion
of the Templars and the secret societies of the East by any authentic
historical proof, it derives some feature of possibility, and perhaps even
of probability, from the admitted character of the Templar Knights during
the latter days of their residence in Palestine.  They have not been
supposed to have observed with strictness their vows of chastity and
poverty.  That they had lost that humility which made them at first call
themselves "poor fellow-soldiers of Christ" and adopt as a seal two
knights riding on one horse, is evident from the well-known anecdote of
Richard I. of England, who, being advised by a zealous preacher to get
rid of his three favourite daughters, pride, avarice, and voluptuousness,
replied: "You counsel well.  I hereby dispose of the first to the Templars,
the second to the Benedictines, and the third to my bishops." In fact, the
Templars were accused by their contemporaries of laxity in morals and
of infidelity in religion.  The Bois du Guilbert drawn by the graphic pen of
Walter Scott, although a fiction, had many a counterpart in history. 
There was, in short, nothing in the austerity of manners or intolerance of
faith which would have prevented the Templars of the Crusades from
holding frequent communications with the infidel secret Societies around
them, The Druses, indeed, are said by some modern writers to have
Templar blood in them, from the illegal intercourse of their female
ancestors with the Knights.

Of these secret Societies three at least demand a brief attention, from
the supposed connection of the Templars with them.  These are the
Essenes, the Druids, and the Assassins.

The Essenes were a Jewish sect which at the time of the Crusades were
dwelling principally on the shores of the Dead Sea.  Of the three schools
of religion which were cultivated by the Jews in the time of our Saviour,
the Pharisees and the Sadducees were alone condemned for their vices
and their hypocrisy, while neither He nor any of the writers of the New
Testament have referred in words either of condemnation or of censure
to the Essenes.  This complete silence concerning them has been
interpreted in their favour, as indicating that they had not by their
doctrines or their conduct incurred the displeasure of our Lord or of his
disciples.  Some have even supposed that St. John the Baptist, as well
as some of the Evangelists and Apostles, were members of the sect - an
opinion that is at least not absurd; but we reject as altogether untenable
the hypothesis of De Quincey, that they were Christians.

Their ceremonies and their tenets are involved in great obscurity,
notwithstanding the laborious researches of the learned Ginsburg.  From
him and from Josephus, who is the first of the ancient writers who has
mentioned them, as well as from Philo and some other authorities, we
get possession of the following facts.

The forms and ceremonies of the Essenes were, like those of the
Freemasons, eminently symbolical.  They were all celibates, and hence it
became necessary to recruit their ranks, which death and other causes
decimated from time to time, by the admission of new converts.  Hence
they had adopted a system of initiation which was divided into three
degrees.  The first stage was preceded by a preparatory novitiate which
extended to three years.  At the end of the first degree, the trials of
which continued for twelve months, he was presented with a spade, an
apron, and a white robe, the last being a symbol of purity.  In the
second degree or stage he was called an approacher, which lasted for
two years, during which time be was permitted to join in some of the
ceremonies of the sect, but not admitted to be present at the common. 
He was then accepted as an associate.  If his conduct was approved, he
was finally advanced to the third degree and received into full
membership as a companion or disciple.


Brewster, in the work attributed to Lawrie, seeks to find a common origin
for the Freemasons and the Essenes, and supports his opinion by the
following facts, which, if they do not sustain the truth of his hypothesis,
are certainly confirmed by other authorities.  He says: "When a candidate
was proposed for admission, the strictest scrutiny was made into his
character.  If his life had hitherto been exemplary, and if he appeared
capable of curbing his passions and regulating his conduct according to
the virtuous though austere maxims of the Order, he was presented at
the expiration of his novitiate with a white garment as an emblem of the
regularity of his conduct and the purity of his heart.  A solemn oath was
then administered to him, that he would never divulge the mysteries of
the Order, that he would make no innovations on the doctrines of the
society, and that he would continue in that honourable course of piety
and virtue which he had begun to pursue. Like Freemasonry they
instructed the young members in the knowledge which they derived from
their ancestors. They, admitted no women into their Order. They had
particular signs for recognizing each other, which have a strong
resemblance to those of Freemasons.  They had colleges or places of
retirement, where they resorted to practice their rites and settle the affairs
of the society; and after the performance of these duties they assembled
in a large hall, where an entertainment was provided for them by the
president or master of the college, who allotted a certain quantity of
provisions to every individual.  They abolished all distinctions of rank,
and if preference was ever given, it was given to piety, liberality, and
virtue.  Treasurers were appointed in every town to supply the wants of
indigent strangers." (1)

Josephus gives the Essenian oath more in extenso. He tells us that
before being admitted to the common meal, that is, before advancement
to full membership, the candidate takes an oath "that he will exercise
piety toward God and observe justice toward men; that he will injure no
one either of his own accord or by the com-

(1) Lawrie, "History of Freemasonry," ed. 1804, p. 34.


mand of others; that he will hate the wicked and aid the good; that he
will be faithful to all men, especially to those in authority; that if ever
placed in authority he will not abuse his power nor seek to surpass
those under him in the costliness of his garments or decorations; that he
will be a lover of truth and a reprover of falsehood; that he will keep his
hands clear from theft and his soul from unlawful gains; that he will
conceal nothing from the members of his own sect, nor reveal their
doctrines to others, even at the hazard of his life; nor will he
communicate those doctrines to any one otherwise than as he has
himself received them; and, finally, that he will preserve inviolate the
books of the sect and the names of the angels."

This last expression is supposed to refer to the secrets connected with
the Tetragrammaton or Four-lettered Name and the other names of God
and the angelical hierarchy which are comprised in the mysterious
theosophy taught by the Cabalists and accepted, it is said, by the
Essenes.  The mystery of the name of God was then, as it is now, a
prominent feature in all Oriental philosophy and religion.

I am inclined to the opinion of Brunet, who says that the Essenes were
less a sect of religion than a kind of religious order or association of
zealous and pious men whom the desire of attaining an exalted state of
perfection had united together. (1) But whether they were one or the
other, any hypothesis which seeks to connect them with Freemasonry
through the Knights Templars is absolutely untenable.

At the time of the Crusades, and indeed long before, the Essenes had
ceased to hold a place in history.  What little remained of them was to
be found in settlements about the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. 
They had decreased almost to a fraction in numbers, and had greatly
corrupted their doctrines and their manners, ceasing, for instance, to be
celibate and adopting the custom of marriage, while they had accepted
much of the philosophy of Plato, of Pythagoras, and of the school of
Alexandria.

They still retained, however, their Judaic faith and much of their primitive
austerity, and it is therefore improbable that there could have been any
congenial intercommunion between them and the 

(1) Brunet, "Paralele des Religions," P. VI., sec. xliv.


Templars.  Their poverty and insignificance would have supplied no
attraction to the Knights, and their austerity of manners and Judaism
would have repelled them.

As to the similarity of Essenism and Freemasonry in the establishment
by each of a brotherhood distinguished by love, charity, and a secret
initiation, we can draw no conclusion from these coincidences that there
was a connection of the two associations, since the same coincidences
will be found in all fraternities ancient and modern.  They arise from no
spirit of imitation or fact of descent, but are the natural outgrowth of the
social condition of man, which is ever developing itself in such mystical
and fraternal association

But this subject will be treated more at length when, in a subsequent
chapter of this work, I come to treat of the theory which deduces
Freemasonry from Essenism by a direct descent, without the invocation
of a Christian chivalric medium.  It has, however, become inevitable, in
considering the Secret Societies of the East at the period of the
Crusades, to anticipate to some extent what will have to be hereafter
said.

The Druses were another mystical religion with which the Templars are
said to have come in contact and from whom they are said to have
derived certain dogmas and usages which were transmitted to Europe
and incorporated into the system of Freemasonry.

Of the communication of the Templars with the Druses there is some
evidence, both traditional and historic, but what influence that
communication had upon either Templarism or Masonry is a problem
that admits only of a conjectural solution.  The one proposed by King, in
his work on the Gnostics, will hereafter be referred to.

The Druses are a mystical sect who have always inhabited the southern
side of Mount Lebanon and the western side of Anti-Lebanon, extending
from Beirut in the north to Sur in the south, and from the shores of the
Mediterranean to the city of Damascus.  They trace their origin to Hakim,
who was Sultan of Egypt in 926, but derive their name from Mohammed
Ben Israel Darasi, under whose leadership they fled from Egypt in the
10th century and settled in Syria, in that part around Lebanon which they
still inhabit.

Their religion appears to be a mixture of Judaism, Christianity, and
Mohammedanism, although what it precisely is it is impossible to tell,
since they keep their dogmas a secret, which is imparted only to those
of their tribe who have passed through a form of initiation.

Of this initiation, Churchill says that there is a probation of twelve months
before the candidate can be admitted to full membership.  In the second
year, the novitiate having been complete, the Druse is permitted to
assume the white turban as a badge of his profession, and is permitted
to participate in all the mysteries of his religion.

These mysteries refer altogether to dogma, for their religion is without
ceremonies of any kind, and even without prayer.

Their doctrines have been summarized as follows: There is one God,
unknown and unknowable, without personal form and of whom we can
only predicate an existence.  Nine times he has appeared on earth in the
form of man.  These were not incarnations, for God did not assume
flesh, but merely put on flesh as a man puts on a garment.  There are
five invisible intelligences, called Ministers of Religion, and who have
been impersonated by five Druse teachers, of whom the first is Universal
Intelligence, personated by Hamsa, whose creation was the immediate
work of God.  The second is the Universal Soul, personated by Ismael,
and is the female principal as to the first, as the Universal Intelligence is
the male.  From these two proceed the Word, which is personated by
Mohammed Wahab.  The fourth is the Right Wing, or the Proceeding,
produced from the Word and the Universal Soul and personated by
Selama. The fifth is the Left Wing or the Following, produced in the same
way from the Proceeding and personated by Moctana Behoedeen. 
These form the religious hierarchy of Drusism as the ten sephiroth make
the mystical tree of the Cabalists, from which it is probable that the
Druses borrowed the idea.  But they are taken, as Dr. Jessup says, "in
some mysterious and incomprehensible sense which no Druse, man or
woman, ever understood or can understand." (1) Yet their sacred books
assert that none can possess the knowledge of Drusism except he
knows all these Ministers of Religion.

They have also seven precepts or commandments, obedience to

(1) "Syrian Home-Life," p. 183.


which is enjoined but very seldom observed by the modern Druses, and
never in their intercourse with unbelievers.

1. To speak the truth.
2. To render each other mutual assistance.
3. To renounce all error.
4. To separate from the ignorant and wicked.
5. To always assert the eternal unity of God.
6. To be submissive under trials and sufferings.
7. To be content in any condition, whether of joy or sorrow.
Of their outward forms and ceremonies we have no reliable information,
for their worship is a secret one.  In their sacred edifices, which are
embowered among high trees or placed on the mountain summit, there
are no ornaments.  They have no prescribed rites and do not offer
prayer, but in their worship sing hymns and read the sacred books. 
Churchill gives evidence of the profound secrecy in which the Druses
envelop their religion. "Two objects," he says, "engrossed my attention -
the religion of the Druses and the past history of the races which now
occupy the mountain range of Lebanon.  In vain I tried to make the
terms of extreme friendship and intimacy which existed between myself
and the Druses available for the purpose of informing myself on the first
of these points.  Sheiks, akkals, and peasants alike baffled my inquiries,
either by jocose evasion or by direct negation." (1)

Finally, as if to complete their resemblance to a secret society, we are
told that to enable one Druse to recognize another a system of signs
and passwords is adopted, without an interchange of which no
communication in respect to their mysteries is imparted.

The Rev. Mr. King, in his work on the Gnostics, thinks that "the Druses of
Mount Lebanon, though claiming for their founder the Egyptian caliph
Hakim, are in all probability the remains of the numerous Gnostic sects
noticed by Procopius as flourishing there most extensively in his own
times," (2) which was in the 6th century.  And he adds that "the popular
belief among their neighbours is that they, the Druses, adore an idol in
the form of a calf, and hold in their secret meetings orgies similar to
those laid to the charge of the Ophites in Roman times, of the Templars
in medieval, and of the


(1) "On the Druses and Maronites under Turkish Rule."
(2) King's "Gnostics," p. 183.



continental Freemasons in modern times." (1) This statement I have
found confirmed by other writers.  But Mr. King thinks it an interesting
and significant point that "the Druses hold the residence of their
Supreme head to be in Scotland;" a tradition which, he says, has been
"evidently handed down from the times when the Templars were
all-powerful in their neighbourhood." This would prove, admitting the
statement to be true, rather that the Druses borrowed from the Templars
than that the Templars borrowed from the Druses; though it would even
then be very difficult to understand why the Templars should have traced
their head to Scotland, since the legend of Scottish Templarism is of
more recent growth.

We may, however, judge of the weight to be attached to Mr. King's
arguments from the fact that he deems it to be a "singular coincidence"
that our Freemasons are often spoken of by German writers as the
"Scottish Brethren." Not being a Mason, he was ignorant of the meaning
of the term, which refers to a particular rite of Masonry, and not to any
theory of its origin, and is therefore no coincidence at all. The hypothesis
of the supposed connection of the sect of Gnostics with Freemasonry
will be the subject of future consideration.

But there was another secret society, of greater importance than the
Druses, which flourished with vigour in Syria at the time of the
Crusaders, and whose connection with the Templars, as historically
proved, may have had some influence over that Order in moulding, or at
least in suggesting, some of its esoteric dogmas and ceremonies.  This
was the sect of the Assassins.

The Ishmaeleeh, or, as they are more commonly called, the Assassins,
from their supposed use of the herb hashish to produce a temporary
frenzy, was during the Crusades one of the most powerful tribes of Syria,
although their population is now little more than a thousand.  The sect
was founded about the end of the 11th century, in Persia, by Hassan
Sahab.  From Persia, where they are supposed to have imbibed many of
the doctrines of the philosophical sect of the Sofis, they emigrated to
Asia Minor and settled in Syria, to the south of Mount Lebanon.  Their
chief was called Sheikh-el-Jeber, literally translated "the Old Man of the
Mountain," a name familiar to the readers of the Voyages of Sindbad. 
Higgins,


(1) King's "Gnostics," p. 183.

who, when he had a theory to sustain, became insane upon the subject
of etymology, translates it as "the sage of the Kabbala or Traditions," but
the plain Arabic words admit of no such interpretation.

The credulity and the ignorance of the Middle Ages had assigned to the
sect of the Assassins the character of habitual murderers, an historical
error that has been perpetuated in our language by the meaning given
to the word assassin.  This calumny has been exploded by the
researches of modern scholars, who now class them as a philosophical
sect whose doctrines and instructions were secret.  Of the Sofis, from
whom the Ishmaeleeh or Assassins derived their doctrine, it will be
necessary soon to speak.

Von Hammer, who wrote a history of the Assassins, (1) has sought to
trace a close connection between them and the Templars.  He has
shown himself rather as a prejudiced opponent than as an impartial
critic, but the sophistry of his conclusions does not affect the accuracy
of his historical statements.  Subsequent writers have therefore, in their
accounts of this sect, borrowed largely from the pages of Von Hammer.

The Assassins were a secret society having a religion and religious
instructions which they imparted only to those of their tribe who had
gone through a prescribed form of initiation.  According to Von Hammer,
that system of initiation was divided into three degrees.  They
administered oaths of secrecy and of passive obedience and had modes
of mutual recognition, thus resembling in many respects other secret
societies which have at all times existed.  He says that they were
governed by a Grand Master and had regulations and a religious code,
in all of which he supposes that he has found a close resemblance to
the Templars.  Their religious views he states to have been as follows :

"Externally they practice the duties of Islamism, although they internally
renounce them; they believe in the divinity of Ali, in uncreated light as
the principle of all created things, and in the Sheikh Ras-ed-dia, the
Grand Prior of the Order in Syria, and contemporary with the Grand
Master Hassan II., as the last representative of the Deity on earth." (2)

The Rev. Mr. Lyde, who travelled among the remains of the

(1) "Die Geschicte der Assassnen aus Morgenland-ischen Quellen,"
Tubingen, 1818.
(2) "Geschicte der Assassnen," Wood's Translation, P. 221.

sect in 1852, says that they professed to believe in all the prophets, but
had a chief respect for Mohammed and his son-in-law Ali, and he
speaks of their secret prayers and rites as being too disgusting to be
mentioned. (1)

During the Crusades, the Templars entered at various times into
amicable arrangements and treaty stipulations with the Assassins, in
whose territory several of the fortresses of the Knights were built, and we
may therefore readily believe that at those periods, when war was not
raging, there might have been a mutual interchange of courtesies, of
visits and of conferences.

Now, the Assassins were by no means incapable of communicating
some elements of knowledge to their knightly neighbours.  The chivalry
of that age were not distinguished for leaning and knew, little more than
their profession of arms, while the Syrian infidels had brought from
Persia a large portion of the intellectual culture of the Sofis.  Von
Hammer, whose testimony is given in the face of his adverse prejudices,
admits that they produced many treatises on mathematics and law, and
he confesses that Hassan, the founder of the sect, possessed a
profound knowledge of philosophy, and of the mathematical and
metaphysical sciences.  We can not therefore deny the probability that in
the frequent communications with this intellectual as well as warlike tribe
the Templars may have derived some of those doctrines and secret
observances which characterized the Order on its return from Palestine,
and which, distorted and misinterpreted by their enemies, formed the
basis of those charges which led to the persecution and the eventual
extinction of Knight Templarism.

Godfrey Higgins, whose speculations are seldom controlled by a
discreet judgment, finds a close connection between the Freemasons
and the Assassins, through the Templars. "It is very certain," he says
"that the Ishmalians or Society of Assassins is a Mohammedan sect; that
it was at once both a military and religious association, like the Templars
and Teutonic Knights; and that, like the Jesuits, it had its members
scattered over extensive countries.  It was a link that connected ancient
and modern Freemasonry." (2) And he subsequently asserts that "the
Templars were nothing but one branch of

(1) "The Ansyreeh and Ishmaeleeh: a visit to the secret societies of
Northern Syria," by Rev. Samuel Lyde, B.A., London, 1853, P. 238.
(2) "Anacalypsis," I., 700.



Masons." (1) And so he goes on speculating, that Templarism and
Ishmaelism were identical, and Freemasonry sprung from them both, or
rather from the latter through the former.  But as Higgins has advanced
several other theories of the origin of Masonry, we may let the present
one pass.

We may be prepared, however, to admit that the Templars possibly
modified their secret doctrines under the influence of their friendly
conferences with the Assassins, without recognizing the further fact that
the Templars exercised a similar influence over the Freemasons.

I have said that the Assassins are supposed to have derived their
doctrines from the sect of the Sofis in Persia.  Indeed, the Sofis appear
to have been the common origin of all the secret societies of Syria,
which will account for their general resemblance to each other.  In any
inquiry, therefore, into the probable or possible connection of
Templarism with these societies, Sofism, or the doctrine of the Sofis, will
form an interesting element.

The sect of the Sofis originated in Persia, and was extended over other
countries of the East.  The name is generally supposed to be derived
from the Greek Sophia, wisdom, and they bore also the name of
philosauph, which will easily suggest the word philosopher. Dr. Herbelot,
however, derived the name from the Persian sauf or sof, wool, because,
as he said, the ancient Sofis dressed in woolen garments.  The former
derivation is, however, the most plausible.

Sir John Malcolm, who has given a very good account of them in his
History of Persia, says that among them may be counted some of the
wisest men of Persia and the East.  The Mohammedan Sofis, he says,
have endeavoured to connect their mystic faith with the doctrine of the
prophet in a manner that will be better shown from Von Hammer.  That
the Gnostic heresy was greatly infused in the system of Sofism is very
evident, and at the same time there appears to have been some
connection in ideas with the school of Pythagoras.  The object of all
investigation is the attainment of truth, and the labours of the initiate are
symbolically directed to its discovery.

In Sofism there is a system of initiation, which is divided into



(1) "Anacalypsis," I., 712.


four degrees.  In the first or preparatory degree, the novice is required to
observe the rites of the popular religion in its ordinary meaning.  In the
second degree, called the Pale of Sofism, he exchanges these exoteric
rites for a spiritual and secret worship.  The third degree is called
Wisdom, and in this the initiate is supposed to be invested with
supernatural knowledge and to have become equal with the angels. The
fourth and last degree is called Truth, which the candidate is now
supposed to have attained, and to have become united with the Deity.

Sir William Jones has given a summary of their doctrines, so far as they
have been made known, as follows:

Nothing exists absolutely but God; the human soul is but an emanation
from His essence, and, though temporarily separated from its divine
source, will eventually be united with it.  From this union the highest
happiness will result, and therefore that the chief good of man in this
world consists in as perfect a union with the Eternal Spirit as the
incumbrances of flesh will permit.

Von Hammer's history of the rise, the progress, and the character of
Sofism is more minute, more accurate, and therefore more interesting
than that of any other writer.  In accepting it for the reader, I shall not
hesitate to use and to condense the language of Sloane, the author of
the New Curiosities of Literature.

The German historian of the Assassins says that a certain House of
Wisdom was formed in Cairo at the end of the 10th century by the
Sultan, which had thus arisen.  Under Maimun, the seventh Abasside
Caliph, a certain Abdallah established a secret society, and divided his
doctrines into seven degrees, after the system of Pythagoras and the
Ionian schools.  The last degree inculcated the vanity of all religion and
the indifference of actions, which are visited by neither future
recompense or punishment.  He sent missionaries abroad to enlist
disciples and to initiate them in the different degrees, according to their
aptitude.

In a short time Karmath, one of his followers, improved this system.  He
taught that the Koran was to be interpreted allegorically, and, by
adopting a system of symbolism, made arbitrary explanations of all the
precepts of that book.  Prayer, for instance, meant only obedience to a
mysterious Imam,  whom the Ishmaeleeh said that they were engaged in
seeking, and the injunction of alms-giving was explained as the duty of
paying him tithes.  Fasting was only silence in respect to the secrets of
the sect.

The more violent followers of Karmath sought to subvert the throne and
the religion of Persia, and with this intent made war upon the Caliphs,
but were conquered and exterminated.

The more prudent portion, under the general name of Ishmaelites,
continued to work in secret, and finally succeeded in placing one of their
sect upon the throne. In process of time they erected a large building,
which they called the House of Wisdom, and furnished it with professors,
attendants, and books, and mathematical instruments.  Men and women
were admitted to the enjoyment of these treasures, and scientific and
philosophical disputations were held. It was a public institution, but the
secret Order of the Sofis, under whose patronage it was maintained, had
their mysteries, which could only be attained by an initiation extending
through nine degrees.  While Sofism has by most writers been believed
to be a religio-philosophical sect, Von Hammer thinks that it was
political, and that its principal object was to overthrow the House of
Abbas in favour of the Fatimites, which could only be effected by
undermining the national religion.

The government at length interfered, and the operations of the society
were suspended.  But in about a year it resumed its functions and
established a new House of Wisdom.  Extending its influences abroad,
many of the disciples of Sofism passed over into Syria about the close
of the 10th century, and there established those secret societies which in
the course of the Crusades came into contact, sometimes on the field of
battle and sometimes in friendly conferences during temporary truces
with the Crusaders, but especially with the Knights Templars.

The principal of these societies were the Ishmaeleeh or Assassins and
the Druses, both of whom have been described.

There were other societies in Syria, resembling these in doctrine and
ceremonies, who for some especial reasons not now known had
seceded from the main body, which appears to have been the
Assassins.

Such were the Ansyreeh, who were the followers of that Karmath of
whom I have just spoken, who had seceded at an early period from the
Sofis in Persia and had established his sect in Syria, on the coast, in the
plain of Laodicea, now Ladikeeh.

From them arose another sect, called the Nusairyeh, from the name of
their founder, Nusair.  They settled to the north of Mount Lebanon, along
the low range of mountains extending from Antioch to Tripoli and from
the Mediterranean to Hums, where their ascendants, numbering about
two hundred thousand souls, still remain.

It is from their frequent communications with these various secret
societies, but especially with the Assassins, that Von Hammer and
Higgins, following Ramsay, have supposed that the Templars derived
their secret doctrines and, carrying them to Europe, communicated them
to the Freemasons.  Rather, I should say, that Von Hammer and Higgins
believed these Syrian societies to be Masonic, and that they taught the
principles of the institution to the Templars, who were thus the founders
of Freemasonry in Europe.

Of such a theory there is not the slightest scintilla of historic evidence. 
When we come to examine the authentic history of the origin of
Freemasonry, it will be seen how such an hypothesis is entirely without
support.

But that the Templars did have frequent communication with those
secret societies, that they acquired a knowledge of their doctrines, and
were considerably influenced in the lives of many of their members, and
perhaps in secret modifications of their Order, is an hypothesis that can
not be altogether denied or doubted, since there are abundant
evidences in history of such communications, and since we must admit
the plausibility of the theory that the Knights were to some extent
impressed with the profound doctrines of Sofism as practiced by these
sects.

Admitting, then, that the Templars derived some philosophical ideas
more liberal than their own from these Syrian secret philosophers who
were more learned than themselves, the next question will be as to what
influences the Templars exerted upon the people of Europe on their
return, and in what direction and to what ends this influence was
exerted; and to this we must now direct our attention.

But, before entering upon this subject, we may as well notice one
significant fact.  Of the three Orders of Knighthood who displayed their
prowess in Palestine and Syria during the two centuries of the Crusades,
the Hospitallers, the Teutonic Knights, and the Templars, it is admitted
that the Templars were more intimately acquainted with the Ishmaeleeh
or Assassins than either of the others.  It is also known that while the
admission to membership in the Hospitaller and Teutonic Orders was
open and public, the Templars alone had a secret initiation, and held
their meetings in houses guarded from profane intrusion.

Now, at what time the Templars adopted this secret formula of initiation
is not known.  The rule provided for their government by St. Bernard at
the period of their organization makes no allusion to it, and it is probable
that there was no such secret initiation practiced for many years after
their establishment as an order.

Now, this question naturally suggests itself: Did the Templars borrow the
idea and in part the form of their initiation from the Assassins, among
whom such a system existed, or, having obtained it from some other
source, was it subjected at a later period of their career, but long before
they, left Palestine, to certain modifications derived from their intercourse
with the secret societies of Syria? This is a question that can not be
historically solved.  We must rest for any answer on mere conjecture. 
And yet the facts of the Templars being of the three Orders the only
secret one, and of their intercourse with the Assassins, who were also a
secret order, are very significant.  Some light may be thrown upon this
subject by a consideration of the charges, mainly false but with certain
elements of truth, which were urged against the Order at the time of its
suppression.

Let us now proceed to an investigation of the theory that makes the
Templars the founders of the Order of Freemasonry, after the return of
the Knights to Europe.  Rejecting this theory as wholly untenable, it will,
however, be necessary to inquire what were the real influences exerted
upon Europe by the Knights.

It must be remembered that if any influence at all was exercised upon
the people of Europe, the greater portion must be attributed to the
Templars.  Of the three Orders, the Hospitallers, when they left Palestine,
repaired directly to the island of Rhodes, where they remained for two
hundred years, and then, removing to Malta, continued in that island
until the decadence of their Order at the close of the last century. The
Teutonic Knights betook themselves to the uncivilized parts of Germany,
and renewed their warlike vocation by crusades against the heathens of
that country.  The Templars alone distributed themselves in the different
kingdoms and cities of the continent, and became familiar with the
people who lived around their preceptories.  They alone came in contact
with the inhabitants, and they alone could have exercised any influence
upon the popular mind or taste.

It has been a generally received opinion of the most able architects that
the Templars exerted a healthy influence upon the architecture of the
Middle Ages.  Thus Sir Christopher Wren says that "the Holy Wars gave
the Christians who had been there an idea of the Saracens' works,
which were afterward imitated by them in their churches, and they
refined upon it every day as they proceeded in building." (1)

But the most positive opinion of the influence of the Crusaders upon the
architecture of Europe was given in 1836 by Mr. Westmacott, a
distinguished artist of England.  In the course of a series of lectures
before the Royal Academy, he thus spoke of the causes of the revival of
the arts.

There were, he said, two principal causes which tended materially to
assist the restoration of literature and the arts in England and in other
countries of Europe.  These were the Crusades and the extension or the
establishment of the Freemason's institution in the north and west of
Europe.  The adventurers who returned from the Holy Land brought
back some ideas of various improvements, particularly in architecture,
and along with these a strong desire to erect castellated, ecclesiastical,
and palatial edifices, to display the taste that they had acquitted; and in
less than a century from the first Crusade above six hundred buildings of
the above description had been erected in southern and western
Europe.  This taste, he thinks, was spread into almost all countries by
the establishment of the Fraternity of Freemasons who, it appears, had,
under some peculiar form of Brotherhood, existed for an immemorial
period in Syria and other parts of the East, whence some bands of them
migrated to Europe, and after a time a great efflux of these men, Italian,
German, French, Spanish, etc., had spread themselves in communities
through all civilized Europe; and in all countries where they settled we
find the same style of architecture from that period, but differing in some
points of treatment as suited the climate.

The latter part of this statement requires confirmation.  I do not


(1) Wren's "Parentalia."


think that there is any historical evidence of the ingress into Europe of
bands of the Syrian secret fraternities during or after the Crusades, nor is
there any probability that such an ingress could have occurred.

But the historical testimonies are very strong that the literature and arts
of Europe, and especially its architecture, were materially advanced by
the influence of the returning Crusaders, whose own knowledge had
been enlarged and their taste cultivated by their contact with the nations
of the East.

This topic appertains, however, to the historical rather than to the
legendary study of Masonry, and will at a future time in the course of this
work command our attention.  At present we must restrict ourselves to
the consideration of the theory that traditionally connects the Crusaders,
and especially the Knights Templars, with the establishment of the
Masonic institution, through their intercourse with the secret societies of
Syria.
The inventor of the theory that Freemasonry was instituted in the Holy
Land by the Crusaders, and by them on their return introduced into
Europe, was the Chevalier Michael Ramsay, to whom Masonry is
indebted (whatever may be the value of the debt) for the system of high
degrees and the manufacture of Rites.

In the year 1740 Ramsay was the Grand Orator, and delivered a
discourse before the Grand Lodge of France, in which he thus traces the
origin of Freemasonry.

Rejecting as fabulous all hypotheses which trace the foundation of the
Order to the Patriarchs, to Enoch, Noah, or Solomon, he finds its origin
in the time of the Crusades.

"In the time," he says, "of the Holy Wars in Palestine, many princes,
nobles, and citizens associated themselves together and entered into
vows to re-establish Christian temples in the Holy Land, and engaged
themselves by an oath to employ their talents and their fortunes in
restoring architecture to its primitive condition.  They adopted signs and
symbolic words, derived from religion, by which they might distinguish
themselves from the infidels and recognize each other in the midst of the
Saracens.  They communicated these words only to those who had
previously sworn a solemn oath, often taken at the altar, that they would
not reveal them.  Some time after, this Order was united with that of the
Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, for which reason in all countries our
Lodges are called Lodges of St. John.  This union of the two Orders was
made in imitation of the conduct of the Israelites at the building of the
second Temple, when they held the trowel in one hand and the sword in
the other.

"Our Order must not, therefore, be regarded as a renewal of the
Bacchanalian orgies and as a source of senseless dissipation, of
unbridled libertinism and of scandalous intemperance, but as a moral
Order instituted by our ancestors in the Holy Land to recall the
recollection of the most sublime truths in the midst of the innocent
pleasures of society.

"The kings, princes, and nobles, when they returned from Palestine into
their native dominions, established Lodges.  At the time of the last
Crusade several Lodges had already been erected in Germany, Italy,
Spain, France, and from the last in Scotland, in consequence of the
intimate relations which existed between those two countries.

"James Lord Steward of Scotland was the Grand Master of a Lodge
established at Kilwinning in the west of Scotland, in the year 1236, a
short time after the death of Alexander III., King of Scotland, and a year
before John Baliol ascended the throne.  This Scottish Lord received the
Earls of Gloucester and Ulster, English and Irish noblemen, as Masons
into his Lodge.

"By degrees our Lodges, our festivals, and solemnities were neglected in
most of the countries in which they had been established.  Hence the
silence of the historians of all nations, except Great Britain, on the
subject of our Order.  It was preserved, however, in all its splendor by
the Scotch, to whom for several centuries the kings of France had
intrusted the guardianship of their person. (1) 

"After the lamentable reverses of the Crusades, the destruction of the
Christian armies, and the triumph of Bendocdar, the Sultan of Egypt, in
1263, during the eighth and ninth Crusades, the great Prince Edward,
son of Henry III., King of England, seeing that there would be no security
for the brethren in the Holy Land when the Christians should have
retired, led them away, and thus a colony of the Fraternity was
established in England.  As this prince was


(1) Ramsay here refers to the company of musketeers, composed
entirely of Scotchmen of noble birth, which constituted the body-guard of
the kings of France.  The reader of the Waverley Novels will remember
that the renowned Balafre, in the story of "Quentin Durward," was a
member of this company.


endowed with all the qualities of mind and heart, which constitute the
hero, he loved the fine arts and declared himself the protector of our
Order.  He granted it several privileges and franchises, and ever since
the members of the confraternity have assumed the name of
Freemasons.  From this time Great Britain became the seat of our
sciences, the conservatrix of our laws, and the depository of our secrets. 
The religious dissensions which so fatally pervaded and rent all Europe
during the 16th century caused our Order to degenerate from the
grandeur and nobility of its origin.  Several of our rites and usages,
which were opposed to the prejudices of the times, were changed,
disguised, or retrenched.  Thus it is that several of our brethren have,
like the ancient Jews, forgotten the spirit of our laws and preserved only
the letter and the outer covering.  But from the British islands the ancient
science is now beginning to pass into France."

Such was the theory of Ramsay, the principal points of which he had
already incorporated into the Rite of six degrees which bears his name. 
This Rite might be called the mother of all the Rites which followed it and
which in a few years covered the continent with a web of high degrees
and of Masonic systems, all based on the hypothesis that Freemasonry
was invented during the Crusades, and the great dogma of which, boldly
pronounced by the Baron Von Hund, in his Rite of Strict Observance,
was that every Freemason was a Templar.

It will be seen that Ramsay repudiates all the legends which ascribe
Masonry to the Patriarchs or to the ancient Mysteries, and that he rejects
all connection with an Operative association, looking to chivalry alone for
the legitimate source of the Fraternity.

Adopting the method of writing Masonic history which had been
previously pursued by Anderson, and which was unfortunately followed
by other writers of the 18th century, and which has not been altogether
abandoned at the present day, Ramsay makes his statements with
boldness, draws without stint upon his imagination, presents
assumptions in the place of facts, and cites no authority for anything that
he advances.

As Mossdorf says, since he cites no authority we are not bound to
believe him on his simple word.

Ramsay's influence, however, as a man of ability, had its weight, and the
theory of the origin of Freemasonry among the Crusaders continued to
be taught in some one form or another by subsequent writers, and it
was infused by the system-makers into most of the Rites that were
afterward established.  Indeed, it may be said that of all the Rites now
existing, the English and American are the only ones in which some
feature of this Templar theory may not be found.
The theory of Hutchinson varied somewhat from that of Ramsay,
inasmuch as while recognizing the influence of the Crusades upon
Masonry he is inclined to suppose that it was carried there by the
Crusaders rather than that it was brought thence by them to Europe.

After alluding to the organization of the Crusades by Peter the Hermit,
and to the outpouring from Europe into Palestine of tens of thousands of
saints, devotees, and enthusiasts to waste their blood and treasure in a
barren and unprofitable adventure, he proceeds to say that "it was
deemed necessary that those who took up the sign of the Cross in this
enterprise should form themselves into such societies as might secure
them from spies and treacheries, and that each might know his
companion and fellow-laborer by dark as well as by day.  As it was with
Jephtha's army at the passes of the Jordan, so also was it requisite in
these expeditions that certain signs, signals, watchwords, or passwords
should be known amongst them; for the armies consisted of various
nations and various languages."

"No project or device," he thinks, "could answer the purpose of the
Crusaders better than those of Masonry.  The maxims and ceremonials
attending the Master's Order had been previously established and were
materially necessary on that expedition; for as the Mohammedans were
also worshippers of the Deity, and as the enterprisers were seeking a
country where the Masons were in the time of Solomon called into an
association, and where some remains would certainly be found of the
mysteries and wisdom of the ancients and of our predecessors, such
degrees of Masonry as extended only to their being servants of the God
of Nature would not have distinguished them from those they had to
encounter, had they not assumed the symbols of the Christian faith."

The hypothesis of Hutchinson is, then, that while there was some
Masonry in Palestine before the advent of the Crusaders, it was only that
earlier stage which he had already described as appertaining to the
Apprentice's degree, and which was what both he and Oliver have called
"Patriarchal Masonry." The higher stage represented by the Master's
degree was of course unknown to the Saracens, as it was of Christian
origin, and the possession of this degree only could form any distinctive
mark between the Crusaders and their Moslem foes.  This degree,
therefore, he thinks, was introduced into Palestine as a war-measure to
supply the Christians with signs and words which would be to them a
means of protection.  The full force of the language bears only this
interpretation, that Freemasonry was used by the Crusaders not for
purposes of peace, but for those of war, a sentiment so abhorrent to the
true spirit of the institution that nothing but a blind adhesion to a
preconceived theory could have led so good a Mason as Hutchinson to
adopt or to advance such an opinion.

Differing still more from Ramsay, who had attributed the origin of
Masonry to the Knights and nobles of the Crusades, Hutchinson assigns
the task of introducing it into Palestine to the religious and not the
military element of these expeditions.

"All the learning of Europe in those times," he continues, "was possessed
by the religious; they had acquired the wisdom of the ancients, and the
original knowledge which was in the beginning and now is the truth;
many of them had been initiated into the mysteries of Masonry, they
were the projectors of the Crusades, and, as Solomon in the building of
the Temple introduced orders and regulations for the conduct of the
work, which his wisdom had been enriched with from the sages of
antiquity, so that no confusion should happen during its progress, and
so that the rank and office of each fellow4aborer might be distinguished
and ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt; in like manner the
priests projecting the Crusades, being possessed of the mysteries of
Masonry, the knowledge of the ancients, and of the universal language
which survived the confusion of Shinar, revived the orders and
regulations of Solomon, and initiated the legions therein who followed
them to the Holy Land - hence that secrecy which attended the
Crusades."

Mr. Hutchinson concludes this collection of assumptions, cumulated one
upon another, without the slightest attempt to verify historically a single
statement, by asserting that "among other evidences which authorize us
in the conjecture that Masons went to the Holy Wars, is the doctrine of
that Order of Masons called the Higher Order," that is to say, the higher
degrees, which he says that he was induced to believe was of Scottish
origin.  He obtained this idea probably from the theory of Ramsay.  But
be that as it may, he thinks "it conclusively proved that the Masons were
Crusaders;" a conclusion that it would be difficult to infer from any
known rules of logic.  The fact (if it be admitted) that these higher
degrees were invented in Scotland by no means proves that the Masons
who possessed them went to the Crusades.  It is impossible, indeed, to
find any natural connection or sequence between the two circumstances.

But the legend which refers to the establishment in Scotland of a system
of Masonry at the time of the suppression of the Order and the
martyrdom of de Molay, belongs to another portion of the legendary
history of Freemasonry and will be treated in a distinct chapter.

Von Hammer shows to what shifts for arguments those are reduced who
pretend that the institution of Freemasonry was derived at the Crusades,
by the Knights Templars, from the secret societies of the East. He says,
as a proof of the truth of this hypothesis, which indeed he makes as a
charge against the Templars, that their secret maxims, particularly in so
far as relates to the renunciation of positive religion and the extension of
their power by the acquisition of castles and strong places, seem to
have been the same as those of the Order of Assassins.  The similarity
also of the white dress and red fillet of the Assassins with the white
mantle and red cross of the Templars he thinks is certainly remarkable. 
Hence he assumes that as the Assassins were a branch of the
Ishmaeleeh, whom he calls the "Illuminate of the East," and as the former
were a secret society of revolutionary principles, which is a characteristic
that he gratuitously bestows upon the Freemasons, he takes it for
granted that the Assassins supplied the Templars with those ideas of
organization and doctrine out of which they created the system of
Freemasonry that they afterward introduced into Europe.

A series of arguments like this is scarcely worthy of a serious refutation. 
The statement that the Templars ever renounced the precepts of positive
religion, either at that early period of their career or at any subsequent
time, is a mere assumption, based on the charges made by the
malevolence of a wicked King and a still more wicked Pope.  The
construction of fortresses and castles for their protection, by both the
Templars and the Assassins, arose from the military instinct which
teaches all armies to provide the means of defense when in the
presence of an enemy.  And lastly, the argument drawn from the
similarity of the costumes of both Orders is so puerile as to require no
other answer than that as the mantle and cross of the Templars were
bestowed upon them, the former by Pope Honorius and the latter by
Pope Engenius, therefore they could not have been indebted to the
Assassins for either.  The best refutation of the slanders of Von Hammer
is the fact that to sustain his views he was obliged to depend on such
poverty of argument.

Recognizing as historically true the fact that the Templars, or rather,
perhaps, the architects and builders, who accompanied them and were
engaged in the construction of their fortresses and castles in the Holy
Land, the remains of some of which still exist, brought with them to
Europe some new views of Saracenic architecture which they
communicated to the guilds of Freemasons already established in
Europe, we may dismiss the further consideration of that subject as
having nothing to do with the question of how much Freemasonry as a
secret society was indebted for its origin to Templarism.

On the subject of the direct connection of the Templars with
Freemasonry at the time of the Crusades, there are only two
propositions that have been maintained.  One is that the Templars
carried Freemasonry with them to Palestine and there made use of it for
their protection from their enemies, the Saracens.

Of this theory there is not the slightest evidence.  No contemporary
historian of the Crusades makes any mention of such a fact.  Before we
can begin to even discuss it as something worthy of discussion, we
must find the proof, which we can not, that in the 11th and 12th
centuries Freemasonry was anything more than an Operative institution,
to which it was not likely that any Crusaders of influence, such as the
nobles and knights, were attached as members.  As a mere conjecture it
wants every clement of probability.  Hutchinson, the most prominent
writer who maintains the theory, has evidently confounded the Crusaders
of the 11th and 12th centuries, who fought in Palestine, with the
Templars, who are said to have fled to Scotland in the 14th century and
to have there invented certain high degrees.  This manifest confusion of
dates gives a feature of absurdity to the argument of Hutchinson.

Another form has been given to this theory by a writer in the London
Freemasons Magazine, (1) which has the air of greater plausibility at
least.  The theory that he has advanced will be best given in his own
language: "The traveling bodies of Freemasons (who existed in Europe
at the time of the Crusades) consisted of brethren well skilled in every
branch of knowledge; among their ranks were many learned
ecclesiastics, whose names survive to the present day in the magnificent
edifices which they assisted to erect.  The Knights of the Temple,
themselves a body of military monks partaking both of the character of
soldiers and priests, preserved in their Order a rank exclusively clerical,
the individuals belonging to which took no part in warfare, who were
skilled in letters, and devoted themselves to the civil and religious affairs
of the Order; they were the historians of the period, and we know that all
the learning of the time was in their keeping in common with the other
ecclesiastics of the time.  From the best information we are possessed of
regarding the Order, we believe there can be little doubt that these
learned clerks introduced the whole fabric of Craft Masonry into the body
of the Templars, and that not only was the Speculative branch of the
science by them incorporated with the laws and organization of the
Knights, but to their Operative skill were the Templars indebted for their
triumphs in architecture and fortification.  And it is worthy of remark that
in the records of the Order we find no mention of individual architects or
builders; we may therefore not unfairly draw the inference that the whole
body were made participators in the knowledge and mysteries of the
Craft."

To this theory there is the same objection that has been already made to
the other, that it is wholly unsupported by historical authority, and that it
is a mere congeries of bold assumptions and fanciful conjectures.  Very
strange, indeed, is the reasoning which draws the inference that all the
Templars were builders because there is no mention of such a class in
the records of the Order.  Such a silence would rather seem to indicate
that there was no such class among the Knights.  That they employed
architects and builders, who may have belonged to the guilds of
Traveling Freemasons before they went to Palestine, is by no means
improbable; but there is no evidence, and it is by no means likely, that
they would engage in anything more than the duties of their profession,
or that there


(1) Freemasons' Magazine and Masonic Mirror, vol. iv., p. 962, London,
1858, Part 1.


would be any disposition on the part of the Knights devoted to a warlike
vocation to take any share in their peaceful association.

The second theory is that the Templars derived their secret doctrines
and ceremonies from the sect of the Assassins, or from the Druses of
Mount Lebanon, and that on their return to Europe they organized the
Fraternity of Freemasons.  This theory is the direct opposite of the
former, and, like it, has neither history to sustain its truth as a statement
nor probability to support it as a conjecture.

It was the doctrine of a German writer, Adler, who advanced it in his
treatise, De Drusis Montis Libani, published in 1786 at Rome.  But its
most prominent advocate was Von Hammer, an avowed and prejudiced
foe of both Templarism and Freemasonry, and who made it the basis of
his charges against both institutions.  Notwithstanding this, it has been
accepted with his wonted credulity by Higgins in his ponderous work
entitled Anacalypsis.

Brewster, in the work attributed to Lawrie on the History of Freemasonry,
has adopted the same hypothesis.  "As the Order of the Templars," he
says, "was originally formed in Syria, and existed there for a
considerable time, it would be no improbable supposition that they
received their Masonic knowledge from the Lodges in that quarter."

But as Brewster, or the author of the work called Lawrie's History, had
previously, with equal powers of sophistry and with a similar boldness of
conjecture, attributed the origin of Freemasonry to the ancient Mysteries,
to the Dionysiac Fraternity of Artificers, to the Essenes, the Druids, and
to Pythagoras, we may safely relegate his hypothesis of its Templar
origin to the profound abyss of what ought to be, and probably are,
exploded theories.  All these various arguments tend only to show how
the prejudices of preconceived opinions may warp the judgment of the
most learned scholars.

On the whole, I think that we will be safe in concluding that, whatever
may have been the valiant deeds of the Crusaders, and especially of the
Templars, in their unsuccessful attempt to rescue the Holy Sepulcher
from the possession of the infidels, they could scarcely have diverted
their attention to the prosecution of an enterprise so uncongenial with
the martial spirit of their occupation as that of inventing or organizing a
peaceful association of builders. With the Crusades and the Crusaders,
Freemasonry had no connection that can be sustained by historical
proof or probable conjecture.  As to the supposed subsequent
connection of Templarism with the Freemasonry of Scotland, that forms
another and an entirely different legend, the consideration of which will
enguge our attention in the following chapter.







CHAPTER XXIX

THE STORY OF THE SCOTTISH TEMPLARS



THE story which connects the Knights Templars with Freemasonry in
Scotland, after their return from the Crusades and after the suppression of
their Order, forms one of the most interesting and romantic legends
connected with the history of Freemasonry.  In its incidents the elements
of history and tradition are so mingled that it is with difficulty that they can
be satisfactorily separated.  While there are some writers of reputation who
accept everything that has been said concerning the connection in the 14th
century of the Freemasons of Scotland with the Templars who were then
in that kingdom, or who escaped to it as an asylum from the persecutions
of the French monarch, as an authentic narrative of events which had
actually occurred, there are others who reject the whole as a myth or fable
which has no support in history.

Here, as in most other cases, the middle course appears to be the safest. 
While there are some portions of the story which are corroborated by
historical records, there are others which certainly are without the benefit
of such evidence.  In the present chapter I shall endeavour, by a careful
and impartial analysis, to separate the conflicting elements and to dissever
the historical from the legendary or purely
traditional portions of the relation.

But it will be necessary, in clearing the way for any faithful investigation
of the subject to glance briefly at the history of those events which were
connected with the suppression of the ancient Order of Knights
Templars in France in the beginning of the 14th century.

The Templars, on leaving the Holy Land, upon the disastrous termination
of the last Crusade and the fall of Acre, had taken temporary refuge in
the island of Cyprus.  After some vain attempts to regain a footing in
Palestine and to renew their contests with the infidels, who were now in
complete possession of that country, the Knights had retired from
Cyprus and repaired to their different Commanderies in Europe, among
which those in France were the most wealthy and the most numerous.

At this period Philip IV., known in history by the soubriquet of Philip the
Fair, reigned on the French throne, and Clement V. was the Pontiff of the
Roman Church.  Never before had the crown or the tiara been worn by a
more avaricious King or a more treacherous Pope.

Clement, when Bishop of Bordeaux, had secured the influence of the
French monarch toward his election to the papacy by engaging himself
by an oath on the sacrament to perform six conditions imposed upon
him by the king, the last of which was reserved as a secret until after his
coronation.

This last condition bound him to the extermination of the Templars, an
Order of whose power Philip was envious and for whose wealth he was
avaricious.

Pope Clement, who had removed his residence from Rome to Poictiers,
summoned the heads of the military Orders to appear before him for the
purpose, as he deceitfully pretended, of concerting measures for the
inauguration of a new Crusade.

James de Molay, the Grand Master of the Templars, accordingly,
repaired to the papal court. While there the King of France preferred a
series of charges against the Order, upon which he demanded its
suppression and the punishment of its leaders.

The events that subsequently occurred have been well called a black
page in the history of the Order.  On the 13th of October, 1307, the
Grand Master and one hundred and thirty-nine Knights were arrested in
the palace of the Temple, at Paris, and similar arrests were on the same
day made in various parts of France.  The arrested Templars were
thrown into prison and loaded with chains.  They were not provided with
a sufficiency of food and were refused the consolations of religion. 
Twenty-six princes and nobles of the court of France appeared as their
accusers; and before the judgment of their guilt had been determined by
the tribunals, the infamous Pope Clement launched a bull of
excommunication against all persons who should give the Templars aid
or comfort.

The trials which ensued were worse than a farce, only because of their
tragical termination.  The rack and the torture were unsparingly applied. 
Those who continued firm in a denial of guilt were condemned either to
perpetual imprisonment or to the stake.  Addison says that one hundred
and thirteen were burnt in Paris and others in Lorraine, in Normandy, at
Carcassonne, and at Senlis.

The last scene of the tragedy was enacted on the 11th of March, 1314.
James de Molay, the Grand Master of the Order, after a close and
painful imprisonment of six years and a half, was publicly burnt in front
of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris.

The Order was thus totally suppressed in France and its possessions
confiscated.  The other monarchs of Europe followed the example of the
King of France in abolishing the Order in their dominions; but, in a more
merciful spirit, they refrained from inflicting capital punishment upon the
Knights.  Outside of France, in all the other kingdoms of Europe, not a
Templar was condemned to death.

The Order was, however, everywhere suppressed, and a spoil made of
its vast possessions, notwithstanding that in every country beyond the
influence of the Pope and the King of France its general innocence was
sustained.  In Portugal it changed its name to that of the Knights of
Christ - everywhere else the Order ceased to exist

But there are writers who, like Burnes, (1) maintain that the persecution
of the Templars in the 14th century did not close the history of the
Order, but that there has been a succession of Knights Templars from
the 12th century down to these days.  Dr. Burnes alluded to the Order of
the Temple and the pretended transmission of the powers of de Molay to
Larmenius.

With this question and with the authenticity of the so-called "Charter of
Transmission," the topic which we are now about to discuss has no
connection, and I shall therefore make no further allusion to it.

It is evident from the influence of natural causes, without the necessity of
any historical proof, that after the death of the Grand Master and the
sanguinary persecution and suppression of the Order in France, many of
the Knights must have sought safety by flight to other countries.  It is to
their acts in Scotland that we are now to direct our attention.

(1) "Sketch of the History of the Knights Templars," by James Burnes,
LL.D., F.R.S., etc., London, 1840, p. 39.




There are two Legends in existence which relate to the connection of
Templarism with the Freemasonry of Scotland, each of which will require
our separate attention.  The first may be called the Legend of Bruce, and
the other the Legend of d'Aumont.

In Scotland the possessions of the Order were very extensive.  Their
Preceptories were scattered in various parts of the country.  A papal
inquisition was held at Holyrood in 1309 to try and, of course, to
condemn the Templars.  At this inquisition only two knights, Walter de
Clifton, Grand Preceptor of Scotland, and William de Middleton
appeared.  The others absconded, and as Robert Bruce was then
marching to meet and repel the invasion of King Edward of England, the
Templars are said to have joined the army of the Scottish monarch. 
Thus far the various versions of the Bruce Legend agree, but in the
subsequent details there are irreconcilable differences.

According to one version, the Templars distinguished themselves at the
battle of Bannockburn, which was fought on St. John the Baptist's Day,
1314, and after the battle a new Order was formed called the Royal
Order of Scotland, into which the Templars were admitted.  But Oliver
thinks very justly that the two Orders were unconnected with each other.

Thory says that Robert Bruce, King of Scotland under the title of Robert
I., created on the 24th of June, 1314, after the battle of Bannockburn, the
Order of St. Andrew of the Thistle, to which was afterward added that of
Heredom, for the sake of the Scottish Masons, who had made a part of
the thirty thousand men who had fought with an hundred thousand
English soldiers.  He reserved for himself and his successors the title of
Grand Master and founded at Kilwinning the Grand Lodge of the Royal
Order of Heredom. (1)
The Manual of the Order of the Temple says that the Templars, at the
instigation of Robert Bruce, ranged themselves under the banners of this
new Order, whose initiations were based on those of the Templars.  For
this apostasy they were excommunicated by John Mark Larmenius, who
is claimed to have been the legitimate successor of de Molay. (2)

None of these statements are susceptible of historical proof


(1) "Acta Latomorum," tome i., p. 6.
(2) "Manuel des Chevaliers de l'Ordre du Temple," p. 8


The Order of Knights of St. Andrew or of the Thistle was not created by
Bruce in 1314, but by James II. in 1440.

There is no evidence that the Templars ever made a part of the Royal
Order of Heredom.  At this day the two are entirely distinct.  Nor is it now
considered as a fact that the Royal Order was established by Bruce after
the Battle of Bannockburn, although such is the esoteric legend.

On the contrary, it is supposed to have been the fabrication of Michael
Ramsay in the 18th century.  On this subject the remarks of Bro. Lyon,
who has made the Masonry of Scotland his especial study, are well
worth citation.

"The ritual of the Royal Order of Scotland embraces," he says, "what may
be termed a spiritualization of the supposed symbols and ceremonies of
the Christian architects and builders of primitive times, and so closely
associates the sword with the trowel as to lead to the second degree
being denominated an order of Masonic knighthood, which its recipients
are asked to believe was first conferred on the field of Bannockburn, as
a reward for the valour that had been displayed by a body of Templars
who aided Bruce in that memorable victory; and that afterward a Grand
Lodge of the Order was established by the King at Kilwinning, with the
reservation of the office of Grand Master to him and his successors on
the Scottish throne.  It is further asserted that the Royal Order and the
Masonic Fraternity of Kilwinning were governed by the same head.  As
regards the claims to antiquity, and a royal origin that are advanced in
favour of this rite, it is proper to say that modern inquiries have shown
these to be purely fabulous. The credence that is given to that part of
the legend which associates the Order with the ancient Lodge of
Kilwinning is based on the assumed certainty that Lodge possessed in
former times a knowledge of other degrees of Masonry than those of St.
John.  But such is not the case.  The fraternity of Kilwinning never at any
period practiced or acknowledged other than the Craft degrees; neither
does there exist any tradition worthy of the name, local or national, nor
has any authentic document yet been discovered that can in the
remotest degree be held to identify Robert Bruce with the holding of
Masonic Courts, or the institution of a secret society at Kilwinning." (1)

(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," by David Murray Lyon, chap.
xxxii., P. 307.


After such a statement made by a writer who from his position and
opportunities as a Scottish Mason was better enabled to discover proofs,
if there were any to be discovered, we may safely conclude that the
Bruce and Bannockburn Legend of Scottish Templarism is to be
deemed a pure myth, without the slightest historical clement to sustain it.

There is another Legend connecting the Templars in Scotland with
Freemasonry which demands our attention.

It is said in this Legend that in order to escape from the persecution that
followed the suppression of the Order by the King of France, a certain
Templar, named d'Aumont, accompanied by seven others, disguised as
mechanics or Operative Masons, fled into Scotland and there secretly
founded another Order; and to preserve as much as possible the ancient
name of Templars as well as to retain the remembrance of and to do
honour to the Masons in whose clothing they had disguised themselves
when they fled, they adopted the name of Masons in connection with the
word Franc, and called themselves Franc Masons.  This they did
because the old Templars were for the most part Frenchmen, and as the
word Franc means both French and Free, when they established
themselves in England they called themselves Freemasons.  As the
ancient Order had been originally established for the purpose of
rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem, the new Order maintained their
bond of union and preserved the memory and the design of their
predecessors by building symbolically spiritual Temples consecrated to
Virtue, Truth, and Light, and to the honour of the Grand Architect of the
Universe.

Such is the Legend as given by a writer in the Dutch Freemasons'
Almanac, from which it is cited in the London Freemasons' Quarterly
Review. (1)

Clavel, in his Picturesque History of Freemasonry, (2) gives it more in
detail, almost in the words of Von Hund.

After the execution of de Molay, Peter d'Aumont, the Provincial Grand
Master of Auvergne, with two Commanders and five Knights, fled for
safety and directed their course toward Scotland, concealing themselves
during their journey under the disguise of Operative Masons.  Having
landed on the Scottish Island of Mull they

(1) See Freemasons' Quarterly Review, London, 1843, p. 501, where the
Legend is given in full, as above.
(2) "Histoire Pitioresque de la Franc Maconnerie, " p. 184.


there met the Grand Commander George Harris and several other
brethren, with whom they resolved to continue the Order. d'Aumont was
elected Grand Master in a Chapter held on St. John's Day, 1313. To
protect themselves from all chance of discovery and persecution they
adopted symbols taken from architecture and assumed the title of
Freemasons.  In 1361 the Grand Master of the Temple transferred the
seat of the Order to the old city of Aberdeen, and from that time it
spread, under the guise of Freemasonry, through Italy, Germany,
France, Portugal, Spain, and other places.

It was on this Legend that the Baron Von Hund founded his Rite of Strict
Observance, and with spurious documents in his possession, he
attempted, but without success, to obtain the sanction of the Congress
of Wilhelmsbad to his dogma that every Freemason was a Templar.

This doctrine, though making but slow progress in Germany, was more
readily accepted in France, where already it had been promulgated by
the Chapter of Clermont, into whose Templar system Von Hund had
been initiated.
  
The Chevalier Ramsay was the real author of the doctrine of the Templar
origin of Freemasonry, and to him we are really indebted (if the debt
have any value) for the d'Aumont Legend.  The source whence it sprang
is tolerably satisfactory evidence of its fictitious character.  The inventive,
genius of Ramsay, as exhibited in the fabrications of high degrees and
Masonic legends, is well known.  Nor, unfortunately for his reputation,
can it be doubted that in the composition of his legends he cared but
little for the support of history. If his genius, his learning, and his zeal
had been consecrated, not to the formation of new Masonic systems,
but to a profound investigation of the true origin of the Institution, viewed
only from an authentic historical point, it is impossible to say what
incalculable benefit would have been delved from his researches.  The
unproductive desert which for three-fourths of a century spread over the
continent, bearing no fruit except fanciful theories, absurd systems, and
unnecessary degrees, would have been occupied in all probability by a
race of Masonic scholars whose researches would have been directed to
the creation of a genuine history, and much of the labours of our
modern iconoclasts would have been spared.

The Masonic scholars of that long period, which began with Ramsay and
has hardly yet wholly terminated, assumed for the most part rather the
role of poets than of historians.  They did not remember the wise saying
of Cervantes, that the poet may say or sing, not as things have been,
but as they ought to have been, while the historian must write of them as
they really were, and not as he thinks they ought to have been.  And
hence we have a mass of traditional rubbish, in which there is a great
deal of falsehood with very little truth.

Of this rubbish is the Legend of Peter d'Aumont and his resuscitation of
the Order of Knights Templars in Scotland.  Without a particle of
historical evidence for its support, it has nevertheless exerted a powerful
influence on the Masonic organization of even the present day.  We find
its effects looming out in the most important rites and giving a Templar
form to many of the high degrees.  And it cannot be doubted that the
incorporation of Templarism into the modem Masonic system is mainly
to be attributed to ideas suggested by this d'Aumont Legend.

As there appears to be some difficulty in reconciling the supposed
heretical opinions of the Templars with the strictly Christian faith of the
Scottish Masons, to meet this objection a third Legend was invented, in
which it was stated that after the abolition of the Templars, the clerical
part of the Order - that is, the chaplains and priests - united in Scotland
to revive it and to transplant it into Freemasonry.  But as this Legend has
not met with many supporters and was never strongly urged, it is
scarcely necessary to do more than thus briefly to allude to it.

Much as the Legend of d'Aumont has exerted an influence in mingling
together the elements of Templarism and Freemasonry, as we see at the
present day in Britain and in America, and in the high degrees formed
on the continent of Europe, the dogma of Ramsay, that every
Freemason is a Templar, has been utterly repudiated, and the
authenticity of the Legend has been rejected by nearly all of the best
Masonic scholars.

Dr. Burnes, who was a believer in the legitimacy of the French Order of
the Temple, as being directly derived from de Molay through Larmenius,
and who, therefore, subscribed unhesitatingly to the authenticity of the
"Charter of Transmission," does not hesitate to call Von Hund "an
adventurer" and his Legend of d'Aumont "a plausible tale."

Of that part of the Legend which relates to the transfer of the chief seat
of the Templars to Aberdeen in Scotland, he says that "the imposture
was soon detected, and it was even discovered that he had himself
enticed and initiated the ill-fated Pretender into his fabulous order of
chivalry.  The delusions on this subject had taken such a hold in
Germany, that they were not altogether dispelled until a deputation had
actually visited Aberdeen and found amongst the worthy and astonished
brethren there no trace either of very ancient Templars or of
Freemasonry." (1)

In this last assertion, however, Burnes is in error, for it is alleged that the
Lodge of Aberdeen was instituted in 1541, though, as its more ancient
minutes have been, as it is said, destroyed by fire, its present records go
no further back than 1670.  Bro. Lyon concurs with Burnes in the
statement that the Aberdeenians were much surprised when first told
that their Lodge was an ancient center of the High Degrees. (2)

William Frederick Wilke, a German writer of great ability, has attacked the
credibility of this Scottish Legend with a closeness of reasoning and a
vigour of arguments that leave but little room for reply. (3) As he gives
the Legend in a slightly different form, it may be interesting to quote it,
as well as his course of argument.

"The Legend relates," he says, "that after the suppression of the Order
the head of the Templar clergy, Peter of Boulogne, fled from prison and
took refuge with the Commander Hugh, Wildgrave of Salm, and thence
escaped to Scotland with Sylvester von Grumbach.  Thither the Grand
Commander Harris and Marshal d'Aumont had likewise betaken
themselves, and these three preserved the secrets of the Order of
Templars and transferred them to the Fraternity of Freemasons."

In commenting on this statement Wilke says it is true that Peter of
Boulogne fled from prison, but whither he went never has been known. 
The Wildgrave of Salm never was in prison. But the legendist has
entangled himself in saying that Peter left the Wildgrave Hugh and went
to Scotland with Sylvester von Grumbach, for Hugh and Sylvester are
one and the same person.  His

(1) Burnes, "Sketch of the History of the Knights Templars," p. 71.
(2) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 420.
(3) In his "Geschichte des Tempelherren's Orders." I have not been able
to obtain the work, but I have availed myself of an excellent analysis of it
in "Findel's History of Freemasonry," Lyon's Translation.


title was Count Sylvester Wildgrave, and Grumbach was the designation
of his Templar Commandery.  Hugh of Salm, also Wildgrave and
Commander of Grumbach, never took refuge in Scotland, and after the
abolition of the Order was made Prebendary of the Cathedral of
Mayence.
 
Wilke thinks that the continuation of the Templar Order was attributed to
Scotland because the higher degrees of Freemasonry, having reference
in a political sense to the Pretender, Edward Stuart, were called Scotch. 
Scotland is, therefore, the cradle of the higher degrees of Masonry.  But
here I am inclined to differ from him and am disposed rather to refer the
explanation to the circumstance that Ramsay, who was the inventor of
the Legend and the first fabricator of the high degrees, was a native of
Scotland and was born in the neighbourhood of Kilwinning.  To these
degrees he gave the name of Scottish Masonry, in a spirit of nationality,
and hence Scotland was supposed to be their birthplace.  This is not,
however, material to the present argument.

Wilke says that Harris and d'Aumont are not mentioned in the real
history of the Templars and therefore, if they were Knights, they could
not have had any prominence in the Order, and neither would have been
likely to have been chosen by the fugitive Knights as their Grand Master.

He concludes by saying that of course some of the fugitive Templars
found their way to Scotland, and it may be believed that some of the
brethren were admitted into the building fraternities, but that is no reason
why either the Lodges of builders or the Knights of St. John should be
considered as a continuation of the Templar Order, because they both
received Templar fugitives, and the less so as the building guilds were
not, like the Templars, composed of chivalrous and free-thinking
worldlings, but of pious workmen who cherished the pure doctrines of
religion.

The anxiety of certain theorists to connect Templarism with
Freemasonry, has led to the invention of other fables, in which the
Hiramic Legend of the Master's degree is replaced by others referring to
events said to have occurred in the history of the knightly Order.  The
most ingenious of these is the following:

Some time before the destruction of the Order of Templars, a certain
Sub-prior of Montfaucon, named Carolus de Monte Carmel was
murdered by three traitors.  From the events that accompanied and
followed this murder, it is said that an important part of the ritual of
Freemasonry has been derived.  The assassins of the Sub-prior of
Montfaucon concealed his body in a grave, and in order to designate
the spot, planted a young thorn-tree upon it.  The Templars, in searching
for the body, had their attention drawn to the spot by the tree, and in
that way they discovered his remains.  The Legend goes on to recite the
disinterring of the body and its removal to another grave, in striking
similarity with the same events narrated in the Legend of Hiram.

Another theory connects the martyrdom of James de Molay, the last
Grand Master of the Templars, with the Legend of the third degree, and
supposes that in that Legend, as now preserved in the Masonic ritual,
Hiram has been made to replace de Molay, that the fact of the Templar
fusion into Masonry might be concealed.

Thus the events which in the genuine Masonic Legend are referred to
Hiram Abif are, in the Templar Legend, made applicable to de Molay; the
three assassins are said to be Pope Clement V., Philip the Fair, King of
France, and a Templar named Naffodei, who betrayed the Order.  They
have even attempted to explain the mystical search for the body by the
invention of a fable that on the night after de Molay had been burnt at
the stake, certain Knights diligently sought for his remains amongst the
ashes, but could find only some bones to which the flesh, though
scorched, still adhered, but which it left immediately upon their being
handled; and in this way they explain the origin of the substitute word,
according to the mistranslation too generally accepted.

Nothing could more clearly show the absurdity of the Legend than this
adoption of a popular interpretation of the meaning of this word, made
by someone utterly ignorant of the Hebrew language. The word, as is
now well known to all scholars, has a totally different signification.

But it is scarcely necessary to look to so unessential a part of the
narrative for proof that the whole Legend of the connection of
Templarism with Freemasonry is irreconcilable with the facts of history.

The Legend of Bruce and Bannockburn has already been disposed of. 
The story has no historical foundation.

The other Legend, that makes d'Aumont and his companions founders
of the Masonic Order in Scotland by amalgamating the Knights with the
fraternity of builders, is equally devoid of an historical basis.  But,
besides, there is a feature of improbability if not of impossibility about it. 
The Knights Templars were an aristocratic Order, composed of
high-born gentlemen who had embraced the soldier's life as their
vocation, and who were governed by the customs of chivalry.  In those
days there was a much wider line of demarkation drawn between the
various casts of society than exists at the present day.  The "belted
knight" was at the top of the social scale, the mechanic at the bottom.

It is therefore almost impossible to believe that because their Order had
been suppressed, these proud soldiers of the Cross, whose military life
had unfitted them for any other pursuit except that of arms, would have
thrown aside their swords and their spurs and assumed the trowel; with
the use of this implement and all the mysteries of the builder's craft they
were wholly unacquainted.  To have become Operative Masons, they
must have at once abandoned all the prejudices of social life in which
they had been educated.  That a Knight Templar would have gone into
some religious house as a retreat from the world whose usage of his
Order had disgusted him, or taken refuge in some other chivalric Order,
might reasonably happen, as was actually the case.  But that these
Knights would have willingly transformed themselves into Stonemasons
and daily workmen is a supposition too absurd to extort belief even from
the most credulous.


We may then say that those legendists who have sought by their own
invented traditions to trace the origin of Freemasonry to Templarism, or
to establish any close connection between the two Institutions, have
failed in their object.

They have attempted to write a history, but they have scarcely
succeeded in composing a plausible romance.