Guardians of the sacred relics
In addiction to their estates, their rich cash reserves, the Knights
Templar were also rich in relics.
Relics were the remains of people or things which had featured
in the New Testament stories. A popular relic at the time was Wood from
the True Cross — the cross on which Jesus had been crucified. Another was
the Head of John the Baptist, who was beheaded after Herod was bewitched by
the seductive dance of Salome. People in the Middle Ages were desperate
for relics, which they venerated with awe. But as you might expect, there
were plenty of frauds around. Several heads of John the Baptist were in
circulation. And there were enough splinters of wood from the ‘true cross’
to make up any number of crucifixes!
The Templars had their possession the Crown of Thorns, taken
from the head of Christ. They also had the body of the martyred Saint Euphemia
of Chalcedon (thought to have divine healing powers). They had a cross
made from a bath supposedly used by Jesus, a bronze cross made out of the
bowl Jesus had used to wash his disciples’ feet at the Last Supper, and
a sizeable collection of other relics besides. Popular writer Ian Wilson,
in his best-selling book The Turin Shroud, made out a case
for them having also bought the shroud in which Christ was wrapped in his
tomb back from the Holy Land.
But their most treasured relic was the Holy Grail itself — the
cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper. This they were said to have discovered
buried beneath the old Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. In the early 13th
century the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach visited Outremer especially
to lean more about the Order. It was true, he claimed. The Templars did
indeed own the Holy Grail. This was later corroborated by Trevrizent, who
declared: "It is well known to me that many formidable fighting-men dwell
at Munsalvaesche with Graal".
The truths will probably always remain in mystery since all Templar
affairs were conducted in secret. Any member of the Order who revealed
the proceedings of Templar meetings was punished by expulsion. They were
forbidden to keep copies of the Templar statues and the Rule of the Order,
in case they fall into the wrong hands. Was this no more than an application
of the principle that in times of war ‘careless talk coast lives’? Or were
they guarding some more sinister secrets? Many of their contemporaries
believed the latter.