Walkthrough of the game the secret seal of the Templars. The organizational structure of the Templar Order. Seal, banner and cross of the order. Recruitment of recruits and their admission into the Templar Order. The role of the Templars in the Crusades
In the Middle Ages, the most basic way to show the authenticity of a document was to put a stamp on it. These seals were images carved into wood, bronze or precious metals and imprinted on wax or sealing wax. At a time when even illiterate people needed to conduct business transactions, seals provided the ability to certify documents and symbolically explained the identity of the owner of the seal.
There were seals of spiritual organizations, monarchs, secular knights and many others. Although the image of two Templars on one horse has, in modern times, become synonymous with the Templar Order, they had many different seals.
As you know, the traditional seal of the Templars depicts two knights riding on one horse - this is the seal of Master Bertrand de Blanchefort, adopted in 1168.
When describing the seal of the order, symbolism is usually used; the outstanding physiologist and occultist Carl Jung showed himself most strongly in the symbolism of the seal:
"The image of these two knights riding on the same horse is believed to represent their oath of poverty. Members of the original order were so poor that not every knight could afford his own horse. Although, for the original order consisting of nine people, this was possible so, but for the order subsequently, and during the reign of de Blanchefort in particular, this could not be true, since the order was very rich. And this wealth was so great that the Templars provided loans to monarchs and subsequently invented a banking system to work with. large finances. Already at the Council in Troyes, when the order received the Latin Charter, the charter stated that a knight must have three horses.”
The altered seal showed Solomon's Temple or something similar to it. In fact, this is an image of the Dome of Rock, because the Temple as depicted on the seal is not even close to Solomon's Temple as described in the Book of the Old Testament.
Some theories have linked the image of two knights on the same horse to the practice of homosexuality, which later figured in accusations against the order in 1307. (For more complete information, read Legman and Lee's book "History of the Templars" by Rendom de Brie)
According to other theories, the two Templars depicted on the seal on one horse are not a symbol of the oath of poverty, but rather a designation of the duality or conflict that existed in the order:
- They were poor in oath, but rich in faith.
- They were engaged in self-knowledge, but were well versed in worldly matters.
- They were monks on the one hand, but warriors on the other.
One theory takes the Gospel as the source of the symbolic meaning of the seal, and claims that one knight was a Templar while the other was an image of Christ. As it is said in the Gospel, where Jesus Christ says:
“Wherever two or more gather in My name, I am in the midst of them.”.
One of the first and most famous among them was the Order of the Templars (literally - “ knights of the temple"), founded in 1119 by the French knight Hugh de Payens and taking its name from the original home of its first members in Jerusalem - a castle built on the ruins Solomon's Temple(le temple). The beginning of this order was modest and poor; it consisted of only 9 knights. Their vows and duties were the same as those of the knights - Johannites: poverty, chastity, obedience to papal authority, protection of pilgrims and the fight against infidels. Distinctive clothing was a white caftan and a cloak with large red crosses. Soon the glory of their courage and virtue spread very widely and attracted many nobles and brave warriors to the order.
Subsequently, the Templar Order had three classes of members: serving brothers took care of sick and wounded pilgrims, priests performed divine services, encouraged soldiers in battles with infidels; knights, wearing armor over their order clothes, fought with infidels and saw off pilgrims. The head of the Templars bore (like the Johannites) the title of grandmaster (grand master); he ruled the affairs of his order and was its commander-in-chief. Initially, the Templars were poor, so the founders of their community, Hugh Payen and Godefroy Saint-Omer, had only one war horse, and in memory of this, the seal of the order had an image of two knights sitting on one horse. (Another explanation for this image says that it was a symbol of the Templars' fraternal loyalty to each other). But soon their order received many donations and became the owner of huge estates. Count Fulk of Anjou, on his first trip to Palestine, fought with the Templars, gave them thirty pounds of silver every year. He subsequently married the daughter of Baldwin II, Melisende, and became king of jerusalem. The Order continued to enjoy his favor. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was the patron saint of the Templars in Europe and wrote eloquent praise of their virtues, holding up their simplicity of life, pure morality and strict military discipline as an example to be emulated by the pampered and luxury-loving knights of Europe. According to Bernard, the Templars despised dress and all earthly vanity, combined monastic meekness with knightly courage, competed with each other in the exact fulfillment of their vows and all knightly virtues; God chose them from among the bravest knights to faithfully guard the Holy Sepulcher.
At the Council of Troyes, where Bernard was also present, Pope Honorius approved the Templar charter. The Council supplemented it with rules taken from Benedictine charter and on January 31, 1128 approved Hugues Payen to the rank of grandmaster. The battle cry of the Templars was Beauséant!(“Perfectly seated” rider on a horse. Perhaps this had to do with the image of the horse on the seal of the order). The Templars perfectly corresponded to the ideal of chivalry of that time. Their order enjoyed the great favor of sovereigns and nobles, received extensive possessions and rich incomes in all Christian countries of the West; Order houses with churches were built everywhere. The number of Templars increased rapidly; often the grandmaster led three hundred knights to war. They had armed ministers; they had many different artisans: masons, gunsmiths, grain makers, tailors. The power, wealth and possessions of the Templars increased continuously; they were considered the surest stronghold of the rule of Western Christians in the East and the most terrible enemies of Muslims. In battles with them, the temple knights always formed the front line. Their brave courage and the death of almost all the knights on the field of honor acquired the order general respect and special favor of the popes, who generously bestowed the order with privileges and honors.
Seal of the Templar Order
The role of the Templars in the Crusades
Payen's first successors (he died in 1138) in the rank of grandmaster followed his example, did not go into too ambitious plans, but tried with all their might to preserve unity, morality and that exemplary military severity in the order, which distinguished the Templars until the end of their existence. In the Second Crusade, launched in 1147, the Knights of the Temple were the staunchest allies Emperor ConradII, especially during an unfortunate expedition to Damascus. In 1151, they liberated Jerusalem, overturning the troops of Nureddin who had already broken into the city, and then distinguished themselves in almost all the battles with the Saracens. But the increase in treasures and power does not quench, but increases the thirst for gold and conquests. This happened with the knights of the temple, and their greed subsequently began to harm the cause of Christians in Palestine as much as their courage and organization brought benefits. When in 1154 the crusaders besieged Ascalon, the grand master of the Templars Bernard de Tremele, wanting to appropriate to the order the wealth stored in the city, which, according to the then custom, belonged to the one who first entered the city on an attack, burst into Ascalon with the knights, but after miracles of courage , was killed with all his comrades. Under Grandmaster Bernard de Blancfort, the Templars, having captured the Sultan's son Nasreddin, who had fled from Egypt, treacherously took away his harem and treasures, and then handed him over to the Egyptians for 60 thousand guilders of gold. Under Grand Master Aude de Saint-Amand (1178), the order disgraced itself with treacherous murder assassins ambassadors by the knight Walter Dumesnil and the failure to hand over the criminal to the Old Man of the Mountain. These and other similar actions gave rise to the crusaders' disgust for the Templars, but did not discredit them in the eyes of the popes, who did not cease to shower them with favors. Dad Alexander III by a bull promulgated in 1162, he even freed the order from subordination to all secular authorities and the Patriarch of Jerusalem and granted only the Roman high priests the right of judgment over them. This bull completely changed the position of the Templars. Their grandmasters began to consider themselves equal to the ruling princes, acted autocratically and unaccountably, and the knights more and more indulged in selfishness and vices; They resembled the virtuous brothers of the founder of the order, Payen, only in their courage and military discipline.
In 1156 and 1164, the crusaders suffered severe defeats from the Mohammedans at Paneas and Goren, in which many knights of the temple fell; but this and other losses were easily replenished by numerous newcomers and experienced warriors who gathered in commanders and other estates belonging to the order in all parts of Europe. What caused him more harm was mutual envy with the Knights of St. John, which repeatedly brought both parties to an obvious break and was stopped with difficulty by the pope in 1187. In 1187 Saladin invaded Palestine with a large army and defeated the Christians in a bloody battle at Belfort, near Sidon. The brave grandmaster Aude de Saint-Amand, defending himself with his knights to the last extremity, was captured and died in prison in Damascus; His knights, who, according to the laws of the order, did not dare to offer more than a knife and a belt to the winners for their ransom, were executed. This event greatly shook the power of the Templars. Their new grandmaster Gerard de Ridefort, who prompted the weak King of Jerusalem Guido Lusignan to war with Saladin, was defeated with him and captured at hittin(1187). They received freedom for the cession of Ascalon and, with the help of Western pilgrims, besieged Acre. Saladin hastened to help the city, was at first overthrown, but the attack of the Acre garrison decided the matter in his favor, and Grandmaster Ridefort fell on the battlefield.
Armament and emblem of the spiritual knightly order of the Templars
In 1189, the three strongest monarchs in Europe: Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, King of France Philip August and the English Richard the Lionheart, set off on the Third Crusade to save Jerusalem taken by Saladin. But Barbarossa died on the road, and disputes between the other two kings prevented the crusaders from achieving important successes: they limited themselves to capture of Acre. At the end of the campaign, the Grand Master of the Templars, Robert Sabloil, bought from Richard the island of Cyprus, which he had conquered on his return journey, but ceded it to the former King of Jerusalem Guido Lusignan and moved to Acre, and from there to a strongly fortified castle on the seashore, near Caesarea, which received the name Pilgrim's Castle. Here the knights remained inactive for a long time, but they increased their influence and possessions on the island of Cyprus and in Western Europe, where from 1209 to 1212 they fought with exemplary courage against the Arabs in Spain. In 1218, Grandmaster William de Chartres took an active part in the glorious but useless siege of Damietta, which, soon after its conquest, was again abandoned by the crusaders. Meanwhile, the Saracens conquered almost all of defenseless Palestine. The knights of the temple, foreseeing the imminent and complete fall of the local Christian rule, tried to reward themselves by acquiring lands and wealth in Europe, and succeeded in this to such an extent that in the middle of the 13th century they already owned 9,000 commanders, castles and other estates there.
In 1228, fortune seemed to smile on the crusaders again: Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen marched into Palestine and took possession of Jerusalem. But the envious policy of the popes and the machinations of the spiritual knightly orders armed with it, and especially the Templars, stopped the victorious march of Frederick. He was forced to return to Europe to defend his own possessions, punished the Templars by taking away their estates in Southern Italy, but could not retain Palestine. In 1237, the Templars suffered a significant defeat there at the castle of Gvascume. Then new quarrels and fights began with the Johannite knights and ended only in 1244 with a thunderstorm that arose against the Eastern Christians from the Turkish Karaismin tribe. Jerusalem was again conquered by the Saracens, and the army of the united crusaders was defeated in the disastrous battle of Gaza, in which the Grand Master of the Templars, Herman de Périgord, fell with 300 knights. The Order soon recovered from this defeat, and when the French king Saint Louis opened a new Crusade in 1249 with the siege of Damietta, Grandmaster William de Sonnac reinforced it with a large army. This campaign, after brief successes, ended with the complete defeat of the crusaders under Mansur, the death of the grandmaster and the capture of King Louis with the remnants of his army. He received freedom only for handing over his treasures and conquests.
The possessions of Western Christians in Palestine were now limited to Acre and several fortified points on the seashore. It was impossible to even think about offensive actions against the Saracens. Even the Templars stopped them and entered into negotiations with their opponents. Strange, still insufficiently explained, their actions against other co-religionists, relations with assassins and Saracen emirs and secret intrigues aroused many rumors unfavorable for them, which were suppressed only by the strong patronage of the popes. Once again the Templars showed unparalleled courage in the defense of Acre , or Ptolemais, which cost the life of their grandmaster, William de Beaujeu, and almost all the knights in the city (1291). After the city was captured by the Turks, the few surviving Templars moved their residence to Cyprus, where in 1297 the last grand master of the order, Jacques Molay, was elected. In 1300, he once again, but in vain, tried to take possession of the coast of Syria by arming a strong fleet, but then was forced to turn all his attention to protecting the order from persecution by the Christian powers.
Western European rulers had long been jealous of the power and wealth of the knights of the temple. When, with the loss of Palestine, the real purpose of their founding collapsed, and the order began to appear only as a dangerous militia in the hands of ambitious popes, then open persecution of secular princes began against it. At their head was Philip IV the Fair, king of France, implacable enemy of the Templars. Rumors harmful to the order spread from all sides about mysterious rituals introduced when accepting new members into the order, and supposedly tending to contempt and desecration of the Christian faith, about the vicious life of the Templars, their pride and self-will. The people murmured and demanded punishment for the heretics; even the popes, seeing the inevitable death of the order, abandoned its protection. Dad Clement V- a blind game in the hands of Philip IV - ordered the betrayal of the order inquisitorial court, presided over by the royal confessor, the Archbishop of Sens. On October 13, 1307, all the knights of the temple living in France were thrown into prison.
Record of the interrogation of 30 Templars conducted by William of Paris (Inquisitor of France) and two royal commissioners
It is difficult to judge the degree of guilt or innocence of the Templars, the justice of accusing them of worship Baphomet(satanic head), in secret Mohammedanism, hidden orgies, etc., for the most careful researchers of the history of the order contradict each other on this. The only certainty is that the true reason for the extermination of the Templars was not their anti-Christian beliefs and vicious life, but their treasures and vast possessions, and that the proceedings against them were carried out with disgusting partiality and inhumanity. Knights and elders were subjected to cruel torture according to the testimony of scoundrels expelled from the order; consciousnesses torn out by torment or long-term imprisonment were taken as clear evidence of guilt, and after the solemn destruction of the order by the pope at the Council of Vienne, all its members who did not recognize themselves as criminals were condemned to death. On March 19, 1314, the virtuous and glorious grand master of the Templars, Jacques Molay, who throughout his reign tried in vain to restore morality and order in the order, together with his most important assistants, ended his life at the stake, calling before his death his persecutors, Philip IV and Clement V, to the judgment of God. who actually died that year. The estates and treasures of the knights were seized into the French treasury, and some were transferred to other orders.
In a similar, but less cruel and violent manner, the Order of the Templars was destroyed in other European states. They say that he continued to exist in secret for a long time, but there is no reliable information about this.
The Templars are one of the most mysterious secret orders in human history. Its history is surrounded by many secrets and conspiracy theories. Here are ten interesting facts about the soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, as the Templars called themselves.
10 PHOTOS
1. At the peak of its popularity, the Templar Order numbered about 20,000 people.
This fact perfectly illustrates the power and prevalence of the order in the Middle Ages. Many of the order's members were warriors, others performed medical duties or looked after various financial matters. All Templars were subordinate to the Supreme Master, who made all the most important decisions, although he was obliged to consult with his staff, which included the seneschal, his deputy, the marshal and other assistants.
2. The Templars essentially invented banks. Surprisingly, it was they who came up with the method of protecting finances that is used by all modern banking systems. In order to protect various pilgrims, travelers and merchants in the unsafe surroundings of Jerusalem, the knights created a system in which anyone traveling to the Holy Land could deposit any valuables into one of the local branches of the Templars. In exchange, they were given a charter, which could then be exchanged at any other Templar branch in the Holy Land in accordance with the value of the goods in gold or the equivalent of a precious metal.
3. The Templars built many buildings throughout Europe. One of the main goals pursued by the Knights Templar was to provide pilgrims with safe passage to the Holy Land. To achieve this, the knights built a huge number of castles, fortifications and other buildings throughout the European continent. Famous examples of surviving buildings built by the Templars include the Temple Church in London and the Convento de Cristo in Portugal.
4. They had their own seal. As befits such a large and influential order, the Templars had their own seal. The traditional Templar seal depicts two knights on one horse, which is a symbol of the vow of poverty taken upon joining the order. The Templar seal was used instead of a signature to seal agreements and authenticate documents.
5. The Templars had their own uniform. Each full member of the order could wear a white tunic with a red cross, which was one of the most recognizable symbols of the order. The white color of the tunic symbolized the purity of the knight, and the blood-red cross meant the readiness to die in battle without losing dignity.
6. Joining the Templars was very difficult. To become a member of the order, a person first had to earn the attention and trust of someone from the Templar command. In addition, the requirements that were placed on current members of the order regarding their lifestyle and behavior were very strict.
7. Despite the wealth, the life of a Templar was quite difficult. Members of the order were expected to demonstrate piety and humility in all areas of their lives. For example, the Templars were required to take a vow of celibacy and were forbidden to have relationships with women.
8. The fortune of the order grew, including due to wills. Most Templars, when they died, left all their acquired property and lands to the order. Considering that many of the Knights Templar managed to build entire castles during their lives, before its collapse the order had fabulous wealth.
9. The Knights Templar most likely actually protected the Holy Grail. According to rumors, in the Middle Ages a cup was found that was supposedly the same one from which Jesus Christ drank at the last supper. Of course, only the Templars could be trusted to guard such a relic. Today we will never know the whole truth, but in the Valencia Cathedral you can see a cup that looks suspiciously like images of the Grail. Of course, it does not have any magical properties.
10. The Templar Order was completely destroyed. By the early 1300s, the Templars had made many powerful enemies due to their wealth and influence. The main initiator of the extermination of the order was King Philip IV, who owed the Templars a lot of money. He decided that it would be more profitable not to repay debts, but simply to get rid of the Knights Templar, simultaneously acquiring their wealth. Declarations of heresy were made against the Templars, and on Friday, October 13, 1307, persecution of all members of the order began.
With symbols Templars It’s not easy to figure it out: the historical thread going back to the early Christian centuries is illusory, and there are few sources that shed light on the origins of both the community itself and the distinctive signs in the hierarchy of the Order. Since ancient times, stories about the order have closely intersected with history grail. Read about this and other symbols below.
The symbols of power of the order's officials were wallet, from which alms were distributed, and bull(seal). Today, about twenty types of order seals are known. On one of them - master's seal depicted two knights riding on the same horse with spears at the ready. This plot can be interpreted from different points of view.
According to one version, the image of these two knights riding on the same horse represented them oath of poverty. Members of the original order were so poor that not every knight could afford his own horse. Although, for the original order, which consisted of nine people, this may have been true, but for the order subsequently, and during the reign of de Blanchefort in particular, this could not be true, since the order was very rich. And this wealth was so great that the Templars provided loans to monarchs and subsequently invented a banking system to deal with large finances.
Some theories linked the image of two knights on one horse with the practice homosexuality, which later figured in accusations against the order in 1307.
According to other theories, the two Templars depicted on the seal on one horse are not a symbol of the oath of poverty, but rather a designation duality or conflict, which existed in the order:
- They were poor in oath, but rich in faith.
- They were engaged in self-knowledge, but were well versed in worldly matters.
- They were monks on the one hand, but warriors on the other.
One theory takes the Gospel as the source of the symbolic meaning of the seal, and argues that one knight was a Templar while the other is an image Christ.
Templar motto sounded noble: “Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam” - “Not to us, Lord, not to us, but all for the glory of Your name.”
Five-pointed star (pentagram)
Pentagram- a regular geometric figure with five-ray symmetry, which in nature is found only in living organisms. This is the simplest star shape that can be depicted with one stroke of the pen, without ever tearing it off the paper and without ever going over the same line twice. The symbol is known to most peoples of the planet. There is an assumption that they were the first to talk about him Pythagoreans. They taught that the world consists of five interconnected elements ( Water, Air, Fire, Earth And Ether) and chose the pentacle as a secret symbol of belonging to their society. But there are also much earlier references to primitive pentagrams, which date back to about 3500 BC. e., these are five-pointed stars painted on clay, found in the ruins of an ancient city Uruk.
Inverted Pentagram at the beginning of the history of Christianity it was interpreted as a symbol of the Transfiguration, Christ. It is known that it appears on the seal of the Roman Emperor Constantine, who essentially made Christianity the state religion.
The first mention of the pentagram as symbol of evil refers to the infamous Templar process. In the interrogation documents, she is mentioned by the knights as a symbol, hanging on her idol named Baphomet. According to these documents, Baphomet– golden. with ruby eyes an idol of either a demon or the same one Satan, which the Templars, who had fallen into heresy, worshiped during “black masses”.
In the lawsuit against the Templars, it was declared that Baphomet was one of the blasphemous idols that the knights of the order worshiped during their magical rituals. The court case does contain confessions of some Templars to the worship of Baphomet, but historians have doubts that these confessions were obtained under torture and “prompted” by the accused. There is not a single reliable evidence of the use of the Baphomet symbol by the Templars before the defeat of the Order, and the image of Baphomet itself appeared only in the 19th century in the works of a famous occultist Eliphas Levi.
However, the “baphomet symbol” (an inverted pentagram with the face of a goat inscribed in it), which most people consider to be the sign of Satan, was proposed and circulated Anton LaVey in 1966.
In medieval Western Christianity, the pentagram was a reminder of five wounds of Christ: from the crown of thorns on the forehead, to the nails in the hands and feet. During the Inquisition, the pentagram acquired negative connotations; it began to be called “ Witch's foot».
“Five” in the mysticism of the Cathars and Templars is a sign of atomization, diffusion of matter.
As for the presence of certain alchemical or astrological symbols present on some Templar temples, they are no different from exactly the same symbols on temples and buildings to which the Order had nothing to do - the fashion for mysticism in the Middle Ages was widespread.
Bee
It is a symbol of rebirth, immortality, order, purity of soul, and hard work. The bee, which is believed to never sleep, symbolizes zeal and vigilance among Christians. Bees are supposed to be parthenogenic and are therefore associated with virginity and chastity. This is a symbol of diligence, the desire for order. It is not for nothing that Christians often compare themselves to bees, and the temple to a beehive. Their essence is heavenly, and honey is an offering. The bee engraved on the tomb symbolizes immortality. Flying in the air - a soul entering the Kingdom of Heaven.
Rose
Perhaps the most popular flower symbol. According to legend, she grew up in paradise without thorns, but acquired them after the fall of man as a reminder. For Christians, the rose symbolizes martyrdom, as well as charity. White rose- symbol innocence, cleanliness, chastity.
Rose is also a symbol secrets And silence. In ancient times, a rose was painted and depicted in bas-relief on the ceilings of halls or meeting rooms, symbolizing that everything said sub rosa (“under the rose”) was confidential.
In addition to being identified with joy and love, the rose symbol was associated with funerals and death in Greece, Rome, China, and later in a number of German-speaking countries. Often she was turned into a flower the afterlife. On the other hand, the rose on the graves of martyrs refers to the idea resurrection. 
Rose symbolizes number 5, this feature of it is reflected in Catholic everyday life, where the rosary and a special prayer for them are called the “Rosary”. The “Rosary” corresponds to the meditation on the three “quintuplets” - the five “joyful”, five “sorrowful” and five “glorious” mysteries of life Virgin Mary, which itself is revered as a Rose or has a rose as its attribute. In Catholicism, the rose is also an attribute Christ, St. George, many saints, often symbolizing the church in general. The rose on the cross is the death of Christ. The thorn of a rose is suffering, death, a Christian symbol of sin. A rose without thorns is ingratitude. a wreath of roses is heavenly joy, a reward for virtue. Also symbolizes the divine harmony of the universe.
The parts of the rose also have their mystical meaning: its greenness is associated with joy. the thorns are with sadness, the flower itself is with glory. The pinnacle of poetic and religious understanding of this image can be considered the rose as a mystical symbol that unites all the souls of the righteous, in the final "Divine Comedy" by Dante.
WITH XII century Rose is introduced to heraldry, becoming one of its most stable signs. In baroque painting of the 17th century (Spain, Flanders), the rose is often isolated into independent symbolic still lifes.
Among other things, the rose became a symbol of the whole war - Scarlet and White Rose. The name "War of the Roses" was not used during the war. Roses were the distinctive signs of the two warring parties. It is not known exactly who used them for the first time.
If the White Rose, symbolizing the Virgin Mary, was used as a distinctive sign by the first Duke of York Edmund Langley in the 14th century, then nothing is known about the use of Scarlet by the Lancastrians before the start of the war. Perhaps it was invented to contrast with the emblem of the enemy. The term came into use in the 19th century with the publication of Anne of Geierstein by Sir Walter Scott, who chose the name based on a fictional scene in William Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part I, in which the opposing sides choose roses of different colors in the Temple Church.
Although roses were sometimes used as symbols during the war, most participants used symbols associated with their feudal lords or protectors. For example, Henry's forces at Bosworth fought under the banner of the red dragon, while the army of York used Richard III's personal symbol, the white boar. Evidence of the importance of rose symbols was heightened when King Henry VII combined the factions' red and white roses into a single red and white Tudor Rose at the end of the war.
Cross
The name itself “ cross” comes from a common Indo-European root cru with the meaning “ curved“. This root can also be traced in Russian words circle, crooked, in Latin – crux- cross. Since ancient times, the Indo-Europeans used this symbol, and it meant life, sky And eternity. Equal cross according to many scientists, it reflects the principle of unification and interaction of two opposite principles - female(horizontal line) and male(vertical).
Hand cross- a straight equilateral cross with flaring ends. Among other associations, it was used in the Middle Ages by the Knights Templar (Templars). As such, there was no strict form of the cross. Crosses were often depicted on shields and banners, as well as on helmets painted black and white, but there is no talk of any canonicity.
The colors of the Templar banner were black And white. It is not known exactly what the banner looked like, although there are several versions:
- two horizontal stripes - black on top and white below. Later, similar colors were used on the banner of the Kingdom of Prussia;
- several black and white stripes alternating with each other;
- a black and white square, like a chessboard (the floors in the lodges of modern Freemasonry, which consider themselves the heirs of the Templars, are laid out in a similar way).
Red Cross continued to serve as a common symbol of all knights who were ready to shed their blood for the liberation of the Holy Land, and the Templars served as a model and symbol of all crusaders. Therefore, their robes, shields and flags on the peaks were decorated with red crosses. However, images of templars with black and white shields and more have been preserved.
It is believed that equilateral chair t with extended ends came into Templar symbolism from Celtic epic and is a symbol of the discovery of the world of the Universe. It denotes sacred number four: four cardinal directions, four apostles, four seasons, and so on. The second name of the Celtic cross is cross pate. It is believed that this Templar cross was the first symbol of the Order.
Symbolism of the Grail
Grail Sword
God's wrath against sorcerers, sorcerers, snakes and other evil spirits with which knights fight Grail.
Grail Castle
Grail Castle was called “Corbenois” - “Cornucopia” - a symbol of the Bridal Chamber, meaning the abundant grace of the future century. First Guardians Grail They built a castle on a high mountain, and in it there was a refectory. Nearby stood a wondrous bell that made the sound of divine vibrations and rang itself when someone was innocently offended. According to legend, knights Grail always appeared where injustice, persecution, and slander occurred.
Spear of the Grail
A symbol meaning the caduceus in the hands of Wisdom. The blow of the spear pierces the heart and pours out blood. The spear gives redemptive power and the highest anointing on earth - the lamb dying for love.
Coat of arms of the Holy Grail
In azure, green and blue tones - a sign of connection land And sky.
White lion
It was extremely common in the secret teachings of the Templars and other knightly orders of the Middle Ages. This is a symbol of royal, virginal generosity. White lion- a symbol of heavenly power given to the warrior of Christ. White color is a sign of a transformed new humanity in which the Christ principle operates.
White dove
White dove with fluttering wings - a sign of the Holy Spirit.
White dove holds in his paws a golden censer filled with the aromas of all earthly and heavenly fragrances. When white dove ahead of the procession Grail soars and smokes with a golden censer, everything around is filled with the fragrance of the Garden of Eden.
Each day is a symbol of heavenly prayer. Blueberry flies ahead of the procession, which means an anticipated prayer for Grail.
White swan
White swan- a symbol of eternal childhood. She leads the golden boat - the church of the heavenly virtues of the messianic dynasty.
Lohengrin sailed from Grail on a golden boat. There is a mystery of floating out of the Kingdom into this world.
The swan is a symbol of the second stage of the alchemical process - albedo (white work). This is the stage of purification: the soul is freed from the dross of despicable matter and appears in all its purity.
White eagle
An important symbol that was opposed to all kinds of monarchical double-headed eagles.
White eagle – a sign of a messianistic divine monarchy or a true theocracy. A sign that it was not a king blessed by the priest (the so-called king-father) who came to power in the country, but a king who has the Blood of Christ in him. Left wing white eagle – cross. White cross of a white eagle delights to heaven. The anointed ones know that the only way to be raptured into heaven is to take cross on the ground. Right wing– virginity as a condition for taking the cross. The wings interact with one another, soaring to the heavens. White eagle– power Grail, the power of virginity.
Mother of pearl bone
The mystical concept of the gralead. According to legend, the first man was created from bone Grail. In a spiritual sense - Grail the spiritual sphere of divine secrets, which can be materialized and personified in various ways - from a dish to a human guardian Grail- hence, the Womb, the Chalice, where the meeting and combination of God and man is possible, the image of a mother-of-pearl shell, etc.
In general, the world of the Templars is still shrouded in darkness. It is difficult to say which of the legends is fiction and which is true. But the fact remains undeniable that the Order of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon played an important role in the formation of both medieval and modern society.
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