FREEMASONRY AND THE CRUSADES
by Albert Mackey
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, Sallah- 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."
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 command 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 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 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."
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 continental Freemasons in
modern times." 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, 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, 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."
The Rev. Mr. Lyde, who travelled among the remains of the 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.
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." And he subsequently
asserts that "the Templars were nothing but one branch of Masons." 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 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."
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 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.
"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
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 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.
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