Provide a 13 pages analysis while answering the following question: The Knights Templar: Saints or Sinners. Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide. An abstrac

Provide a 13 pages analysis while answering the following question: The Knights Templar: Saints or Sinners. Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide. An abstract is required.

All the answers to these baffling questions lie somewhere in history. This paper argues that the Knights Templar was originally composed of well-intentioned warrior monks who followed rigid monastic duties and lived based on Christian ideals and teachings. However, this saintly image was tainted when they began to amass massive wealth and gain power and influence, and, in the process, invoking envy and resentment among their powerful enemies.

Crusades to the Holy Land had started by 1100, as well as the recapturing of Jerusalem from the Muslims. Jerusalem was then governed by Frankish King Baldwin and became a common destination for medieval pilgrims.1 Yet, it was unsafe and disorderly and hence inn 1118 an order was established, supposedly to safeguard the pilgrims—Poor Knights of Christ, or the Military Order of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon, or so they were called, for they were awarded the al-Aqsa mosque, suspected to be on the location of the Temple of King Solomon. There were nine original knights, and the first Grand Master was Hugo de Payens.2 These knights pledged to monastic ideals and duties, had the obligation to reiterate the everyday monastic offices vowing fidelity only to the Pope, prepared for combat and prohibited to flee in combat unless the opponent was thrice stronger than them.3

At the Council of Troyes, in 1128, the powerful Cistercian St. Bernard of Clairvaux granted them their Rule, and awarded them the privilege to put on the unique white custom—mantle and tunic, with the red arms spread-out in the shape of a cross.