Knights Templar Informational Speech

Knights Templar

Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about The Knights Templar

Central Idea: The Templar Knights have a vast history that is not only steeped in legend, but contains ideas that still impact us today.

The Templar Knights have a vast history that started as a small order of monks charged with protecting catholic pilgrims and grew to become one of the most powerful groups of its time that would give us an institution that many of us use on a daily basis, and one of our most common superstitions.

Almost a thousand years ago, the Templar Knights first formed as the military arm of the Catholic Church, charged with protecting the faithful from muslim mauraders and other bandits on their pilgramages to and from the Holy Lands in Jersusalem. The order was first brought together around the year 1120 by King Baldwin the Second of Jerusalem and a french knight by the name of Hugues de Payens. They were first headquarted in a mosque called Al Aqsa, that had been recently recaptured from the Muslims during the first crusade. This mosque was thought to be built upon the ruins of the Temple of Solomon, one of the holiest places in Judaism and Christianity. It was from this holy site that the order would take their name, " The Poor Knights of Christ, and the Temple of Solomon" , or for short, " The Knights Templar" . The Templar Knights began with the overall purpose of protecting the pilgrims on the journeys. In 1129, The order was officially endorsed by the catholic church, becoming exempt from all laws, authorities, and taxes, and answering only to the pope, who at the time was Pope Innocent The Second. With a clear mission and ample resources from the church, the Templars would grow rapidly from a small order of militant monks, to becoming a key component of the crusades.
Not only did the Knights Templar come to be the vanguard of the medieval crusades and champions of the faithful, but they would also come to be one of the first organizations to use a system that many of us use today on a daily basis.

One of the many marks on history that the Templar Knights left behind, was creating one of the world's first banking systems. Initially starting out as an order that was poor and required its members to take a vow of poverty, they would grow to become one of the wealthiest organizations of its time, due mostly in part to its close ties to the catholic church. Not only did the church provide the Order with vast amounts of land and money to build strongholds on, but many noblemen would come to join, giving up every penny and acre of land. The Templars would grow to become so wealthy, that their primary purpose would come to include not only protecting the pilgrims themselves, but protecting the valuables and assets of those pilgrims. Around 1150, the Templars began to issue letters of credit. A person could deposit his or her valuables at any templar house in their own country, receiving a letter describing their deposit, and then present that letter to any templar stronghold along their journey, which allowed them to "withdraw" assets, thus providing the framework for todays banking system. Their banking activities would even come to include providing mortgages to people who wanted to buy land, and charging interest. Charging interest was forbidden by the church, so the Templars created loopholes, such as charging "rent" instead of interest.
Rising first as a small force meant to protect pilgrims, and growing to become so wealthy that they were able to start one of the first known banking systems, it is no surprise that the Knights Templar would come to make enemies, and eventually collapse under the weight of its own power and wealth. Because of that power and wealth, the Templars would begin to attract the attention of the kings and leaders of Europe. Not only because of their wealth and economic power, but the fact the Knights Templar were beholden to no law, no borders, and no man except the pope, once staunch allies of the Templars began to view them with mistrust and greed. By 1300, the rising strength of the muslim armies began to push back the christian armies from the holy lands, eventually losing its foothold their altogether. Now without a clear purpose or mission, King Phillip of France, fearing the Templars would try to create their own state in his own lands, and also owing them a very large amount of money, began to conspire against them, eventually even turning the church and pope against them. At dawn on friday the 13th, 1307, agents of King Phillip simultaneously arrested hundreds of Templars, torturing them into confessions of false accusations , and burnt them at the stake, thus giving us our unlucky friday the 13th. In 1312, Pope Clement V issued an edict, thereby offically dissolving the Knights Templar. Beginning as a means to protect the faithful on their pilgramages, to becoming one of the wealthiest groups of the time and giving us the framework for modern banking, and the reason we consider a certain date to be unlucky, The Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon can be considered one of the most intriguing stories of the medieval era.