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Although the Davinci Code may have given the Knights Templar an association in keeping with conspiracy theorists, I think that they serve an important part in Western Civilization history and should be studied properly. The Templars were formed in order to protect European pilgrims who made their way to the Holy Land, and apparently they did their jobs quite well as soldiers. But the Knights belonged to a religious order, and not a mere military unit. From their religious orientation they learned to be obedient and very disciplined, which transferred over to success on the battlefield. Of course, these are elements central to any good armed forces even to this day.
Another aspect of the Templars - and a reason for modern suspicion - was their wealth. The Templars needed to support themselves away from Europe, so they began what was essentially the world's first multinational corporation. They would own land and operate businesses in Europe, the proceeds of which would benefit the Knights in the Holy Land. From what I understand, this created some animosity in Europe toward the Templars, and perhaps this added to the feelings which led to their dissolution later on.
However, I think that the military prowress and business saavy of the Templars is an interesting phenomena of the Middle Ages. I would be surprised if the Templars didn't greatly contribute to the advancement of Western Civ after their time was up.The Crusades and the loyalty of the Templars to the Church ensured the Pope a forum through which he could remain relevant in the eyes of the secular kings of Europe. The dismal failures of the last Crusades, however, damaged the Pope’s credibility irreparably as an institution and began the long arduous slide toward the Reformation. The Reformation became the new Crusade as the Moors were defeated in Spain and Mehmet II was thrown back by Ivan Dracul in Transylvania/Wallachia. The Templars, were perhaps the last positive thing to come from the High Middle Ages….that and the flying buttress!
DonaldBaker wrote:The Templars, were perhaps the last positive thing to come from the High Middle Ages….that and the flying buttress!
No Thomas? Duns Scotus? Anselm? 😕
I think that the Scholasticism of the Middle Ages has had one of the most profound impacts on Western thought as any school of philosophy. Although yes, the flying buttress did create an achitectural dynamic which set Gothic cathedrals impressively apart from their predecessors.I am going to withold my judgment on Scholasticism. No doubt it forged the foundation for the Age of Reason, but that means it influenced such figures as David Hume and Voltaire with its humanism components. Scholasticism also created a philosophy of religion. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, it demarcated the break with the Patristic system of thought. Also, the dialectic became a critical part of the Catholic curriculum which led to mystic interpretations….again this is according to the Catholic Encylopedia online. Plato was dumped for Aristotle’s line of reasoning….perhaps good perhaps bad. I relish the Patristic Era over this one because I favor the old Greek philosophic methods that were incorporated into Christian theology. St. Augustine, Irenaeus, Cyprian, Origin, and Tertullian rank higher on my list than Anselm and Dons Scotus. I will make allowances for Aquinas since he destroyed Avicenna and Averroes and paved the way for my hero, John Calvin. 😀
It’s interesting where we might differ somewhat – my feelings toward Scholasticism are influenced by Catholic theology and based on my past studies which have been heavily influenced by Aquinas. I might have to get back to you about Augustine (of whom I am a fan), but I did want to say that I’m not sure the Scholastics influenced Hume and French Enlightenment thinkers at all, unless by influence we mean a reaction against. Whereas the Scholastics would point to the harmony between faith and reason, and that the former naturally completes and perfects the latter, I think the Enlightenment philosophes would tend to see the two as completely independent of one another.
Anyway, it's interesting to hear your thoughts on this. 💡I suppose that humanism was the only component that Hume and Voltaire would have picked up on. Basically the inquiry via the scholastic approach created the argumentative methodology used by the humanist philosophers who basically reacted against the religous usage. I don’t know, like I say…..I must withold my judgment to further study since it has been a very long times since I dealt with the Scholastic movement. I will say this, Aquinas, Calvin, Augustine, and Kempis form a core theology that really resonates with my Christian beliefs. I’m going to have to dust off my copies of City of God , Providence and Predestination, The Institutues of the Christian Religion, and The Imitation of Christ and chew on them for a while, but not until my thesis is done! 😆
I think the interconnection between church and politics grew to a point that it didn’t hold to it’s root doctrines. The popes sought to be political powers after the Crusades due to the subjection of the various Crusaders to the RCC and not to their countries. The popes extended their influence to a point that the peasantry began to question the legitimacy of the RCC as a church. People like Calvin and Luther saw the errors between Biblical roots of the church and what the RCC had turned into and brought this to the public thereby adding momentum to the Reformation. Some of the post-Crusade policies instituted by the RCC were completely political and financial in nature with no biblical basis. I think the Crusades and the use of orders such as the Knights to maintain its influence overextended the abilities of the religious Church and brought about the political Church thereby alienating a percentage of its constituents. Sadly, the same thing is still evident today here in the Americas due to the legacy of that era being isolated and refined here and being maintained by the Jesuits and missionaries all the way through the start of the 20th century. No political leader in Central/South America would dare disagree with the Pope as the RCC still wields a horrendous amount of political influence there. I think the Knights Templar order probably got the short end of the stick in the post-Crusade years as the RCC piggybacked on to extending its control in Europe rather than maintaining it’s stability in Jerusalem. I fear we are going to run into the same problem in Iraq as people and gov’t are anxious to be done with the matter and leave without dealing the Muslims a firm enough defeat to guarantee long lasting peace and mutual avoidance. Perhaps the RCC can establish a new Knights Templar order to fend off the Saracen hordes after US troops leave 😆
Yeah, the Inquisition replaced the Crusaders and the Protestants, Jews, and other non-Catholics replaced the Saracens. Of course I am over generalizing a bit. 🙄
All I'm saying is once Jerusalem was lost and it became abundantly clear it was not going to be regained any time soon, the focus of attention turned inward to European politics and religion. Islam was a powerful unifier while the struggles raged, but once they ended, Christendom fell apart at the seams proving "Christendom" had been a myth from the get go.I have a different perspective on this – it’s my understanding that it wasn’t the primarily the Pope who was responsible for the downfall of the Knights Templar, but Philip the Fair, who wanted the Templars’ money. As I touched on earlier, the Templars’ means by which they sustained themselves was quite efficient and must have given them financial independence. The popes had much more temporal power back then, but I don’t know that the Templars were used for anything other than to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land and related activities. Today, the popes do not hold temporal power as they did back then; I think that Central/South American countries can and do disagree with the popes (look to the Cristero War and persecution of Catholics in Mexico during the 1920s as an example of this).
As for the Inquisition - I think it was different in the sense it was a more internal directive to combat heretical influences (Albighensianism, etc). The Crusades were not meant to destroy Islam (they did not continue into the Middle East/North Africa as I'm aware), but centered on the Holy Land. Spain used the Inquisition as a means by which political traitors were caught (in that age, one's religious group meant political loyalty).
I'm not trying to get into a religious argument here, but thought I'd share my perspective.I’ll have to read up on Philip the Fair, I’m a bit rusty on later issues with the Templars. I wasn’t saying that people in Latin America don’t disagree with the pope. But if you read my post about it I was referring to politicians not wanting to disagree with the pope. As you were mentioning that religion used to mean political affiliation, in Latin America the pope has a great deal of political pull still since a large percentage of the population is Catholic. If the pope requested the replacement of a Latin American leader and cited religious-oriented reasons, that leader would be hard pressed to keep his job as the population would turn against him to some degree or another. The power is indirect nowadays as the pope doesn’t have the direct political authority it did at its peak. It would be similar to (but far less serious) the cleric versus ruler issues in the Muslim world. The rulers control the people but the clerics control their opinions, they have the utmost control of the people as long as they’re in agreement. If they have conflicting opinions then the nation becomes stratified.
