I just mentioned the code by her.
I am talking about the alleged code made up by the Knights Templar. This did not happen, the original Pesher code was used in the old Hebrew scrolls, the Persher code is used as a slang doe a coding technique used by the KGC - POSSIBLY, not confirmed other than by oral by a knowing individual who has papers from a prominent KGC member during the Civil War era and for a number of years after the end of the war.
Lets look at the known facts about the KT.
Creation of the KT:
The KT order was created by the Pope (around 1129), the order was modeled after the Cistercian monks, not the Hebrew Essene order.
Where did the KT get their wealth:
The order, based upon the Cistertians, required that any Knight that joined the order -turn over all property owned by said Knight, both property and riches. The KT order was granted a tax free status by the Pope when the KT order was created. With the many thousands of KT knights, the order received thousands of properties all over Europe, numbering the hundreds of thousands of acres. The elite class (rich) were obligated to support the KT through donations of land, jewels, and monies; the larger the donation, the easier it was to get reprieve of their sins from the church.
What treasure did they bring back from the Temple Mount:
We know they got part of the cross that Jesus was allegedly crucified on. They carried it into many battles with the wooden artifact leading the charge. It was captured by the enemy when the KT lost that particular battle. The artifact was ransomed and the KT paid the ransom to get it back. What happened to the wooden artifact? It was eventually destroyed when the KT lost another battle and the artifact was re-captured.
Also, it is not proven, but it is recognized the KT probably brought back the fabric artifact that was later found in a French castle in the late 1400's. This artifact was alleged to have been what was wrapped around Jesus when he was placed in the tomb.
Since there were only 9 Knights Templars that left the Temple Mount and returned to Europe, they did not bring much back with them. There is no record of them bringing back a large pack train of supplies or anything else. It is known that the 9 Knights left the temple Mount in a real big hurry.
Where did all their wealth/treasure go?
When King Philip IV of France (1307) ordered the arrest of the KT members in France - ONLY, it did not say anything about the KT member knights anywhere else. Or the supporting forces of peasants and minor citizens, numbering the tens of thousands.
When the KT order was dissolved Under Pressure from King Philip, Pope Clement V disbanded the Order in 1312., ALL members, property, riches, and supporting peasants WERE transferred to the Knights Hospitaller. This is documented fact. This also included all buildings, churches, farms, etc. in the possession of the KT. A few of the KT members in the Southern regions formed the Knights of Malta and carried on the campaigns for a number of more years. Eventually the KM settled down in Malta and joined the local people as farmers etc.
The Pope later reversed his order to arrest any KT members and release any in prison. He also pardoned all members of the KT.
Most of the regular and senior members of the KT joined the KH order. The rest left the order and returned home to their families.
Since the KT order was a sanctioned by the Pope, it enjoyed the support of the church up to the end of the order, and the KT order was a huge supporter of the church as well, there was very little animosity towards each other. The only need for encoded messages was between the church, and the various KT armies. This was so their enemies could not read their messages only. The codes/ciphers that the KT used is known and they were the only ones approved by the church. The KT order was faithful to the church to the very end, they were of noble blood, the elite, and monks. They would not have done anything to the contrary of what was approved by the church. The KT were an extremely faithful order, it was a matter of pride, and many died upholding first of all: their pride, second the order they belonged to.
There is no KT order that existed after the Popes decree dissolving the Order of Knights Templar in 1312.
The sudden disappearance of a major part of the European infrastructure gave rise to speculation and legends, which have kept the "Templar" name alive into the modern day. It never really disappeared, just names changed of who owned everything. Except the KH did not continue the banking practices of the former KT Order.
The below is from Wikipedia:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Knights_Templar
Rise
The first headquarters of the Knights Templar, Al Aqsa Mosque, on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. The Crusaders called it the Temple of Solomon, as it was built on top of the ruins of the original Temple, and it was from this location that the Knights took their name of Templar.
After the First Crusade captured Jerusalem in 1099, many Christian pilgrims traveled to visit what they referred to as the Holy Places. However, though the city of Jerusalem was under relatively secure control, the rest of the Outremer was not. Bandits abounded, and pilgrims were routinely slaughtered, sometimes by the hundreds, as they attempted to make the journey from the coastline at Jaffa into the Holy Land.[8]
Around 1119, two veterans of the First Crusade, the French knight Hugues de Payens and his relative Godfrey de Saint-Omer, proposed the creation of a monastic order for the protection of these pilgrims.[9] King Baldwin II of Jerusalem agreed to their request, and gave them space for a headquarters on the Temple Mount, in the captured Al Aqsa Mosque. The Temple Mount had a mystique, because it was above what was believed to be the ruins of the Temple of Solomon.[4][10] The Crusaders therefore referred to the Al Aqsa Mosque as Solomon's Temple, and it was from this location that the Order took the name of Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, or "Templar" knights. The Order, with about nine knights, had few financial resources and relied on donations to survive. Their emblem was of two knights riding on a single horse, emphasizing the Order's poverty.
A Templar Knight is truly a fearless knight, and secure on every side, for his soul is protected by the armour of faith, just as his body is protected by the armour of steel. He is thus doubly armed, and need fear neither demons nor men."
— Bernard de Clairvaux, c. 1135, De Laude Novae Militae—In Praise of the New Knighthood[11]
The Templars' impoverished status did not last long. They had a powerful advocate in Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a leading Church figure and a nephew of André de Montbard. He spoke and wrote persuasively on their behalf, and in 1129 at the Council of Troyes, the Order was officially endorsed by the Church. With this formal blessing, the Templars became a favored charity throughout Christendom, receiving money, land, businesses, and noble-born sons from families who were eager to help with the fight in the Holy Land. Another major benefit came in 1139, when Pope Innocent II's papal bull Omne Datum Optimum exempted the Order from obedience to local laws. This ruling meant that the Templars could pass freely through all borders, were not required to pay any taxes, and were exempt from all authority except that of the Pope.[12]
Templar Cross
This article is part of or related
to the Knights Templar series
Knights Templar
* History of the Knights Templar
* Knights Templar legends
* Knights Templar Seal
* Grand Masters of the Knights Templar
* Knights Templar in England
* Knights Templar in Scotland
* List of Knights Templar
* List of places associated with the Knights Templar
Modern associations
* Knights Templar (Freemasonry)
* Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem
With its clear mission and ample resources, the Order grew rapidly. Templars were often the advance force in key battles of the Crusades, as the heavily armoured knights on their warhorses would set out to charge at the enemy, in an attempt to break opposition lines. One of their most famous victories was in 1177 during the Battle of Montgisard, where some 500 Templar knights helped to defeat Saladin's army of more than 26,000 soldiers.[13]
Although the primary mission of the Order was military, relatively few members were combatants. The others acted in support positions to assist the knights and to manage the financial infrastructure. The Templar Order, though its members were sworn to individual poverty, was given control of wealth beyond direct donations. A nobleman who was interested in participating in the Crusades might place all his assets under Templar management while he was away. Accumulating wealth in this manner throughout Christendom and the Outremer, the Order in 1150 began generating letters of credit for pilgrims journeying to the Holy Land: pilgrims deposited their valuables with a local Templar preceptory before embarking, received a document indicating the value of their deposit, then used that document upon arrival in the Holy Land to retrieve their funds. This innovative arrangement was an early form of banking, and may have been the first formal system to support the use of cheques; it improved the safety of pilgrims by making them less attractive targets for thieves, and also contributed to the Templar coffers.[4][14]
Based on this mix of donations and business dealing, the Templars established financial networks across the whole of Christendom. They acquired large tracts of land, both in Europe and the Middle East; they bought and managed farms and vineyards; they built churches and castles; they were involved in manufacturing, import and export; they had their own fleet of ships; and at one point they even owned the entire island of Cyprus. The Order of the Knights Templar arguably qualifies as the world's first multinational corporation.[13][15][16]
Battle of the Horns of Hattin in 1187, the turning point in the Crusades
[edit] Decline
In the mid-12th century, the tide began to turn in the Crusades. The Muslim world had become more united under effective leaders such as Saladin, and dissension arose among Christian factions in and concerning the Holy Land. The Knights Templar were occasionally at odds with the two other Christian military orders, the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights, and decades of internecine feuds weakened Christian positions, politically and militarily. After the Templars were involved in several unsuccessful campaigns, including the pivotal Battle of the Horns of Hattin, Jerusalem was captured by Saladin's forces in 1187. The Crusaders retook the city in 1229, without Templar aid, but held it only briefly. In 1244, the Khwarezmi Turks recaptured Jerusalem, and the city did not return to Western control until 1917 when the British captured it from the Ottoman Turks.[17]
The Templars were forced to relocate their headquarters to other cities in the north, such as the seaport of Acre, which they held for the next century. But they lost that, too, in 1291, followed by their last mainland strongholds, Tortosa (in what is now Syria), and Atlit. Their headquarters then moved to Limassol on the island of Cyprus,[18] and they also attempted to maintain a garrison on tiny Arwad Island, just off the coast from Tortosa. In 1300, there was some attempt to engage in coordinated military efforts with the Mongols[19] via a new invasion force at Arwad. In 1302 or 1303, however, the Templars lost the island to the Egyptian Mamluks in the Siege of Arwad. With the island gone, the Crusaders lost their last foothold in the Holy Land.[13][20]
With the Order's military mission now less important, support for the organization began to dwindle. The situation was complex though, as over the two hundred years of their existence, the Templars had become a part of daily life throughout Christendom.[21] The organization's Templar Houses, hundreds of which were dotted throughout Europe and the Near East, gave them a widespread presence at the local level.[2] The Templars still managed many businesses, and many Europeans had daily contact with the Templar network, such as by working at a Templar farm or vineyard, or using the Order as a bank in which to store personal valuables. The Order was still not subject to local government, making it everywhere a "state within a state"—its standing army, though it no longer had a well-defined mission, could pass freely through all borders. This situation heightened tensions with some European nobility, especially as the Templars were indicating an interest in founding their own monastic state, just as the Teutonic Knights had done in Prussia[14] and the Knights Hospitaller were doing with Rhodes.[22]
[edit] Arrests and dissolution
King Philip IV of France (1268–1314)
In 1305, the new Pope Clement V, based in France, sent letters to both the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay and the Hospitaller Grand Master Fulk de Villaret to discuss the possibility of merging the two Orders. Neither was amenable to the idea, but Pope Clement persisted, and in 1306 he invited both Grand Masters to France to discuss the matter. De Molay arrived first in early 1307, but de Villaret was delayed for several months. While waiting, De Molay and Clement discussed charges that had been made two years prior by an ousted Templar. It was generally agreed that the charges were false, but Clement sent King Philip IV of France a written request for assistance in the investigation. King Philip was already deeply in debt to the Templars from his war with the English and decided to seize upon the rumors for his own purposes. He began pressuring the Church to take action against the Order, as a way of freeing himself from his debts.[23]
On Friday, October 13, 1307 (a date sometimes linked with the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition)[24][25] Philip ordered de Molay and scores of other French Templars to be simultaneously arrested. The arrest warrant started with the phrase : "Dieu n'est pas content, nous avons des ennemis de la foi dans le Royaume" (free translation " God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom").[26] The Templars were charged with numerous offences (including apostasy, idolatry, heresy, obscene rituals and homosexuality, financial corruption and fraud, and secrecy).[27] Many of the accused confessed to these charges under torture, and these confessions, even though obtained under duress, caused a scandal in Paris. All interrogations were recorded on a thirty meter long parchment, kept at the "Archives nationales" in Paris. The prisoners were coerced to confess that they had spat on the Cross : "Moi Raymond de La Fère, 21 ans, reconnais que (J'ai) craché trois fois sur la Croix, mais de bouche et pas de coeur" (free translation : "I, Raymond de La Fère, 21 years old, admit that I have spit three times on the Cross, but only from my mouth and not from my heart". The Templars were accused of idolatry. The parchment mentions a red, monochromatic image of a man on linen or cotton, qualified as an idol by the interrogators. This suggests the presence of the Shroud of Turin. In 1307 few people knew of its whereabouts. After the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the Shroud, that had been in the possession of the Emperor, disappeared for about one century. It reappeared in the small town of Lirey, in the Champagne region of France around the years 1353 to 1357 in the possession of Geoffroy de Charny and later in Chambéry in the possession of the Duke of Savoy [26][28]
After more bullying from Philip, Pope Clement then issued the papal bull Pastoralis Praeeminentiae on November 22, 1307, which instructed all Christian monarchs in Europe to arrest all Templars and seize their assets.[29]
Pope Clement called for papal hearings to determine the Templars' guilt or innocence, and once freed of the Inquisitors' torture, many Templars recanted their confessions. Some had sufficient legal experience to defend themselves in the trials, but in 1310 Philip blocked this attempt, using the previously forced confessions to have dozens of Templars burned at the stake in Paris.[30][31]
Convent of Christ in Castle Tomar, Portugal. Built in 1160 as a stronghold for the Knights Templar, it became the headquarters of the renamed Order of Christ. In 1983, it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[32]
With Philip threatening military action unless the Pope complied with his wishes, Pope Clement finally agreed to disband the Order, citing the public scandal that had been generated by the confessions. At the Council of Vienne in 1312, he issued a series of papal bulls, including Vox in excelso, which officially dissolved the Order, and Ad providam, which turned over most Templar assets to the Hospitallers.[33]
As for the leaders of the Order, the elderly Grand Master Jacques de Molay, who had confessed under torture, retracted his statement. His associate Geoffrey de Charney, Preceptor of Normandy, followed de Molay's example and insisted on his innocence. Both men were declared guilty of being relapsed heretics, and they were sentenced to burn alive at the stake in Paris on March 18, 1314. De Molay reportedly remained defiant to the end, asking to be tied in such a way that he could face the Notre Dame Cathedral and hold his hands together in prayer.[34] According to legend, he called out from the flames that both Pope Clement and King Philip would soon meet him before God. His actual words were recorded on the parchment as follows : "Dieu sait qui a tort et a pëché. Il va bientot arriver malheur à ceux qui nous ont condamnés à mort" (free translation : "God knows who is wrong and has sinned. Soon a calamity will occur to those who have condemned us to death").[26] Pope Clement died only a month later, and King Philip died in a hunting accident before the end of the year.[35]
With the last of the Order's leaders gone, the remaining Templars around Europe were either arrested and tried under the Papal investigation (with virtually none convicted), absorbed into other military orders such as the Knights Hospitaller, or pensioned and allowed to live out their days peacefully. Some may have fled to other territories outside Papal control, such as excommunicated Scotland or to Switzerland. Templar organizations in Portugal simply changed their name, from Knights Templar to Knights of Christ – see Order of Christ (Portugal).[36]
[edit] Chinon Parchment
In 2001, a document known as the "Chinon Parchment" was found in the Vatican Secret Archives, apparently after having been filed in the wrong place in 1628. It is a record of the trial of the Templars and shows that Clement absolved the Templars of all heresies in 1308 before formally disbanding the Order in 1312. [37]
It is currently the Roman Catholic Church position that the medieval persecution of the Knights Templar was unjust; that there was nothing inherently wrong with the Order or its Rule; and that Pope Clement was pressured into his actions by the magnitude of the public scandal and the dominating influence of King Philip IV.[38][39]
[edit] Organization
Templar chapel from the 12th C. in Metz, France. Once part of the Templar commandery of Metz, the oldest Templar institution of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Templars were organized as a monastic order similar to Bernard's Cistercian Order, which was considered the first effective international organisation in Europe.[40] The organizational structure had a strong chain of authority. Each country with a major Templar presence (France, England, Aragon, Portugal, Poitou, Apulia, Jerusalem, Tripoli, Antioch, Anjou, Hungary, and Croatia)[41] had a Master of the Order for the Templars in that region. All of them were subject to the Grand Master, appointed for life, who oversaw both the Order's military efforts in the East and their financial holdings in the West. No precise numbers exist, but it is estimated that at the Order's peak there were between 15,000 and 20,000 Templars, of whom about a tenth were actual knights.[1][2]
It was Bernard de Clairvaux and founder Hugues de Payens who devised the specific code of behavior for the Templar Order, known to modern historians as the Latin Rule. Its 72 clauses defined the ideal behavior for the Knights, such as the types of garments they were to wear and how many horses they could have. Knights were to take their meals in silence, eat meat no more than three times per week, and not have physical contact of any kind with women, even members of their own family. A Master of the Order was assigned "4 horses, and one chaplain-brother and one clerk with three horses, and one sergeant brother with two horses, and one gentleman valet to carry his shield and lance, with one horse."[42] As the Order grew, more guidelines were added, and the original list of 72 clauses was expanded to several hundred in its final form.[43][44]
There was a threefold division of the ranks of the Templars: the aristocratic knights, the lower-born sergeants, and the clergy. Knights were required to be of knightly descent and to wear white mantles. They were equipped as heavy cavalry, with three or four horses and one or two squires. Squires were generally not members of the Order but were instead outsiders who were hired for a set period of time. Beneath the knights in the Order and drawn from lower social strata were the sergeants.[45] They were either equipped as light cavalry with a single horse[46] or served in other ways such as administering the property of the Order or performing menial tasks and trades. Chaplains, constituting a third Templar class, were ordained priests who saw to the Templars' spiritual needs.[47]
Templar building at Saint Martin des Champs, France
The knights wore a white surcoat with a red cross and a white mantle; the sergeants wore a black tunic with a red cross on front and back and a black or brown mantle.[48][49] The white mantle was assigned to the Templars at the Council of Troyes in 1129, and the cross was most probably added to their robes at the launch of the Second Crusade in 1147, when Pope Eugenius III, King Louis VII of France, and many other notables attended a meeting of the French Templars at their headquarters near Paris.[50][51][52] According to their Rule, the knights were to wear the white mantle at all times, even being forbidden to eat or drink unless they were wearing it.[53]
Initiation,[54] known as Reception (receptio) into the Order, was a profound commitment and involved a solemn ceremony. Outsiders were discouraged from attending the ceremony, which aroused the suspicions of medieval inquisitors during the later trials.
New members had to willingly sign over all of their wealth and goods to the Order and take vows of poverty, chastity, piety, and obedience.[55] Most brothers joined for life, although some were allowed to join for a set period. Sometimes a married man was allowed to join if he had his wife's permission,[49] but he was not allowed to wear the white mantle.[56]
The red cross that the Templars wore on their robes was a symbol of martyrdom, and to die in combat was considered a great honor that assured a place in heaven.[57] There was a cardinal rule that the warriors of the Order should never surrender unless the Templar flag had fallen, and even then they were first to try to regroup with another of the Christian orders, such as that of the Hospitallers. Only after all flags had fallen were they allowed to leave the battlefield.[58] This uncompromising principle, along with their reputation for courage, excellent training, and heavy armament, made the Templars one of the most feared combat forces in medieval times.[59]
End of Wikipedia posting.
The stories about the KT treasures are a great read, but you must remember, they are just stories. Yes it is proven that there were KT members that visited the North American continent, some are even buried in Eastern Canada and the East Coast of the U.S. When the KT visited the U.S. and Canada, there is no proof they brought anything with them (as in treasure). If they did, why not bury it in Vineland, where the established Viking villages were. The most likely place anything would have been buried was in upstate New York, Massachusetts, or even Nova Scotia. No sense hauling the all over the place.
More than likely, the only thing brought over by the KT to the North American continent was them selves, as an advance force to stake claims on the land.
Since many people feel Wikipedia is not considered a reliable source, if requested I can post other links: i.e. book titles and pages, links to research papers, and historical sites, and the Catholic Church Archives (all original sources) that all state the same info as Wikipedia.
By the way, I have several members of my distant relatives that were KT then KH members. We have genealogy and researched family history (three books - about 22,000 pages), the parts about these relatives says virtually the same as what Wikipedia says, these books were published in the late 1980's.
If you need help researching anything about the KT, let me know. I am a trained researcher and investigator, did it for professionally for over 18 yrs, then for personal and friends projects since 2004.
Right now I am researching the codes used by the forces of the Civil War, the KGC, Copperheads, Sons of Liberty, and the rest of the subversive groups. I already know most of the coding methods used, have copies of actual coded communications, and documented proof of who used what codes, when and who the messages were sent to or were for.
As for the Persher code, it was used by some KGC members in the latter part of the groups existence, the name was given to an actual code used that was known by another name for several hundred years that originated in Europe. The code was used on occasion by the CSS members/spies/scouts, it was altered slightly and given new characters for use by the KGC. The Federal Signal Corp of the North was able to decipher all the coded used by the Confederate forces as well as the CSS, KGC, and the subsequent subversive forces.
The only codes the KGC used from Europe were from the periods well after the KGC. Only one KGC code is similar to the codes used by the KT, the Ceasar Cipher. The rest of the codes used by the North, South, KGC, and other subversive groups were from the mid 1400's and later.
Don't want to burst anyone's bubble, but you need to do thorough research before you can truly understand the motives behind a group and their actions. Mis-information is the greatest danger to a persons life, it leads to dangerous situations. Once you understand the group, then you can decode/decipher the meanings of the signs/symbols/maps they leave behind. The only groups that consistently used/followed the same codes, are the Ancients and the Spanish. The South/KGC would code a message, but the code changed throughout the message. The code was the same, just the frequency of the code would change.
Also, the KGC used a code that the north developed, the KGC modified it slightly and they had a very secure code, not many could understand. The South/CSS was never able to decode/decipher the primary code used by the North during the Civil War.
Thanks