The Freemasons and the Knights Templar

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A Knight Templar

The Masons were also connected to a mysterious order known as the Knights Templar. These knights were monks who, in 1118, took up arms in order to protect Christian pilgrims traveling from Jaffa (a port city in Israel (in English)) to Jerusalem. According to legend, the Knights Templar discovered the greatest treasure in history, buried under the ruins of the temple of King Solomon. The Knights became so rich that became the envy and suspicion. In 1307, King Philip 4th of France ordered the arrest of all Templars, so that he could take possession of his immense wealth. What happened to the Templars after his arrest remains a mystery, but some say they went into hiding and do their work in secret, resurfacing in Europe in the 18th century as the modern Freemasons. There is even a theory that the Templars, in his desire for revenge against King Philip 4th, influenced the onset of the French Revolution.

Stories like these tend to lend a dramatic history of the Freemasons, but the most plausible explanation for the origin of brotherhood can be found in the Middle Ages. At the time, the kings and churches of England, Scotland and France hired masons to build great castles and cathedrals. At the time, there were two types of masons. Those who worked with ordinary stones were known as "ordinary masons," and that more complex forms carved in stones less harsh, were known as free masons, or "free masons", two words that have combined in the term "freemason" designating English Freemasonry. Masons enjoyed a kind of monopoly, due to their specialized capabilities, and wanted to preserve this situation. Established trade guilds to discuss their profession and fair payment for their work, and established stores in which they could eat (in English) and store their tools. And developed secret handshakes, code words and other signs that they might be distinguished from ordinary masons.