When the Templar order was crushed in 1307 by the King of France and his puppet Pope Clement, the Grail was believed to have been spirited away. Their mission had then been accomplished and they were to be the eternal keepers of the cup that Jesus used at the Last Supper. It’s widely assumed they discovered the Holy Grail and became its guardians. They began digging furiously under the temple to find sacred treasure. The knights called themselves the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon – or Templars for short. Because that’s what they believed it actually was – the site of the biblical king’s palace. When the holy city was under crusader control, the mosque was taken over by the Templars and renamed the Temple of Solomon. It was no accident that they chose to be based on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in what we now call the Al Aqsa mosque. But, many believe, that wasn’t their real mission. The Templars were formed in 1118 ostensibly to protect pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land. The man we have to thank for making this connection is a medieval German writer Wolfram von Eschenbach. For 800 years, people have been thrilled by the idea that the Knights Templar were the brave guardians of the Holy Grail.
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