Can You Master This Quiz on the Knights Templar?

The Knights Templar were officially dissolved in 1312 after Philip IV pressuredi Pope Clement V to withdraw his support. Many of the order’s assets were given to the Knight Hospitallers, a Catholic military order who oversaw hospitals during the Crusades. After the Crusaders’ withdrawal from the Holy Land, the Hospitallers set up a Christian outpost on the Greek island of Rhodes.

After the fall of the city of Acre in 1291, the Crusaders no longer held any strongholds in the Holy Land, so the Templars returned to France. The order’s great wealth and influence was a threat to King Philip IV and he was determined to destroy the order. Many Templars were arrested in 1307 and accused of heresy.

The Templars were often described as “monk-warriors,” but although they followed the Cistercian rules, they were not monks. Templars promised to abide by the Cistercian rules of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and this meant living a pious and austere life. They wore simple clothes with no finery, ate meat only three times a week, and attended chapel daily.

A Papal Bull issued by Pope Innocent II in 1139 granted the Knights Templar a number of special rights, reflecting their importance to the Crusades. One of the most controversial exemptions ensured that Templars did not have to pay any tax. The Bull also allowed them to build their own oratories and specified that they were under the authority of the pope and no one else.

The Templars had a strict code of conduct that reflected their monk-like vow to maintain a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The long list of rules covered everything from eating to clothing to sleeping — but growing facial hair was not one of the banned activities. Any knight who broke a minor rule might be punished by being forced to eat his meal on the floor, but a knight could be thrown out of the order for breaking a major rule.

Assassin's Creed is a hugely popular video game series that launched in 2007. The original game is set during the Third Crusade (1189-1192) and features the elite Muslim fighters known as “Assasins” pitted against their enemies, the Knights Templar. The story is fictionalized and the two groups are portrayed as fighting for philosophical rather than religious motives.

The Templars were divided into two classes: the aristocratic knight brothers, who acted as military leaders, and the sergeants who came from the lower classes. Only the knights were permitted to wear the distinctive Templar uniform: a white habit with a red cross emblazoned on the front. The sergeants, who acted as soldiers and servants for the order, wore simple black habits.

During the Crusades to the Holy Land, many Christians donated vast sums of money to the Templars in lieu of actually going to battle themselves. As a result, the Templars became extremely wealthy, owning large land-holdings across Europe. The Templars began acting as bankers so Crusaders could deposit money in Europe and withdraw it in Jerusalem. They also collected taxes on behalf of the pope and the French king.

In 1118, a French knight named Hugues de Payens set up a military order that became known as the Knights Templar. The original aim was to protect Christian pilgrims crossing Muslim-controlled territories to reach the Holy Land of Jerusalem. Their headquarters were in Jerusalem's sacred Temple Mount, from which the Templars got their name.

The Holy Grail, said to be the cup that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper, was believed to have magical properties and give eternal life. According to legend, the Templars found the grail in Temple Mount and kept it safely hidden for hundreds of years. Author Dan Brown built on this myth in his bestselling novel “The Da Vinci Code.”