The Templar legacy has grown beyond their medieval military role and the name has become synonymous with the occult, conspiracies, the Holy Grail and the Freemasons. But these are all false narratives — fantastical, but misleading. This order was created by King Diniz in with Papal permission due to the prominent role the Templars played in establishing the kingdom of Portugal. This site uses cookies.
Click here to view our cookie policy message. News News Knights Templar: still loved by conspiracy theorists years on Knights Templar still loved by conspiracy theorists years on. Patrick Masters delves into the story of the legendary Templars separating fact from fiction. What is sharing? Appropriation of a legend The suppression of the Templars meant that there was nobody to safeguard their legacy. Modern-day myth Modern fiction continues to draw upon the widespread mysteries and fanciful theories.
Find the Film and Television course for you. Some even claim the Freemasons are directly descended from members of the order who took refuge in Scotland, aided by Robert the Bruce. But no historical evidence has been found to support this theory. Assassin's Creed the film creates the new character of Callum Lynch and follows a storyline set during the Spanish Inquisition — neither of which exist in the videogames.
Lynch is forced to recall and relive the life of his ancestor, Aguilar de Nerha, an Assassin operating in 15th-century Spain during the time of the religious trials.
There is no historical evidence of any of the Order of Assassins being present in the country during this time — but the Templars are another matter. History shows that most countries complied with Pope Clement V's orders to dissolve the organisation, seizing the group's land.
But in Spain, the Knights were still powerful, having been key to the success of the regime. The problem of their dissolution was solved by the creation of two new orders, the Order of Montesa and the Order of Christ, which many Templars joined as a way of retaining their lands and wealth. The video game portrays heavily fictionalised versions of both orders. In the games, the Assassins are portrayed as having expanded beyond their Levantine borders and existing throughout recorded history, along with their nemeses, the Knights Templars.
Creed also represents the orders as basically philosophical, rather than as religious in nature, stating that they predate the Muslim and Christian faiths. This has allowed the game world to expand their respective "histories" across time, both before and after their actual historical time-frames. Skip to header Skip to main content Skip to footer. Home News World News. In Depth. Assassin's Creed: What did we learn from the trailer?
Do the Templars exist today? Borgia sent his best killers to break the armistice. The Italian Assassins killed the Borgia guards before they left Rome. The Assassins and the Templars fought openly regularly in the streets to control the Assassin's dens. The Assassins thwarted the Templars plan by infiltrating the party and killing the Templar agents.
Auditore killed Barleti on the order of Suleiman but discovered his mistake. The dying Janissary gave to the Assassin the Templars' location in Cappadocia to finish his work. In March , Auditore arrived at the underground city of Derinkuyu where the Templars preprared the conquest of Constantinople. The Mentor killed the Templar Shahkulu , [] , destroyed the Byzantine gunpowder stock [] and killed Manuel Palaiologos, recovering the last Masyaf Keys.
The Assassins attacked the Harbor of Theodosius where the Templars took refuge. Auditore confronted Ahmet but the Templar convinced him to give the keys against Sartor's life.
The two groups fought and Auditore saved Sartor. Auditore and Sartor followed him in a carriage. The Assassin took back the keys and while he was deciding if he must spare the Templar's life, the new Sultan Selim arrived and killed his brother, ending the return of the Byzantines. The Assassins poisoned the Portuguese commanders, leading to the depart of Cabral.
Assassins in Lisbon discovered his plan and infiltrated the fleet to warn their brethren in India. On 1 November , Vasco prepared the bombardment of Calicut. The Assassins cleared their guild before the attack, hiding relics, documents, and their families. In , the Templar captain Francisco was in charge of the Order's overseas proselytizing, sending Templars as missionaries in India and diverting King Manuel's money to their cause.
The Assassins discovered their actions, stole the money, and killed Francisco. In , the two factions fought to control the cities of the Mediterranean Sea , the Mentor Ezio Auditore sending his Ottoman apprentices to help their brethren. The Brotherhood hid its presence, recruited French soldier in their ranks, and killed the Templar advisors. The Assassins saved him and killed the Templars in the city.
In Bursa , the Templars held hostage the third son of the Sultan, Korkut. The Assassins killed the Templars and saved him. The Assassins saved the family and killed the philanthropist. The Assassins killed the Templars leader in Athens. In Tunis , the Templars bribed the Hafsid King Muhammad IV to keep local goods from coming to market, and only Templar approved merchants were allowed to peddle their wares openly.
The Assassins stole the bribes and redistributed them. The Assassins protected the farmers and killed the extortionists. The Assassins killed the ministers, dissuading others to accept Templar bribes. In the Mamluks Sultanate, the Templars targets the Assassins.
The Templars attacked the Assassins and stole the two artifacts. After Margaret's death, the Templars urged the people to rise against Henry's throne. The Assassins killed all but one of the Templar who revealed the presence of the Templars in the Star Chamber.
The Templars launched a massive attack against the Assassins and executed their leader Fang Xiaoru. On 12 August , Li Tong assassinated the emperor who attempted to suppress an uprising near the Gobi Desert. They took the opportunity to eliminate the Chinese Brotherhood in Beijing , repelling them from the Forbidden City.
First reluctant, the former Assassin trained Jun and fought with her the Templar agents. In , Jun returned to China and reconnected with Yangming who was reinstated as Mentor. A year later, the Tigers forced the Empress Zhang , Jun's former friend, to set a trap to the Assassin. Becoming the new Mentor, Jun rebuilt the Brotherhood. In , she ordered the assassination of the Jiajing Emperor, making him believed he drank the Elixir of life while it was, in fact, mercury, killing him.
In , a group of Templars known as the Brothers of the Cross was in the German city of Essen which was hit by the plague. As the group promised his protection against the disease, the German Assassin Lukas Zurburg investigated as he believed they had the Ankh , a fable Piece of Eden. In , the Brothers of the Cross and Zurburg disappeared. While hiding the Sword in the Temple, the Templar Pierre Cauchon charged Jeanne with sorcery and condemned her to be burned at the stake.
On 30 May , the Assassins saved Jeanne, the former prostitute Fleur willingly taking her place on the stake. Jeanne granted her the Heart to give her strength. The Assassins abducted them and sent them before Emperor Maximilian who cut his funding to the Borgia. The Assassins stole the money and donated anonymously the money to Frederick to construct the University. They captured an Assassin who discovered their plan against the Orsini.
As the Templars targeted the religious reformist Desiderius Erasmus , the Assassins saved him and discovered about their brother captivity. The Assassins eliminated them and tried to save their brother. A retired Ezio sent his apprentices Giovanni Borgia and Hiram Stoddard in Florence to recover the artifact but they failed.
Later, the Brotherhood recovered the artifact. Giovanni killed him and fled with Maria in the woods where Templars attacked them. Giovanni succeeded to drive them off. On 19 November, the Assassins killed Ivanovich but his death was recorded as an act of anger of his father. With the Age of Discovery , the two factions established guilds and rites to assure their presence in this unexplored area, sometimes allying or fighting the indigenous populations.
After the rule of the Borgia, the Templars were more focused on educated the ruling class than took the power themselves while the encounter between Ezio and Minerva pushed the Assassins to search more about the Isu and their artifacts. As he refused, the Assassins shot him with poisoned arrows. By , the Spanish Assassin Gonzalo Pardo was sent to infiltrate the army of the Templar puppet Francisco Pizarro , becoming one of the favorite conquistador's killer. Pizarro captured the Inca Emperor Atahualpa and executed him.
As Pardo failed his mission to save the Emperor, he began to drink. However, Cusi's daughter-in-law Quila uncovered the conspiracy. With Pardo's aid, she stopped Cusi who was killed by the Assassin. In , the Assassins killed Pizarro in his palace in Lima. By , the Templar and Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier set his sights on Japan , seeing an opportunity to spread both Christianity and Templar influence on the island. However, the Templars' attempts to find new recruits were frequently hindered by the constant wars between clans, as well as their hostility toward outsiders.
The Templars were also heavily opposed by the Japanese Assassins , who worked to prevent the spread of their influence in Japan and recruited individuals among the ranks of the ninja and samurai. Through Chiyome, the Templars gained a vast information network that helped spread their philosophy throughout Japan. The Templar magistrate William Stoughton who conducted the trials encouraged the Salem townsfolk to hunt and kill the Assassins.
As Stoughton wanted to create other precursors' oracle, Osborne sacrificed herself in the flame. The Templars needed him to open the Observatory , a complex constructed by Aita to see through the eyes of anyone by using a Crystal Skull and Blood vials.
Later, the Assassins let Kavanagh left the hideout even if he refused to lead them to the Observatory. On his journey to Havana , Walpole was killed by the pirate Edward Kenway who impersonated the Assassin-turncoat and sold the information on the Assassin hideouts to the Templars, permitting them to attack the Brotherhood headquarters in the Caribbean [] As the Templars captured the Aita Sage Bartholomew Roberts , the Assassins tried to rescue him in the streets of Havana but they were repealed by the Templars.
Later, Kenway became the captain of his own ship the Jackdaw [] and killed the Templar Julien du Casse , taking his hideout in Great Inagua. In , the Templar ally and slaver Laurens Prins led an attack on Tulum.
Kenway aided the Assassin to repeal the guards and became a hitman for the Brotherhood even if he searched the Observatory for himself. He entrusted the artifact to the pirate Alonzo Batilla who later gave it to the pirate Olivier Levasseur.
As the Templar Woodes Rogers tried to recover it in , Batilla attacked the Templar ship to give enough time to Levasseur to escape with the Fragment. Roberts took the Crystal Skull and betrayed Kenway, sending in Kingston 's prison. In , the Templars interrogated Kenway but he refused to give the location of the Observatory. He stabbed Rogers who gave him the location of Roberts. Ah Tabai returned the Crystal Skull in the Observatory and tasked Assassins to protect the place until the arrival of a new Sage.
In , Edward Kenway returned in Bristol to kill the Templar who attacked his family farm a decade ago. He killed his former father-in-law Emmett Scott and Wilson who were Templars. As he was about to burn alive Matthew Hague , the son of the Templar Aubrey Hague , Kenway received a pardon from the Prime Minister Robert Walpole who also assigned him as his senior assistant Reginald Birch , who was, in fact, a Templar.
For years, Birch tried to recover Kenway's journal which contained information on the Grand Temple. Birch even courted Edward's daughter Jennifer Scott and interrogating Edward's young son Haytham to discover the journal location. On 3 December , Birch sent mercenaries to raid the Kenway Mansion , killing Edward and recovering the journal.
Jennifer was captured and sent to Damascus as a slave while Birch trained Haytham to become a Templar. Using it to decipher the Voynich manuscript , Mackandal located an Isu Temple in Port-au-Prince and sent his apprentice Vendredi to investigate the place.
The Assassin triggered the Seismic Temple , creating an earthquake , and Vendredi was trapped in the Temple. The Colonial Master Templar Lawrence Washington , who had followed the Assassin, proposed to help him if he gave the location of Mackandal's camp.
Vendredi accepted but was killed by Washington who infiltrated the camp and stole the box and the manuscript. Shortly later, Washington was killed by the Colonial Assassin Shay Cormac [] and two years later, Cormac assassinated Smith [] and Wardrop recovering the two artifacts for the Mentor Achilles Davenport.
In , Haytham went in Corsica to kidnap the young rebel Lucio Albertine who could decipher his father's journal. Albertine was protected by the leader of the British Assassin Miko.
Haytham defeated him and brought Albertine to the then Grand Master Birch. Haytham was sent to the British colonies to find the Grand Temple. Aboard the Providence , the Templar was followed by the Assassin Louis Mills who threw painted cargo overboard permitting to the Colonial Assassins' flagship the Aquila to track them. Haytham killed Mills and the Providence escaped from the Assassins by passing in a storm. During the Seven Years' War , the Assassins sided with the French and their natives' allies while the Templars aligned with the British Empire to unify the colonies.
By , Shay Cormac was left for dead by the Assassins after he stole the Voynich manuscript to impeach them to find other Seismic temples as he accidentally triggered the Lisbon earthquake. During the argument, the Assassins accidentally triggered the Temple. During the earthquake, O'Brien died from a fall and Cormac recovered the manuscript while Kenway spared Davenport's life to warn the Assassins about the Seismic Temples. Before leaving, the Grand Master shot the Mentor in the leg, crippling him for life.
During the following years, Cormac searched the Precursor box through the world while the Templars continued the purge of the Assassin in the colonies. In , Kenway led an attack on the Assassin headquarters in the Davenport Homestead. The Templars spared Davenport's life on the condition that he spent the rest of his life in exile at the Homestead.
In , Aveline uncovered the slaves traffic of the Company Man. She killed the Templars' puppet governor Jean-Jacques Blaise d'Abbadie [] and Baptiste, who planned to poison the nobles of New Orleans to begin a slave revolt.
Aveline provoked the Louisiana Rebellion , obliging the Templar to leave the city. The Assassin spared his life against information on the Templars plan. At the same period, de L'Isle tasked Aveline to save the former slave George who secretly worked for the Templars. The dying Templar revealed the true nature of Aveline's step-mother. In , Aveline confronted de L'Isle who tried to convinced her to join the Templars.
Reunited at the Saint-Louis Cathedral, Aveline killed her step-mother and all the Rite during her induction ceremony. Completing the Prophecy Disk with the Heart of the Brotherhood, she saw the record of Eve's election as leader of Human rebellion. During the American Revolution , the Templars tried to make the British colonies independent of the Crown through negotiation and manipulation to have their own state.
The young boy became the new apprentice of the old Mentor Achilles Davenport, taking the name of Connor to operate among the colonists. As Kenway and Connor tracked Church, the father and the son decided to make a truce between the faction leading to the death of Church.
Connor helped the Patriots during the Battle of Monmouth and exposed Lee's treason to Washington, who passed the Templar in the court-martial. The Grand Master let Connor killed him as he couldn't murder his own son. Later, Juno contacted him and tasked him to hide the Key, something he hid, secreted it in the tomb of his Mentor's son, Connor Davenport. In , Connor tried to induce the former slave Patience Gibbs but she fled and was captured by the Templar Doctor Edmund Judge who wanted to recover her mother's charm , a Piece of Eden.
At the dust of the 18th century, the two factions evolved to have a different impact on society. The Templars, who were trapped in the titles of nobility and the offices Church and State, reformed to use Capitalism to control the masses in the shadows, becoming industrialists and economists. On the other hand, the Assassins developed a sense of social duty, helping directly the common people rather than only eliminating oppressors. Even when Dorian was assassinated by the Templar Shay Cormac to recover the Precursor box, the Grand Master adopted the Assassin's son Arno and raise him as his own without inducted him into the Order.
Growing up, the two began to have a romantic relationship. Even with the death of Mister de la Serre, Mirabeau maintained the truce with Germain's faction, preventing the Assassins to target Templars. During the Women's March on Versailles , the radical Templars infiltrated the protesters to incite violence against the royal family.
On 4 January , the Assassin Council ended the truce with the Templars. Arno, who became an Assassin after he failed to deliver the letter which could warn Mister de la Serre, was tasked to investigated de la Serre's murder.
Even if Mirabeau was agreed to ally with the young Templar, the other members of the Council disagreed, especially Arno's master Pierre Bellec. When Arno discovered the truth, he confronted his master who proposed to join him to rebuild the Brotherhood. As Arno refused, the two Assassin fought, leading to Bellec's death.
During summer , the radial Templar Flavigny organized the hoarding of the foods arriving in Paris, inciting the mobs to be violent. After rescuing her from Flavigny's men, they worked together to localize the foods and the Assassins killed Flavigny.
During the 10 August , the radical Templars led an attack on the Tuileries Palace. As the Council feared the Templars recovered Mirabeau's correspondence with the king Louis XVI , indicating locations and secret of the Brotherhood, Arno was tasked to destroy the letters. Furious that the Sage escaped, the young Templar broke her partnership with the Assassin.
Germain placed one of his lieutenant Maximilien de Robespierre at the head of Committee of Public Safety , launching the Reign of Terror against the enemies of the French Republic.
When the Girondists were arrested in July , the Assassins saved some of them and smuggled them out of Paris. Paton became a member of the Brotherhood and his notes permitted to identify Templars. The Assassins killed Roux after a failing attempt. The orator refused as he knew that Robespierre's reputation will die with him. As his last wish, Danton tasked the Assassins to protect his friends from the Templars. Arno finished the Sage but in his last breath, the Templar affirmed that his death wouldn't change his plan to reshape humanity.
In , ten years after the Saint-Domingue Assassins began the Haitian Revolution to free the slaves, the Templar Jean-Louis Villatte declared himself governor of the island. He was deposed and replaced by the Assassin and general Toussaint Louverture.
He killed Bolden and imprisoned Graff with Olier. During three years, Olier trained Graff to become a Black Cross and sacrificed his life, permitting Graff to escape the prison. After Ahkbar killed Selim to take the diamond, the Templar confronted him. Even if the Assassin turncoat used the power of the diamond to trick the Templar, Graff saw through the illusion and killed him. When the Libyan Assassins arrived, the Black Cross lured them saying he wasn't a Templar and only wanted to take revenge on Ahkbar.
He gave them an empty box, keeping the Koh-i-Noor for the Templars. With the help of his servant Raza Soora , Mir infiltrated the palace and enter in contact with Singh's granddaughter Pyara Kaur. Horrified, Cotton shot on the artifact, shattering it. An energy blast was released, creating a projection of a tiger that killed Cotton.
After this, the reconstructed diamond was entrusted to Hamid and Mir and Kaur became lovers. In , Cotton was succeeded by William Sleeman , a Templar who suppressed the Thuggee believing they had a connection with the Assassins.
Mir freed his Mentor and followed Sleeman in Tosha Khana. As Mir dodged Sleeman's bullet, the Isu ruins collapsed while the two men fled. While the citadel of Herat was attacked by Afghans, Mir followed Sleeman in the Isu Temple and arrived before him to the vault pedestal. Mir infiltrated the palace and confronted Sleeman during the exchange, Kaur stabbed the Templar, permitting the Assassin to flee with her and the Koh-i-Noor while Sleeman kept the precursor box.
The Templars sent Duvernay in prison but he was freed by the Assassins. The Templar agent was knocked out by Duvernay's associate Larose. By the s, without the presence of the Assassins for over a century in London, the British Templars controlled all the city. He also hired the criminal Maxwell Roth to form the Blighters , a Templar-affiliate gang, to control the streets of London.
As a lesser punishment, Jayaddeep was sent to London by his master Ethan Frye to spy on the Templars. The Assassins failed to recover the artifact but Cavanagh was killed by the Templar Marchant on the order of Starrcik as the Templar planned to overthrow him with the Apple. In February , the Apple was entrusted to the Templar scientist David Brewster who studied it in his lab in Croydon , a city under the control of the industrialist Templar Rupert Ferris.
After Frye died of illness, his twin children Jacob and Evie were sent to kill Ferris and Brewster and to recover the Apple. Without the permission of the Council, the twins Frye went to London and joined their forces with Jayadeep. They founded their gang the Rooks to fight the Blighters and killed their Templar leaders convincing the Blighters to join their ranks.
For this, the Queen Victoria knighted the three Assassins. After the death of their Grand Master, the Templars in London were divided into many factions trying to take the control of the city. One of these factions organized the assassination of the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and the bombing of Westminster but the Fryes foiled their plans.
Ellsworth planned to assassinate his childhood friend, the former Maharaja Duleep Singh as he tried to claim his throne to restore Punjab independence. During the American Civil War , the Templars profited from the political chaos to regain power in the United States, manipulating the Confederate States , while the Assassins tried to end the war. Tweed was the boss of the Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party political machine in the city.
On 13 July , the Templars orchestrated the New York City draft riots to discredit the Mayor and the Governor to take control of the city. During these events, Varius, the only Assassin operating in the city, infiltrated the Aztec Club of to steal the Prong of Faith and give it to the General Ulysses S.
Grant to end the war. The Templar Cudgel Cormac confronted the Assassin and used the artifact to defeat him. As he was about to finish the Assassin, Cormac was paralyzed with his air rifle by Eliza , Tweed's servant who discovered his Templar plots. Later, Varius inducted Eliza into the Brotherhood and she entrusted the prong to Grant. On 14 April , near the end of the war, the Templar puppet and actor John Wilkes Booth shot the president Abraham Lincoln , who died the next morning.
The Assassins tracked Booth and killed him the 26 April.
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