The Freemasons

The Mysterious Roots of

Freemasonry
Hidden Truths of History’s Most
Notorious Secret Society

Conrad Bauer
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Contents
Introduction
In the Beginning
The Knights Templar
The Peasants’ Revolt
The Shadow Organization
Scottish Roots
Fugitives
The Birth of the Freemasons
Conclusion
Further Reading
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Introduction
Who really rules the world? According to some, there is a shadowy sect of
hidden men directing governments all around the world from behind the
scenes. These invisible puppet masters are tied into conspiracy theories
across the globe, taking in everything from the assassination of John F.
Kennedy to the attack on New York and beyond on September the 11 th ,
2001. Typically, if you trace the origin of these conspiracies back far
enough, you will come across one name. The Freemasons.

But who exactly are the Freemasons? Believe in the conspiracies and you
might well assume that they are responsible for every major geopolitical
decision and event that takes place throughout the world. But to others, they
are simply a sort of gentlemen’s club, a social group that does a lot of good
service work in the community. In this book, we take a different approach.

Where did the Freemasons come from? Here, we will examine links
between the Freemasons and another of history’s most famous
organizations, the Knights Templar. Could the Templars have laid the
foundation of the Freemasons? Did they set up the secret society to extract
revenge for their demise? Did they inspire an English rebellion simply to
destroy their enemies? Looking over the course of many centuries, we will
seek and reveal the evidence—should it exist—that demonstrates the links
between these two organizations.

Simply because they are so very secretive, people are liable to project their
beliefs onto the hidden group. But, in this book, we will try and focus only
on the facts. Sometimes, these facts can be far more shocking than the
theories or speculation. Read on and discover the secret truths of the ancient
Freemasons.

In the Beginning
One of the biggest mysteries surrounding the Freemasons is their origin.
For centuries now, people have argued back and forth about precisely when
the order was founded and by whom. There have been several competing
theories, many disproved notions, and some outright forgeries. The question
of origin is huge. While today we might have a current incarnation of the
Freemasons capable of operating entirely independently from the actions of
a secret society formed many centuries ago; some people believe that it is
the founding members of the order who provided the ideological foundation
—and thus the direction and objectives—of the Freemasons. If we want to
understand the Freemasons, we have to understand where they came from.
But that is not to say that we have to select a single theory and stick with it.
On the contrary, the origin stories of the Freemasons can be incredibly
helpful in our attempt to understand just why opinion about this order is so
fractured and controversial. The differences between the versions of origin
stories that people choose to believe will often reflect their inherent biases
and opinions. For example, those who believe that the Freemasons are a
continuation of the Knights Templar, might be more willing to believe that
the order still guards ancient secrets. On the other hand, those who believe
that the order was a gentleman’s club formed in the Eighteenth Century,
seem far less inclined toward the more controversial opinions of the
Masonic Order. Thus, by learning about all of the different origin stories,
we can begin to understand and get a grip on just why and how opinions
about the Freemasons can differ so widely.

So, by learning the history of the Freemasons, we can gather a unique

insight into how they function in the world today. That is to say, while not
every account of the historic order of the Freemasons is true, the fact that
these stories have formed part of public opinion of the order gives us some
measure of insight. By understanding those stories which are not true—as
well as those that are—we can form our own opinions and have a better,
more cohesive understanding. As ever, the truth invariably lies in the
middle ground; and the story of the Freemasons is often a shadowy,
clandestine narrative written in shades of grey. Without definitive heroes
and villains, some people can struggle to understand the reality of the
situation. Therefore, we must attempt to discover more about every single
aspect of the Masonic history, rather than just the highlights.

That is why it helps to start at the very beginning, however, when even the
age of the Order of the Freemasons is debated, telling the full and complete
story can be difficult. In cases such as this, it can help to take a
chronological approach. While the early history of the Masons often
involves entirely different groups of people, including those who will never
have heard of the name ‘Freemasons,’ learning about this background will
give us a greater understanding when the key players start to move into
place. Freemasonry did not emerge into the world fully formed. Instead,
establishment of the order (whenever this happened to be) was the result of
multiple forces and motions. World events conspired to lead to the founding
of the Freemasons and so—if we want to truly understand where the order
came from—we should try and understand this background in greater detail.
This means we will need to travel back hundreds of years, to a world much
changed from our modern society.

The story of Freemasonry is one of legends. For many years—centuries,

even—the Freemasons simply existed. Though many people knew that they
existed, there was little knowledge of where they had come from or what
had prompted their formation. That changed toward the end of the
Seventeenth Century, however. Masons at that time began to question their
own origin and began to investigate where they had come from. Over the
years, this historical inquiry began to include outsiders and those who were
either not involved or were suspicious of Masonry. As such, a more
complete, more rigorous, and historical profile of the group started to
emerge. But the details are still hotly contested. For the oldest verifiable
origins, we will have to go back to medieval times.

If you spend more than ten minutes researching the Masons on the internet,
you will come across one name over and over again—the Knights Templar.
As it happens, they are tightly wound into the story of the Masons.
However, this involvement is often disputed. What we do know, is that the
Knights Templar are credited with involvement in the formation of the
Freemasons. And whether it is true or not, since that theory is so
widespread, we should spend time learning about the Knights Templar, so
that we may better understand what it is about this group that makes people
so willing to tie them to the Masons and their history. The story of the
Knights Templar is complicated and disputed in its own right, but the
history is fascinating, nevertheless.

The Knights Templar

There have been hundreds, if not thousands of books written on the subject
of the Knights Templar. They captivate the imagination of the masses in a
way that few other organizations have, except perhaps the Freemasons.
Given that the two organizations are among the most famous and intriguing
of their type, it seems only natural that they should be linked. Furthermore,
the blending of the histories of the two organizations means that our story
will begin much further back in time. To discover the verifiable roots of the
Knights Templar, we must travel back to the turn of the previous
millennium.

The story begins with the Crusades. A Holy War fought between the
Catholic Church and the early iteration of Islam, the disagreement emerged
over the nature of the territory itself. To put it briefly (and to do a disservice
to the rich cultural heritage of the city), Jerusalem became a key
geopolitical issue. With both major religions laying claim to the area as
being sacred (as well as Judaism, another religion, doing the same), there
were frequent disagreements over who would control the city. For hundreds
of years, power had ebbed and flowed in the region. At the time when we
join the story, in 1095, Jerusalem was under the control of the Muslim
rulers.

Like many historical events, the situation was complicated. We won’t have
time with the scope of this book to go into the various political quarrels and
disagreements. For example, the original precept for the invasion of the
Holy Lands by the westerners was concerned with aiding the Byzantine
Emperor in repelling an attack by Seljuk Turks. Gradually, as the Papacy
and other key Western states became involved, that fight grew into a wider
campaign to retake Jerusalem and the surrounding areas, which had been
under Muslim control since the 7 th Century. Added to this, various power
struggles within the Western royal houses meant that certain rulers were
keen to launch military campaigns, others wished to endear themselves to
the church, and there were those who were convinced to join for other
political reasons or obligations.

Essentially, however, the Holy Lands—sometimes referred to as the Levant

—became a target for a newly formed Christian army. These Crusaders, as
they became known, made their way from Britain, France, Germany, and
Italy (as well as other states) via the land. Along the way, there were various
incidents, including one notable and savage attack on a Jewish community
in the Rhineland. The violence along the route would set the tone for the
eventual arrival in Jerusalem.

The First Crusade (there would be more to come) was handled like a true
military campaign. As the Crusaders made their way from city to city, from
places like Antioch and Nicaea, they lay siege to and captured key towns,
cities, and castles. The process took years and many lives were lost, but
eventually they made it to the city of Jerusalem.

Laying siege to the Holy City in 1099, the Crusaders found themselves in
difficult terrain. Outside of the city, the countryside was an arid wasteland.
There was little in the way of water or food and, so far away from home,
they were struggling for sustenance. Running out of time, out of supplies,
and out of manpower, they were unable to fully surround the city and
prevent supplies from getting in. Though they had begun their campaign
with tens of thousands of men, many of them on horseback, they were now
down to 12,000, with only 1,500 of these being cavalrymen. These men
were all that remained, taken from various countries and backgrounds.
Making camp now, their morale was at an all-time low.

An initial attack on the walls was repulsed. Next, they attempted to march
around the walls, chanting at the tops of their lungs after a three day fast. It
was hoped that the walls would fall just like the biblical story of Jericho. It
failed. After receiving news of a backup Muslim army setting off from
Egypt to repel the Crusaders, one final assault on Jerusalem was required.
On the 15 th of July, a double pronged attack on the city caused the
defenders to flee the walls. The crusaders were inside.

What followed was a massacre. The Crusaders had marched for years,
covering thousands of miles and losing many friends along the way, all with
the goal of retaking Jerusalem. The bloodbath has passed into legend for its
barbarism and brutality. Most notable—at least, in terms of the story we are
telling—were the activities on Temple Mount. Many defenders were said to
have retreated to the spot, one of the most holy places in the world. Temple
Mount was vital to the three major Abrahamic religions, home to the al-
Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock and the Dome of the Chain. Legend
has it that the biblical figure Solomon built his temple on this spot, a temple
which was destroyed and rebuilt a number of times. For Muslims, it is the
third most holy site in the world, the place from which Muhammad
ascended to heaven. As the Crusaders attacked, it seemed a natural place to
seek sanctuary.

The Crusaders pursued and cut down anyone they found. Eventually a
pause was called by the leader, allowing those who were sheltering in the
Al-Aqsa mosque to be saved. They would last a day, the Crusader
commanders waiting until the streets of Jerusalem ran red with blood before
entering the mosque and killing the sheltering foes. As the Crusaders took
over the city and began to erect the nascent Kingdom of Jerusalem, the city
was coming to terms with bloodshed on an unprecedented scale. Thousands
were dead, many more injured. Half a world away from home, the
Crusaders set about the business of ruling the Holy Land.

This was the world into which the Knights Templar was born. Following
the violent conquering of Jerusalem, Christianity now had control of one of
the religion’s most holy sites. Pilgrimage to the spot became important, for
people demonstrating their devotion to Jesus Christ. In a time when the only
way to travel for example, from France to Jerusalem, was on foot for those
who were poor), by horse for the rich, or by boat for those both rich and
lucky. By any measure, such a journey was long and treacherous.
Furthermore, the violence left behind in the wake of the Crusade hardly
endeared Christians to the local communities they passed through in the
Levant region. While Jerusalem might have been under the control of the
Christians, the surrounding area was not quite so safe.

Plagued by bandits, thieves, and those bearing a grudge for the violence
waged against the Muslim communities by the Crusader’s, it was not
uncommon for Christian pilgrims to be attacked and sometimes even killed
during their trip. At the worst, highwaymen were killing travelling parties
of hundreds of people. Over the course of the ensuing decades, this violence
got worse and worse. Eventually, someone decided to do something,
offering protection to the pilgrims making their journey. That man was
Hugues de Payens, a French knight who, in 1119, petitioned the rulers of
Jerusalem for the permission to creation a new society. De Payens’s vision
was of a religious, monastic order, a disciplined band of knights who would
swear to provide protection to the pilgrims. By 1120, the request was
granted, and the new band, known as the Knights Templar, was formed.

The name came from their base of operations. The new order was awarded
a wing of the royal palace, the building situated atop Temple Mount, located
within the captured mosque where the city defenders had hidden before
being killed. To some, it seemed strange to award such a young group with
such a privileged piece of real estate. It would be the first of many
mysteries surrounding the Knights Templar.

At first, the organization filled one of the most important needs for the new
Christian government in the Holy Land. Along with other Monastic orders,
the Templars became a kind of makeshift standing army. Despite coming
from different backgrounds and nationalities, the rulers of Jerusalem were
finally able to project an organized professional military power. It was no
surprise that their number grew rapidly, their importance recognized almost
immediately.

But along with the growth in numbers, the Templars experienced a growth
in wealth and political power. At the beginning, the order had been
composed of nine knights, with scant finances and a dependence on
donations from powerful Christian rulers. Indeed, the full title of their
organization was ‘Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon.’ To
further press this image of poverty upon the world, they had taken as their
symbol two knights riding a single horse, an iconographic representation of
the Templar’s poverty. But this poverty was not long-lasting.

The Knights Templar had friends in powerful places. Thanks to these

friends, they quickly moved ahead in the pecking order of monastic knights
in the Holy Land. High ranking members of the church took it upon
themselves to sing their praises, a move which eventually led to an official,
formal endorsement from the Vatican. As such, the Knights Templar
became far more than a simple, localized military order. They gained a
reputation and a favored status across the Christian world. Soon, people
were encouraged to assist the Templars. From across Europe, people began
to donate land, money, business, and even family members to the Knights
Templar. More than one powerful aristocratic family dispatched a young
male member to the Holy Lands with the intent that he would join the
Templars. As the group’s wealth swelled, they received a further boon when
a papal decree known as Omne Datum Optimum made them exempt from
the local laws of the nations. The Templars—and the Templars alone, it
seemed—could pass across any border, would not be subject to any local
taxes, and were not beholden to any authority, other than the pope and God.
Within the space of two decades, the knights from atop Temple Mount had
become one of the most powerful and wealthiest groups in the world.

Over the course of the years to follow, the Templars became more and more
essential to the balance of power in the Near East. Fighting against the
legendary Saladin, they used military expertise and training to wage a
continued campaign for control of the Holy Land. But while the military
victories might have been essential to those in the immediate vicinity of
Jerusalem, it was the burgeoning wealth of the order which would be more
keenly felt in Europe. Following the papal endorsements, the coffers of the
Knights Templar were overflowing. One of the biggest revenue streams
came when aristocrats and nobles placed their assets into the care of the
Templars. When a nobleman decided that he would ‘do his duty’ and take
part in the Crusades, he could sign over his lands and businesses to the
Templars, who would run it in his absence. They would take a cut for doing
so, and the nobleman would be assured that his assets would receive care
and attention in his absence, and be returned to him when he left the Holy
Land. With a variety of revenue streams, the Templars were able to
establish one of the most important institutions in the medieval age. The
bank of the Knights Templar.

In the decades following the Templars’ growth, the vast majority of new
recruits were assigned not to military roles, but to administrative positions.
The reason was simple. There was a huge trend for many people to travel
through the Holy Lands. Often, these were rich aristocrats who did not want
to carry their wealth with them because the countryside was often laden
with bandits. Now, they could travel with a minimal amount of money,
relying on the Templars to aid them. The Templars had branches in every
major city. A deposit of money made in one of these would equip a person
with a signed letter, detailing the nature of the wealth that had been
provided. Once the person reached Jerusalem, they could visit another
branch of the Templars office and make a withdrawal. It was, in many
ways, the precursor to the modern banking system, the arrival of what has
often been considered the first real international conglomerate.

In hardly any time at all, the Knights Templar had grown from a band of
nine poor knights to one of the most powerful groups in the world. They
had wealth in many forms. They took the donations they received and the
money they made and bought land across Europe and the Middle East. They
built farms and vineyards, establishing businesses that made them even
more money. They built castles, cathedrals, and fortifications all over
Europe, as far outside their original territories as possible, with Templar
forts being found as far west as Portugal. They imported, exported,
manufactured, farmed, banked, and owned their own fleet of ships that
crisscrossed the Mediterranean. At one point, they even owned the entire
island of Cyprus.

As the Knights Templar grew ever more powerful, other countries began to
sit up and take notice. The original Templars had been a dedicated group of
knights, sworn to protect the poor pilgrims moving across the Holy Land.
By the end of the 12 th Century, however, they had become one of the most
powerful organizations on the planet. They were not beholden to local laws,
even in countries such as France, Britain, and Germany. Answering only to
the pope, those countries which held a grudge against the Vatican began to
view the Templars with suspicion.

It is not uncommon for many of the theories regarding the Freemasons’

power to relate to the international banking community. People have
labelled the existence of the big banks as an international cabal and as being
responsible for a number of (seemingly unconnected) global events. In this
respect, it’s easy to draw parallels between these conceptions of the
Freemasons, and the banking traditions of the Knights Templar. While
many people use the (often tenuous) relationship between the Freemasons
and the global banking community as an accusatory measure, it echoes
medieval suspicions of the Templars.

In the history books, it’s not uncommon for people to label the Knights
Templar of the late 12 th Century as arrogant. It’s easy to see why they
might have been. In less than a century, they had risen from purposefully
humble origins to become a major international player. The original military
commanders of the organization had long passed away, some in battle,
some of natural causes. The man who had taken charge, Grand Master de
Ridfort, was not loved by heads of state and powerful nobles. They viewed
him and his organization as arrogant.

Added to this, the balance of power in the Holy Land was beginning to tip.
While the Crusaders had captured Jerusalem decades earlier, their grip the
surrounding area was beginning to loosen. Saladin was a prodigal
commander, succeeding in wresting control of many essential sites across
the Levant. The Templars, once an essential projection of Christian military
power, were tainted by association with the new failings. As Saladin’s army
enjoyed success, people began to resent the Templars for their failure to
maintain control of the Holy Land. When Saladin re-conquered Jerusalem
in 1187, it became an easy stick with which to beat the Templars. That the
remaining land held by Christians in the area—a thin strip of territory along
the coast—was owned by the Templars, seemed to be a further issue, people
accusing the Templars of protecting their own interests, rather than those of
Christianity.

Over the course of the next hundred years, power really shifted in the
region. By 1296, the Holy Land was considered completely lost. Muslim
rulers in Egypt had swept in from the south and helped to completely drive
Christian influence from the area. The Templars reacted by shifting their
base of operations away from the Levant, instead operating out of their
holdings on Cyprus. Across Europe, rumblings of another Crusade emerged
and the Templars began to focus on their business empire instead.

But their enemies did not forget. One of the most important of the
Templars’ foes was the king of France, Philip IV. Philip had a variety of
reasons for hating the order. Not only did he resent their influence and their
immunity to local laws, but he was himself hugely in debt to the Templars.
Wanting to continue his expensive wars against Edward I of England (rather
than fighting a Crusade), he envied the wealth of the Knights Templar and
wished to make it his own. Elsewhere in Europe, he was fighting against the
Holy Roman Empire (in modern day Germany) and had a somewhat
corrosive relationship with the Vatican. Philip was in a difficult place and
the wealth of the Templars seemed to be an obvious target.

Philip’s fortunes changed after two key events. First, the King of England
died. His replacement was Edward II, a weaker and less formidable foe.
Furthermore, a change in pope saw the previous Holy See replaced by
someone more prone to treat Philip with kindness, the Frenchman Pope
Clement V.

Early rumors suggested that the new pope meant a new Crusade. It was not
uncommon for potential pope’s to voice their ambitions to retake Jerusalem
and, when Pope Clement V ascended the Throne of Peter, the Knights
Templar wondered whether a new crusade might mean a chance to return to
the Holy Lands and retake their positions of wealth and influence, both of
which had been waning since leaving the Levant. Keen to listen to the ideas
of the new pope, the Templars dispatched their grandmaster to France,
where Clement was staying.

The Grandmaster of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, was an aging man. He

arrived in France armed with a collection of plans and schemes that the
Templars had developed in order to retake Jerusalem. He was received with
apparent good intentions, humored and welcomed. But it was not to last.
Together, Philp and Clement had been plotting the downfall of the Knights
Templar. On the 13 th of October, 1307, the authorities launched an assault
on the Templars, placing every member in France under arrest. According
to legend, this fateful day was Friday the 13 th , the original reasoning as to
why such a date might be considered unlucky.

The arrests were not just significant in and of themselves. The Templars
who were arrested were subjected to torture and punishment. In the French
cells, the authorities extracted confessions and admissions. Apparently, the
Templars had become an unholy institution, beset by the worship of false
idols, unchristian practices, and considerable amounts of sin. These
dubiously obtained confessions were held aloft as proof of the Templars’
guilt and were used as a precept for dismantling the international
organization of the Knights Templar.

The campaign against the Templars in France was vicious and quick. But it
was not global. Even though the pope had issued a papal decree to outlaw
the Knights Templar, other rules were not so quick to act. In England, for
example, the new King Edward II refrained from acting. Instead of arresting
all the Templars he could find, he wrote to the Vatican to petition for the
order’s innocence. When the pope responded with an official decree
reiterating the decision, Edward had no choice but to act and, in January of
1308, he too issued an arrest order for the Templars in England. In the three
months between the two actions, however, the local members of the order
had plenty of time to make themselves scarce. With them went much of
their treasure, not only the jewels and precious metals, but their detailed
records as well.

As such, the institution of the Knights Templar was deemed illegal

overnight. As the French King moved through the Templar estates and
holdings, seizing their wealth for himself, the group’s international
conglomerate was forcibly dismantled. With members now officially
labelled as devil worshipping heathens, it was no longer profitable to
visibly be a member of the organization. Those Templars that were not
caught, tortured, and killed were forced to go into hiding. Thanks to the
political maneuvering, the group was forced to become a secret society.

But now that the Knights Templar had been driven underground, where
could they go? One of the few places they had left available was Scotland.
Scotland, like a number of other countries around Europe, was in a perilous
political position. At odds with England, they were somewhat excluded
from the international community. Pressure from the English crown
distanced the Scottish monarchy from the rest of Europe and the authority
of the pope. While the rest of Europe was busy hounding down the
Templars, the Scottish did not even issue an order for their arrest. Taking
care to conceal themselves in these tumultuous times, it is believed that
many members of the Knights Templar took what they could of their
incredible wealth and travelled north to Scotland.

For some people, this is where the theories about the Knights Templar
really begin to splinter. It is at this point that there is a real divergence
between the provable histories of the organization and those possibilities
which veer much further off the beaten trail. Though we don’t have enough
space here to go into the true depth of the stranger side of the Templars, the
sheer variety of the possibilities should provide the foundation of
understanding that will help with our knowledge of the Freemasons.

A great deal of the attention paid to this particular moment in time has
focused on the very nature of the Templars’ wealth. While certain people
are content to understand this wealth in purely financial terms, others have
suggested that there was something far more interesting being hidden by the
Templars. How, they suggest, did such a small band of poor knights rise to
power so quickly? How did they gain such legislative immunity from the
church? The answer to this, it is suggested, goes all the way back to Temple
Mount. It has been suggested that the Templars first home in Jerusalem was
far more than just an administrative branch. When awarded the offices in
the buildings on the holy spot, the Templars began digging. While
excavating the site, they found… something. The exact nature of what they
may have found remains just as contested as the idea of whether or not they
found anything at all. This find has been proposed as everything from a
statue of Baphomet imbued with dark magical powers, to the Ark of the
Covenant (in which was stored the original tablets bearing the Ten
Commandments), or even the Holy Grail. Even the nature of the latter is
contended, from being a simple cup used at the Last Supper, to being the
extensive documentation of the mortal lineage of Jesus Christ, the family he
had on earth and the descendants through to the modern day. Any one of
these items has been held aloft as being the key to the Templars power and
the reason why they might had been able to ascend to such an important
position so quickly.
Trying to figure out not only what happened to the Knights Templar, but
what secrets they guarded, has taken up the life of many a historian. But
how exactly does it relate to the Freemasons? In order to understand that,
we will have to take what we have learned about the Knights Templar and
look ahead a few years to the state of England in the 14 th Century.

The Peasants’ Revolt

After Edward II came Edward III. The formers reign was considered
something of a disaster. Continued disagreements between many high
ranking barons and other noblemen plagued his time as king. In particular,
his relationship with a man named Piers Gaveston caused uproar throughout
the kingdom. It is unknown exactly what about this relationship caused
controversy, but it was enough to cause legislative chaos and a constant
struggle for power. Eventually, Gaveston was caught and executed by the
barons. This caused an extended period of conflict, with the barons basing
themselves in Scotland. Edward II fought against them, trying to quell
problems in his own kingdom and a long-standing dispute with Scotland
itself. To further complicate matters, Gaveston had also managed to
provoke France’s ire, meaning that his relationship with the King had
caused issues on two important fronts. Eventually, the barons’ fight with
Edward led to the English King being defeated in battle by a Scot named
Robert the Bruce in 1314. The defeat left a lasting impact, the aftershocks
being felt in the form of famine and strife in much of England. Criticism of
the King abounded.

Edward II seemed unable to satiate his critics. After a protracted

disagreement—involving betrayals, legislation, and executions—with the
Scottish, he was forced into signing a peace treaty with Robert the Bruce. A
similarly embarrassing problem was emerging in his dealings with France
when—in 1325 —Edward had dispatched his wife Isabella to France to
negotiate a peace. It was thought Isabella would be the perfect candidate.
After all, she was a daughter of the French King, a woman whom Edward
had married specifically to make peace. When she was sent to France,
however, she refused to return, and also refused to negotiate a peace with
her homeland. Instead, she sought out an ally and mounted an invasion of
her adopted homeland. In 1326, with an army at her back, Isabella and her
alliance succeeded in waging war on Edward II. The King, fearing for his
life, caught between belligerents to the south and to the north, fled to the
west. He took refuge in Wales but was captured a few months later. He was
forced to give up his crown, resulting in his unpopular reign coming to an
end in January 1327, passing the crown on to Edward III, his fourteen year
old son. Barely a year later, the former king died under mysterious
circumstances, likely murdered on the instruction of the new rulers.

Despite his young age, Edward III’s reign was much more successful.
Though he took the crown in 1327, he ruled until 1377. For fifty years,
Edward III fought to assert England as a key player in European politics.
Though the former ruler had marginalized the country’s influence, the new
king increased the power of England’s military. He fought long and hard
against France, beginning the so-called Hundred Years War and seeing great
victories for his country. At home, however, not everything was quite as
successful. The emergence of the Black Death, a plague which swept
through the country, left many thousands dead, and entire towns and
villages suddenly decimated. In his later years, his health would similarly
suffer. By the later 14 th Century, his ability to govern was hampered by ill
health and, in 1377, he died from a stroke. The crown was passed to
Richard II, the king’s ten year old grandson, whose own father had died the
year before.

So why are we going through all of this in a book about the Freemasons?
The turmoil of England in the 14 th Century serves to distract the eye from
the strangeness of the disappearance of the Knights Templar. By the time
Richard II took the throne, it seemed that the Templars were long forgotten.
With a new young king on the throne, with England now a major political
power, and with France and Scotland seemingly quelled to the point of no
longer being an existential threat, it seemed England might be set up to
enjoy a prolonged period of success. But it was not to be.
In a pre-Reformation age, the Catholic Church was one of the world’s only
true international organizations and held some degree of power in almost
every community across Europe. This was true of England and the Church
was not innocent of the corruption and greed which prompted the peasants’
anger. This inherent conflict–between being a force for good and being
prone to corruption–reflected a similar contradiction which would have
been held by the exiled Knights Templar. The Templars had originally been
a Catholic militant organization, a projection of the church’s own military
power. But then they had been condemned and convicted by the very
organization they had sworn to protect. In the opinion of some scholars, it
was this decree from the Vatican that broke the bonds of allegiance between
the church and the Templars. Following their exile, the Templars found
themselves without a master. They were free to take whichever side they
wanted.

But the Church itself was divided. In 1377, the temporary home of the pope
in Avignon was abandoned. Pope Gregory XI returned the home of the
Church to Rome, to the consternation of many of his cardinals. Since
moving to France and drawing closer to the same French monarchy which
had outlawed the Knights Templar, the Catholic Church had taken on a
French flavor. The move back to Italy was unpopular among the French
contingent. When Gregory died and a new pope was elected, riots in the
streets of Rome influenced the decision to place an Italian on the highest
seat in Christendom. Even though Pope Urban VI promised to keep the base
of the church in the Vatican, the French priests disagreed. What followed
was–at that point–the greatest schism in the church’s history. Known as the
Great Schism, the church split into two separate camps in 1378. Alongside
the Vatican’s Pope Urban VI in Rome, the French Cardinals elected their
own Pope, Clement VII, to rule from Avignon. Along with the support of
the various cardinals, countries began to take sides. With Clement VII went
France, Scotland, Portugal, Spain, and various German principalities. With
Urban VI went England, Poland, Hungary, most of Holy Roman Empire,
and those who would be considered enemies of France, perhaps the most
powerful country in Europe at the time. Each camp ex-communicated the
priests of the other and proclaimed itself the one true church.
So France and England were fighting a conventional war. They were
simultaneously taking opposite sides on a spiritual conflict. They needed
funds and needed them quickly. In England, this meant the poll tax of 1377.

In 1381, the introduction of a poll tax caused uproar. The peasantry was
furious. The common people had been at odds with the powerful land
owners for years, their position changed by the ravages of the Black Death.
The power of the barons had increased under previous kings, but the
destructive nature of the Black Death had drastically reduced the work
force. As many as a third of the population had died. The resulting famines
took even more. As such, the peasants found their skills in greater demand
and their negotiating position greatly improved. While the peasants sought
to take advantage of this morbid situation, the increases in their wages came
at the expense of those who owned the land. Since these landowners were
now in possession of a greater amount of power, they conspired to pass
laws which would limit the amount they paid to peasants. Wages were
driven back down to the levels they had been before the plague.
Furthermore, details of peasants’ lineages were taken and an effort made to
bind people permanently to a particular lord. Serfdom was being further
made into law. Tensions began to boil over.

Inherent grievances came to a head in the late spring of 1381 when

rebellion broke out in Kent and Essex. It would eventually come to be
known as the Peasants Revolt. Led by Wat Tyler and others, the peasants
began to gather in massive groups. They demonstrated, going so far as to
burn down Savoy Palace and kill members of the King’s court. They
wanted the abolition of serfdom, the feudal means of governance which saw
the poor workers beholden to the whims of whatever person happened to
own the land on which they lived. The King and his court would retreat to
the Tower of London and quickly realize that they did not have the strength
to fight thousands of peasants. They would have to negotiate.

The King’s position was weak. Not only was he just fourteen years old and
dependent on the advice of his inner circle, but his kingdom was not as
financially secure as he might have hoped. The wars of his grandfather,
while succeeding in establishing England as a military power, had been
costly. Funds had been drained. To make matters worse, the emergence of
such a young king seemed to have encouraged corruption among the court.
In response, the crown had decreed a number of new and insidious taxes,
levelled again against the peasants. It was one of these–the poll tax–which
had been one of the catalysts of the rebellion. Just as much as the barons
and landowners, the king and his lack of funds were at fault. Desperate for
money, facing strife on every side, England had erupted into rebellion. To
complicate matters, it seemed as though there had been some degree of
planning behind it.

It’s often been suggested that the Peasants’ Revolt was far from
spontaneous. The various whisperings of rebellion and revolt were
encouraged throughout the country, as the different strands of consternation
facing the authorities began to come together at once. Men like John Ball,
the leader of a band of priests who sided with the poor and the helpless,
fanned the flames of revolt throughout the country. As the different
communities across the country were told to rise up, as many as 100,000
peasants gathered to show their dissatisfaction with the crown.

Some of the first signs of such revolt came when tax gatherers were beaten
up as they went about their duties. When a local lord attempted to forcibly
collect his taxes and attempted to have a crowd of a hundred defying
peasants arrested, the officers were attacked and the lord was lucky to
escape away to London. When the government responded by sending an
even bigger force to quell the issue, the gathering masses attacked with a
renewed vigor. Prosecutors were not only captured, but beheaded. First
taking place in Essex, similar events happened in Kent and the areas
surrounding London. The mob began to swell in numbers, with people
coming from villages and towns across the country to march against the
king.

Among this mob of thousands, one man seemed to emerge as the leader.
Without much provocation, many quickly began to turn to a man named
Walter (or Wat) Tyler for instruction. The revolt even took his name, with
many people knowing the movement as Wat Tyler’s Revolt. But very little
is known of the man, of where he came from or what his specific grievance
had been. Why had so many thousands of men suddenly accepted him as
their leader? It is difficult to say, though some have taken this to be a signal
of a greater level of background understanding than is perhaps clear in this
day and age.

As Wat Tyler and his men moved through Canterbury, beheading “traitors”
along their way, similar civic upheaval in Essex followed. On the same day
that Tyler and his men were attending a huge mass in Canterbury Cathedral,
the men of Essex were burning down an important building belonging to
the Knights Hospitallers. The building was significant. It had originally
belonged to the Knights Templar, given to them in 1138 by a royal decree.
During the time when the Templars were outlawed and chased from
Christendom, it had fallen into the possession of the Hospitallers. Indeed,
the Hospitallers were one of the chief beneficiaries of the move to prosecute
the Templars, taking on many of their holdings and assets, and assuming a
large portion of their wealth. Over the coming days, many of the
Hospitallers most important buildings and dwellings would be attacked by
the rebels, seemingly as part of a wider social upheaval, though
proportionally far more than any other group. Could it be a coincidence that
the guiding hand of the rebels was so keen to attack the sworn enemy of the
Knights Templar? It is here that we start to see the linking of the threads,
the narratives moving that had been in place since the Crusades centuries
before.

On the 11 th of June, both bands of rebels decided to turn and march on the
capital. By this time, their combined numbers totaled more than 100,000.
Despite being far apart and a seemingly untrained bunch, historians were
impressed by the resolve and discipline demonstrated by the rioters. It was a
seventy mile journey and it took just two days, with both groups arriving
generally at the same time. It is easy to see why so many people have
suggested that this movement was pre-planned, rather than the product of
random happenstance.

It was at this point that the teenage king retreated into the Tower of London.
He took with him his most trusted advisors, those men who he could rely
upon to assist him in making judgements. Among their number were the
Archbishop of Canterbury and the king’s treasurer, who happened to be a
member of the Hospitallers. In addition, there was a man named Henry
Bolingbroke, who would eventually become famous as the future King of
England. With them were earls, barons, and other assorted members of the
aristocracy, all of whom had something to fear from the suddenly malignant
peasants.

By the 12 th of June, the rebels were massing in what is now East London.
They marched across the river, moving through Southwark. From across
London, more and more people began to join them. As rebellious groups
formed in different parts of the city, they took it upon themselves to sack
and burn palaces, with particular attention paid to the records kept by the
aristocracy, records of lineage and genealogy which were used to bind
peasants to serfdom. The prisons were attacked and all inside turned loose.

From inside the Tower of London, the young king could see the smoke
rising up from his city. In response, he sent out messengers to the rebels,
asking what they wanted. The response he received informed him that the
rebels sought, in fact, to save the king. They wanted to free him from the
band of traitors who had surrounded him and dedicated themselves to
destroying the country. The king asked for a meeting, pleading with the
rebels to halt their sacking of the city so as he might be able to hear their
complaints in full.

The rebels agreed. They moved to the river, the men from Kent stationed on
the south side and the men from Essex on the north side. The king set off
from the Tower of London on his royal barge, slowing drifting down the
river to meet with the rebels. It was halfway through his journey that his
advisors were finally able to persuade him to stop. As it became apparent
that the king had halted, the rebels sent out their demands directly to the
barge. Firstly, there was a list of men who must be executed. Many of the
men on the list were on the royal barge at that very moment, including the
prior of the Hospitallers and the Archbishop of Canterbury. As might be
expected, the king’s council advised against such a move. From the shore,
the rebels could see the king’s barge turn around and head back towards the
Tower.
The rebels entered the city proper. By some mysterious stroke of fortune,
neither gate they moved to happened to be guarded. Unhindered, they
walked straight through. Refraining from sacking and destroying everything
in their path, they instead marched straight to Fleet Street, an important part
of London which happened to contain a prison. They attacked, freeing all
the men inside.

Nearby were two forges, places which had once belonged to the Knights
Templar. They were now being run by the Hospitallers. Just as before, the
rebels turned their ire on the forges and destroyed both of them. As they
then marched through the city to the Savoy Palace, the mob only stopped to
attack any building which they were able to certify as belonging to the
Hospitallers. They destroyed many buildings, but few suffered the wrath of
the mob quite so much as the Savoy Palace. Art works, furniture, tapestries,
and many other valuable items were destroyed beyond repair. After they
were finished, the rebels set fire to the palace, aiding the process by
ensuring a number of gunpowder kegs were first moved inside.

Once Savoy Palace was destroyed, the band of rebels again seemed to turn
their attentions to buildings which might be owned and operated by the
Knights Hospitaller. Any such property between the Thames and Fleet
Street was vandalized and then burned. Records were set afire and any
lawyers who might try to stop the crowd were killed. The one Hospitaller
property which seemed to escape much of the destruction was a small
church. However, the rebels still went inside and fetched any records they
could find. These were burned in the street. It was perhaps no coincidence
that this church had also previously been the property of the Knights
Templar. It was one of the only targeted buildings not completely destroyed.
When compared to the Hospitaller headquarters in Clerkenwell, a building
which was damaged beyond all repair, it seems something of a miracle that
the Templars’ former church should escape so lightly.

The rebels continued their campaign. They moved across the city, freeing
prisoners and burning records, paying special attention to Hospitaller
properties. One group, after trying to petition the Tower of London for an
audience with the king, found themselves denied. In response, they lay
siege to the Tower. That it was perhaps the most defensible building
anywhere in England did not seem to concern them.

Throughout the city, it was announced that being a member of the

Exchequer or the Chancery (two of the country’s tax collecting authorities)
was enough to condemn a man to death. When seeking evidence of such a
crime, the presence of ink on a man’s fingers was proof enough of his guilt.
Seeing as the vast majority of literate men had received their education
from the church, it was no coincidence that a large portion of the dead were
members of the clergy.

The king seemed to be shocked. So far, he had no response to the uprising.

Lacking an army to combat such a massive rebel gathering, the money to
pay off the crowds, or the preparation time required to deal with such a
well-ordered rebellion, the king was at a loss as to how to respond. Rather
than a show of force or strength, he would have to rely on tricking his
enemies. On the 14 th of June, it was announced that the king would agree to
meet with the rebel leaders, with a view to giving in to all of their demands.
The message was given to town criers across the city and proclaimed for all
to hear.

As a meeting place, the king and his advisors selected Mile End, a place
with open fields which just happened to be outside the walls of the city. The
aim was to draw the rebels out of the city first and foremost. This was
mostly achieved, with a large number of the forces following the king out
beyond the city walls. But not everyone went. Wat Tyler and a few hundred
men hung around in the city, armed with a plan of their own.

Even on the morning of the planned meeting, all was not right in the king’s
camp. Before they had set off to meet the rebels, the Archbishop of
Canterbury had been caught attempting to take a boat and escape down to
the Thames. People along the banks recognized him and the resulting
outcry and abuse from the river banks forced the oarsmen to turn around
and retreat to the Tower.
The king set off for the meeting, taking along his trusted advisors. While
the records make sure to list the people who accompanied him, they are
silent on those members of the court who did not. In particular, Sir Simon
Sudbury and Sir Robert Hales are not mentioned. That is to say, the
Archbishop of Canterbury and the prior of the Knights Hospitaller. Whether
they chose to stay in the Tower or were ordered to do so is not clear. Neither
is there any mention of who took on the role of leader in the rebel camp that
day, while the most notorious leaders—men such as Wat Tyler and John
Ball–remained in the city with some secret agenda.

At first, it seemed as though the meeting in Mile End would go well. There
were two demands from the rebels. First, that they should be permitted to
hunt down and kill anyone they deemed to be a traitor to the king and the
people. The second request was that the system of serfdom be abandoned,
with every Englishman being a ‘free man.’ The king’s response seemed
reasonable. To the first request, he agreed that ‘traitors’ should be executed,
but only provided they were judged to be guilty in a court of law. To the
second request, he turned to a crowd of thirty clerks who had come with
him, especially designed to draft legislature in quick measure.

But while the meeting between the rebels and the king seemed to be going
well, events inside the city played out regardless. The rebel leaders struck.
Wat Tyler and his men had planned to attack and hold the Tower of London
itself. An ambitious goal in the best of times, let alone with only a few
hundred scantily armed rebels. Already the most fortified building in the
country, the Tower was being guarded by hundreds of professional soldiers.
There was a drawbridge, a portcullis, and a heavy gate, not to mention the
sheer range of weapons possessed by those inside. Furthermore, the troops
in the Tower had Robert Hales, prior of the Knights Hospitaller and a
proven battle commander, to instruct them.

Nevertheless, Tyler and his men attacked. As it happened, it seemed as

though the rebels had a man on the inside. When the rebels arrived, they
discovered that the drawbridge was already down. The portcullis had been
lifted. The gate was open. The rebels strode into the Tower of London and
the historians struggle to note so much as an angry word as they did so.

Now having gained entry to the Tower, the rebels moved to capture their
foes. The Archbishop of Canterbury was their first target and they found
him in the chapel. Dragging him out into the open air, they beat him and
threw him to the floor. At the same time, another group arrived with the
similarly disarmed Hospitaller. The two men were held in place while the
rebels searched the tower for other men on their list; tax collectors, lords,
and the like. Once the rebels had everyone they wanted, they dragged the
men to Tower Hill. In front of a baying public, they sliced off the head of
each of the men. The severed heads were taken and placed on poles over
London Bridge for all to see. In deference to the former Archbishop of
Canterbury’s station, they took his distinctive mitre and nailed it to his
head.

After the executions, the rebels spread out across the city. They searched for
others on their list, the men who had caused them strife. In all, they found
around 160 victims, all of whom they killed. Among the dead were the
corrupt and the traitorous (as deemed by the rebels), as well as anyone who
spoke out against them or praised the recently deceased.

Furthermore, a special dispatch was organized by Tyler. He gathered

together a small group of rebels and sent them out of London, towards
Highbury, with the aim of destroying a very specific building. It also
belonged to the Hospitallers, having recently been renovated by the order
and being deemed as one of the most ostentatious and lavish houses around.

It didn’t take long for word of this attack to reach the king and the men in
Mile End. The meeting was abandoned and the king fled back to his home
in Castle Baynard, clearly not wanting to return to the Tower of London.
All the while, the collection of clerks who had been tasked with writing up
legislature carried on about their task. Before the king departed, many of
the rebels had snatched up pages from the clerks, riding back to their
hometowns to brandish this new royal decree.
What happened next is hazy and ill-recorded in the history books. It seems
that the king agreed to meet the rebels once again, this time at Smithfield.
The meeting was arranged for the next day, the 15 th of June. Before the
meeting, the king attended mass at Westminster Abbey. He had been
followed to the service by a number of the rebels, curious to see what was
happening. When they were there, they spotted a particularly loathsome tax
collector hiding in one of the chapels. Despite the man’s pleas for mercy, he
was dragged out into the open air and beheaded in front of a crowd. The
king finished hearing mass and departed for Smithfield.

Many rebels were already waiting for him. They had lined up along one
side, while the king and his men lined up along the other. Exactly what
happened next is hotly disputed in the history books. It is said that Wat
Tyler was among the rebel leaders and that his fierce insults levied against
the king caused much consternation, or that his behavior was deemed to be
insulting to the crown in some fashion. In all likelihood, this probably just
gave the king and his men the excuse they needed, allowing them to follow
through with what had been the plan all the long. It happened as follows.

Standing on opposite sides of the field, the king requested the presence of
the leader of the rebels. This meant Wat Tyler. To issue this request, he sent
the Mayor of London himself, William Walworth, across the field. Tyler,
realizing that such an audience with the king would place him far from his
men and heavily outnumbered, grew suspicious. He came up with a hand
signal which, if implemented, meant that the rebels should immediately
attack. His orders were that, during such an attack, every member of the
opposing forces should be killed, all apart from the king. Joined by just one
man bearing his banner, Wat Tyler set out across the field.

It is telling that we only have government accounts of what happened next.

The majority of these people, it seems, were not there. In their version of
events—the only version we have–it seems as though Wat Tyler met with
the king. There, he issued his list of demands once again. This time, the
demands had increased. Now, Tyler wanted the church’s property to be
seized and the wealth distributed among the poor, he wanted numerous
legal changes, and he demanded that there only be one bishop for all of
England.

As Tyler worked through his list of demands in front of the king, William
Walworth silently drew his dagger. Sneaking up behind the rebel leader, the
mayor cut him along the neck. One of the king’s squires jumped to help,
taking out a sword and stabbing Tyler two times. As the rebel tried to turn
back towards his men, he fell from his horse. The wound was mortal. He
would not live.

From across the field, it was not clear what had happened. The hand signal
agreed before Tyler had departed had not been seen. Instead, they saw a
rider set out from across the broad expanse and come towards them. It was
the king, the fourteen year old boy himself. He spoke out to the rebels,
telling them that he was happy to meet their demands and that they should
accompany him to Clerkenwell–the place where the Hospitaller palace still
burned–to seal the pact. With that, he rode off, taking his men and his army,
too.

The rebels were left confused. They didn’t know what to do. A few set out
across the field themselves and recovered Tyler’s body. He was dying,
clearly, so was taken to a nearby hospital to see what could be done. After
more than an hour of trying to come up with a plan, the previously well-
organized rebels decided that they would follow the king’s instruction. They
set off for Clerkenwell.

Unbeknownst to them, anti-rebellion forces were beginning to mass.

Perhaps inspired by the news of Wat Tyler’s death, hundreds were
gathering. The Mayor, the king, and many other authority figures sent out
the call for any able bodied man to take up arms against the rebellion.

When they arrived in Clerkenwell, the rebels immediately demanded that

the king hand over everyone who had been a part of Wat Tyler’s murder. As
the rebels protested their case to the king, the anti-rebellion mob gathered
around. Slowly, without the rebels realizing who they were, these men
encircled the rebels. Eventually, the leader was able to inform the king that
he had the upper hand. Noting that the rebels were now heavily
outnumbered and surrounded, the king demanded that they disperse, lest
they be punished for their actions.

Acknowledging that the tables had turned, the rebel crowd began to break
up. This time, there was little organization. They moved away in dribs and
drabs, the only truly organized group seemingly led by John Ball, the
preacher, who took a band of rebels back across London Bridge. Whereas
they had passed over victoriously just three days before, now they were
fleeing the city.

Mayor William Walworth went looking for the rebel leader, Wat Tyler. He
found Tyler in the hospital near Smithfield, his wounds being attended to by
the nurses. Even though the injuries were likely mortal, Walworth was not
going to take the chance. He dragged Tyler from the hospital bed and out
into the street. There, like so many of the rebels’ victims, Tyler had his head
struck off. It was used to replace the heads of the king’s men on the poles
above London Bridge.

Many of the king’s inner circle received knighthoods. They had helped to
repel the mob from the city. But they had not entirely dealt with the
problem. Outside of London, many thousands of people were still angry.
The rage at the taxes and treatment of the poor was not just confined to
Essex and Kent. Indeed, in the weeks before and after the Peasants’ Revolt,
there were incidents all across the country.

Reports from Suffolk showed that a local preacher had gathered together
disgruntled locals to burn down the home of a corrupt nobleman, and
chased out clergymen from a monastery that held people in the grips of
serfdom. Records were burnt, wealth was plundered. The chancellor of
Cambridge University was similarly executed for corruption. A group of
rebels managed to take control of Nottingham Castle, marching through the
open gates in an echo of what had happened in the Tower of London. Other
castles were taken in this fashion, other aristocratic houses were sacked, and
other people were executed. It happened up and down England. Added to
this, many of the targets happened to belong to the Hospitallers.
It is clear that there was some communication and organization between the
rebels. As far north as Yorkshire, almost to the same day, peasant uprisings
took place. The fallout from the rebellion was huge. Across the country, the
king and the authorities clamped down on even the tiniest signs of disorder
and discontent. The pieces of paper that had been taken by some of the
rebels from the meeting with the king were disavowed. Promises were
broken, arrests were made, and people were executed. Inquisitions were
held. Not only to try to root out the rebels, but to uncover the wider web of
communication hidden behind the revolt. There was clearly a suspicion that
there was much more to the uprising than a simple and sudden rush of
blood to the collective heads of the peasantry. Someone, people suspected,
was behind all of this.

In a book about the Freemasons, you may be wondering why we have

started the discussion with examples from the medieval age which have
seemingly nothing to do with the Masons and their modern iterations. But
the stories about secret societies go back much further than you might
imagine. In looking closely at the Knights Templar and the Peasants’
Revolt, we can see the shadowy operations of a clandestine organization. In
order to thoroughly understand why modern masonry is such a
controversial subject, we should understand its ties to these age-old events.
As we will see in the next chapter, things might be more intertwined than
you may have ever imagined.

The Shadow Organization

The aftermath of the Peasants’ Revolt was brutal. Though most of the
records and discussions of the time stem from those who had a particular
interest in appealing to the king’s favor, there are ways in which we can
look deeper at the potential truth hidden behind the propaganda and bias.
For example, the paperwork associated with the questioning and
investigations by various aldermen and other state figures often turns up the
mention of a strange organization. While many of the rebels admitted that
they were legitimately outraged at the authorities, others happened to refer
to a mysterious group which dispatched representatives and messengers,
stirring up discord and helping to inspire the rebellion. This group was
referred to in the records as the Great Society.

A book about the Freemasons would be remiss not to mention the Great
Society. Though we have covered a lot of ground already in this history, the
benefit will soon arrive. The idea is to draw a line between the earliest
iterations of the Knights Templar, through to the Great Society which
helped organize the Peasants’ revolt, through to the emergence into wider
society of the Freemasons, and then their ultimate acceptance as a part of
the fabric of modern civilization. While some might suggest that this hints
at a wider conspiracy theory, that one organization has been dominating the
political machinations of Western society for many centuries, this is not
true. Instead, the presence and importance of secret societies (of which the
Freemasons are the most famous in the modern world) should be examined
with great scrutiny. In order to do this, understanding why the modern
Freemasons might be connected to their medieval forebears is essential. In
order to continue this quest for knowledge, we should ask ourselves: who
were the Great Society?

When we look back at the official account of the Peasants’ Revolt, there are
a few points which stand out. First, the role of the king. Though still a
teenager at the time, Richard II is painted as a leader and a decisive figure.
He makes decisions, inspires men, and eventually crushes the rebellion. But
this flies in the face of reality. In truth, it was not until the age of twenty
three that Richard truly ruled his kingdom. Before then, it was governed
mostly by an elected council of regents, an inner circle of men who acted
and made decisions on the king’s behalf. Unofficial descriptions of Richard
that have passed down tell us of a rather weak-willed, stammering teenager.
Definitely not the sort of boy to have ridden up to a rebel army and spoken
confidently to them after cutting down their leader.

Second, the role of the Tower of London is somewhat suspect. It was the
easiest place in England to defend, especially against a small band of rebels.
Why was it so easy for Wat Tyler to simply stroll in with a small group of
men? Why did he not bother holding it himself as a headquarters after
making his executions? Why bother taking it at all if the meeting with the
king held any chance of resolving the rebels’ issues? It seems more as
though the point of the meeting with the king at Mile End was to remove
the king from the city, rather than the rebels. This then opened up the Tower
for the attack from Tyler, the rebel leader who didn’t even bother to attend
the meeting with the king. Could it be that the attack on the Tower was the
true objective?

A third point, and in a similar vein; why were key members of the king’s
council left behind in the Tower for the rebels to execute? The Archbishop
of Canterbury being left behind is perhaps understandable, seeing as he had
tried to flee the Tower using a boat that very morning. But Robert Hales
being left in the Tower is much more difficult to explain. As the prior of the
Knights Hospitallers, Hales was not only an experienced battle commander
and one of the best fighters in the kingdom, but he was the man who should
naturally have been chosen to accompany the king while he met with a
great threat to the kingdom. Hales had fought in the latest Crusade with
great success. He was head of a military order of monastic knights. He was
known throughout the kingdom as a fearsome man and a fine soldier. Why
leave such a man behind?

There are just so many questions. Why did the king not return to the tower
following the meeting with the rebels? Was it a coincidence that his
household servants and staff happened to be in place already? We come
back again to the idea that it was the king’s council of regents, rather than
the king himself who made these decisions. They likely arranged such
matters beforehand and simply led Richard around.

It also helps to look at the king’s role in the aftermath of the rebellion. For
many, royal pardons were issued. Towns which had played host to the
rebels were issued an amnesty, allowing them to return to their business and
for the matter to be forgotten. But it did not apply to everyone. There were
287 men specifically named as being excluded from the amnesty. Apart
from those on the list who already happened to be in prison following the
crackdown on the rebels, the other men simply vanished. They do not
appear again in the record books. Men such as Henry de Newark and
Richard de Melton were named on the list of the 287, as well as being
mentioned in a royal writ that was issued on the 10 th of December, 1381,
wanted for the role they had played in riots in Beverly. The response from
the local government was that the men were simply not to be found
anywhere in the area. They had vanished.

As such, the natural follow up question is to ask where they went. In a time
when movement between towns and cities was much more difficult and
much less practiced, the disappearance of people outside a local sphere of
influence was a much bigger deal. The fact that these men were just a few
examples, that it was the same story for many of the men on the list of the
287, seems strange in and of itself. Some historians have drawn a parallel
between the vanishing of these rioters and the vanishing of the Knights
Templar seventy years beforehand. The two groups are similar: recently
condemned by the authorities, wanted by the government and the church
both, and suddenly in desperate need of shelter, food, and somewhere to
hide. For so many men to suddenly find refuge with such skill seems
indicative of a pre-planned escape mechanism, perhaps the existence of safe
houses and bolt holes ready for those men who would inevitably draw the
government’s ire. This support, it has been suggested, was provided by the
so-called Great Society.

At the same time, the reaction of the church was telling. Despite the fact
that the rebels cut off the head of the Archbishop of Canterbury, his
replacement was not concerned with direct retribution. Instead, the church
launched a campaign against heresy, the very same crime which the
authorities accused the Templars of committing seven decades earlier. But
the true impact of the rebellion on the church would not be felt for a while
yet. It was the seeds of doubt and resentment which emerged during the
Revolt that would later flower in full during the Protestant Reformation.

But, as mentioned before, the biggest mystery of the Peasants’ Revolt is

undoubtedly the shadow organization that seemed to be at work arranging
things and colluding behind the scenes. That there was some level of secret
organization happening behind the rebellion seems to be a fact agreed upon
by most historians, though they differ on the exact details and scope of the
mystery group. Furthermore, one of the main questions is whether such an
organization was acting in direct response to the political situation of 1381,
or was in fact a pre-existing body that had begun to act in response to
grudges and agendas held for many hundreds of years? To put it simply,
was the organization a one off response or an already established group?
Could the 287 men absent from the amnesty have been suspected members
of the group? Could this mysterious shadow organization have actually
been the lingering remains of the Knights Templar, who had been in hiding
for seventy years?

All indications point to the fact that such a large scale organized response to
the government must have taken a great deal of planning. Thanks to
recovered documents from sheriffs and bailiffs, we know that the
authorities believed that meetings had been held in secret in the months
leading up to June. This would have required a great deal of effort.
Establishing a network of trustworthy people, vetting members, and
deciding upon agendas and meeting places is tough, even when limited to a
single geographic spot. Trying to do the same across all of medieval
England would be incredibly difficult.

As it stands, the organization behind the Peasants’ Revolt needed to be

disciplined, clever, motivated, and prepared. Such a secret society, one
which knew how to erect and maintain a means of clandestine
communication across the country without being caught, seems to have
been out of the reach of the average peasant. Even working in groups of two
or three towns, the means and resources available to the average working
man would likely have been far from enough to accomplish such a task.
Add in the fact that the majority of the peasants were illiterate and the true
scope of such an organization begins to become apparent.

It should also be mentioned that, as hard as any such organization would be

working to keep itself secret, there would be those who were working to
uncover them. Spies, traitors, and double agents were not out of the
question. In response, secret signals are used. These could be gestures, pre-
arranged conversation cues, or mannerisms. The important part is that, in a
society working across England, when messengers and agents do not know
one another, such a system much be standardized. Again, this shows a level
of resources and skill above the typical rebellion.

However, in a time when it is easy to read many sprawling conspiracy

theories and often overreaching ideas of what a secret society might be
capable of achieving, it should be noted that the Peasants’ Revolt was not
entirely orchestrated by the Great Society. There were a great many social
and political motivations for the uprising. The most obvious of these is the
Black Death and its aftereffects. The effect the Plague had on the labor
market was one of the driving forces of the rebellion and it would be
intellectually dishonest to suggest something like the idea that an
organization purposefully introduced an epidemic into the country to create
the conditions for a revolt. Nor could they have been responsible for the
corruption and attitude of the church, nor the taxes and laws created by the
king’s government.

Instead, the organizing hand behind the Peasants’ Revolt seems to have
seen these conditions and opportunistically seized upon them when stoking
the fires of rebellion. Taking old issues and grievances among the people,
they articulated and voiced such problems for all to hear. They focused
blame and anger, directing it toward their own goals. The fact that Wat
Tyler was killed before the Revolt could truly fulfil its goals likely means
that we will never know what this mysterious leader and his organization
truly wanted. We do know that the guiding hand of the rebellion seemed to
die with him, with the organizers shrinking back into the shadows.

So where does this leave us? Though we suspect that the existence of the
so-called Great Society was certainly true, we have close to seven centuries
separating us from the reality. Furthermore, the quest to uncover evidence is
difficult. Not only have just a fraction of the documents from the time even
survived into the present day, but those that did are often written from the
perspective of the authorities. As we have seen, the secret society in
question was adept at hiding itself from the government. Those of us who
are searching seven hundred years later are already at a huge disadvantage.
Rather than proof of the Great Society itself, we see the imprint of the
organization. We see the foot print, rather than the foot itself. We can
interpret their existence based on the circumstances, the environment, and
the government’s response, rather than any one piece of brilliant evidence.
There is no smoking gun. There is not even a reference to a single Great
Society, the sources refuse to use ‘the’ as the definitive article, instead
mentioning ‘a’ Great Society. We only use the label of the Great Society
due to the fact that we have no better name.

Furthermore, trying to prove the existence of a secret society seems to be a

contradiction in terms. To be truly secret and truly successful, a secret
society would not be known to anyone else but members. That is perhaps
why there is no official record of any kind of secret society anywhere in
medieval England, other than the Lollards (whose work is only tangentially
related to this matter).

And now, at least—and somewhat briefly—we come to the Ancient Order

of the Free and Accepted Masons. From the outset, we should state that
there is no contemporary documentation that confirms the operation of the
Freemasons in England during the rebellion. Equally, no evidence exists to
the contrary, though the burden of proof remains on the former position.
Instead, the evidence linking the Freemasons with the uprising comes from
a few years later.

After 1717, there was a shift in the way the Masons operated. As we will go
into detail later on, they moved out of the shadows and became a public
organization. It is after this time that the Freemasons exist as a verifiable
group. But that has not prevented people who have been writing about the
Freemasons to trace the lineage back even further. A cursory internet search
or a glimpse through a number of the less-thoroughly researched books on
the matter will list men such as Pythagoras, Julius Caesar, and other
historical figures as being members of the order, or perhaps even
Grandmasters. These are often flights of fancy, with little to link the
speculation to reality. Such matters are hardly worth mentioning, beyond
acknowledging their speculative existence. Other, slightly more tempered
suggestions, have put forward men such as King Solomon (the man who
built on Temple Mount) and that his temple was the first edifice dedicated
to Masonry. More modern historians have labelled this an equal flight of
fancy. However, that is not to say that the lineage of the Freemasons cannot
be traced back to many centuries before the time when they first emerged
into public view.

For many historians, the roots of the organization now known as the
Freemasons can be traced to the medieval times. During this period, it has
been suggested that stone masons and other professionals banded together
in guilds (a verifiable fact) and that these guilds then transformed into
secret societies. This is one of the most commonly accepted versions of the
origin of the Freemasons. One only need look at the name to see the clear
etymological link between a guild of masons and the Freemasons. So how
does this relate to the Peasants’ Revolt and the Great Society that may have
organized it all?

Historians have pointed first to the alleged leader of the rebels, Walter the
Tyler (to give him his full name.) As was the case in many professions
handed down from father to son in England at the time, the surname of a
man (typically using the additional ‘the’) would be an indication of his
profession. In an age when a profession might stay in a family for years and
communities would be relatively small, such names were important.
Though their modern versions have been divorced from such professional
qualities, one need only look at the surname of Wat Tyler to note that he
was likely a tradesman, or had at least come from a family of trades-
orientated tylers (tilers).

Wat Tyler is a fascinating figure in English history. Seemingly from

nowhere, he emerges to lead one of the country’s largest ever rebellions,
leading 100,000 peasants in a march against the aristocracy. He destroys
many properties (including many belonging to the Hospitallers), burns
many records, and executes many people (including both the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the prior of the Knights Hospitallers). Just as quickly as he
appears on the scene, he departs. A few days after becoming one of the
most important people in the entire kingdom, he is executed and his head
stuck on a pole over London Bridge. In all, his time in the spotlight lasted
about eight days. Before then, we know nothing of the man. After, he
becomes a legend.
As such, there have been suggestions that Wat Tyler might have been using
a false name. Though his name might suggest a history as a roof tiler, his
clear military acumen and leadership qualities seem to render this
redundant. Instead, it could be that he chose the name ‘Tyler’ on purpose,
wishing to indicate his position and his importance to those who knew the
relevance of the name.

At this point, we will make a detour into Masonic law. For those who are
unfamiliar, a Masonic Lodge as an organization is a well-defined structure.
Within each lodge there are specific titles relating to specific roles and jobs.
The name Tyler is one such title. Within the context of a Masonic Lodge,
the man who has the title of Tyler is considered the sentry and the enforcer,
the sergeant-at-arms of his respective Lodge. It is his responsibility to
screen potential members, to check their credentials, to ensure that the
meeting place is secure, and then—while the meeting takes place—to stand
guard outside the room while holding a drawn sword. In modern parlance, it
is essentially a ceremonial position. In the secret societies of old, at a time
when they existed outside of (and often in opposition to) the law, it was an
essential post. The name Tyler, to Masons, means something incredibly
specific.

Therefore, if were are to entertain the idea that there might be a link (any at
all) between the Great Society and the group who would eventually become
the Freemasons, we can understand that the name Wat the Tyler was far
more than a random pseudonym. To those in the know, the emergence of
Wat Tyler at the head of the rebellion would have been a secret sign, a
signal that this was an ordained military leader, the man who would hold
the sword and deliver discipline and military success. The connection is
tenuous, certainly speculative, but it is interesting nonetheless.

On a similar level is the idea that Yorkshire was an important center of the
uprising, especially in the city of York itself. The city has long played an
important role in Masonry, with Masons as recently as the 18 th Century
being certain of the idea that the York Lodge is the oldest in the country.
The founding of the Lodge, they say, dates back to the construction of York
Cathedral in medieval times. Over the course of the 18 th Century, the York
Lodge would play a key role in Freemasonry. Annoyed at the decision of
London Lodges to go public with their existence in 1717, they spent the
next decade distancing themselves from their southern brothers and
asserting their right to stand alone, an importance and a privilege they
suggest has been incumbent to the York Lodge since “time immemorial.”
Added to this, the special position of York with regards to Freemasonry is
demonstrated by the modern belief—especially among American Masons—
that the York branch of Masonry is the most authentic, most in tune with
Masonic traditions.

There’s no denying that the rebellion was certainly ideologically similar to

many Masonic principles. Looking at the Revolt on a macro level, the
rejection of serfdom, the determination to be free, and to throw of the
shackles of domineering power relationships is very much in line with
many ideas held aloft by the Masons. Indeed, one of the central concepts of
the order—known as the Landmarks of Freemasonry—requires that a
Mason be a “free man born of a free mother.” Serfdom, seemingly, would
prohibit this. Indeed, the fact that—by the close of the 15 th Century—
almost every man (at least, every white English male) in England could be
considered “free” has been used by some to indicate that the very existence
of such a requirement points to the idea that Masonry as a concept is very
old. That the Peasants’ Revolt was perhaps a demonstration in favor of
Masonic ideals, however, is not proof that any Great Society could be
considered a forebear or an early iteration of the Freemasons. It does,
however, help add color to the argument that the Masons may have existed
(and held influence) long before the time that is most commonly accepted.

Perhaps the strongest evidence tying our various strands together is best
demonstrated by looking at another society altogether. The key to
understanding the potential earliest glimpses of a Masonic secret society
could well be demonstrated through the existence of the Knights
Hospitallers. The numerous attacks of the rebels on Hospitaller properties
and the execution of their prior (or leader), Sir Robert Hales, is very telling.
Take, for example, George de Donesby. Despite being from Lincolnshire,
he was eventually arrested some 200 miles from his home and did indeed
confess to being a member of the so-called Great Society. The coincidence
here is that the striking peasants back in his home town were particularly
distraught at the behavior of their local lords and had stopped paying taxes,
taxes which would have eventually ended up in a manor controlled by the
Hospitallers. He is one of the few men who can be directly tied to the
existence of the Great Society and also possessed clear structural
resentment of the Knights Hospitallers.

Of course, the string of attacks by the rioters on Hospitaller properties

demonstrates that this was clearly an agenda driven process. For example,
taking the rioters especially north of London into Highbury in order to burn
down the Hospitallers’ newly rebuilt manor is a clear indication that they
were to be considered a natural enemy of the rioters. In the middle of
London, surrounded by a litany of potential targets, the rebels went six
miles out of their way to attack Hospitaller property. Similar examples can
be found across the country, where rioters made special dispensation to
target such properties. In Cambridge, for example, men rode ten miles from
their path to burn another Hospitaller manor.

It has long been held that the Peasants’ Revolt was partly a demonstration
against the corrupt nature of the church. In so far as this is true, the rebels
certainly targeted churches and religious buildings in their attacks,
particularly when they were burning records which might be used by the
government in propagating serfdom. But the churches that they did attack
were disproportionally owned and operated by the Hospitallers. It was only
the properties that were owned by these Knights that the rebels purposefully
sought out and burned down. Other attacks were often sporadic crimes of
opportunity. Very rarely did the rebels deviate from their set path other than
to attack Hospitaller properties.

Indeed, the one church which the rebels did not seem to want to burn down
was the Hospitaller church just off Fleet Street. Instead, they took all of the
available records out from the building and burned them in the street. Was it
a coincidence that this same property had previously been one of the
Knights Templars’ favored properties? Might there have been a wish to
preserve this church over all others, despite the presence of the
Hospitallers? The church had been consecrated in 1185 by Heraclius, the
then-patriarch of the holy city of Jerusalem in the name of the Knights
Templar. The same patriarch similarly consecrated the Hospitallers’
property in Clerkenwell, but—perhaps as that property had not previously
been owned by the Templars—the rebels had no issue with burning it down.
Could it have been a coincidence that the attacks by the rebels were so
clearly aimed towards one of the oldest enemies of the Knights Templar?
Could this have been an act of vengeance from a group which had
seemingly been driven underground and out of existence?

Even small touches, such as the choice of uniform among many of the
rebels, points towards a Templar influence. In places such as Scarborough,
Beverly, and York, the rebels attired themselves in a white shawl, hooded
and with a red decorative touch. Not only does such an item indicate
planning—it would have been hard to make 500 of these on the spot and
distribute them over long distances—but it was remarkably similar to the
choice of clothing worn by the Templars themselves, a white mantle with a
red cross.

One of the most interesting links comes from the death of Jack Strawe.
Strawe was one of the highest ranking members of the rebel army,
something of a right hand man to Wat Tyler. He was caught and taken to
London, whereupon he was sentenced to death for his crimes of helping to
organize a rebellion. The authorities still tried to extract a confession from
the man, however, and in exchange offered Strawe the chance of a Christian
burial and the promise that three years’ of masses would be said in his
name. All he had to do was to confess the “true purpose” of the rebellion.
Strawe agreed and gave the authorities a statement. In this statement, he
confirmed that the plan was not only to assemble a massive crowd of
common people and to execute any lords who opposed them, but to destroy
the Hospitallers. Not just their property, but their organization. This hatred
was left unexplained, but there seems to be only one logical answer to those
who ask this question—just who could have hated the Hospitallers to such a
degree?
It was a hatred that had been brewing for decades. Ever since the official
disbanding of the Knights Templar in 1312, following the five years of
torture and investigation by numerous institutions, there had been the
question of what should be done with the Templars’ extensive business
portfolio. Many of those interested in breaking up the Templars wanted the
wealth for themselves—and they took it —but one of the chief beneficiaries
was the Knights Hospitaller. It’s easy to see why a group who had been
hounded and chased into secrecy might resent and loathe one of their chief
rivals. Would this have been the motivation behind the destruction of
Hospitaller property and the execution of the grand prior of the order,
Robert Hales? Could the Templars have had a similar grudge against the
Catholic Church—the same organization which had founded and then
abandoned them—to the point where they ignored the Holy Sacrament,
ignored ancient rites of sanctuary, and even executed the Archbishop of
Canterbury? It’s obvious that the Templars might have resented both
institutions and that the Revolt provided them with the opportunity to
extract some kind of revenge.

Indeed, there seems even to be a direct reference to the Templars in the

chronicles taken from Bury St. Edmunds. One of the most bloody sites of
the Revolt, it was specifically excluded from the amnesty. When digging
into the records from the time, Antonia Gransden’s book highlights the ire
that might have been raised by the Templars. The chronicles repurpose
some of the Templars’ most heroic and notable tales, with the Benedictine
authors turning the Knights into treasonous men rather than tragic heroes.
The accounts even go so far as to accuse the Templars of poisoning the
King of Cyprus and his family. It would be enough to prompt a hidden
Templar force into anger and hints at the propaganda campaign that was
issued following the Templars’ demise. As the source of some of the more
extreme lies about the Templars, Bury St. Edmunds might well have had the
violence brought upon the town through the actions of the Benedictine
monks.

All of this supposition brings us to one important question. Though the

Peasants’ Revolt is commonly regarded as a failure, is this actually true? If
indeed there was a Great Society—which might have been the descendants
of the Knights Templar—providing guidance, expertise, and motivation,
was the Revolt actually a success for those behind the scenes?

If we take the point of view of the so-called Great Society and assume that
they bore some connection to the Templars, then was the destruction of
Hospitaller, Crown, and Church property actually one of the major goals of
the rebellion? If so, then there was more than a modicum of success to be
enjoyed. Destroying vast amounts of valuable properties, destroying
records, and removing wealth from the noted enemies of the Templars
would certainly indicate that the Revolt could have been a success from the
Templar point of view.

But this is difficult to believe. If we are to entertain the idea that the
Templars were themselves the Great Society—or at least, that they formed
its foundational layer—then we must wonder how an order than had been
either destroyed or driven underground for sixty-nine years could possibly
have been so influential. As well as having many of their most important
commanders executed during the purge against the Templars, those knights
who were members of the order would have aged drastically. Those aged
twenty, for example, would be approaching ninety years by the time of the
Revolt. They would have had to have been lower ranking members, at the
very least. It seems implausible that members such as these would be able
to live long enough to inspire a rebellion (especially if we discount more
wild propositions, such as the Templars’ ownership of the Holy Grail and
any attendant life-extending properties such an item might possess).

Likewise, the idea that the Templars could perpetuate themselves in secret
over a number of future generations, still maintaining that initial lust for
revenge, seems just as unlikely. Could such a society remain secret in
England for close to seventy years, positioning itself to take advantage of
certain societal changes and alterations that would eventually lead to the
Peasants’ Revolt?

Stepping back from the intricacies of the story for a moment, we can look at
the facts:
 There was likely a group (loosely structured) of people who
sympathized with the Templars in England around the time of their
disbandment. This is seen in the larger numbers of members who
managed to evade capture in England compared to other countries.
When the crown and the church later worked together to find
remaining Templars, they found only three members.
Of the Templars who were captured in England during the first wave
of arrests, many managed to escape from prison. This means that they
had help, either on the inside or the outside.
The first wave of arrests in England happened three months after the
order was originally given on the continent. This would provide the
Templars in England time to make preparations and prepare their
legacy and hiding places.

During those three months, the Templars could well have erected a
new organization, a loosely structured group designed to help them
following the order from the Pope.
If such a group did exist, it would be founded with the considerable
resources the Templars had at their disposal, which would be needed
to carry on their fight long after the demise of the original members.
Thus, it would be well-funded and would surely morph over the
coming generations.
If such an organization were to live for a long time, then the use of
simple goals and objectives would allow them to remain focused,
despite loose organization and the threat of detection.

But where could such an organization exist? Is it possible that we can draw
a line between the fall of the Templars, the rebellion of the Great Society,
and then the emergence of the Freemasons? We have already began to look
at just how all three could feasibly share the same motivations and—as we
will eventually see—how they share much of the same ideology. In the
future, the Freemasons would even incorporate many of the Templars’
words and phrases into their very existence. But in order to try and get to
the bottom of this mystery, we will need to look north of the border. The
key to all three organizations, it seems, is to be found in Scotland.
Scottish Roots
Scotland seems to be the common denominator when discussing the
Freemasons and the Knights Templar. It is in Scotland that marks both the
fall of the Templars and the rise of the Masons, though the exact nature of
the transition is the hazy, difficult part. Depending on who you believe,
such a transition could have taken place over a matter of years, of decades,
or of centuries. In this next chapter, we will try to figure out how exactly the
foundation might have been laid by the Templars to form the organization
which might eventually become the Freemasons, as well as how this relates
to the Great Society and the Peasants’ Revolt. In order to achieve this, we
should take a moment or two to consider the political situation in Scotland.

The relationship between Scotland and England is fractious, to say the least.
Historically, the two countries have loathed one another for centuries. In a
large part, this was due to the actions of a man we have already encountered
in this book, Edward I. Nicknamed the Hammer of the Scots, Edward
dedicated much of his life to dealing with problems to his north. We have
already discussed Edward’s role in restoring England’s status and do not
have time to go into great depth on the fascinating story of his wars with
Scotland. However, a brief overview is necessary to set the scene.

Simply put, Scotland wanted to be independent from English rule. For clear
reasons, England did not want this to happen. Relationships between the
Lords of Scotland and the English crown allowed for a kind of accord,
which suited both ruling parties. But the Scottish people were not pleased.
From the ranks, a man rose up and fought against the English. His name
was William Wallace. Immortalized in modern film, most people have
heard of Wallace and his demands of freedom. He was one of the most
successful Scottish battle commanders when it came to leading the fight
against the English. By the end of 1297, Wallace had led small Scottish
armies against much larger English forces and had won.

But Edward I was a formidable foe. He and Wallace locked horns and
fought against one another over the coming years. These battles were
fought against a greater geopolitical struggle, as Scotland tried to win over
the allegiance of France and the Vatican, hoping that such an alliance might
secure their independence. England fought back on the diplomatic stage,
too, as Edward sealed their own accord with France in 1303. Edward, who
made great use of the military force of the Templar Knights, finally won
over when he convinced Wallace’s fellow Scots to betray him. Abandoned
by many Scottish Lords, William Wallace was caught and then executed in
horrific fashion. Edward I seemed to have won and earned himself the
nickname which would eventually emblazon his tomb. He had finally
hammered the Scots.

It was the monarchs to follow that would have the most importance,
however. As strong a leader as Edward I had been, those who followed
possessed none of his fortitude. By the time Edward II was crowned king of
England, he had inherited a delicate situation. To the north, Scotland was
ignited with hate against the English. To make matters worse, the
emergence of Robert the Bruce meant he now faced a Scottish king of his
own. Robert had murdered his rival for the crown and was beginning a
renewed campaign for Scottish independence. Though he had initially
suffered defeat while Edward I was alive, he had retreated and planned his
revenge. The brutality of Edward I against the Scottish would leave his
successor with a furious nation led by a daunting opponent.

To the south, the death of Edward I had many implications. While Edward I
was well-regarded by Prince Philip of France, Edward II was nowhere near
as impressive a figure. Indeed, it was Edward I’s admiration and use of the
Templars which meant that Philip was unable to make a move against the
organization. With the death of Edward I, the Templars no longer enjoyed
such protection. Philip, noting the power vacuum that had emerged, was
now able to make his move. In tandem with the Vatican, he launched the
campaign against the Knights Templar.

So this leaves us with two institutions with shared resentments. Scotland

and the Knights Templar had both been betrayed by France and the Vatican.
With the departure of Edward I, the Templars no longer enjoyed a position
of privilege within England. Hounded by Philip’s forces and the church,
they were forced to flee, to retreat from the public eye and to find a place of
sanctuary. With their wealth and their knowledge, it seems as though they
would have been welcomed across the border in Scotland. The two bodies
shared similar enemies, which practically made them allies.

Following the orders issued by the Vatican for the outlawing of the Knights
Templar, countries across Europe reacted differently. While Templars in
Paris, for example, were captured, tortured, and executed, this was not the
fate of every single member. True, the leaders of the Templars had been
tempted to go to France before the order was issued and this meant that the
top level leadership (including the grand master) was killed, with as many
as 56 Templars being burned alive on just one day in Paris. In France,
certainly, the strike against the Templars was vicious.

But in Spain and Portugal, for example, there was a greater threat. Muslim
armies had been invading the Iberian Peninsula from the south, with the
Templars’ military branch being a key part of the fight against the invaders.
Accordingly, the local branches of the church conducted their own
inquisition into the Templars. While the French and Italian clergy had
extracted confessions under torture— during which the Templars allegedly
admitted to everything, from urinating on the cross to blaspheming against
God—their Iberian counterparts found the Templars to be innocent. But that
did not mean they could be allowed to exist. Instead, the local Templars
were rebranded and emerged as an apparently new order, the Knights of
Christ. A key difference in this new outfit was that they were responsible to
the local king, rather than the pope. The new Knights of Christ were
permitted to continue their fight against the Muslim invaders.

In Germany, it happened differently. Hugo of Gumbach, the local leader of

the Templars, decided to don his battle armor and marched defiantly into
the council being held by the Archbishop of Metz. There, he issued a
proclamation assuring everyone that the Templars were entirely innocent
and that their grand master was falsely accused. In fact, he stated, it was
Pope Clement V who was the evil party. Hugo declared that he was no
longer in thrall to the Holy See because of this. Along with all of the other
Knights Templar present, he was innocent. So convinced was he of his
innocence, both he and the other armored knights would gladly enter into
trial by combat with anyone who believed otherwise. Such accusations
abated rather quickly.

On Cyprus, the pope’s instructions carried even less weight. As the location
of the Templar headquarters, it took months for the ruling Prince of Cyprus
to even acknowledge the papal bull and when the Templars were eventually
tried, they were found to be innocent. The trial so incensed the pope that he
immediately dispatched his own team of inquisitors to the island to perform
a retrial. Unfortunately, however, no documents tell us of the outcome of
such a trial. By this time, however, the Templars would have had more than
ample time to prepare for the Vatican’s men.

Even in France, things were not panning out exactly as Philip had hoped.
One of the main motivations for his taking down of the Templars—to take
their vast wealth for himself—was proving to be difficult to satisfy. The
treasure that he might have expected to find seemed to be gone. The
Templar fleet, one of the largest in Europe, had similarly gone missing from
La Rochelle. The eighteen ships that were owned and operated by the
Templars seemed to have simply vanished from existence.

What wealth did remain would be transferred officially into the ownership
of the Hospitallers. Eventually, Pope Clement V would decree that the
wealth and property of the Templars would transferred to the rival order,
excepting those on the Iberian Peninsula, due to the threat from the Muslim
forces. It would be an order that angered Prince Philip, the French monarch
hoping that a new order would be founded, with himself at the head, which
would officially be granted the wealth of the Templars. There would be
something of a concession to Philip, however, as local monarchs would be
permitted the chance to recoup the money they had spent on the arrests,
torture, and prosecution of the Templars, figures which might seem to have
been plucked out of thin air. This desire to please everyone by the church
would form the basis of a campaign to launch a new Crusade in the future.

So, while the treatment of the Templars was different across Europe, it was
the situation in Great Britain that pertains most to the story we’re telling.
And in England, the change in monarch was notable. The transition from
one of the country’s strongest kings to one of its weakest plays a big role in
the tale.

There are many stories about King Edward II of England. One of the best
known concerns the teenage king’s love life, with many historians
speculating that his true love was not the French princess to whom he was
betrothed, but a young man named Piers Gaveston. Their blossoming
homosexual romance had escaped Edward I’s attention while the older king
fought fiercely against Scotland. The relationship would eventually become
a wedge driven between father and son, with the anger strong enough to
prompt Edward I to strike his son and drag him around a room by his hair.
Eventually, Gaveston was banished.

Naturally, the new King Edward II’s first act was to recall his lover from
banishment. The move set the tone for the new reign, with the king’s
council vying for power. Gaveston’s role in this was to mock his lover’s
advisors, causing consternation throughout the aristocracy of the country.
This proved to be a distraction when the papal orders filtered through.
While Clement V demanded that the court deal with the Templars, those in
power were too distracted by the question of how to deal with Piers
Gaveston. Against this backdrop, Robert the Bruce was resuming his war
for independence and the upcoming wedding between Edward and Isabella
of France was occupying the thoughts of many.

The pope and Philip both petitioned the English to hurry up in their
prosecution of the Templars. The new king seemed reluctant to believe the
charges, though. His father had been a strong advocate and ally of the
Templars and their presence was a notable part of the young prince’s
childhood. He believed the charges to be false and wrote to other monarchs
around Europe asking for their support on the matter. Before they could
reply, the official papal decree reached him and Edward was left with no
choice.

That’s not to say he acted immediately, however. A period of months

existed between receiving the decree and persecuting the English Templars.
It was more than enough time for the Templars to make plans. When the
king’s men eventually rode out from London to track down the Templars,
they found the knights had simply vanished. Only a few stragglers were
caught. Furthermore, the records kept by the order had vanished with them.
Even the Templars’ treasure seemed to have disappeared. When the officers
entered the Templars London headquarters, expecting to find a huge amount
of wealth, they found less than £200, a fraction of what was expected.

At the same time, King Edward II had also vanished. He had departed to
France to be married to the young Princess Isabella (twelve years old at the
time) and had left Gaveston in charge. That meant that Gaveston—to the
horror of the nobles—was not only ruling the kingdom but was in charge of
the prosecution of the Templars. He didn’t seem to care for the task and the
attempts to capture any Templars in the months following the papal decree
were half-hearted. Of the few who were captured, some even managed to
escape. Either there was a properly organized escape plan held by the
Templars, or the people conducting the pursuit had little taste for the
prosecution. In likelihood, it was a combination of both.

In England, those Templars that were captured were not tortured. Though
they remained incarcerated by the time Edward returned to the country and
afterwards, they were not subjected to the same horrors that befell those
captured Templars on the continent. This riled the pope to the point where
he sent his own torturers over to England to carry out the task, as well as
threatening excommunication for anyone who helped the Templars in any
way. Even though Edward placed some restrictions on the torturers working
in England—no mutilations, for example—he nevertheless bowed to the
ultimate papal authority. While this seemed to bring no confession out of
the few Templars in prison, it had the effect of driving the hidden members
even further from the gaze of authorities gaze.

While England eventually acquiesced to the pope’s whims, Scotland was a

different story. The pope tried and failed to have Templars in Scotland
arrested. Indeed, despite the fact that Robert the Bruce did make a few
perfunctory arrests in the first month of 1308, his on-going military
struggles meant that—when confronted with a trained and useful military
man such as an armored knight—he was more prone to recruitment than
punishment. Robert was disinterested in any potential Crusade, didn’t care
about monastic military organizations, cared not for Philip of France or the
pope, and was aware that trouble was brewing down south as Edward II
prepared to resume his father’s campaign to quell Scottish independence.
To that end, he had allegedly cast aside the papal decree concerning the
Templars. It was never announced in Scotland. As such, it seemed that
Scotland was a legal sanctuary for any fleeing Templars.

That meant that, should any Templar knight find himself in a difficult legal
situation down in England or Europe, he could not only expect to find
haven in Scotland, but he might well be welcomed with open arms,
providing he was willing to join Robert the Bruce’s military. Given that the
Scottish cavalry at the time was supposedly poor in numbers and quality,
trained and equipped knights were essential.

By 1313, England was in a precarious position. A longstanding issue with

Piers Gaveston and the nobles had eventually led to the king’s lover being
executed. As the nobles tried to reassert influence over Edward II, the
king’s father-in-law—Philip of France—advised that he should ratify his
allegiance to the church. This meant embarking on the Vatican’s newly
announced Crusade. A year earlier, the same council which had official
disbanded the Templars once and for all announced an attempt to reclaim
the Holy Land in the name of Christendom. Despite England ostensibly
pledging to help, to do so would have been suicidal. Sending off the
country’s best fighting men when Robert the Bruce stared down from
Scotland would have undone all the progress Edward I had worked so hard
to achieve. Even while the Crusade was announced, Robert was moving
through Scotland and steadily reclaiming castle after castle. If Edward
wanted to reclaim his authority in the kingdom—and if he wanted to use a
successful military campaign to do so—then the Crusades were not the
opportunity he needed. Instead, he would have to fight the Scottish.

And so Edward rallied a force of 25,000 men to march north and dominate
Scotland once and for all. In his army, the king of England had 5,000
cavalry and 10,000 archers. In response, Robert the Bruce was able to
muster 10,000 troops. But Robert knew the English were coming. Long
before Edward and his army arrived, the Scottish could carefully select the
battlefield. As the English marched mile after mile, making themselves
tired and hungry, the Scottish dug in and made sure they were well fed and
refreshed. As it happened, Robert placed his army on the spot between the
advancing English from the south and one of the few remaining English
outposts in the region, Stirling Castle. This meant Edward would not be
able to resupply before he met the Scottish army.

When it came to planning the battle, Robert drew on everything he had

learned from William Wallace. He dug potholes across the field to hinder
the English armed knights and hid men with twelve foot spears to take
down the horses that might charge the Scots. These he hid under cover,
camouflaging their presence. Wallace had been betrayed when his own
cavalry, led by one of the disgruntled nobles, had abandoned him at a vital
moment. Not wishing to fall to the same fate, Robert placed himself at the
head of Scotland’s small band of armored knights. According to the legend,
the core of these cavalry men were made up of fugitive Templars, men who
had fled north and accordingly sworn allegiance to Robert. The battle
would allow them to exact some modicum of revenge on the man who had
betrayed them to the pope.

It was a famous Scottish victory. As the English army was outflanked, they
turned and fled. The deciding moment had come when the followers of the
Scottish camp—the women, boys, and other non-combatants—had
suddenly decided to take up arms and swarm the English, who assumed this
to be a fresh wave of Scottish reinforcements. The fleeing army was routed,
with England losing as many as 15,000 men compared to Scottish losses of
just 4,000. The Scottish victory was so resounding that it would put an end
to English rule over Scotland for close to 400 years.

In addition, the sheer scale of the English defeat left Edward II’s kingdom
in anarchy. Ambitious nobles, disgusted by their ruler’s ineptitude, began to
take on more power for themselves. Across the country, the collapse of law
and order meant that bands of outlaws began to roam free. It became the
time of the feted outlaw heroes, men such as Robin Hood who fought
against the corrupt rulers and preyed on the wealthy. Eventually, the
ramifications of the defeat would be so violent for Edward II that he would
lose his throne. Not only would he no longer be king, but he was betrayed
by his wife and his nobles, the former summoning a mercenary army and
the latter welcoming said army warmly. By 1327, on the 22 nd of September,
Edward was executed. Such was the humor of the executioners when
dealing with the homosexual king that they choose one final insult. The
method of execution involved thrusting a red hot iron spit directly up
Edward’s rectum. In his place, Edward III—at the time still a teenager –
would take over the throne. It would be Edward III’s successful reign which
would set the scene for the eventual Peasants’ Revolt.

So where does this leave the Templars and the Freemasons? According to
the legend, they would be found in Scotland. So disastrous was the reign of
Edward II that not only did he lose Scotland for centuries, but his actions
were essential in driving the outlawed Templars north. Once they arrived,
they would have needed to remain in secret. After all, their very existence
was deemed an affront to god. But their riches, their military expertise, and
their very presence were a boon to the Scottish king. So, with the need to
remain in hiding, the hidden Templars would need to repurpose their
organization. They were no longer a military order of knights, as such, but
were now a clandestine secret society. They had an agenda, with vengeance
that needed to be inflicted. Still very much fugitives, their mind set would
have needed to have changed from men on the run to those in hiding, from
world domineering men of power to cold and calculating power players. As
they moved behind the scenes, the Templars would have needed to become
a powerful secret society. Still maintaining their ambitions, could they have
become the Great Society which would trouble England seven decades
later?

Fugitives
On paper, the flight of the Knights Templar was well set up to succeed.
Those Templars in England, Cyprus—and most places other than Italy and
France—were given as many as three months in which they could plan their
escape. Add to this the wealth, the political connections, and the means of
transportation (especially the fleet) the Templars possessed and it’s easy to
see why so many people believe that the order possessed the organization
necessities needed to escape persecution. Obviously, a number of the higher
profile Templars were executed, and many hundreds of members were both
tortured and killed. But on the whole, the attempt to totally annihilate the
Templars seemed to have failed.

But that didn’t meant the Templars had it easy. They had been officially
outlawed by the church. This seemingly meant a blanket ban across Europe.
All of Christendom was seemingly antithetical to their presence, as decreed
by the pope. All around was enemy territory. Given that a huge proportion
of the land in Europe was owned by various church-affiliated groups, none
of whom were particularly beholden to the Templars, most areas were
dangerous for members. Add in the fact that they would have stood out
among the locals by their dress, their hairstyles, their mannerisms, and even
the fact that they were chiefly a French speaking society, meant that going
into hiding would have been more than difficult.

This meant that a fugitive Templar would need assistance. If he was to pass
under a new identity — as would surely be essential—then he would need
someone to vouchsafe for his new character. At a time when towns and
cities were far smaller than they are today (London, for example, was a city
of 25,000 and the biggest in England) that would have to be done on a
personal level. The Templars needed friends.

It is here that we see a striking similarity between what the Templars

suddenly required and one of the most ancient rules of Freemasonry.
Known as one of the Old Charges of the Masons, the rule states that no
brother should go “into a town” unless he can do so in the presence of
another brother who can vouchsafe him, or “witness” on his behalf. Given
the authorities held the power to arrest strangers who received no such
backing, there is clear historical precedent for an old rule which is now
dealt with in mostly a figurative sense. Indeed, the five years which passed
between the first announcement of the pope’s anti-Templar order and the
final, official dissolution of the organization, plus the slowed down or
delayed process undertaken in certain countries, there would have been
more than enough time for the Templars to erect a secret structure of checks
and balances. Code words and pass phrases could denote trust, with their
existence easily spread through the Templar community before they went
into hiding. By the time the authorities finally came looking for them, these
checks and balances could help the outlawed Templars remain hidden.

We should take an extra moment to mention one of the biggest mysteries of

the Templars. What happened to their fleet? The ships which departed from
La Rochelle made up one of Europe’s wealthiest armadas, but seemed to
simply vanish. The fleet had arrived in France to bring grand master
Jacques de Molay to the pope, whereupon he would be arrested. But when
the authorities went to find the Templar ships, they had vanished. Their
presence is not recorded in the chronicles of any other French port, nor are
they mentioned as having docked in the Thames or any other major port.

There has been much speculation over what happened to these ships. For
those Templars who were on board, not only were the galleys a valuable
asset in and of themselves, but they also provided the perfect means to
evade the authorities. They could be sailed anywhere, while still providing a
living space at the same time. If they so desired, the Templars could simply
have lived aboard their ships, making land occasionally only to replenish
their supplies, and even that could be done in any smaller, less visible port.
The ships even provided the Templars with the chance to make a living, as
they happened to be the ideal vessels for high seas piracy. Should they be so
inclined, the military minds of the newly-outlawed Templars could have
easily used their ships to board others in the Mediterranean or even raided
the coast. As a side note, there is a confusing section of the initiation
ceremony of the modern Master Mason, in which the man pledged to make
himself a brother to “pirates and corsairs.” It seems a strange entry in the
Masonic rules, but some have pointed towards this as being a link to the
missing Templar fleet. While worth noting, however, this is almost entirely
speculation.

For some people, however, the fate of the Templar fleet ties neatly into the
story that we are trying to uncover. There has been much written about what
happened to the ships after they departed La Rochelle, as well as what they
were carrying. Though the most imaginative end of the spectrum often
contains flights of fancy such as the Holy Grail and other religious relics,
it’s worth noting that the wealth and knowledge of the Templars was likely
far more traditional. They were a wealthy group, with members sourced
from every country and every social group. They knew a great deal about a
great many people. When the ships vanished, that information resided
within the members. Accordingly, many believe that this wealth and
knowledge would be combined with another society, merging together the
nascent principles of a band of stone masons with the recently forbidden
knowledge of the Templars. For some people, the missing Templar fleet
provides the catalyst for the notion that the order combined with the
fledging Freemasons. But could a fugitive group such as the Knights
Templar really have combined with a seemingly random collection of stone
masons?

Taken at face value, the idea that the Knights Templar and the Freemasons
share a common heritage seems to be incredible and almost unbelievable.
Here we have two of the most notorious secret societies in history, the idea
that they might be linked somehow seems to be nothing more than wishful
thinking. But, over the course of this book, we have looked at the
background of medieval Europe, and England in particular, as being the
ideal melting pot for any number of clandestine groups. Shared
resentments, similar patterns, and a mysterious history unite both groups.
But there is something more than just pure speculation linking the two
societies.

The traditional history of the Freemasons holds that their fraternities

emerged from a guild-like organization that regulated and promoted the
works of tradesmen. This is perfectly conceivable and, indeed, much
evidence exists to demonstrate that there is a great deal of truth to the
matter. But it is not incompatible with the idea that the Templars had an
influence on the fledgling masonry guilds. Take, for example, the Old
Charge of Freemasonry, one of the organization’s oldest pledges. The rule
requires members to promise that they will reveal no secret of any fellow
member which might eventually lead said member to lose either his life of
his property. For an organization which existed to promote and protect
tradesmen and their skillsets, this rule doesn’t make much sense. For a
fugitive Templar, it is absolutely essential. There are free secrets held by the
stonemasons which might have endangered someone’s life or their property,
while secrets were often a matter of life and death for those in any way
associated with the Templars.

So a theory emerges. This theory suggests that the Templars, fugitives on

the run from the authorities, somehow merged with the earliest iterations of
the Freemasons. Accordingly, such a merger resulted in many Templar
rituals and ideas being inserted into the rules and charges of the
Freemasons. It seems outrageous on the surface, but taking a closer look at
some of the historical records can reveal an increasing amount of support
for this theory.

Let’s take a look at the three organizations who might be regarded, in the 14
th
Century, as being the enemies of the Knights Templar. These were: the
monarchy, the church, and the Knights Hospitallers. Of these three enemies,
it is perhaps the church which presented the biggest challenge to the
fugitive Templars. For their entire existence, the Knights Templar had been
a religious organization. Christianity was baked into the very foundation of
the order, who answered only to the pope and, thus, to God. But the
Templars had been betrayed by the very man they answered to. The church
had declared them to be outlaws and heretics. While they might have
retained a belief in God, the Templars had been cut off from their supposed
leader, their grand master having been burned alive by the pope himself.

In the medieval mind-set, trying to balance a fervent belief in God’s

existence with this kind of betrayal must have been difficult. In complete
secrecy, it seems unsurprising that the Templars might have grown to resent
the institution of the Catholic Church, and hated the corruption and greed
that it had come to represent. But these thoughts were necessarily private.
At the time, there was no alternative. The Vatican held a monopoly on
belief in Western Europe. Though the seeds of what would become the
Protestant Reformation had been planted, they were yet to blossom into a
real Christian alternative. The very fact that the Templars were able—or, in
actual fact, forced—to entertain such thoughts in complete secrecy became
key to their resentment of the church and how this manifested.

As such, we should look at the Freemasons’ and their comprehension of

religion. In the Freemasons, there is one single point which has formed the
foundation of the society as a whole. That is, the central tenet around which
all other rules and regulations revolve. Before being considered a member, a
Freemason must assert his belief that there exists one Supreme Being. But,
beyond this initial belief, religious matters are not regulated. How the
individual practices such belief is not a concern of the Freemasons. Indeed,
members are forbidden from discussing their beliefs when inside the Lodge
and are forbidden from trying to convert other Masons to their particular
viewpoint. This central rule of Freemasonry is both essential and ancient. It
is the one rule which has lasted longer than any other. It is the foundation of
Freemasonry.

It is easy to see how such a rule intersects with the idea of Templar
influence. At the time, religious beliefs of a stonemason or tradesmen
would not matter. Indeed, with the church simply being a domineering
force, everyone would simply be expected to follow the Vatican’s guidance.
Such a rule would be, seemingly, unnecessary. But for the Templars, thrust
into a world of self-doubt and resentment, a rule made sense. As a monastic
order, they would not have relinquished their belief in God. But recent
experiences with the Vatican would not only have opened their minds to
alternative forms of religious practice, but would have made it a danger for
them to have discussed such matter. Better instead that, aside from being
assured that all members believed in a Supreme Being, religious matters
were not discussed within the society. Such a rule provided a greater degree
of protection for possible Templars than it might have done for any stone
masons.

It’s possible to draw such links consistently when looking through the
ancient precepts of Freemasonry. Many of the society’s oldest rules and
regulations seem to be perfectly suited to fostering fugitive Templars from
the authorities and integrating them into the organization. But, and this
should be stated numerous times, trying to find historical evidence for such
a tie remains elusive. There exists no one definitive document or record
which suggests that there was a secret society founded by fugitive members
of the Knights Templar. Thus, the majority of the links we discover and the
theories we devise remain theoretical. But that does not put an end to the
investigation.

Trying to figure out the Masonic comprehension of religion, for example, is

still difficult. Medieval guilds were ostensibly religious organizations. They
were, as evidenced throughout Europe, devoted to the church. They had
patron saints, they staged religious plays and performances, they donated to
local churches, they commissioned religious artworks, they would often
help members go on pilgrimages, they would occasionally proclaim to own
holy relics, and they would be tightly tied into the fabric of their local
community in a way which worked in tandem with the church. This was not
just true of almost every stone masons’ guild, but almost every guild
throughout Europe. So why should one particular guild develop such a
secular, secretive approach to religious notions? Why would a guild of
stone masons seemingly develop a rule which not only presupposed
Christianity but allowed for members of other religions, too?

Indeed, the only people excluded by the Freemasons’ rule seems to be

atheists, a religious position almost alien to the medieval mind. When
looking at the history of the Masons, it’s just one example of how more and
more questions emerge the closer you look. That the existence of a Templar
influence seems to answer so many of these questions so perfectly hints
towards a theory which is almost impossible to prove. Such a rule, it’s
obvious, would be ideal for the fugitive Templars who needed protection
from their society and a means of expressing their sudden religious doubts.
Now enemies of the church but retaining their religious position as a
monastic order, these fleeing Templars were the perfect beneficiaries of the
Freemasons’ rule. When piecing together the jigsaw, the facts all slide
neatly into place.

Let us again look at the simple facts of the matter before drawing any
conclusions:
 The Knights Templar had been outlawed by the Catholic Church, the
organization to which they had supposedly devoted their lives.
The members were given enough time to prepare themselves for
hiding and possessed great resources, skills, and knowledge which
would facilitate such a move.
Following the papal decree, the Templars had good reason to resent
the church, the monarchy, and the Knights Hospitaller.
Scotland, due to political reasons, provided the Templars with a
perfect place to hide.
Around the end of the 14 th Century, there begun to exist a secret
society whose members referred to themselves as Masons.
Though supposedly emerging from one of the many trade guilds that
existed in medieval Europe, there is no documented evidence of the
exact origin of said secret society.
The so-called Freemasons and their rules seemed to be perfectly
ideologically suited to fugitive Templars who wished to evade
detection.
Many of these rules would have been irrelevant to the day-to-day life
of a stone mason in the late 14 th Century.
Both the Freemasons and the Knights Templar share an identification
with the Temple of Solomon as being important to their beliefs.
Behind the organization of the Peasants’ Revolt was a so-called Great
Society, who seemed to provide structural advice and backing to the
rebellion.

The Peasants’ Revolt targeted institutions, properties, and resources

which were owned and operated by groups and organizations who
would be considered enemies of the Knights Templar.
No members of the Great Society were ever caught and formally
tried.

When working through the points, it seems clear that it’s possible to draw a
line through the facts and emerge with a theory that the Knights Templar, on
the run from the authorities, was able to have an influence on the founding
principles of what would eventually become Freemasonry. These ideas
manifested themselves during the Peasants’ Revolt before vanishing back
into the ether. Moving through all of the similarities and parallels between
the Freemasons and the fugitive Templars would take more space than is
available in this book, though one is left with the notion that there is much
more to the idea than is supported by the scant evidence we have from the
period. After all, the very defining feature of a secret society is that it is, in
fact, secret. Trying to uncover the truth from a distance of six centuries is
almost impossible. But that does not mean that speculation and
investigation is not possible.

Instead, we should leave this concept firmly in our mind and move on to the
early history of the Freemasons. Throughout these next sections of the
book, it can help to remember just how exactly a Templar influence in the
Freemasons might have dictated the organization’s ideological course or
helped nudge them in a certain direction. While we are left without much in
the way of definitive physical evidence, the majority of this book has thus
far worked to establish the idea that such a connection is not impossible. As
we move through to the ending, the journey thus far should illuminate what
is to come. While we might not be able to answer the question of what
happened to the Knights Templar, we can ask whether the early years of the
Freemasons could possibly have been influenced by such a group.

The Birth of the Freemasons

These days, the Freemasons are a global concern. Not in the conspiratorial
sense, whereby the Masons are blamed (or credited) with any manner of
geopolitical events. Rather, they are a global organization. Indeed, the
Freemasons are the largest fraternal organization anywhere on the planet.
Their members total nearly three million in the USA alone. In Britain,
considered the birthplace of Masonry, there are as many as 700,000
members. Around the world, there is a million more. Such an organization
attracts interest, which is why as many as fifty thousand pieces of literature
have been produced concerning the Freemasons, from books to pamphlets
to magazine articles to websites. The book you are reading right now is just
one of many texts which attempt to examine some aspect of Freemasonry. It
is, as mentioned, a global concern.

The world has changed since 1312, when the Knights Templar was formally
dissolved. It has changed since 1381, when the Peasants’ Revolt took place.
It has changed since 1717, when the Freemasons decided to officially reveal
themselves to the world. These days, the Freemasons are an entirely
different organization from what came before. Though they might still wear
the dressings of the original secret society, the sheer interest and
information available to the wider population means that they are
something of a shadow of their former selves. This book is not interested in
modern Masonry, such as it is. Instead, we want to know more about the
origins of the Freemasons and how they might have been influenced.

One of the most difficult parts of examining the history of the Masons is the
books written by actual members. Over the years, there have been efforts by
writers to not only included seemingly any influential historical figure as a
noted member, but also to place early Masonic branches in places such as
ancient Egypt, Celtic Britain, and Persia. At one time, it seemed as though
the Masonic scholars were competing to see what outrageous claims they
could make and get away with. These days, such inclinations have died
down, but have left the waters muddied for those of us who seek to know
the truth.

Over time, the historians have gradually retreated in their claims. After the
dalliances with ancient history, there were claims that linked the first
Masons with the founding of the Temple of Solomon (establishing a link
between the Masons and the Templars) which was based on a few lines in
the Master Mason’s initiation ceremony. But historical links with the actual
Temple of Solomon (and how it is described in the bible) do not correlate
with the lines in the ritual. Instead, the lines seem more allegorical.

So while there is little evidence which links the founding of the Freemasons
with Solomon’s Temple, as conceded by modern Masonic historians,
Templar influence is not precluded. Indeed, such links between the Temple
of Solomon (the verified headquarters of the Templars following the First
Crusade) and the Freemasons seem to be derived from medieval guilds. But
why were medieval tradesmen, men who should have been more concerned
with tools, techniques, and materials, delving into allegorical Christianity?
Such matters only serve to raise more questions.

In fact, there are only really two organizations which claim the Temple of
Solomon in common. They are the Freemasons and the Knights Templar. Is
this a coincidence? Or is it the case of the demise of one such organization
helping foster the rise of the other, sharing with it several key beliefs and
approaches, as well as resources, tactics, enemies, and ideologies?

The circumstances certainly seem to suggest that this was the case. The
Templars in England had a great deal of time to prepare themselves in 1307,
matched by the fact that the newly crowned King Edward II was one of the
weakest and most ineffective in the country’s history. Such men would have
been welcomed across the border in Scotland but would have needed to
remain hidden.

Indeed, such was the delay between the beginning and the official end of
the persecution of the Templars by the church—lasting seven years, from
1307 to 1314—that those Templars who were driven into hiding would
have had their secretive bonds forged together. Over seven years in hiding,
these hidden fugitives could have become like brothers, their structure and
organization growing more formal and codified by the day. By the time the
persecution of the Templars had officially ended, those in hiding may have
morphed into a brand new secret society, one which remembered the
wrongs of the past. With resentment of the church, the crown, and the
Hospitallers as their natural focus, the fugitive Templars found themselves
in possession of a new organization, more secretive than before, one which
could have made its base in Scotland.

The signs and icons of Freemasonry are easily explained by the existence of
the Templars. The square and compass logo, for example, is strikingly
similar to the seal of Solomon that represented the Templars original home.
One need only remove the horizontal lines from the Templar seal to
discover a simple interpretation of the Masonic symbol. Elsewhere, around
the typical Masonic Lodge, one might see the circles and mosaics which
were shared in common with Templar iconography. The clothing worn
during Masonic rituals, the oaths taken, the colors, the signs, and almost
everything else about the rituals of the Freemasons can be tied to the
Knights Templar.

Historians have uncovered many examples of the rules and orders of

tradesmen guilds from across medieval Europe. Often, these are dry and
uninteresting pieces. They lay out the terms for membership and so on.
Never do they seem anything like the ordinances of the Freemasons.
Instead, it seems as though the Freemasons rules are best not interpreted
literally. Rather, they are figurative lessons, a cover story which allowed for
the existence of what was ostensibly a guild but had a secret purpose: to
conceal the remaining members and ideas of the Knights Templar.

There were even certain groups within the Masons who, in the 18 th
Century, would take the name ‘Knights Templar’ to recognize a high-
ranking, exclusively Christian group within the Freemasons. These kinds of
links are undeniable, though it is difficult to say how much is original and
how much was devised later by the Masons and constructed purposefully in
remembrance and deference to the Templars. Rather, the best evidence is
often found at the brief moment between the fall of the Templars and the
rise of the secret Masonic Lodges.

Over time, as the Templars died out and new recruits were added, such an
organization morphed and evolved. The mutual protection offered by the
codes and rules led to agendas and grudges being carried over. Before the
group was even formally known as the Freemasons—when they were still
an almost completely secret society—they almost emerged into the public
consciousness when wreaking havoc on their old enemies during the
Peasants’ Revolt. As such, the Peasants’ Revolt is one of the key moments
in this story, as it shows us the best example of the secret society which
existed in between the Templars and the Masons, a group which was still
evolving and maturing. That it should only have been known as the Great
Society seems to reveal such change, as well as how little anyone really
knew about the group.

But, as ever, these ideas must be tempered by the very legitimate

expectation for evidence. While the facts may all seem to align and
corroborate with this theory, there is a lack of physical proof. In these
terms, aside from the whisperings about the Great Society, we are left with
a period from the beginning of the 14 th Century to the beginning of the 18 th
Century in which the last official documentation of the Templars fades and
the official emergence of the Freemasons begins. So how should we
examine this gap and what does it mean for the theory?

Again, we can connect the dots and evidence of a type does begin to
emerge. We return once again to the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, simply
because it was a time when these secret machinations we are attempting to
discuss seemed to rise so close to the surface. There are hints of Mason and
Templar activity in the motivations and actions of the rebels. The targeting
of the Hospitallers, the executions of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
ease with which they strode into the Tower of London, the protection
accorded the Templar church, and the occasion mention of the so-called
Great Society. All of these can be linked in some way to one of the two (or
even both) organizations. Walter the Tyler, with his Masonic-influenced
name, seemed to direct the rebellion in a military manner, something
familiar to the Templars. As the head of a secret society—one with
seemingly incredible resources, knowledge, and influence—Tyler could
well have been one of the earliest Masons of the last Templars.

Even in the time after the Peasants’ Revolt, the existence in England of the
Lollards (a religiously motivated secret society whose existence we have
neither the time nor the space to cover in great depth) hints at a group
operating behind the conventional structures of government, away from the
official records. The man who succeeded the executed Archbishop of
Canterbury after the Revolt went so far as to identify the Lollards in 1382,
especially through his attempts to have the group destroyed. But the
Lollards—in one form or another—survived. We know more about the
Lollards over the course of the next two centuries, with their structure and
organization having been documented in real sources. Though they were
seemingly unconnected to the Freemasons or the Templars, their existence
is proof in itself that a secret society could function and exist in medieval
England. Their existence continued through the medieval age and into the
time of the Reformation. Every now and then, they would spring into
action, such as the time in 1414 when Sir John Oldcastle led a revolt against
the crown.

There are many similarities between the Lollards and the Freemasons, but
perhaps the most important fact concerning the Lollards is simply that they
existed at all. As such, we have hard evidence that a secret society could not
only operate in England but that they could wield great power. Evidence
such as Henry Kingston’s documented account of Lollard movements in
Leicester reveals a group who had taken St. John as their patron saint (the
same as the Freemasons) and named themselves for him, had held secret
meetings, preached ideas similar to those held by the Masons (against
lawsuits in the case of debt, for example), were protected by knights in the
area, and were persecuted for heresy. This description of a Lollard cell
provides not only a template for what could eventually become
Freemasonry, but could even be construed as an early example of the same
secret society in action. This could easily be the description of a 14 th
Century Masonic Lodge.

Such circumstantial evidence carries us through to the 17 th Century. By this

time, the Lollards had seemingly disbanded. Religious ideas in England
were preoccupied by the Reformation but reports of secret societies had not
ceased. The historian C. V. Wedgwood, for example, notes in a book about
the reign of Charles I that there were reports from the Archbishop of
Canterbury about secret meetings that were happening throughout the
kingdom. This culminated in the arrest of a man named Trendall, who
happened to be preaching against the church’s hierarchy in London. It was
the Archbishop’s desire to burn the man at the stake, a means of punishing
heretics that was almost a generation out of date. Even though the
Archbishop wrote to colleagues for advice on how to conduct the burning, it
never seems to have taken place. Trendall seems to have escaped the
punishment. Maybe he had friends in high places. All we know for sure is
that he gave his profession as a stone mason.

It’s similarly possible to chart the existence of Masonic principals as they

become increasingly common in the work of noted public figures. Both
John Locke and Francis Bacon, for example, included in their works
numerous ideas and notions that have direct ties to Freemasonry. These
could be incredibly specific—such as Locke’s incorporation into the
constitution of South Carolina prohibitions against filing lawsuits to retrieve
money—or more general—such as Bacon’s ideas about religion and science
which echoed Masonic viewpoints, especially visible in his work titled the
New Atlantis, which seems to imagine an entire society built in secret along
Masonic principles. There are many such references throughout the 15 th ,
16 th , and 17 th Centuries to Masonic ideas in literature. While these might
seem circumstantial, they can be used to demonstrate how the Freemasons
were having a growing influence in England at the time.

The idea that the Templars might have influenced the Freemasons is not a
new one. Indeed, the history of the Freemasons just after they went public
was rife with accusations of Templar influence. The Rite of Strict
Observance, for example, was a German branch of the Freemasons set up in
the 18 th Century which explicitly reorganized the structure of the Lodge
and renounced the Templar origins of the Masons. In the view of the Strict
Observance members, the Templar fugitives had travelled to Scotland and
allied with a stone mason guild. Several hundred years later, this short lived
branch of the masons rejected this supposed Templar influence. It was
hardly intrinsic to the history of the Freemasons, but it demonstrates the
notion as having existed long before this book.

Others have suggested that the occasional proposals of the links between
the Freemasons and the Knights Templar are anything from a Jesuit plot
designed to discredit the Masons, to a plot device used in novels and
something which can therefore be dismissed. Often, such ideas depend on
the acceptance that the Templars were indeed guilty of all of the false
charges levelled against them by Prince Philip of France and the Vatican.
As such, it can usually be read as an attempt to discredit the Freemasons by
making them guilty by association, an allegation that depends upon a
falsified version of history.

But the idea persists. Even without evidence beyond the circumstantial,
there are those who are convinced either way. People can be certain that the
Templars founded the Masons or that there is no truth to the matter at all.
Typically, those who are the most convinced in either direction tend to
shout the loudest and remain the most vehement. But the most damaging
aspect of the frequent arguments over the validity of the claim is that it
seems to have endangered any real investigation into the matter. So
adamant are the naysayers that no such link exists between the two secret
societies, that our chances of ever learning the complete truth are surely
diminished. Furthermore, the outlandish claims often concerning the
Masons and the Templars—often those which lean in a more conspiratorial
direction—can serve to discredit the notion in the public’s mind. Even those
theories that are demonstrably false and built on zero evidence—that the
Freemasons were alive and present among the Celtic Druids, for example—
only serve to muddy the waters when we try to find the verifiable facts
behind the story.

However, there is no doubt that the Freemasons of today are different when
compared to the Freemasons of the 18 th Century (or before). Today, their
society is no longer secret. There are a great many books about the modern
Masons which can help teach you everything, right down to the exact
wording of the rituals themselves. It’s only in the past, when we look
towards history, that any true mystery surrounds the Freemasons. Of all the
mysteries, it is their origin and their birth which will always remain the
strangest and the most controversial. These days, being a member of the
Freemasons is often a social pastime, even when ascending into ranks
which explicitly reference the Knights Templar. Though the story of the
Templars is told, the members are no longer concerned with vengeance or
similar notions. While they are told the story, it seems to be a perfunctory
retelling, rather than something meant to inspire or educate. Nowadays, the
true importance of the Templars to the Freemasons is lost amongst the
ocean of ritual, just another part of the history for which there is a thousand
and one explanations. Unfortunately, the truth is hard to come by.
Conclusion
In the earliest days of the Christian faith, true believers had to keep their
faith a secret. Banned from practicing their religion, they were one of the
best examples of a secret society. To communicate with one another, they
took logos. The image of a fish—the simple shape which is still used today
— became a calling card for fellow Christians. It also provided them with a
cover story, allowing anyone with a fish image to simply say that they were
a fisherman rather than a member of an outlawed religion. Even after
Christianity became an accepted practice, the image of the fish remained.
The meaning changed, essentially, as it was no longer the calling card for a
secret society. The fish was once a cover story, a means of staying alive
when being hunted by the authorities. In many ways, it is a parallel to the
idea of the Templars and the Freemasons.

As we have seen in this book, there exists a huge amount of circumstantial

evidence that suggests that the fall of the Knights Templar coincided with
the founding of a secret society in Great Britain. The fugitive Templars
could well have allied themselves to a small Scottish guild of masons,
taking on their icons and symbols as a cover story that allowed them to
escape the persecuting eye of the authorities. Just as a guild might protect
trade secrets, the Freemasons were founded to protect the lives of the
Templars on the run. The ideas that they maintained and carried with them
went on to form the foundation of the Freemason ideology which would
persist into the present day. Though modern Freemasonry is not secret in
much the same way that Christianity grew to be mainstream, the lasting
legacy of the Templar influences remains in place just as the symbol of the
fish is evident in almost every church around the world. Though the modern
organization is entirely different, it does not hurt to remember the past.

In this book, we have not ventured into the territory of the conspiracy
theory. Modern Masonic writing is often too obsessed with the idea of the
secret society and how they might run the world from some clandestine
bunker. But—just as this is almost certainly untrue—is does not do justice
to the most interesting aspects of the Masons’ history. The involvement of
the Knights Templar in the founding of the Freemasons is not something we
can prove, though we can detect hints and suggestions as we look at history.
Instead of regarding the Freemasons as some modern threat, we should look
instead to their past and how they were shaped by events centuries ago. The
truth of the link between the Knights Templar and the Freemasons might
never be known, but we know enough to whet the appetite. When
investigating a secret society, this is more than can ever be expected.

Further Reading
Butler, A. (2011). City of the goddess . London: Watkins.
Haag, M. (2009). The Templars . London: Profile.
Harwood, J. (n.d.). The Freemasons .
Hodapp, C. (n.d.). Freemasons for dummies .
Hodge, S. (n.d.). Secrets of the Knights Templar .
Jeffers, H. (2005). Freemasons . New York: Citadel Press.
Johnstone, M. (n.d.). The Freemasons .
Jones, B. (2006). Freemasons' guide and compendium . Nashville, TN:
Cumberland House.
Morgan, P. (2006). The secrets of the Freemasons . London: Arcturus.
Nicholson, H. (2010). The Knights Templar . London: Robinson.

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Excerpt from Conrad Bauer’s Book Secret Society
Opus Dei: Catholicism’s Secret Sect
Of the billion or so Catholics in the world, the members of Opus Dei
constitute almost a hundredth of one percent. Though their numbers might
be relatively minuscule, their reputation is many orders of magnitude
greater. While the guiding lights of the Church have taken a more genial,
modern approach to religion in the last century, the members of Opus Dei
have stuck rigidly to the traditions of old. In doing so, they have become
known as the hardcore. The fiercely devoted. The stringently religious.
Unmoving, distant, and utterly compelling. In an age when the Vatican is
reaching out to many millions of people worldwide, Opus Dei seems to be
shrouded in secrecy, a secret sect that adheres to the ancient practices of
Christianity.

Perhaps because of this adherence to the older models of Christianity, the

group has come to represent the most devoted and most controversial of all
Catholic arms. its practices are said to include ancient languages, self-
flagellation, corporal mortification, aggressive recruiting, controlling the
free will of members, cult-like behavior, misogynistic policies, support of
fascists, and many more secrets hidden away within the organization’s
walls.

In this book, we will attempt to look deeply into the hidden history of
Catholicism’s most radical and divisive sect. Using ancient texts, accounts
of former members, extensive research, and secret documents, we will
discover the truth behind Opus Dei. If you would like to learn more about
this zealous, sometimes terrifying organization, then read on. For the truth
behind Catholicism’s secret sect, this book is all you will ever need.

Getting to Know the Work of God

Before we begin our in-depth study of Opus Dei, we should take the time to
get a general overview of the organization itself. It is commonly
misunderstood, and there are many rumors, conspiracy theories, and
superstitions that surround the institution and its practitioners. If we are to
discover the truth, then it is important to understand the basics.

The name itself is Latin. Translated, Opus Dei means “Work of God.” That
gives us an insight into the core belief of the group. That is to say, it is their
belief that God is not limited solely to the Church. Instead, one can infuse
their own work with a sanctity and a dedication to religion at all times.
Whether you’re an engineer, a plumber, or a schoolteacher, the work that
you carry out as an Opus Dei member is dedicated to God. There is a
religious appreciation of the mundane details of life, often giving the
appearance of religious fervor that can appear odd to the outsider. Together,
the members of the church and its clergy dedicate their lives and their work
to the divine power. Literally, the day-to-day lives of members becomes the
eponymous work of God.

But Opus Dei is so much more than this. Over time, the group has come to
embody long-standing criticisms of Catholicism and the history of
organized religion. It has become associated with a biblical literalism and a
staunchly conservative mind-set. There have even been suggestions of a
global conspiracy network. But how to these ideas relate to the basic
principles of Opus Dei?

It is true, certainly, that a traditional problem of Opus Dei has been

communicating their message to the layman. Often, the organization
focuses on promoting what it is not, rather than what it is. This gives Opus
Dei a defensive appearance, which – somewhat paradoxically – leads more
people to become even more suspicious than ever before. To find out more
about what Opus Dei actually is, let’s go back to the very beginning.

The date is October 2nd, 1928. A young Spanish priest named Josemaria
Escriva makes a retreat to a secluded monastery in Madrid. Inside the
Vincentian institution, he has a vision. The details of the vision seem
strange, but Escriva is left with no doubt what he must do. After the
experience, he is inspired to create his own organization, an order that
would eventually become Opus Dei.

The vision of the Spanish priest was the inspiration for Opus Dei. Josemaria
Escriva, the man who would later be regarded as the founder of the
organization, would have subsequent visions, in which the further details of
God’s plan were laid out to him. Part of these visions seemed to give
Escriva the general overall idea of Opus Dei, while others were more
specific. There should be a dedicated branch for women, there should be an
organized body of priests, and many other details that would go on to shape
the structure and principles of the church. But these would all come later.
According to Escriva himself, the original vision contained the essential
elements of Opus Dei.

October the 2nd is a special day. It is a recognized day within the Catholic
Church, known as the Feast of the Guardian Angels. It was on this day that
Escriva received his vision. His own description of the event remembers
that it was a feast day. According to the priest’s description of his vision, it
was on this day that the “Lord willed” that Opus Dei as a group “might
come to be.” Furthermore, he went on to describe the vision as one that told
him of an organization in which men and women were willing to make a
sacrifice of themselves for other people, in order to make sure all of the
“ways of man” were divine and that every “upright work” would be
suitably sanctified. Even if he did not have the structural backing, it clear to
see that Escriva had the central tenants of what would prove to be a
controversial interpretation of Catholicism.

It’s important that Opus Dei’s beginnings are the result of seemingly divine
inspiration. Escriva’s vision provided him and his followers with a holy
mandate, a conviction in the importance of the organization’s work. Opus
Dei, as such, is an extension of God’s will. So much so, in fact, that Escriva
himself has denied being the actual founder of the group, instead saying that
Opus Dei was “founded in spite of [him]” rather than because of him. The
origins of the name itself are equally as parochial, with the group going
unnamed before an apparently offhand, random comment from Escriva’s
confessor struck a chord with the priest. When he asked Escriva how the
“work of God” was going, Escriva realized quickly that this was to be the
name. As such, members now refer to the Church simply as “the Work.”

At a foundational level, there is a simple message to Opus Dei’s work. It’s

the same one that was revealed in the vision and built upon in subsequent
decades. That is to say, it is the goal of the members to sanctify the ordinary
lives of people by living as taught by the gospels and the Church to the
fullest extent possible. This is not too far from the belief that most Catholics
would espouse, but the group takes their ideas to a more extreme conclusion
that most worshippers.

To sum up their aims, Opus Dei members chose as their symbol a simple
circle with a cross inside. The circle – representing the world – is sanctified
from within. To the members, the idea of being holy is not something that is
limited to the higher-ups of the Catholic Church or to the saints, but it is the
potential destiny of every single Christian. It’s not just the clergy, the nuns,
the priests, the saints, or anyone else associated with the Church who are
holy. Instead, it’s something that is available to everyone in the world.
Together, they can sanctify everybody, just as their logo suggests.

But this idea is not just expressed through the normal, typically religious
actions such as praying. Instead, small and mundane parts of day-to-day life
can become expressions of worship. In particular, one’s work should be
devoted to the Lord, whether you’re an accountant or a construction worker.
This is where the beliefs of the Opus Dei members begin to deviate from
the path of the traditional Catholic adherents.

But the work of Escriva did not go unnoticed. As he was setting up his
organization, he earned himself many admirers. People saw both the priest
and his followers as being necessarily pious. Fans included the late Pope
John Paul II, who would later describe the man as being ahead of his time.
Giovanni Benelli – once the cardinal of Florence – would go on to have
many doctrinal disagreements with Escriva, but he still saw fit to compare
him with another founder of a dedicated group of Catholics, Saint Ignatius
of Loyola, who founded the Jesuit order in the 16th Century. According to
Benelli, Escriva similarly managed to translate contemporary discussions
within the Catholic Church into a codified, dedicated organization.

The comparison to the Jesuits is particularly telling. For centuries, the

Jesuits were seen as the most learned, the most devout, and the most
dedicated branch of the clergy. Though many disagreed with some of their
practices – or even their very existence – there were many who saw the
Jesuits as being absolutely necessary. For many Catholics, the simple
existence of the Jesuits was comforting. It was reassuring to know that there
were people on Earth who were suitably dedicated to God, suitably pure
enough to preach his word and to investigate the ways in which modern life
intersected with theology. To many people, Opus Dei filled a similar niche.
As their reputation grew – initially within the Catholic community – they
developed their reputation for dedicated religious practice. It is out of this
dedication that their more controversial elements began to emerge.

Trying to get a grip of the more theological elements can be tough. For
anyone who has studied the intricacies of the Catholic doctrine, there are a
number of smaller, more refined points where Opus Dei moves away from
mainstream religious thinking. For the majority of people, however, it can
be difficult to note the key differences between the majority of Catholic
thought and the particular practices of Escriva’s organization.

Opus Dei members have, on a number of occasions, attempted to publicly

clarify their idiosyncratic beliefs. In 2004, for example, an interview with
Fernando Ocariz (at the time, the second-highest ranking member of Opus
Dei) made an effort to clarify some of Escriva’s teachings. The “universal
call to holiness” that defines the organization can be split into two distinct
parts: the subjective and the objective. The subjective invites people to
sanctification. In other words, anyone – regardless of who they are – is
called to become a saint. The objective is part of this, in that it states that
everything in the world and every element of the human experience can be
used to move someone closer toward becoming a saint. For Opus Dei
members, every action and every situation is a chance to move closer
towards sainthood.
Typically, most Catholics would see sainthood as being something that is
limited to only the most holy people. Looking through the traditional
pantheon of saints, they were typically priests, monks, or nuns. But for
Opus Dei, this is not a limitation. All members, should they follow the
Opus Dei teachings, can become saints in their own right. Borrowing words
and phrases from the Bible’s famous Song of Songs, Escriva himself sought
to find God “in the things that come from outside,” that is to say, the
general day-to-day minutiae of life and work.

But there was a theological drive on the part of Opus Dei’s creator. Escriva
is on the record as describing his organization as being an “intravenous
injection” directly into the “bloodstream of society.” The image is vivid and
speaks of how great a shock he saw Opus Dei as causing. Escriva wanted to
make his group different from the common views of the church, and even in
the early days, went to great lengths to ensure that he was able to
differentiate Opus Dei from the typical Catholic denominations.

There’s a story told about the first three priests who were ordained by Opus
Dei. The three men – all Spanish priests – were chosen by Escriva himself
to represent the organization. The attention to detail was so great that
Escriva noticed that not a single man out of the three smoked cigarettes. In
Spain at the time, smoking was commonplace. The fact that none of the
three priests smoked made Escriva concerned. What if people believed that
the priests didn’t smoke due to their membership in Opus Dei? People
might believe that not smoking was a part of the belief system, something
that was not true. After some discussion, it was decided that one of the three
men would take up smoking so as to pacify any concerns the general public
might have had. It was not that Opus Dei were anti or pro cigarettes, more
that it was concerned with reaching as many people as possible. The man
chosen to smoke was Alvaro del Portillo, the man who would later take on
Escriva’s role as the head of the organization.

In a similar vein, it was decided that the priests would forgo the traditional
Catholic attire, dressing instead in simpler clothes. They would not be
cloistered, meaning that groups of priests would not live solitary, excluded
lifestyles. Perhaps most importantly, all of the priests in Opus Dei would
not claim that it had some special, sanctimonious state of life. That is to say,
they were no more predisposed to sainthood than anyone else, regardless of
their occupation. Rather than removing themselves from the world, these
priests hoped to “Christianize” everything, hoping that their spiritual
actions would set a precedent for other people to follow.

This approach was certainly revolutionary for its time. In Spain in the 1930s
and 1940s, when Escriva was developing the foundations of Opus Dei, the
traditional model of the Catholic Church would be considered a clergy-
orientated organization. This means that the clergy would be religious
leaders, elevated above the people in terms of their sanctity. For Escriva,
this seemed wrong. Instead, Opus Dei focused on a model in which the
clergy were on equal footing in all regards. Rather than leading people
through religion, the priests were designed to act in a more supporting role.
They were experts who could provide guidance and direction, rather than
leaders who would strut at the head of the pack. Once the priests provided
the laypeople with an understanding of God, it was down to the individual
to decide how their particular actions could be made into an offering to the
Lord.

In principle, this idea would suggest that Opus Dei is an organization

focused on equality. As we will see later in this book, the balance between
men and women in the Opus Dei has faced much criticism. In theory,
female Opus Dei members receive the same spiritual coaching and direction
as their male counterparts, and they are equally capable of achieving
sainthood through their actions. But in many of the smaller details, the
Opus Dei attitude towards women is far from an equilateral balance. At the
time, however, this attitude towards equality was a marked change from the
mainstream. For many centuries, the Catholic Church has had a major issue
with gender equality. Even this small doctrinal change by Escriva was a
step towards equality, even if the ensuing decades have revealed inherent
issues with gender that were not apparent at the time.

Such breaks from the mainstream Catholic doctrine led to many people
criticizing Escriva. In certain parts of Spanish society, he was denounced as
being anti-clerical. Some went as far as to call him a heretic. Rumors began
to circulate that he would be reported to the Vatican, the spiritual center of
the Catholic world, presumably in the belief that he would be apprehended,
punished, and likely excommunicated. Even in its early days, Opus Dei was
controversial.

For most people, trying to come to terms with Opus Dei as an organization
can be difficult. It is unlike almost every other branch of Christianity, and
this seems to be intentional. Escriva himself described Opus Dei as “a
disorganized organization.” The people in the group are united by their
shared interpretation of Catholicism and their belief in sanctifying the world
from within. There is a frequently repeated phrase that gives an insight into
the decentralized nature of the group: “Opus Dei doesn’t act; its members
do.”

But is this true? Long-time critics of Opus Dei have suggested that this
pretense of decentralized, independent members is a myth. Instead, Opus
Dei does indeed have an intention, an organization, and a set of goals, all of
which are hidden behind the smokescreen of general theology. While the
majority of members might ascribe to Escriva’s original vision, others are
focused on seizing power, gaining financial wealth, or recruiting new
members. All of these actions are kept hidden away from the public, who
seem happy to believe that Opus Dei is just a particularly dedicated sect of
the Catholic Church. With both sides of the argument adamant about its
version of the truth, it might help to learn more about the individual
requirements of each and every member. In the next chapter, we will look at
what it takes to become a fully paid-up member of Opus Dei.
 Click on the cover to check it out.

About the Author

Conrad Bauer is passionate about everything paranormal, unexplained,
mysterious, and terrifying. It comes from his childhood and the famous
stories his grandfather used to tell the family during summer vacation
camping trips. He vividly remembers his grandfather sitting around the fire
with new stories to tell everyone who would gather around and listen. His
favorites were about the paranormal, including ghost stories, haunted
houses, strange places, and paranormal occurrences.

Bauer is an adventurous traveler who has gone to many places in search of

the unexplained and paranormal. He has been researching the paranormal
and what scares people for more than four decades. He also loves to dig into
period of history that are still full of mysteries, being an avid reader of the
mystic secret societies that have mark history and remain fascinating and
legendary throughout the times. He has accumulated a solid expertise and
knowledge that he now shares through his books with his readers and
followers.
Conrad, now retired, lives in the countryside in Ireland with his wife and
two dogs.

More Books from Conrad Bauer

Just click on the cover to check them out.

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