In 1971 Pamela and I
moved to Kelvedon, Essex, England, where we purchased an old brick-faced
terraced house at No. 5 The High Street. Over 400 years old, over the front door
of the house was a carved plaque “Knight Templars Terrace 1861”. Inside, the
fabric of the house needed substantial renovation and much of our spare time was
spent renovating generations of neglect. We were assured that because the house
dated from circa 1490, the name over the door was the only link with the
Templars.
While working in the
large bedroom over the living room I removed a layer of thin rotten boards
nailed to a substantial oak sub-floor. It transpired that this sub-floor was
actually nailed to the oak ceiling of the room below, which was comprising huge
carved beams roughly 23cm apart branching out from an even larger carved beam
running down the center of the room. While cleaning these timbers I discovered
what appeared to be a fossilised dead rat encased in hard clay secreted in a large
crack in one beam. On closer examination I could make out writing. The “rat”
turned out to be a tightly screwed-up piece of parchment, which added further to
the mystery of the house and the relevance of its link with the Knights Templar.
Extremely carefully the parchment was steamed open revealing a page from a book
160mm x 230mm. Each side of the sheet was beautifully hand-written in 12th century
Latin script:
…ifecnta eft eof indaf ceciderex eif illa die octe
milia… Et indit eleazar filio saura una de bestus lorica…loricis rigis…erat…neus
sup
cetas bestias. Et infu…ei quod inca eaet xxx: &
deci seuchbarer…suii
adqirer s nom etnui. Et cucururie ad ea indacr imedi…uficiens
aderis I asmistrus
Although I couldn’t
understand a word of Latin, I studied calligraphy at art school so painstakingly
and assiduously I copied the manuscript from both sides of the parchment onto
two sheets of paper. The Latin was almost un-readable with many abbreviations
and large holes where the vellum was badly eaten away by woodworm and deathwatch
beetles. Nevertheless, certain key words were clear and legible: elephanti and
the names regnante demitrio (King Demetrius), elieazor, bethzacharam,
capharsalama and timothe (all spelt without capital initials). But whom did I
know who could read Latin? Then it dawned on me! A Roman Catholic priest I knew.
I took my discovery over the road to Canon Dobson, the elderly parish priest at
the Church of St Mary the Virgin next-door to the Dominican Convent in Church
Lane.
A few days later he
returned looking extremely satisfied with his results. “It’s a transcription
from the First Book of Macabees, Chapters 7 & 8, and the Second Book of
Macabees, Chapter 1. This is printed in the Apocrypha”, he explained,
“it’s a report of the Battle of Bethzacharam and the logistics of the armies
on both sides: the number of foot soldiers, cavalry, elephants, etc. engaged in
the conflict.
Now, who would want a
copy of such detailed combat information? Crusaders fighting in the Holy Land? A
military-order? One of the many heresies of which the Templars were accused
during their persecution in the 14th century was that they “re-wrote the
Bible” as mentioned in Edith Simon’s reference work on the Knights Templar.
“The
books were called in and many of them burned.
Among those, which
escaped this fate, was ... a volume of extracts from the Bible translated into
French. (It comprised abridged versions of Genesis, Joshua, Kings, Maccabees,
Tobias, Judith and Judges) ... the Templar Bible consisted mainly of tales of
war, and that it’s very existence was illegal, an act of defiance.”
Presenting my discovery
to The Bramston Archæological
Unit in Witham, who at
the time were researching the Templars and Cressing Temple, I was met with a
brief letter in reply and polite indifference. However, some years later, I
discovered that during the 17th century two workmen from Witham were punished
for stealing books from Cressing Temple barns. Could this page have been torn
from one of these books? Did some illiterate workman employed on Knight Templars
House at the time
gathering clay, find one of the discarded books in a nearby field and tore out a
page to bind the wet clay to fill cracks in the cross-beam? After we sold the
house, in November 1983, the new owners received a letter from the British
Museum confirming our discovery.
“This
fragment was examined, in August 1982, by the Supervisor of Western Manuscripts
at the British Museum Library and was dated as a 13th century hand of
exceptional skill as no single correction or erasure could be detected. It is
written on extremely high-quality parchment far thinner than any available these
days!”
The page is almost
certainly from a “service book” of those days arranged for daily readings as
indicated by the red marginal notations showing a Friday morning and evening and
a Saturday morning. The text is taken from The Apocrypha I Maccabees Chapter V
verses 31-68, Chapter VI verses 18-46 and Chapter VII verses 27-68. It describes
the battles in Jordan between Judas Maccabaeus, King Eupator and the Roman,
Demetrius.”
Try as I might, finding
a link between these 12th century warrior-monks and the Tudor house
in Kelvedon proved unrecognisable. To begin with the dates of the house and this
holy order were anachronistic. As The Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and
the Temple of Solomon was founded in France by Hugh de Payens in 1119. Bound by
a solemn vow to live a life of poverty, chastity, obedience and self-denial, the
holy knights swore to protect pilgrims and roads in the Holy Land. But that was
not their sole objective while in the Holy Land:
‘By
1127, the Templar’s search was over. They had retrieved not only the Ark and
its contents, but an untold wealth of gold bullion and hidden
treasure.…(furthermore) they were granted vast territories and substantial
property across Europe, from Britain to Palestine.’
In 1139 Pope Innocent
granted the Templars independence recognising no temporal or religious authority
save The Pope. Feudalism and the ownership of land and estates throughout
France, Spain and England furnished them with money. One of those benefices was
the hundred of Witham with its parishes of Cressing, Rivenhall and Kelvedon. The
order was active for almost 200 years, made a considerable fortune and many
political and religious enemies.
“By
1306 the order was so powerful that Philippe IV of
France viewed them with
trepidation; he owed a great deal of money to the Knights but was practically
bankrupt.... With papal support (Clement V, 1305- 1314), King Philippe
persecuted the Templars in France and endeavoured to eliminate the Order in
other countries.”
On
March 18th 1314 by the order of King Philippe IV, “Grand Masters
Jacques de Molay and Geoffrey de Charnay were burned at the stake in Paris. In
England, under the rule of Edward II, lands previously owned by the order were
seized:
“When
this order (Knights Templar) was suppressed in 1311, Cressing Temple
with their possessions passed off to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, near
West Smithfield (London):”
Among the many
blasphemies, which the Templars admitted under torture, was worshipping an idol
- an embalmed head of the demon Bapomet - and re-writing the Bible.
“In
spite of the surprise effect of the arrests in 1307 and in spite of exhaustive
research, the idol which thousands of prisoners confessed to having worship(p)ed
- the head of wood, of silver, bearded, beardless, eyeless, carbuncle-eyed,
life-sized, larger than life, the size of a fist - no such idol was
unearthed.”
It is believed that this
‘idol’ could have been the enigmatic
Shroud of Turin showing
a negative image of the face of Jesus. The Shroud made its sudden appearance in
France on September 19th, 1356
following the death of Geoffrey de Charney, standard-bearer to King John II of
France at the Battle of Poitiers. The description of a head, bearded, with large
carbuncle-like eyes is quite an accurate description of the face on The Shroud.
Wrapped, only the face on The Shroud is exposed and if unwrapped it is indeed
“life-sized”. In 1978 tests using carbon dating proved beyond doubt that The
Shroud of Turin is a 12th century fake. Nevertheless the Templars believed
it was the face of Christ. In a Church at Templecombe, near Yeovil in Somerset,
there is a painted panel matching the image on The Shroud, but with large open
“carbuncle” eyes.
Two centuries later, in
1538, came the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII when
monasteries, abbeys and land belonging to various holy orders were seized and
lands historically owned by the Templars and now owned by the Knights of St John
were confiscated a second time. But Henry’s Catholic daughter Mary’s
sympathies lay with the Old Religion and she restored these lands once again for
a period of five years between 1553 and 1558:
“Queen
Mary I re-founded the house of the Knights Hospitallers ... and granted them the
manors of Witham, Purfleet, Temple-Roding and Chingford; these at her death,
again reverted to the Crown ...”
Cressing formed part of
the possessions of Earl Harold, and succeeding proprietors of Witham, till the
time of King Stephen, who about the year 1151 granted this manor, with the
avowson of the church, to the Knights Templar, and it hence received the name of
Cressing Temple, and was made a Preceptory or Commandery ... (a capital messuage
with lands belonging to this Order and headed by a commander. Preceptories were
benefices possessed by the most eminent
Templars created by the
Chief Master and named Præceptores Templii. Of these there were sixteen in
England of which Cressing was the first in importance.)
Following the general
suppression of religious houses, particularly of the Knights Hospitallers in
1540, the Manor of Cressing and half-hundred of Witham granted in 1541 to Sir
William Huse, from whom they passed to the Smyth family, who long flourished at
Cressing Temple. Their ancestor was Sir Michael Carrington, standard-bearer to
King Richard the First, in his expedition to the Holy Land.
We know from manor court
records and Thomas Wright’s book that during the 16th century
Church Hall Manor included all the land and property in the village of Kelvedon
and belonged to the Bishop of London:
“Church
Hall is so named from its vicinity to the church
[of St Mary the Virgin].
It was held under Edward the Confessor, by Angelic, one of his nobles, who gave
it to Westminster Abbey ... It remained part of the endowment of Westminster
Abbey till its suppression...it was given, by King Edward the Sixth, to the
Bishop of London ... together with the rectory and avowson.’
So there is no direct
historical connection between the house we called our home and the Knights
Templar save for a Victorian flight of fancy in the name. Or as Andrew Hamilton
puts it, “These residences are styled Knights Templars” Terrace from a
tradition that this Inn was once in the possession of that fraternity.” All
the same, I had discovered a page from a Templar Bible in a Knights Templar
house. The only clue as to the original builders and owners of the house was the
coat-of-arms uncovered by Andrew Hamilton around 1860:
“Only
one token as to date beyond the undoubted style and general character of the
whole carving existed, and that exception was the supporters to a shield bearing
a heart pierced with two crossed darts. These supporters were the Lion and
Griffon of Henry VIII.”
Basil Kentish, in
“Kelvedon and its Antiquities”, referring to Marler’s House just across
Church Lane from Knights Templar house, mentions:
“The
house eventually became the home of six “old Templars” until it was bought
by the Rev. James Salisbury Dunn who took in several boys to prepare them for
college.”
Today Knight Templars
House, Kelvedon is a Grade I Listed building. Envied, victimised and feared for
their wealth, knowledge and power, and despite the suppression of the order, the
legacy of the Knights Templar lived on. During the 16th century
during the 'Age of Reason' Protestantism emerged under the banner of the Red (or
Rosy) Cross - adopting the heraldic symbol to which the Templars changed during
the 13th century. (It is significant that when it was established in
Geneva in 1864 the international relief agency is identified by the familiar Red
Cross.)
In his book,
"Bloodline of the Holy Grail" Laurence Gardner points out that,
"the Rosicrucians (like the Cathars and Templars before them) had access to
an ancient knowledge which held more substance than anything promulgated by
Rome." Listed among the adherents to the Rosicrucian beliefs were Dante,
Columbus, Francis Bacon, Christopher Wren, and Robert Fludd who assisted in
translating the King James (Authorised) Bible.
During the 16th century
the Rosicrucians were connected with Freemasonry and in the present day the St
John's Ambulance Service (descendants of the Knights Hospitallers of Saint John
of Jerusalem) is a familiar feature at every public occasion.
Terence
Wilson