Templars Did NOT Own a Large Fleet

One of the myths/legends about Knights Templar claims that the order allegedly owned a large fleet of merchant ships that after the arrest of Templars in France took their immense treasure… somewhere (some even suggest Oak Island – now in Nova Scotia, Canada.)

The reality was (as usual) quite a bit more mundane. Templars did conduct naval operations (military and civilian); however, when they needed ships, they just… rented them (this was a common medieval practice). To transport new knights, pilgrims, horses and supplies to Outremer.

Merchant ships of the period—which doubled as warships—were privately owned, often by their captains. Rent included the captain and crew. A little-known fact is that many of the English ships that fought the Spanish Armada were owned by their captains or private investors, not by Elizabeth I.

The European ports of departure were usually Marseilles or Barcelona. The primary port of debarkation was the fortified Crusader port of Acre, now Akko in Israel. La Rochelle was used primarily for shipping wine and products to customers (wine transport was a particularly lucrative Templar enterprise). These rented ships would fight the Moslems under way only when it could not be avoided.

The records that still exist indicate the Templars did own a handful of oared warfighting galleys and at least four merchant/fighting caravels. Templar warfighting galleys and caravels were part of the fleet that besieged the sea tower and city of Damietta on the Nile in 1217.   

Records list three engagements by Templar ships and implies that there were more. The first was during an early unsuccessful assault on the tower, when one Templar galley managed to moor on the tower’s small island but was driven off after enduring “no slight damage.”

A second was when a Templar galley approached the shore-edge walls of the city but was destroyed by Greek fire (incendiary weapon system used by the Byzantine Empire from the 7th to the 14th centuries and sporadically by the Muslims).

The Templar’s own caravels operated primarily as commerce raiders along North Africa throughout the 1200s and into the 1300s, but there are few available details. We know the name of a particularly successful vessel – the Falcon – primarily because of her captain, one Roger de Flor, who was notorious even in his lifetime.