Destruction of Order of Templars Was Inevitable

Templars acquired large tracts of land, both in Europe and the Middle East; they bought and managed farms and vineyards; they built massive stone cathedrals and castles; they were involved in manufacturing, import, and export; they provided banking and other financial services (they invented Traveler’s cheques).

They owned a fleet of merchant ships – and at one point they even owned the entire island of Cyprus (!!). The order definitely qualifies as the world’s first multinational corporation (conglomerate, to be more precise).

But they were much more than that – being exempt from all authority except the Pope, they became a genuine shadow pan-European state complete with its own financial and economic infrastructure; its own army; Christian temples and priests, its secret religion (Ark Templar) … and even the Ark of the Covenant.

Obviously, such state did not fit into European political structure (a system of kingdoms under spiritual authority of the Pope or local Orthodox patriarch). Consequently, one of the two had to go.

Either the “Templar state” would take over the entire kingdom – or one especially active king would subdue the Pope and destroy this shadow state. Both outcomes were possible; however, at the time the Templars did not have the leaders of the same caliber as their founders.

Jacques de Molay was totally clueless that he and his order were facing a genuinely existential threat; and although he did plan a mega-crusade (“crusade to end all crusade”), he did not realize that to make it happen – and to save his order and himself – he had to team up with Teutonic order and take over Europe.

Hence, not surprisingly, the especially determined king (King of France Philip IV) and a weak Pope (Clement V – Frenchman by blood and birth) conspired to destroy the order of Knights Templar. And destroyed it – although the whole conspiracy was spearheaded by Guillaume de Nogaret – the second-in-command in France.

Not very surprisingly, all of them became victims of the “boomerang law”. Most likely, all three were murdered and Philip’s died in quick succession without surviving sons of their own. Which terminated the House of Capet and led to the Hundred Years’ War – the most catastrophic disaster in the history of France.