"The first seal that we are aware of is one of Grand Master Everard de Barres, a small wax seal from 1147 with the inscription “TUBE: TEMPLI: XPI. .... Seals were used to validate letters, edicts and documents. With these seals, the authenticity of the document was validated.
Since at the time, the fabrication of a seal was quite labor intensive and difficult and a majority of the population were illiterate; the religious orders had their own seals and each one of them had its particular characteristics. There was a Templar seal with both inscriptions, on the obverse the two knights astride one horse and the reverse the Dome of the Rock, and, another one smaller in size with only the image of the Dome of the Boulder as it was referred to at that time. As time went on, special measures were taken to regulate its use and it was kept in a special chest that required three keys to open, one was in the Master’s possession and the other two were held by Templar officials of the utmost confidence.
As to the question of the Templar seal’s image having a connection to the Holy Sepulcher, one must only recall that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem was entrusted to the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher, founded by the very same Godfrey de Bouillon during the First Crusade, finally in the year 1098. This military order participated in all of the battles of the Holy Land after 1123 and it is no folly to think that the Poor Knights of Christ and of Solomon’s Temple, would honor their very name and the place where their central command was located, through connection and for all the symbolic meaning of the place.
For all three faiths, the center, the Alpha and the Omega is Jerusalem, and in the Holy City the center is, without a doubt, Solomon’s Temple. Although not being physically, there it still emanates that special magnetism, greater than any other Sacred Space. .... As stated earlier, all that remains is the Wailing or Western Wall, but its center is located precisely on the rock sheltered by the Dome. This reminds us in a subtle way that all radiates from that center and all returns to it. It is the way of the initiate and of the Templars or, a certain part of them, were knowing and guardians of that symbolic world that reminds us of that forgotten path, the way to our own center. This is the symbology of the seal of the Dome of the Rock, a reminder of what direction a Knight Templar must look, towards the center of his own heart."
This blog quotes from an article "The Templar Seal - Dome of the Rock" by Fuensanta Santos de la Rubia in the May 2016 OSMTJ Spain The Graal Magazine to be downloaded here. The text and interpunction was slightly improved. source quote and illustration.
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