Templar Devotion of Saint Blaise

Saint Blaise, a fourth century bishop and physician, appears in Templar chapels, altars and relic lists. A statue of him stands near the church of Chamberaud, once a Templar site. Did the order really venerate him, and does the statue prove it?

Contemporary Templar images on a medieval shrine?

Around the shrine of Thomas de Cantilupe, bishop of Hereford, sit fourteen armed men in niches. A tradition calls them Templars, and modern Templar groups have claimed the bishop for the order. What do the scholarly sources say?

The Templar Banner

The Templars rode into battle behind a black and white banner that the sources call baucent [piebald] (French beauséant). It was the rallying point of the whole order, and a knight who left it could lose his habit. What did the banner look like, and who carried it?

The Hildegarde von Bingen - Bernard de Clairvaux link

In 1146 or 1147 Hildegarde von Bingen (French Hildegarde de Bingen), whose visions were still unpublished, wrote to Bernard de Clairvaux, who was busy preaching the Second Crusade. Her letter and his answer both survive, and both are short. What did she ask, and what did he reply?

Medieval Templar Libraries - Product of Necessity and Circumstances

Did the Templars, les Templiers, own libraries? Inventories made after the arrests of 1307 to 1311 list psalters, missals and legendaries in their chapels, from London to Arles. Who used these books, and where did they come from?

Medical care in the Templar Order

The Knights Templar provided medical care, both for their own brothers as for people from outside the Order. Taking care of medical problems started with preventing illness to enter the Order in the first place. Concealing illness on entry was considered an offence, which could lead to expulsion. Leprosy and epilepsy are mentioned explicitely in the Rule as illnesses to be kept out of the Order. But when sickness came up, care was provided.

Jacques de Molay: the last Templar Grand Master and Mongol warlord?

The sudden arrest of the Templars (in 1307, TN), the conflicting stories about confessions, and the dramatic deaths by burning, generated many stories and legends about both the Order and its last Grand Master. One suggested that De Molay wanted to join forces with the Mongols. True or false?