Stone, Symbol, and Myth - Rethinking the Architecture of the Knights Templar

The Knights Templar have long fascinated historians, architects, and mystics alike. Their commanderies and chapels, scattered across medieval Europe and the Latin East, are often portrayed as repositories of hidden symbolism encoded in stone. But how much of what we call "Templar architecture" is historical reality, and how much is myth?

Circular or polygonal Templar buildings, while prominent in popular and esoteric literature, represent notable exceptions rather than the rule. Of the several hundred preceptories and chapels identified across Western Europe and the Latin East, the overwhelming majority adhered to conventional rectangular or basilical plans. The round church, loosely inspired by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, occurs only in a handful of cases, and recent scholarship has firmly concluded that the Knights Templar must be ruled out as initiators of the round-church tradition, undermining one of the most persistent claims of the mythologised "Templar architecture" narrative (Miele, 2010).

If the actual existence of an architecture specific to the Order of the Temple remains doubtful as a systematic programme, it is nonetheless permissible to perceive, in certain forms or spatial dispositions, a symbolic content related to Templar spirituality (Hundley, 2024). In its overall outline, this architecture is firmly rooted in the monastic building traditions of its time, and in particular in Cistercian stylistic references. Hardly surprising given the deep institutional ties between the Temple and Bernard of Clairvaux. Every sacred building rests upon an articulated set of formal and iconographic symbols whose purpose is to establish a permanent relationship between the terrestrial built site and the divine world, the symbols serving to express this relationship in material terms.

Two types of sacred buildings were favoured by the Temple. The first and most common is the church or chapel with a simple rectangular or basilical plan, of early Christian origin, generally oriented towards Jerusalem. Such structures comprise a nave, often single-aisled, sometimes tripartite, without a structural break between nave and choir. The choir is closed by a semicircular apse pierced by three narrow windows or a Romanesque or Gothic triplet depending on the period. The rear of the facade is frequently pierced by a single narrow window.

This architectural restraint is equally manifest on the exterior: the facade features a simple portal, occasionally decorated with small engaged columns, surmounted by a central window and crowned by a bell-tower arcade, sometimes replaced by a traditional bell tower against a lateral wall. Both internally and externally, decoration is discreet and uniform, confined to foliate motifs, occasional zoomorphic figures, and crocket mouldings following the Cistercian model, though regional variations naturally exist. 

This blog is own work of TemplarsNow, inspired by a French Text on Templar symbolism on templiers.org. ASdditional inform,ation and further reading: Miele, C. (2010). Gothic sign, Protestant realia: Templars, ecclesiologists and the round churches at Cambridge and London. Architectural History, 53, 191–215; Hundley C.E., (2024) Shared space: Templars, Hospitallers, and the English parish church. London: Courtauld Books Online. The illustration shows the Templar Chapel at Cressac-Saint-Genis (Charente, FRance), c. 1150–1160. A typical example of the rectangular, single-nave Templar chapel in the Cistercian tradition. © Wikimedia Commons, public domain. 

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