Knights Templar

The Knights Templar, formally the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, was a Catholic military order founded around 1119 by Hugues de Payens to protect Christian pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem after the First Crusade, and formally endorsed by the Church at the Council of Troyes in 1129. Combining the vows of a monastic order with heavy cavalry warfare, the Templars became one of the most disciplined and feared fighting forces of the Crusades while also building an extensive network of European estates, castles, and an early international banking system that financed pilgrims and monarchs alike. King Philip IV of France, deeply indebted to the order, engineered its destruction on fabricated heresy charges beginning in 1307, and Pope Clement V formally dissolved the order in 1312. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/