Step Into The Past

An enchanting walk from West Witton in Wensleydale reveals the remains of a Knight Templars chapel

- Terry Fletcher

Seven centuries after they vanished in disgrace from the pages of history, the Knights Templar still manage to exercise a mysterious fascination even today. A band of poverty-stricken monastic warriors formed in the 12th century, they fought in the fiercest battles of the Crusades and in just 200 years became the most powerful and wealthy order in Christendom before a dramatic fall from grace amid rumours and allegations of idolatry and secret initiation ceremonies.

Those stories are now largely discredited as half-baked concoctions dreamed up by the French King Philip to wriggle out of paying his crippling debts to the Templars. What is beyond doubt is that, when not fighting, the knights became Christianity’s first major bankers and, some argue, Europe’s first multinational corporation, exempt by Papal decree from local laws and taxes. Also beyond denial is the fact that, despite being disbanded on the orders of the Pope in 1312, they still feature in conspiracy theories and have even had walk-on parts in Dan Brown’s best-selling Da Vinci Code and an Indiana Jones movie.