Why Not Join Knights Templar in Durham?

In the Province of Durham, we have 14 Preceptories and approximately 460 members, called Brother Knights, who operate under the direction of the Provincial Prior, Right Eminent Knight Alan Hall. We pride ourselves on our friendly and open approach to meetings, and it is often commented amongst members that this is their favourite Order.

The word Masonic is included in our title and this is because we are not directly descended from the original Knights Templar, but we came into being (in a wide variety of ritual forms, and at first worked under Warrants of Royal Arch Chapters) in the British Isles in and around the 1760’s. The present day Templar ritual was introduced in the 1850’s, and a few years’ later, the same occurred to the Mediterranean Pass and Malta degrees.

A direct link with the original Templars is that they were granted their encampment in Jerusalem, on the site of King Solomon’s Temple. On 15th July 1099 the city walls of Jerusalem were breached, and the city captured by the Crusader army of the 1st crusade. In 1118, nine knights under the leadership of Hughes de Payen, approached the patriarch of Jerusalem (King Baldwin II); having decided to dedicate their lives to the service of the Holy land. The patriarch subsequently assigned them a portion of the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount (said to have been built on the original Temple of Solomon). This group of knights subsequently took their name from this: Pauperes commiltones Christi Templi Salomonis (the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon). Thus becoming known as the Knights of the Temple, and later, Knights Templar.

A newly Installed Knight will go through an extremely interesting ceremony; taking him through a pilgrimage and then knighthood as a Templar. There is also a Mediterranean Pass and Malta degree; which is usually conferred at a meeting once in every year.

If you are interested in joining us (you must have been raised to the third degree and be a Royal Arch mason) and would like some more information, please contact any Registrar of a Preceptory (found in the Durham year book), or ourselves at: ktregistrar@durhamfreemasons.org.