The Normans had taken part in a slaughter that would never be forgiven. bid.
It is almost 100 years since Christian armies from Europe seized Jerusalem. Europe suffers in the grip of repression and poverty. Peasant and lord alike flee to the Holy Land in search of fortune and salvation. Kingdom of Heaven 2005 starring Orlando Bloom & Jeremy Irons & Eva Green & David Thewlis & Liam Neeson & Brendan Gleeson & Michael Sheen & Ghassan Massoud & Alexander Seddig & Khaled Nabawy et al, director Ridley Scott, caption
France 1184: I call it here. Now. ibid. Baron Godfrey
To kill an infidel is not murder. It is the path to heaven. ibid. Pilgrim Camp – Road to Messina
A Kingdom of Conscience. A Kingdom of Heaven. ibid. Neeson
I have lost my religion. ibid. hero
God wills it. ibid. Knights Templars
We are fighting for wealth and land. ibid. Irons
The King, Richard the Lionheart, went on to the Holy Land and crusaded for three years. ibid. caption
They presented themselves to King Baldwin the II, the King of Jerusalem at the time. And they were given what we might call today’s five-star accommodation. The south-eastern platform of the Temple Mount. Dr Karen Ralls, author The Templars and the Grail
The Templars were in Jerusalem somewhere around 1118, 1119, and then for 8 or 9 years they completely disappeared from the scene. They were not heard of during this time. George Smart, author The Knights Templar Chronology
The Order had been quietly formed in Jerusalem in 1119, twenty years after the Christians took the City. A French knight founded the Order to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. So how did they end up with fortresses and churches all over Europe, with a massive power-base to rival the European monarchs? Trial of the Knights Templar, Channel 4 2008
There were originally only nine Templars. ibid.
The Chinon Parchment adds up to a litany of heresies: the Templars had admitted to homosexuality, denouncing Christ and defiling the Cross. The Templar’s first confession after arrest had been tortured out of them by Philip IV, but had the Pope’s men done the same? Were the Chinon confessions reliable? The Chinon Parchment contains one further revelation: despite people believing for centuries that the Pope had condemned the Templars, in fact he had saved them. He absolved [Jacques] de Molay and the leaders unconditionally. ibid.
But the old warrior had left behind one last Parisian mystery. As the Templars were swept away, their biggest Bank, the Paris Temple, was raided by the King’s men. It was empty. Templar assets in Normandy alone amounted to more than the wealth of England yet nothing was found. Philip IV’s destruction of the Knights Templar had all been for nothing. ibid.
The Knights Templar were the most powerful military religious order of the Middle Ages. Formed to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land, they participated in the Crusades and rapidly gained wealth, lands and influence and were answerable to none save the Pope himself. In addition to having a fearful military reputation, they were also Christendom’s first bankers, and invented the modern banking system that is still in use today. ibid.
Twenty years after Jerusalem was taken, the Dome of the Rock was seized by a group of warrior monks calling themselves the Knights of the Temple of Solomon, or more simply the Knights Templars. In Jerusalem the Templars began to deviate further away from the practices of Christianity. They learnt the secret arts of the Kabbalah, an ancient form of Jewish magic with its dark rights and rituals. Shadows in Motion, 2018
They were housed in the Temple complex in Jerusalem, and that was a very important statement as far as the importance that they gave to this new Order, this new idea. James Wasserman, author The Templars and the Assassins
cf.
Frankly I think the reason is sort of an accident. I don’t think it was freighted with any kind of real meaning, other than it was something available. Professor Jill N Claster, New York University
The idea that the Templars were digging into the Temple Mount is a modern one – nobody at the time wrote about that. And I think the Templars would have talked about it had they been doing it as well, because they liked to advertise their activities as a way of making money. Helen Nicholson, author & historian
What would be the point in taking treasure to Nova Scotia when the whole point of the Order is to protect Jerusalem? Helen Nicholson
Relics were used to attract pilgrims to religious sites there [Jerusalem]. Ancient X-Files s2e2, National Geographic 2012
According to Muslim tradition one night after falling asleep at the Kazbah in Mecca Muhammad was transported on a metaphysical journey to a place hundreds of miles north, a city that is also holy to Christians and Jews – Jerusalem. Rageh Omaar, The Life of Muhammad II: Holy Wars, BBC 2011
In the fall of 2000 a new Intifada broke out. The Israeli military responded with force and the region was plunged into an unprecedented level of violence. This films was shot between 1997 and the summer of 2000 – a time of relative calm between Palestinians and Israelis. Promises, opening caption, 2001
7 Palestinian and Israeli children who live in and around Jerusalem. They live no more than 20 minutes from each other but they are each growing up in very separate worlds. ibid.
‘Jerusalem belongs to us!’ ibid. boy
The Jews kicked us off our land and put us in this camp.’ ibid. girl
Following the 1967 war groups of nationalist Jews established settlements here [West Bank] on what was previously Arab land. ibid.
‘If I could make my own future, all the Arabs would fly away.’ ibid. boy
Checkpoints are situated at all crossings between West Bank and Jerusalem. ibid.
‘All these old guys scare me.’ ibid. boy
‘The more Jews we kill, the fewer there will be.’ ibid. boy
In Jerusalem rumours persist that King Herod’s temple treasures lie hidden beneath a Byzantine church. Secrets of the Underground s2e2: King Solomon’s Treasures, Science 2017
The tunnel stretches from the Temple mount almost a mile to all the way outside the city walls. ibid.
A ring of Israeli concrete around Jerusalem. Robert Fisk, From Beirut to Bosnia II: The Road to Palestine, Discovery 1993
At Al Aqsa in Jerusalem a young Muslim paramedic battles his own hunger and exhaustion to help thousands of other fasting worshippers during Ramadam. Sacred Wonders s1e1, BBC 2019
The Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem: an orthodox Christian must deliver a holy flame into the hands of his bishop … The Church of the Sepulchre: one of the most sacred sites in Christianity. Sacred Wonders s1e3
For Christians the most important events in history took place here. According to the Bible, this is the city where Jesus lived his last days and was crucified. What happened here changed the world. Over 2,000 years the city too has changed. It’s been destroyed and reconstructed more than 20 times in as many centuries. Only fragments, traces of ruins remain of the Jerusalem Jesus would have known. Lost Worlds: Jesus’ Jerusalem, History 2006
Temple Mount: 18,000 people were employed in building these walls. Work began 15 years before Jesus’ birth; it was still going on 80 years later. The complex was the world’s biggest construction site. What did it look like on completion? The largest structure on Earth: it stood for just 5 years before a Roman empire tore it down. ibid.
On May 14th 2018, the day of the embassy move, 58 Palestinians were killed and 2,771 were injured during mass protests. ’Til Kingdom Come: Trump, Faith & Money, BBC 2021
The Ark of the Covenant. A sacred golden chest that had the power to level cities. In Biblical times it guided and protected millions of people. And then it vanished. Throughout history many have searched for the lost Ark of the Covenant. The UnXplained with William Shatner s3e3: The Search for the Ark of the Covenant
Was the Ark of the Covenant once hidden in a cave below Jerusalem? ibid.
So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning even to the time appointed: and there died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba seventy thousand men.
And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, It is enough: stay now thine hand. And the angel of the Lord was by the threshingplace of Araunah the Jebusite. II Samuel 24:15&16
Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle.
And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down. II Kings 21:12&13