The earliest reference to masons is in the Regius Poem, or Halliwell Manuscript, which was published in 1390, but Freemasonry as we know it today was founded in 1717, when four London lodges merged to form England’s first Grand Lodge. They identified one another via signs of their trade, like the builder’s square and compass in Freemasonry’s now-iconic symbol. Cathedral builders, by nature of their profession, had to travel from city to city. The freemasons can trace their routes to the Middle Ages in Europe, a time when most craftsmen were organized into local guilds.
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Popular books and films like The Da Vinci Code continue to inspire curiosity about the Knights Templar today. Rumors that the Knights Templar guarded artifacts like the Holy Grail and Shroud of Turin began bubbling up among conspiracy theorists.
Under pressure from the French crown, Pope Clement V formally dissolved the order in 1312 and redistributed their wealth.
In 1309, as the city of Paris watched, dozens of Knights Templar were burned at the stake for their alleged crimes. On October 13, 1307, King Philip IV of France, whom the Knights Templar had denied additional loans, had a group of knights arrested and tortured until they made false confessions of depravity. When the Crusades came to an end after the fall of Acre, the Knights Templar withdrew to Paris, where they focused on their banking endeavors. READ MORE: 10 Reasons Why the Knights Templar Were History's Fiercest Fighters What Happened to the Knights Templar? At the apex of their power, the Knights Templar owned the island of Cyprus, a fleet of ships and lent money to kings. Their influence swelled to a new high in 1139, when Pope Innocent II issued a Papal Bull exempting them from paying taxes… and decreeing that the only authority they had to answer to was the Pope. They became one of the most wealthy and powerful forces in Europe after setting up a bank that allowed pilgrims to deposit money in their home countries and withdraw it in the Holy Land. The Knights Templar were known for more than their military prowess and moral lifestyle.