What's With All The Templar Conspiracy Theories?

"The Templars have something to do with everything." With these words, Umberto Eco, in Fucault's Pendulum, satirized a phenomenon which is just as popular today as it was back then: the association of the Templars with conspiracies. For many people, the word Templar still invokes secret societies and shadowy plots long before anything to do with a medieval religious order (if it ever does at all). These associations are repeated so often that it's difficult for anyone to have a discussion about the Templars without the topic of conspiracies coming up, and sooner or later almost every conspiracy theory will find some way to shoehorn them in. But Why? Why the Templars? Why has this idea become so influential? To answer that, we have to go on quite the journey, discussing heresy, Freemasons, occultism, the French Revolution, and much more. Watch my history of the Templars:    • Who Were The Knights Templar?   Support me on Patreon:   / studiumhistoriae1215   Follow me on Instagram:   / studium.historiae   Sources and Recommendations for further reading: -Barber, Malcolm. The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple (Cambridge University Press, 1994). -Borchardt, Karl, Karoline Döring, Philippe Josserand, and Helen J. Nicholson, eds. The Templars and Their Sources. (Taylor and Francis, 2016). -Edbury, Peter W., ed. The Military Orders. Vol. 5, Politics and Power. (Ashgate, 2012). -Nicholson, Helen J. Love, War, and the Grail: Templars, Hospitallers, and Teutonic Knights in Medieval Epic and Romance, 1150-1500. (Brill, 2004). -Nicholson, Helen J. The Knights Templar. (Arc Humanities Press, 2021). -Nicholson, Helen J. The Knights Templar: A New History. (Sutton Pub., 2001). -Partner, Peter. The Murdered Magicians: The Templars and Their Myth. (Oxford University Press, 1982). Chapters: 0:00 - Intro 1:52 - Early Legacy 10:06 - Freemasonry 14:26 - The First Modern Conspiracy Theory 20:03 - Neo-Templars 21:32 - The Mystery of Baphomet Revealed 24:15 - A Popular Mythology 27:54 - The Priory of Sion 33:24 - Outro All images used in this video are either my own, in the public domain, under fair use, or under creative commons. No AI was used in the making of this video. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Outro music: Laid Back Guitars by Kevin MacLeod, CC BY-SA 4.0 http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-... #medievalhistory #medieval #middleages #history #educational #templars #crusades #knights #freemasonry #mystery