Templar Plague

The law of unintended consequences, often cited but rarely defined, is
that actions of people—and especially of government—always have effects
that are unanticipated or "unintended."” The above statement by Forbes
columnist Rob Norton can be applied to a majority of historical, and
many of my personal, missteps. No truer statement could be made about
the events that happened after the arrest of the Knights Templar on 13
Oct 1307. Arguments can be made that the infrastructure the Templars
had created in Europe disappearing literally over night caused a certain
 amount of upheaval. Possibly the effects of the “1315-1322 Great
Famine” could have been lessened had the Templars still been in control
of their vast farm holdings.

However, the effects of the Great
Famine were a trifle compared to that of the Black Death. Between the
years of 1347-1352, the Plague consumed 25 million lives throughout
Europe. The Plague, according to most historical accounts, began to
infect Europe in October 1347. The Plague actually originated in
Mongolia in the 1330’s and spread throughout Chinese run ports. A group
of merchant ships returning brought the Plague to Sicily after trading
at one of these ports on the Black Sea.

By the time the merchants
 reached Europe, a number of crew members and rats were infected with
the disease. The rats were the primary cause of the disease spreading
so quickly. The Plague vectored from infected fleas that transmitted
the disease to rats. The rats in turn spread like rats do, depositing
infected fleas everywhere they went. The infected fleas would transmit
the Plague to humans and other rats. The cycle repeated itself until
virtually no part of Europe was immune.

There was little or no
barrier to the rats spreading the disease. The flea carrying rat
population ran unchecked because the rat’s main predator, the common
house cat, was in short supply. It was that little matter of
“unintended consequences” that had reduced the population of cats in
Europe.

During the trials of the Templars, a number of charges
were leveled against the members of the Order. One of which was in
relation to worshiping the head of Baphomet who, “…sometimes it is
accompanied or replaced by the devil in the form of a black or gray cat
or raven, who occasionally answers the questions addressed to him”(quote
 from: A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages. Volume: 3.
Henry Charles Lea) While this was not the first time cats had been
linked with devilish deeds, it certainly was the catalyst that insured
their undue persecution.

Cats had been linked to the Black Arts
 notably from Pope Gregory IX in the 1232. The Pope’s issued a bull
that year that deemed the common house cat as diabolical. Charges of
heresy after that became increasingly associated with cats. The Church
leveled charges, similar to the Templars, against the Cathars. But it
was the trial of the Templars that catapulted demonizing cats into the
minds of most Europeans.

The Templars were involved in most
facets of the European infrastructure by 1307. Templar endeavors in:
banking, inns, farm holdings, and shipping affected the lives of a great
 portion of the European populace. When Black Friday occurred, and
subsequent trails, people throughout Europe wanted to know why. In time
 the news of the heretical charges against the Templars spread. It’s not
 hard to believe the common man felt betrayal by the Templars

Fueled
 by feeling of betrayal and the notion cats were linked to the Devil,
people turned to killing cats as way to insure evil forces would not
overtake them. The populace of Europe paid the price for this
misconception. Forty years of slaughtering cats dissolved the one
barrier that could have given some protection from the Plague.

In
 this way, the Black Death might have been said to be the Templar’s
Plague. The governments and peoples of Europe had unwittingly sentenced
 themselves a steep toll for their undue persecution of the Templars.

Brian
 Kannard is a 32nd Degree Scottish Rite Mason that lives in Nashville,
Tennessee with his wife and fellow Grail Seeker Laura, and his son
Robert. His keen interest in topics on the Holy Grail, the Knights
Templar, and Freemasonry are also chronicled his blog Grail Seekers. Brian can be contacted here at Unexplained Mysteries under the user name of Grail Seekers. Sources available upon request.

-http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/column.php?id=103967