History of the Skull & Crossbones Symbol Used in Poison Warning Signs and Labels Why is this the universal symbol for poison? We'll take you through the history. Introduction: The Skull and Crossbones symbol, as popular as it is, is also one of the most ambiguous of all symbols when it comes to its history. The symbols most commonly associated with the Jolly Roger, a flag emblazoned with a skull and crossbones that pirates would use to identify their ships. The symbol's origin, however, is an unsolved mystery that leads historians back two thousand years. Ancient History: The symbolism of the skull and crossbones has its traces in the ancient era. It was first seen on on the tomb of Tutankhamun in Ancient Egypt, with the cross-diagonal layout of judgement and pity formed the basis of an evolving. A staff or scepter was the symbol of universal power. The Flail (on the left side of the image above) was used to beat animals and even people to show authority while the crook (right side of the image) was used by a shepherd to pull stray animals by the neck without causing them any harm. The idol of King Tutankhamun holding a staff and flail in a cross diagonal layout.

Medieval History: 1. The Knights Templar It is widely believed that the skull and crossbones was first used by the Knights Templar in the Middle Ages.The Templars or Knights Templar, occasionally documented as the Order of the Temple, The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon was the largest charity for nearly two centuries, especially after it was officially endorsed by the Catholic Church in 1129. Its pacifist members became known for many good deeds, and also for the supposed introduction of the Skull and Crossbones. According to Masonic legend, the skull and crossbones are the bones of Jackes de Molay. In an effort to seize the riches of the Templars, the Church ordered that the society be disbanded. deMolay, the 23rd and last Grand Master of the Knights,was burned alive by the Church. When three Templars came looking for his bones, they found only his skull and femurs. By this time the Templars had become accomplished mariners, and the skull and femurs of the last Grand Master became their nautical symbol â the Jolly Roger.

The legend of the Skull of Sidon also contains some clues to the Jolly Rogerâs relationship with the Knights Templar. The Lord of Sidon, himself a Templar, lost his love when she was young.On the night of her burial,the Templar snuck to back to her grave and dug up her body. At the same time, he heard a voice instructing him to return after nine months to find a son. Nine months later, the Templar dug up her grave to find a head resting on the skeletonâs femurs. The same voice told him to guard the head, because it would bless all of his endeavors, and defeat any enemies before it. The symbol of the son, or the skull and crossbones, became the protecting genius for the Templar. What should be noted here is that the port of Sidon had always nested pirates. Therefore, the skull and the crossbones could have been used as a symbol for the pirate flag before the time of the Knights Templar. 2. Funerary Symbol: Adherents of Christianitymaintained one of the earliest uses for the symbol.

Toward the end of the Roman Empire and into the Middle Ages, Christians frequently used the Skill and Crossbones to symbolize death, or more specifically, passing from life. The symbol has been discovered in various Christian catacombs around Italy, some of which date back as far as the second century. During the same early period, the skull and crossbones was also considered to represent 'memento mori', a Latin term used in Rome that can mean, 'Remember death'. Skull and Crossbones used as a funerary symbol in Spanish cemeteries. Entrances to Spanish cemeteries were marked with an actual skull and set of femur bones. Continuing throughout the Middle Ages, many people, Christian or not, began to have the symbol carved into their tombstones. Presenting in different manifestations across funerary traditions, the skull and crossbones is nevertheless a universal message that every human dies. 3. Piracy: During the Later Middle Ages (into the 1400s), the use of the skull and crossbones began to diminish until it was almost non-existent. The symbol was essentially unused during the following century, until it was adopted by some of the most feared people in the world â pirates.

Originally, pirates used simply a red flag on the top of their shipsâ mast. The red symbolized bloodshed, and the fact that the pirates gave no quarter (show no mercy). However, many pirates soon changed their flags from red to black, and began to weave the skull and crossbones into them. The Jolly Roger, as the flag came to be called, symbolized death to its purveyors in its color and in its symbol. Writes Miranda Bruce-Mitford, in her book, The Illustrated Book of Signs & Symbols, "The skull-and-crossbones emblem [was] adopted by pirates as a sinister warning of their evil intentions. The emblem filled sailors with dread and signaled death to all who saw it." The symbol's prominence traveled with piracyâs prominence in travel, coming to an end in the mid-1700s. Some of the famous pirate flags used from 1693 to 1724 are shown below: Used by Captain Emanuel Wynne. Captain Edward Teach aka Blackbeard's Jolly Roger. The Jolly Roger of Captains Jean Thomas Dulaien and later, Walter Kennedy.

Captain Bartholomew Robertsâ Jolly Roger showing him and a skeleton holding an hourglass. Popular version of Captain Henry Everyâs Jolly Roger Captainâs Christopher Moodyâs Jolly Roger Modern History: Adoption by Societies: The skull and crossbones did not appear as a major recognized symbol again for nearly two centuries, until students at the prestigious Yale University formed a secret society called âSkull and Bones.â The Society has been a part of the university since 1832, and remains one of its most exclusive. This society embraced (and continues to use) the skull and crossbones symbol not to represent death but to represent the mystery surrounding the society. The prestigious, secret society named as the 'Skull and Bones Society' was formed by the students at the Yale University. Adoption by Sports Teams: The skull and crossbones was first adopted by a sports team in 1870. Already popular among many football teams and fans in Great Britain, the skull and crossbones was officially adopted by The Rugby Unions in 1870. In 1876, it was added for a brief period to the Cardiff Rugby Football Clubâs uniforms.

It was later removed due to pressure from playersâ parents. Use in Chemical Industries: Soon after the Skull and Bones society was created, the symbol took on another use as well. In 1829, New York State Law was changed to require that all containers of poisonous substances be labeled. The skull and crossbones first illustrated those labels in 1850. The skull and crossbones is now used less and less to label poisonous materials. Its negative, anti-environmental connotations discourage manufacturers from using the symbol, though it still appears in warnings for children, because of its playful associations with pirates. The skull and crossbones is now used to indicate poison. Mr. Yuk is a trademarked graphic that informs the presence of a poisonous substance. Mr. Yuk, to the right, is a trademarked graphic that informs the presence of a poisonous substance. This new symbol is primarily meant for children as a less abrasive way to demonstrate the hazards of poison. The skull and crossbones is now used to indicate poison: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) uses the skull and crossbones in various "Danger" signs to mark acutely toxic materials as hazardous to life.

A study conducted at the University of Alberta in Edmonton Canada in 1986 determined the most effectivevariant of the skull and crossbones symbol in an effort to truly universalize one form of the graphic. A white skull and crossbones within a black triangle was ranked most effective at communicating danger quickly and effectively. While this graphic language is not employed universally, the study helped to demonstrate the importance of widespread symbolic cognizance. Warfare: The skull and crossbones which adorns the pirate flag, more popularly known as the Jolly Roger, also saw its use in naval warfare. The symbol served to identify the unit. Occasionally, the Jolly Roger became a victory flag, flown to celebrate the toughness which wins a victory, and which victors and pirates share. The Skull and Crossbones Across Different Cultures: In the Indian culture, Lord Shiva and Goddess Kali wear a garland of skulls and bones in their severe forms. In Tibetan and Nepalese culture, deities such as Kurukulla also wear skull necklaces. The skull and bones is also an important Neo-Nazi symbol. The Deathâs Head or Totenkopf was a symbol of the Nazi Schultzstaffel (SS).

The purpose of the organization was to watch over the concentration camps. Current use of the Nazi skull and crossbones, above, is posthumous: the skull and crossbones is tattooed on to a body to indicate that the person was killed by one of the movementâs so-called âenemies.â In contrast, in Pre-Colombian America, the skull and its accompanying symbols were honored and treated with importance among the Aztecs and Mexican tribes. The Skull and Crossbones symbol has not always proved effective. Prior to the War on Terror, widely distributed bags of corn seed infected with arsenic were labeled with skull and crossbones symbols. Many residents were unaware of the symbolâs connotations, leading to a number of fatalities. The Skull and Crossbones symbol has not always proved effective. Skull and Crossbones have become an icon of the sign and labeling industry throughout the globe. While some evidence shows that this symbol and its connotations are not always effective, the fearsome skull and crossbones generally keeps people away from hazardous substances and reduces the risk of poisoning or infection. With its rich and multifaceted history, the skull and crossbones symbol has become a global safety icon.

Its universalization has led to its widespread success, warning against the hazards of poisonous materials throughout history and for generations to come. Order online 24 hours a day using secure Google and Pirate Graves | Gothic Heroine Gothic Heroine historic sites , wales So, I was visiting a churchyard in North Wales over the weekend. The church was Victorian, but it had been built on the site of a much older church, and many of the gravestones in the churchyard predated the present church. Right by the front door to the church was what was probably the oldest stone, referred to in the church’s information leaflet as the “pirate grave”. The description of “pirate grave” obviously derives from the skull and crossed bones, which, due to age and erosion, is all that can be made out of the inscription on the stone today. Pirate graves are found across the country, the majority of them don’t, and never have, contained pirates. The skull and bones mark are traditional symbols of mortality, reminding the living that they too will one day find themsleves lying under a tombstone. On some stones the skull and crossbones are accompnaied by an hour glass, symbolising the flow of time.

The stone I saw has another carving above the skull, which may be an hourglass, it may be the coat of arms of the incumbent or some other decoration, the weathering is to great to make it out clearly. The skulls and bones are often linked with another frequently found medieval carving or illustration, that of animated skeletons performing the “Dance of Death”. The skull and crossed bones marks have a long tradition. I have read that they were originally used by the Knights Templar in the early middle Ages as symbols of death and resurrection. After the crusades some of the Knights took up piracy as a living and flew the symbols on their ships as a flag. The marks were also taken up as symbols of free masonery, so maybe the grave occupant may have been a master mason. Of course, this one may really be a pirate. The church is close to the sea, and pirates had to be buried somewhere. I read once that you could distinguish between real pirates graves and others by the placement of the bones. If they were below the skull then the grave was not that of a a pirate, behind the skull, as in this case, then the remains really were those of a pirate.

But then, weren’t many pirates captured and executed, and if so would they even be allowed burial in a churchyard, yet alone pride of place by the doorway? Would a prirate want to advertise his profession in such a way, did a tailor have shears or a farmer a plough engraved on his tomb? Was it a warning to others to avoid the life of crime, or was it a marking for the future – pirates were buried along with their treasure and this X marked the spot for it to be reclaimed long after the pirates and owners were dead? These pirate graves, whatever the truth behind the symbolisim, often encourage alternative superstitions to grow up around them. Children playing around the church may invent stories, and these will grow and persist long after those who invented them are gone. Pirates graves are often supposed to be haunted, other pirates graves are special in that there are superstitions in the way you must approach them, bow to them, walk around them three times or whatever to avoid disturbing the unsettled spirit. Searching around the internet , I have found a few more examples, credit is given where possible, but sorry if I have upset anyones copyright on these.

here are a couple I found visiting Bwlch-y-Cibau church in Powys and A History of the Knights Templar and Their Involvement with the Priory of Sion By Tracy R. Twyman Originally written for Dagobert’s Revenge Magazine, Copyright 1998 (Does not necessarily represent author’s current viewpoint.) According to chroniclers of their early years, the Knights Templar were founded in 1188 by Hughes de Payen, a vassal of the Count of Champagne. This occurred after they had presented themselves to Baldwin I, King of Jerusalem, whose older brother, Godfroi de Bouillon had led the crusaders to victory in the Holy Land almost twenty years previous. They proposed themselves as a order of fighting monks, who would protect the roadways for pious pilgrims journeying to Jerusalem. They were immediately given an entire wing of the royal palace as their headquarters — a wing that had been built upon the foundations of the Temple of Solomon.

Thus they received their name: “the Knights of the Temple.” For the next nine years they admitted no new members to their order — strange since the nine founding members hardly seem like they would have provided an adequate number of staff to protect all of the roads to the Holy Land. Furthermore, there is no evidence from contemporary chroniclers indicating that they even engaged in such activities. Guillame de Tyre, the chief chronicler of the age and an intimate associate of King Baldwin, doesn’t even mention them, causing the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail to suspect that he had been silenced by the royal muzzle to cover up for the Templars’ actual activities — excavating the Temple Mount. The authors speculate that when the Roman legions sacked the Temple in 70 A.D., they took only the most obvious loot, unwittingly leaving behind the most valuable treasure, chief among which would have been the Ark of the Covenant, and perhaps, the artifact which came to be known as the Holy Grail. This could have been secreted away by the Temple priests in any of the numerous tunnels known to exist beneath Solomon’s Stables on the Temple Mount — stables which the Templars made use of during their nine-year stay.

This could have, in fact, been the purpose behind the foundation of their order — a mission based upon knowledge that had been passed down from Christ’s descendants to the Merovingians, and then on to the Templars’ founders. The main figures involved in the Templars’ foundation — King Baldwin, the Count of Champagne, Andre de Montbard, Hughes de Payen, Bertrand de Blanchefort and Godfroi de Bouillon were all descendants of Merovingian blood, and if they had been in on the family secrets, that would explain why they willingly pledged themselves, their money, and in the king’s case, the royal quarters, to the cause. If they had been successful in their mission, it could explain how they acquired the capital with which they eventually created a vast empire. During their first nine years they became famous throughout Europe as the selfless “Militia of Christ.” By 1127, most of the knights had returned to Europe, and in the following year, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Andre de Montbard’s uncle, published a pro-Templar tract entitled In Praise of the New Knighthood.

At the Saint Bernard-inspired Council of Troyes, the Church officially recognized the Templars as a religious and military order dedicated to the defense of Christendom. Saint Bernard then assisted in drawing up their rules of conduct, based upon those of the Cistercian order of monks, another group upon whom Bernard had much influence. Templars were sworn to poverty and celibacy. They wore white mantels to symbolize their purity, emblazoned with the red cross patee. And just as the Merovingians were forbidden to cut their hair, the Templars were likewise forbidden to cut their beards. The Templars’ reputation for bravery was well-earned. They were not allowed to retreat from battle unless the odds outweighed them three to one, and when they were captured they were obliged to fight to the death rather than beg for mercy or ransom. They were also pledged to secrecy about the orders workings, and were inducted with a strange initiation ceremony about which there were many rumors. A few years later, there was another interesting development in their rule.

In 1139, a former student of Saint Bernard’s, Pope Innocent II, issued a papal bull stating that the Knights Templar would owe allegiance to none except the Pope himself, making them immune to the political whims of all authorities, both religious and secular. As their fame grew, so did their ranks, and thus, their property holdings. The sons of European nobility swelled their membership, and the vast amounts of money and property donated by the new recruits swelled their territory and their coffers, for new recruits, as per their vow of poverty, were required to relinquish all property upon admittance to the order. Soon they stood at the helm of a huge, international empire over which they held complete independent sovereignty. During Christendom’s Second Crusade, the Templars accompanied France’s King Louis II into battle, and played a decisive role in preventing the war from becoming a total disaster. Over the next century, they secured their important role in international politics by utilizing their influence upon a number of kings, nobles, and ecclesiastic authorities. Many of these kings were financially indebted to the Templars, and some actually resided with them.

The Grand Master of the Temple even stood by England’s King John as he signed the Magna Carta. At times, it appeared that the Templars possessed the power to make or break a monarch’s career according to their desire. Their political influence spread in direct proportion to their huge banking operation. In fact, the modern institution of banking, in which money can be deposited in one location and withdrawn in another, is a Templar invention, along with the “cheque”, likely named after the “chequerboard” pattern that was one of the Templars’ most well-recognized motifs. This made it possible for pilgrims and travelers to journey safely without fear of roadside robbers, and the cheques were unforgable, as they were written in sophisticated secret codes for which the Templars became known. Almost every king or queen in Europe banked with them, as well as a number of Muslim leaders whom they dealt with on a regular basis.

As Holy Blood, Holy Grail puts it, “The Templars thus became the primary money changers of the age, and the Paris preceptory became the center of European finance.” The Templars’ enterprises made them the conduits of new forms of art, science, and craft, new forms of thought and belief. They had access to new advances in agriculture, armaments, surveying, mapmaking, and navigation, and they were one of the first groups of people to employ the magnetic compass in their seafaring. They ran their own hospitals to treat wounded soldiers, and were at the forefront of modern medicine, bringing to the field a scientific point of view unusual among their contemporaries, including an unprecedented understanding of the principals of hygiene. They even made medical use of mold extracts, similar to the widespread use of penicillin as an antibiotic today. Their mastery of architectural principles, both ancient and modern, including the understanding of advanced mathematics, such as was used in the building of the Giza pyramid, for example, along with their patronage of the stonemasons’ guilds, led to the development of Gothic architecture.

They were equally influential in bringing new religious and philosophical ideas into vogue throughout Europe, including blends of Islamic, Judaic, and, for lack of a better term, “Gnostic” threads of thought, setting the stage for Europe’s cultural Renaissance, which followed the medieval era and incorporated these same themes. Their ambiguous relationship with the Saracen enemy in the Holy Land, with whom they maintained a respectful peace whenever possible, led to the incorporation of a number of these new thought systems and scientific techniques, for Arab culture was still, at that time, a high civilization. There were even rumors of a close relationship with the Order of the Assassins, called by some authorities the Islamic equivalent to the Knights Templar. Like the Templars, they took oaths of secrecy, conducted strange ceremonies, and were obliged to fight with the same fanatical bravery. But when their relationship with the Muslims began to deteriorate, the Templars’ foothold in Jerusalem began to slip. King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem died in 1185.

In the battle over the succession that resulted, the current Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Gerard de Ridefort, was said to have betrayed some oath made to the deceased king, initiating a near-civil war amongst the Europeans living in the Holy Land. He also managed to destroy the long-established truce between the Christians and the Saracens, and led the Christians into a battle at Hattin in 1187 that resulted in the end of their 100-year-long reign in Jerusalem. By 1291, almost the entire Holy Land was under Saracen control. The last Christian fortress, Acre, fell dramatically in May of that year. The Templars set up new headquarters in Cyprus, but without the Holy Land to protect, or new territory to capture on behalf of Christendom, they lacked any clear-cut goals. The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail suggest that at this point, the Knights Templar turned their attention towards a new ambition: creating their own independent European state. Other authors, such as Alan Butler and Stephen Dafoe, have suggested that Switzerland is a likely candidate for the planned Templar state, and even suggest that the Swiss nation is a direct result of this.

Evidence they give includes the extensive Templar holdings that existed there, the Templar-style equilateral cross on their national flag, and the well-established role that Switzerland plays as the center of European finance. But the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail believe that the land which the Templars had picked to be the “New Jerusalem” was, in fact, the Languedoc region of Southern France — land of the Merovingian kings, whose descendants included the Templars’ founders. It was also the realm of the Cathar heretics, who, as it turned out, were closely associated with the Knights Templar as well. It has been written that one of the Templars’ founders was a Cathar, and that their fourth Grand Master, Bertrand de Blanchefort, was from a “Cathar family.” So too were many of the order’s dignitaries. And although the Templars were officially neutral in regards to the Albigensian crusade, they did accept a number of Cathars into their ranks at that time, providing them with immunity from prosecution. They even allowed Cathar refugees to take shelter in their preceptories, and on some occasions did defend them militarily.

According to Holy Blood, Holy Grail , “In the Languedoc, Temple officials were more frequently Cathar than Catholic”, and, “The Grand Master at the time… declared there was in fact only one true crusade — the crusade against the Saracens.” But the Catholic crusade against heresy would soon be turned against the Templars themselves, and the Holy Inquisition, which had been formed to deal with the Cathar problem, would soon be torturing their knights. For by 1306, the Templars had made a most powerful enemy: King Philippe IV of France. He did not merely resent them because they owed no allegiance to him, being obliged solely to the Holy See, and constituted a military threat greater than his own armed forces. He also owed them a lot of money, which he could not afford to repay, but which he knew they held in great abundance. Furthermore, they had insulted him in the past by refusing him admittance to their ranks. Perhaps he had even heard about the treasure from Jerusalem that they supposedly possessed. Whichever the case, he had decided that he would do away with the Templars, not only in his own domains, but everywhere altogether.

And the only other power he knew of that held the amount of international clout needed to execute the plan was the only power that held command over the Templars: the Papacy. But manipulating the Papacy was nothing new to King Philippe the Fair. He had already, as most historians will attest, played a guiding role in the kidnapping of Pope Boniface VIII and the poisoning of Pope Benedict XI. The current pope, Clement V, owed his very throne to Philippe, who had been responsible for his election. Even as the son of Ida de Blanchefort, from the same family as the Templars’ fourth Grand Master, Clement V still could not resist pressure from Philippe the Fair. Philippe wanted to persecute the Templars for heresy. The drama which unfolded thereafter gave rise to numerous legends, including the superstition surrounding “Friday the 13th.” Philippe had drafted a list of charges, largely based on evidence gleaned from spies, and from a defected Templar who agreed to be a witness. He then issued secret orders to his seneschals throughout France, sealed, with instructions that they were to be opened at dawn on Friday, October 13, 1307, and implemented immediately.

All Templars were to be arrested at once, and all of the order’s property seized. Despite the trouble the king went through to keep the plan secret, the Templars still seemed to have received some sort of warning, for the vast majority of their wealth, along with whatever holy relics they presumably possessed, had already been spirited away into trusted hands far from the king’s reach. (Most of this could be achieved through their highly sophisticated network of banks.) The order’s current Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, had just had all of the order’s books burnt for no apparent reason. And one Templar who left the order had been told by the treasurer that this was a “wise” move, as danger for the order lurked around the corner. Also, a memo had been given to all of the Templar preceptories in France warning their members not to divulge any information to anyone about the order’s customs and rituals. The Templars who were arrested went without struggle, as if they had been instructed to submit. However, not all Templars were arrested. It is known that a group of them, all closely associated with the treasurer, escaped, taking with them, presumably, all the wealth and treasure they could carry.

According to the legends, the Templars loaded the loot onto wagons, which they then transported to the coast, where eighteen ships awaited them at the Templar naval base at La Rochelle. These ships vanished without a trace shortly before the arrests. The fate of the arrested knights varied. All were interrogated, and many were tortured into confessing. The confessions, as well as the accusations, all revolved around similar themes. A list of charges drawn up by the Inquisition on August 12th, 1308 reads: “Item, that in each province they had idols, namely heads. Item, that they adored these idols. Item, that they said that the head could save them. Item, that it could make riches. Item, that it could make the trees flower. Item, that it made the land germinate. Item, that they surrounded or touched each head of the aforesaid idol with small cords, which they wore around themselves next to the shirt or the flesh.” They were also accused, among other things, of homosexual rites, of baby sacrifice, of committing abortions, and of ritually trampling upon the Christian cross during their initiation ceremony.

A widespread interpretation of this ritual, repeated often throughout the confessions, is that they were expressing their denial of the crucifixion, presumably because they had come across evidence that Christ did not die on the cross. This ritual could also have served as an introduction to a spiritual discipline that was older than Christianity. One aspirant, during the initiation ceremony, was supposedly told that he should not believe in Christ, but in a “higher God.” A crucifix was then displayed, and he was told, “Set not much faith in this, for it is far too young.” The accusations regarding this ritual, however, had been floating around the rumor mill since at least 1249. The most widespread and consistent aspect of the confessions, however, involved the worship of a head, specifically an idol named “Baphomet.” Some said it was a man’s head, some a woman’s head, some said that it was bearded, some that it was made of glass or crystal, and some said that it had two faces. A popular tale held that it was the head of the Templar’s first Grand Master, Hughes de Payens, or that of John the Baptist.

The latter seems a likely rumor to have been circulating amongst the Templars, for one of the theories surrounding the order is that they ascribed to the Johannite belief that John the Baptist was the true messiah, and Christ a false prophet. Some even said that Baphomet was not a mere head, but a demon, perhaps the Devil himself — half male, half-female, half-human, and half-beast. This was the source for the 19th century occultist Eliphas Levi’s well-known depiction of Baphomet, now incorporated into the Waite tarot deck as “the Devil.” This popular image, sometimes referred to as “the Sabbatic Goat”, was made to embody symbols of conflicting dualities. Thus the beast bears the breasts of a woman and the sex organs of a man. He is shown poised between the waxing and waning moon symbols with his right and left hands pointing up and down, respectively. Levi designed a sigil depicting an inverted pentagram with Baphomet’s goat face super-imposed onto it, and called it the “Goat of Mendes.” This symbol was later used by Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan.

Yet there was another idolatrous head found during the raid on the Templar’s Paris preceptory which presents an intriguing possibility about Baphomet. According to the written account, it was, “a great head of gilded silver, most beautiful, and consisting of the image of a woman. Inside were two head-bones wrapped in a cloth of white linen, with another red cloth around it. A label was attached, on which was written the legend “Caput 58 M.” Given the evidence that the Templars knew of and believed in the Grail family, descendants of Christ, and Mary Magdalen, it is theorized that this idol contains the relics of Magdalen herself. After all, as Boyd Rice has suggested, 5 +8 = 13, and M is the 13th letter of the alphabet, so “58M” could be a code signifying the name “Mary Magdalen.” However, there is another important detail to consider as well.

The “M” was actually written as the astrological sign for “Virgo.” There is, as discussed in the articles The Cutting of the Orm and Le Serpent Rouge Decoded, a connection between the figure of Mary Magdalen and the figure of Virgo. There is also a connection between Mary Magdalen and the goddess Venus, or Isis. As it turns out, Isis figures in to a popular legend regarding the origin of Baphomet. According to the tale, a Templar called “the Lord of Sidon” was in love with a young woman named Yse (possibly derived from “Isis”), who died suddenly. On the night of her burial, he dug up her body and copulated with it. Nine months later a voice “from the Void” told him to go back to the grave, where he would find his son. There he discovered a head resting on a pair of legbones (perhaps the origin of the Templar’s famous skull and crossbones symbol.) The voice told him that if he was careful to guard the head, it would be “the giver of all things.” He took it with him and for the rest of his days it protected him.

Later on, the tale relates, the Templar order got a hold of it and incorporated it into their rituals. Despite the severity of the charges leveled against them by the Papacy, most Templars were able to confess and go on with their lives. A number of them escaped persecution altogether. In England, for instance, King Edward IV (Philippe’s son-in-law) took a protective stance towards the Templars, only pursuing them under extreme duress from the Pope, and then after most of them had already escaped. Those that were arrested often received light sentences involving a few years of penance in a monastery — not unlike the life they were used to living anyway. Their lands were given to the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John, now known as the “Knights of Malta”, and the military wing of the Vatican. It was an order that reportedly had much in common with the Templars, perhaps even certain belief systems, and there is evidence that some of the escaped Templars simply joined this rival order. Where did the escaped English Templars go to? Most likely, Scotland, which provided a haven for renegade Templars from all over Europe.

Scotland was at war with England at the time, so pressure from King Edward would have been useless, and Scottish people at that time didn’t care much what the Pope thought of them either. Escaped Templars played an integral role in the history of Scotland, where the order was never officially dissolved. They are said to have fought by the side of Robert the Bruce during 1314′s Battle of Bannockburn. They purportedly survived in Scotland at least until 1689, when, during the Battle of Killiecrankie (part of a revolt against the deposition of Scottish Stuart king James II by William of Orange), an ancient Templar device was found on the body of John Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee. In the province of Lorraine, which was then part of Germany (and now part of France), the region’s duke exonerated all Templars of heresy, instructing them to array themselves in the clothes of common people and blend in with the populace. The Templars were openly defiant in both Germany and Spain, where they were proclaimed innocent by their judges, and went on to live normal lives in other orders, such as the Teutonic Order, or the Knights Hospitaller.

In Portugal, the order itself was cleared of all charges, and merely had to change its name, becoming the Knights of Christ.(1) This order was devoted specifically to sailing, and sponsored a number of history’s most well-known explorers. Vasco de Gama was a member of the order, and Prince Henry the Navigator (speculated as having been among the few to explore (albeit secretly) the New World prior to Christopher Columbus, was a Grand Master. Most importantly, however, Christopher Columbus himself was the son-in-law of a Knight of Christ, and may have used his relative’s maps to navigate his way to America, where his ships sailed under flags bearing the order’s insignia, the red equilateral cross. The Templars also reputedly used their influence in the Teutonic Order to exact a measure of revenge against the Catholic Church, when they decided to support the Protestant Reformation of Martin Luther. Revenge was something that was definitely on the minds of escaped Templars, especially in regards to what happened to their last known Grand Master, Jacques de Molay. Although he had confessed to the charges, he later repudiated them, claiming that the confession had been made during torture, and was therefore not valid.

He was thus consigned, in March of 1314, to be slow-roasted upon an open fire in a public square. Before he died, de Molay is said to have called on both Pope Clement and King Philippe to join him in death within a year. Clement died of dysentery within a month, and about eight months later, Philippe died of unknown causes. This, of, course, lent credence to the rumors that the Templars were adept at witchcraft. The revenge did not end there. In 1789, the dying curse of de Molay re-emerged in the actions of French Freemasons, heirs to the traditions (and perhaps the secrets) of the Knights Templar. These Freemasons were responsible for orchestrating the French Revolution against both the Catholic Church, and the current political state. King Philippe’s descendant, Louis XVI, was beheaded before a cheering crowd. As the king’s head rolled off the guillotine, a man reportedly leapt onto the scaffold and flung Louis’ blood all over the crowd, shouting “Jacques de Molay, thou art avenged!” In many other ways, too, the Templars lived on.

As mentioned, their secrets and traditions were taken up by the Order of Freemasons, a secret society, derived partially from medieval stonemasons’ guilds, which has included many of Europe’s, England’s and America’s most influential political figures from the 17th to the 19th centuries. They have largely been given credit for both the French Revolution and the American Revolution, and are thought by many to constitute an international conspiracy that continues to this day. The Freemasons do indeed seem to have embraced ideas that would tend to be associated with the Templars, including “secrets” regarding Solomon’s Temple, the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, and alternative interpretations of both the Old and New Testament, embracing a lot of so-called “apocryphal” legends. They also use a number of the same symbols that the Templars used, including the skull and crossbones, the equilateral cross, and the double-barred Cross of Lorraine.

And of course, the Freemasons’ approach in general tends to be “occult” and “Gnostic”, just like the Templars, derived from secrets that have purportedly been passed down from ancient Egypt and even earlier, just as the Templar wisdom is said to have been derived. The Freemasons even have entire degrees dedicated to the mythos of the Knights Templar. Through the aforementioned stonemasons’ guilds, which eventually evolved into Masonic lodges, the Templars communicated to the world the secrets they’d learned from their excavations of Solomon’s Temple — secrets involving sacred geometry and architecture. This resulted in the stunning array of Gothic cathedrals that sprung up across Europe during the Middle Ages and immediately afterward. These cathedrals are like music expressed in architecture, based upon the principle of the Golden Mean, nature’s most perfect mathematical proportion. Within the dimensions of the cathedrals were contained, so they say, the ancient secrets of alchemy, and by the looks of them one can easily imagine that to be true. Because of their renowned esoteric wisdom, the legend of the Templars has been utilized by a number of other occult groups throughout the centuries.

The Rosicrucian Order, an influential element of the Renaissance soon to be discussed, based its own mysteries upon theirs, as did the “Order of New Templars”, a neo-pagan white supremacist organization that played a part in the rise of the Third Reich, before being obliterated by that Reich’s ironic anti-occult efforts. Even the inner order of the S.S., known as the Black Sun, was patterned after the Templars. Other, more innocuous occult figures have embraced the teachings of the Templars as well, such as H.P. Blavatsky and Rudolf Steiner. Then, of course, there are the numerous neo-Templar orders that proliferate throughout the Western world, mostly social clubs for middle-aged men, all of whom claim a direct pedigree derived from the original order. Without a doubt, the legend of the Templars will live on to seed the fertile plain of the human imagination well into the 21st century.

The Templar Conspiracy For a number of reasons, several books, including Holy Blood, Holy Grail , have suggested that a conspiracy has contrived to distort the historical facts regarding the Knights Templar, and indeed, that the creation of the Templars themselves was the result of a conspiracy. One of the facts that seems to have been distorted is the date of the Templars’ foundation: 1118. If the historians are correct, the Templars started in that year with nine knights, and did not add to their membership for another nine years. But it is known that by 1126 they had added four new members, so either the date of their foundation is wrong, or the bit about them admitting no new members for nine years is wrong. If the last piece of information is correct, then they would have actually been founded in 1111 or 1112. And there just so happens to be much evidence supporting that. For instance, in 1114, the Count of Champagne is known to have received a letter from the Bishop of Chartres regarding his intention to join “The militia of Christ”, a nickname for the Templar order.

Clearly, then, the existence of the Templars was already well-established. This count of Champagne seems to have been at the center of the social circle that created the Templars. One-third of the nine knights who founded the Temple were vassals of the Count of Champagne, including Hughes de Payen, their first Grand Master. When the Count himself finally joined in 1124, he was therefore, in a reversal of traditional authority roles, pledging allegiance to one of his own vassals. There are other strange inter-connections as well. The Count also demonstrated his patronage to the Templars’ sister order, the Cistercian Monks of Saint Bernard, when in 1115 he donated the land onto which Saint Bernard’s Abbey of Clairvaux was built. Saint Bernard was also the nephew of one of the Templars’ original nine knights: Andre de Montbard. The court of Champagne, located in Troyes, was furthermore the center of a number of activities with which the Templars were also associated. It was a center of cabalistic studies throughout the Middle Ages, the birthplace of the earliest versions of the Grail romances, and the site of some of the Templars’ most important holdings.

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Price: $40.00 Did the Knights Templar become the Pirates of the Caribbean? - Jason Colavito Did the Knights Templar become the Pirates of the Caribbean? 14 Comments In doing some research, I came across a decade-old book by Ancient Aliens pundit David Childress that I hadn’t heard of: Pirates and the Lost Templar Fleet (2003), in which the irrepressible author tells us that the “lost” fleet of the Knights Templar became a roving band of pirates menacing the American coast for several centuries! I guess this is a little better than imagining that they claimed the entire Mississippi watershed for the imaginary children of Jesus, but not by much. The book appears to have been designed to tie in to two then-popular products, The Da Vinci Code and Pirates of the Caribbean, both released in 2003. Things don’t start off well, with Childress stating that “most people have heard speculation that the Vikings sailed their long ships to Greenland and Labrador about a thousand years ago” (p. 13).

Of all the things Childress has ever proposed as potentially true—from aliens to time travel to ancient atom bombs—the one thing that is actually true he calls “speculation.” Apparently he isn’t aware of the archaeology done in Canada since the 1960s, or any of the known facts about Greenland from the medieval period onward. But based on this dismissal of history, Childress next claims that “modern historians persist in teaching that Columbus was the first to cross the Atlantic.” That hasn’t been the case for most historians since the 1800s, when the Viking voyages were first taken seriously, and certainly not since the 1960s, when the first archaeological evidence proving the Viking voyages came to light. Childress is either purposely lying, ignorant of modern historiography, or he thinks that his half-remembered high school textbooks represent the sum of “official” human knowledge. In his usual buildup of irrelevancies, Childress next presents the recycled greatest hits of trans-Atlantic diffusionism, including this howler: “The Phoenicians were also known as the Carthaginians” (p. 15). Um, no.

Carthaginians were an offshoot of the Phoenicians, but they are not interchangeable. “There is an ancient passage detailing their forays into the Atlantic after the end of the Trojan War, circa 1200 BC.” Oh, so close! He’s referring to the famous Periplus of Hanno , composed by the Carthaginian navigator and hung in the temple of Baal Hammon in the sixth century BCE. It commemorates Hanno’s voyage down the coast of Africa, where he met chimpanzees. Childress was only off by 600 years, and attributed it to the wrong people. This leads him to the “Jewish” voyage to America. Childress, we should note, differs from Scott Wolter in that he believes that Calulus, the imaginary colony of Arizona, to have been Jewish, not a Templar creation. He keeps blathering on about diffusionist topics, citing Man Out of Asia, Harold Gladwin’s cranky book about academic conspiracies to cover up the real history of America, which is so over-the-top (it’s illustrated with cartoons) that archaeologist Stephen Williams became convinced that Gladwin meant it as a joke.

All of this is a very longwinded way of Childress trying to make it plausible that the Templars came to America. He provides a potted history of the Templars (including—in 2003!—the obsolete spelling of Moslem), but in so doing Childress engages in his usual practice, self-plagiarism. Take a look at this “coincidence” of language. The text on the left is Childress writing in 2003, and the text on the right is Childress’s own introduction to Charles G. Addison’s classic The History of the Knights Templars, the Church, and the Temple (1842), published by Childress six years earlier: When a nobleman would join their ranks, he would surrender his castle and property to the Knights, who would use revenues generated from the property to purchase weapons, war-horses, armor, and other military supplies. The ranks of the Knights Templar grew rapidly. Other noblemen and Kings who were not members often gave them gifts of money and land. King Steven of England contributed his valuable English manor of Cressing in Essex. He also made arrangements for high ranking members of the Knights to visit nobles of England and Scotland.

(etc. etc.) When a nobleman would join their ranks, he would surrender his castle and property to the Knights who would use revenues generated from the property to purchase weapons, war-horses, armor and other military supplies. The ranks of the Knights Templar grew rapidly. Other noblemen and Kings who were not members often gave them gifts of money and land. King Steven of England contributed his valuable English manor of Cressing in Essex. He also made arrangements for high ranking members of the Knights to visit nobles of England and Scotland. (etc. etc.) Two commas are different. Weirdly, this same text circulates quite a bit. It also appears verbatim as the work of Ed Shroeder in Treasure Quest magazine, and Childress recycled it again for an article in the edited volume Forbidden Religion by J. Douglas Kenyon. Moving on, Childress accuses the Catholic Church of existing to “establish hegemony, collect as much money as possible and put fear into the hearts of people” (p. 39); therefore, the Knights Templar secretly opposed the Church to protect the Holy Grail, though he is uncertain whether it is a chalice or the descendants of Jesus.

When alternative historians disagree, Childress refuses to pick and choose among them. So Childress goes on to discuss the “Lost Templar Fleet,” which he does not know from primary sources but rather from Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of The Temple and the Lodge and really terrible researchers. As I discovered last month , this is the entirety of the evidence for the “lost fleet,” the testimony of Jean de Châlons, a Templar and proven liar, making up stories under torture during the suppression of the order: Then he said that, learning beforehand about this trouble, the leaders of the Order have fled, and he himself met Brother Gerard de Villiers leading fifty horses, and he heard it said that he had set out to sea with eighteen galleys, and Brother Hugues de Châlons fled with the whole treasury of Brother Hugues de Pairaud. When asked how he was able to keep this fact secret for so long, he responded that no one would have dared reveal it for anything, unless the Pope and the King had opened the way, for if it were known in the Order that anyone had spoken, he would at once be killed.

(my translation) Childress follows Michael Bradley—an alternative author who believes many strange things , including that modern Jews are sexually frustrated Neanderthal hybrids—in asserting that the Templar fleet (these imaginary eighteen boats) carried the descendants of Jesus and/or the Ark of the Covenant to Scotland to avoid the Pope, where they adopted the Jolly Roger as their symbol and fell into the service of the Sinclair family! The logic here is that gravestones in northern Scotland were marked with a skull and crossbones; therefore, they must be Templar symbols and the origin of the pirate flag. Sadly, this explanation has infiltrated Wikipedia, but the earliest skull-and-crossbones flag cannot be dated before 1687, while pirate flags used a wide range of symbols, not just the skull and crossbones. Although the Templar-Jolly Roger claim is a widespread trope of conspiracy literature (literally hundreds of books discuss it), allegedly as a symbol of resurrection, in truth there is not a shred of evidence that any Templar ever used it. It’s apparently a modern myth, created as a Freemason legend during the period when the Masons tried to ties themselves back to the Templars.

The fake story holds that three Templars exhumed fallen leader Jacques de Molay’s grave but found only his skull and femurs. However, this is an ex post facto story concocted to explain why the Masonic Knights Templar of the United States (not directly descended from the originals) used a skull and crossbones on their insignia, which originated in the adopting of a typical colonial gravestone decoration as a “memory” of the original Templars’ martyrdom. Notably, this symbol was not historically used outside the United States in Masonic devices, and at any rate it came centuries too late to have had anything to do with the original Knights Templar. Childress follows Bradley in assigning the Jolly Roger to what he calls “Jolly” King Roger of Palermo, a Templar who first flew the flag while raiding and pillaging and fighting the evil forces for Catholicism. So far as I can tell, Bradley simply made this up. The Norman ruler Roger II of Sicily (1095-1154), whom Bradley unlike Childress correctly calls by name, was not called “the jolly,” nor did he fly a Jolly Roger.

He did fight against the Vatican, but not because he hated the Church but because (a) the patriarch of Jerusalem voided his mother’s marriage (her husband, King Baldwin I, was committing bigamy) and (b) the pope wanted to break Norman power and declared a crusade against Roger. It failed, and the next pope not only reconciled with Roger; he made him king. The popes and Roger fought off and on for a long time thereafter, but while Roger commanded the best fleet in all the Mediterranean, it was a navy, not a pirate fleet. He fought “Vatican vessels,” yes, but in a war, not for piracy. Far from being a Templar himself, Roger was against the Templars because they were allied to his enemy, Pope Innocent II, while Roger supported Antipope Anacletus II. Until 1150, the Templars received no royal support and had very limited activities in Roger’s lands. It was only in 1187—after Roger’s death—that the Norman nobility of Sicily started to back the Templars.

In 1194, the new sovereign, Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, crowned king of Sicily, finally began to offer royal and imperial recognition to the Order on the island. It was only after 1208 that the Templars began operating in Sicily and Southern Italy in earnest. Therefore, history tells us that Roger could not have been a Templar pirate. Why would anyone think he was? It appears it’s because Roger employed al-Idrisi, the Islamic geographer whose globe recorded a fabulous island in the Azores with “three cities of equal size, much peopled, the inhabitants of which were now all slain by civil wars.” This reference, intended to refer to the Azores, got roped into the Spanish myth of the Seven Cities where in 734 seven Christian bishops were alleged to have sailed with men and women to escape the Islamic invasion of Spain. Because Holy Bloodline authors think this records a Cistercian or Proto-Templar voyage to America, al-Idrisi and through him Roger II thus become part of the Templar conspiracy, despite the obvious evidence that Roger opposed the Templars.

Childress is thus completely wrong to call Roger’s lands a “Templar kingdom” (p. 59), and he’s even more wrong to somehow think that “Jolly Roger” of Sicily was taking the Templar ships for a spin after the order dissolved, nearly two centuries after his death (p. 62), a claim not even his source, Michael Bradley, had made. Childress even misunderstands the alternative history he copies. With that, I think we can call it a day on David Childress’s pirate fantasy.

Question: Which medieval organisation had the 'skull and crossbones' as a flag on their ships in the Middle Ages?
Answer: KNIGHTS TEMPLAR