CHAPTER VII PORTUGAL: THE TEMPLAR KINGDOM

In the wake of the events in France, the Templars now focused their activities in two areas, of which Portugal was the more significant. Although Scotland may appear to have been the Freemasonic homeland, Portugal represented the Templars' commercial base, source of revenue and headquarters.
In one sense, Portugal is a country that was actually founded by the Templars. The order had begun settling and becoming influential in the country ever since 1128, and had also began taking over the country's military and commercial strength. In 1128, Teresa of Portugal endowed the Knights with the region of Fonte Arcada, granting them privileges of all kinds there. In return, the Templars supported her expansion of her then-'weak country'. One portion of the lands occupied during this period of expansion were granted to the order. The Castle of Tomar, built in 1160 and surviving down to the present day, was the Order's headquarters in Portugal.

The Castle of Tomar, the Templars’ headquarters in Portugal

The King Alfonso of Portugal had a particular interest in not just the Templars, but also in the Cistercian order. He corresponded with Saint Bernard and welcomed his monastic order with open arms. He had large monasteries and churches constructed and placed them, together with wide-ranging estates, under Cistercian control. As we saw earlier, Saint Bernard, one of the most powerful figures of the time when it came to matters of religion, was affiliated with the Cistercian order, which had very austere rules regarding poverty and solitude. It achieved renown as an honest and upright order inside the corrupt institution of the Church, and attracted many aristocrats into its ranks. Some of the Popes from this period had also been educated within the Cistercian order. 28

The Templar castle in Portugal

In 1294, at the initiative of the Templars, the Treaty of Windsor was signed between England and Portugal, with the aim of bestowing large commercial and military power on both countries. The anti-Templar movement that had begun in France had had much less effect in Portugal. The Order was exonerated in Castille and in Portugal under the rule of King Denis, and was thus able to survive throughout the Iberian Peninsula. Nonetheless, there was still pressure on and opposition to the Order. The Knights therefore agreed on a plan with King Denis in order to rid themselves of that pressure and opposition. Under this joint plan, the Order would seem to disappear from view, but would actually be re-established under another name and affiliated to the Portuguese monarchy. This would prevent the assets of the Templars falling into the hands of the Church and permit the Knights to continue in existence.
Again thanks to this plan, the order would be affiliated to the king rather than to the Church. From that time forward, the Templars in Portugal changed their name to the Order of Christ. They would now be able to carry out their illegal activities under the protection of the king.

King Henry started the tradition of Portuguese kings also being Templar Grand Masters.

Being under royal control represented a major advantage for the Knights, since they no longer needed to abide by the rules of the Church and could act with far greater freedom. Indeed, soon afterwards they gradually began abandoning the rules of their old Order. In addition, a large part of their revenue that was formerly made over to the Church now remained in the Templars' hands. Thus under royal protection, they came to constitute a freer, richer and more perverted sect:

Vasco de Gama was also a Templar.

The Order of the Templars having been abolished in France by King Philip IV, its property confiscated, and the members persecuted and expelled with the sanction and authority of Pope Clement V; it was revived in Portugal, where it flourished under the name of the Knighthood of . Jesus Christ. 29
Despite the oppression they were subjected to in France, the Templars found a more liberal environment in Spain and Portugal under their new name and management, and began to expand upon these possibilities. Under these suitable conditions, Pope John XII recognised the Order of Christ in 1319, out of his desire to win the Templars back to the Church. The Order thus acquired the essential conditions to be able to spread itself throughout Spain, Italy, Germany and even its former homeland, France. The Church was unwilling to lose the Templars, who represented a major military, financial and logistical power, and was at the same time preparing for war against the Muslims in Spain. A simple ceremony of regret was sufficient for the Templars to return.
The Knights made over all their assets, including those in Tomar, to the Order of Christ, the grand mastership of which was given to Gil Martins, former Templar master in the Avis region. From then on, the Templars added to their wealth while also looking for new sources of revenue. Thanks to their seafaring knowledge and the connections they had established over hundreds of years, the Knights transformed Portugal into a major maritime power and established the infrastructure necessary for their own colonizing activities. These maritime activities accelerated still further under the reign of King Henry, known as the "Navigator." Henry, a Templar and a leader of the Order, began the tradition of Portuguese kings also being Templar masters. 30

The organization adopted the name “Freemasonry” because of its symbolic significance.

From then on, Portugal-a small and newly established kingdom-became one of the most powerful nations of the time, effectively run by the Knights. Thanks to their colonialist activities, a huge colonial empire came into being, extending from Africa to India, China to Malaysia and from the Canary Islands to Brazil. Under the leadership of Templar explorers such as Vasco de Gama, new lands and new trade routes were discovered. And the knights acquired enormous wealth at the same time. 31
As an encouragement to further conquests and discoveries, they were finally promised, also, the independent possession (under, however, Portuguese protection), of all the countries which they might happen to discover." 32

The founding symbol of the London Grand Lodge

The money in question was the illegitimate funds with which the order was so familiar. The Templars either killed or enslaved innocent, defenceless local populations, and then seized all the wealth of the area concerned, making money by selling these assets in Europe. The Knights had no qualms about engaging in the drugs trade, and so highly organized were they that they eventually established a crime cartel the like of which has seldom been seen since. In return for bribes, the Templars acquired the right to marry and own property, and thus laid the groundwork that the order desired:
While these foreign expeditions kept alive the military spirit of the order, its religious discipline was declining. Pope Alexander VI, in 1492, commuted the vow of celibacy to that of conjugal chastity, alleging the prevalence among the knights of a concubinage to which regular marriage would be far preferable. The order was becoming less monastic and more secular, and was taking on more and more the character of a royal institution. . .Brother Antonius of Lisbon, in attempting a reform, succeeded in bringing about the complete annihilation of religious life among the knights of the order. 33

The outside of the London Masonic Lodge

Under these new reforms, the order became an organization whose free enterprise was known only to the rich and aristocrats: Its aim was to achieve commercial and political success, and to redraft the laws of the Church in a manner compatible with capitalism. (These ideas, whose essentials had emerged hundreds of years before in the Holy Lands, also determined the general intellectual framework of Freemasonry.)
Using their experience in Portugal, the Templars reached the peak of their power by adopting a capitalist lifestyle. At the same time, and particularly in the wake of the Reformation, the Knights-aware that the Church had been seriously weakened and had played a considerable role in this process-attached ever-greater importance to the relations they had established with royal institutions.
The Templars also observed that the knightly orders under the control of Church had been weakened along with it. At this point, they decided to set up an equivalent society with no religious image but which actually served the same function. They were thus able to maintain their commercial means and commercial/political relations by way of this new organization which functioned under the supervision of aristocrats and to spread their ideology with even greater ease.
This organization, whose foundations were laid in England, adopted the name of "Freemasonry" and represented one of the most influential and dangerous powers to survive down to the present day.