The Templars in Freemasonry: Degrees, Rites, and Traditions

Freemasonry’s Templar traditions are a collection of degrees, orders, and rituals that use the language and imagery of medieval knighthood. They emerged in eighteenth-century Europe and later developed into distinct bodies in places including Ireland, England, and the United States. Their ceremonies draw on the history of the medieval Knights Templar and other religious military orders, but they do not demonstrate an organizational link to those medieval institutions.

Freemasonry itself is organized through local lodges, where members progress through the degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason. Additional degrees and orders developed alongside this basic sequence. Templar-themed bodies form one part of that wider landscape, not a single international system followed by all Freemasons. Their rules, names, and place within broader Masonic structures vary by jurisdiction.

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How Templar themes entered Freemasonry

An early point of contact between Masonic writing and the Crusades was a 1737 oration by the Chevalier Andrew Michael Ramsay. He claimed that European Freemasonry grew out of contact between crusading masons and the Knights Hospitaller. The claim lacked historical evidence, and it was not proof of a connection to the Knights Templar. Ramsay had previously been initiated into a French, non-Masonic Order of the Temple, around 1710, and joined Freemasonry around 1730. That earlier experience may help explain his interest in crusading traditions, but it does not establish a medieval origin for Masonic practice.

Ramsay’s ideas appeared in early Masonic ritual, including a French-language manuscript written between 1740 and 1744. Such material helped make chivalric history available for later Masonic ceremonies. In this setting, medieval orders supplied a framework for stories about duty, faith, and moral conduct. They were sources of ritual inspiration, rather than evidence that Freemasons inherited the membership or organization of a medieval order.

The Rite of Strict Observance and its Templar claims

One of the most influential eighteenth-century experiments in Masonic Templarism was the Rite of Strict Observance, established in Germany by Baron Karl Gotthelf von Hund in 1751. Von Hund claimed that he had received its rituals from a revived Templar order in Paris in 1743. He also said that a group of “Unknown Superiors” directed Freemasonry, and associated them with figures including the exiled Stuart claimant Charles Edward Stuart. Von Hund did not provide evidence to verify these claims.

The rite combined the first three Masonic degrees with further stages of advancement: Scot, Novice, Templar, and, in its later form, Professed Knight. Its structure was hierarchical, and its Templar story offered members a prestigious chivalric identity. Among its adherents were nobles and senior government officials. Rank and titles mattered, but the organization also offered a network for contacts and support during travel. It had grown to about forty lodges by 1768 and attracted members across German and other European territories.

The rite’s claims of medieval descent became a source of difficulty. At the Convention of Wilhelmsbad in 1782, delegates moved away from a literal claim of Templar ancestry, though the change was not unanimous. The proposed alternative was a spiritual form of chivalry inspired by Templar ideals. The convention did not prevent the system from fragmenting: lodges left or adopted other Masonic rites. Reforms associated with Jean-Baptiste Willermoz contributed to the development of the Rectified Scottish Rite, a distinct Masonic system. Strict Observance thus helped shape later Masonic chivalry, but its supposed chain of descent from the medieval Templars was not substantiated.

From local degrees to organized bodies

In the British Isles, Templar degrees became more formally organized through local bodies known as encampments. In 1779, the High Knights Templar of Ireland Lodge at Kilwinning received a charter from the Mother Lodge of Kilwinning in Scotland, authorizing it to grant the degree to other lodges. Around 1790, an Irish Grand Encampment began organizing Templar lodges; it became the Supreme Grand Encampment in 1836.

England established its first Grand Conclave in 1791 under Thomas Dunckerley. The new body brought together seven encampments. Dunckerley promoted the order, worked to standardize its ritual, and pressed for orderly record-keeping. After a period of stagnation, the Duke of Kent became Grand Master in 1805 and renewed the organization’s activity. By1873, the Grand Conclave was known as the Great Priory and local encampments were called preceptories.

In North America, the earliest surviving records of the Templar degree date to a Royal Arch body in Boston in 1769. At that time, there was not yet a permanent, overarching Templar organization: lodges could confer the degree under local arrangements. More permanent governing bodies developed after the American Revolution. The Grand Encampment of the United States was established in 1816, providing a national structure for the American system.

What the Masonic orders teach and represent

In the American York Rite, the Knights Templar commandery traditionally follows the Royal Arch chapter and, in many jurisdictions, a council of Royal and Select Masters. It confers three orders and a preparatory degree. The preparatory Illustrious Order of the Red Cross places the candidate in the role of Zerubbabel, who seeks the Persian King Darius’s support for the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. The ritual draws on a story in 1 Esdras and emphasizes the power of truth.

The Degree of Saint Paul, which includes the Mediterranean Pass, is a preliminary to the Order of Malta. The Malta ceremony draws on the history and traditions of the medieval Order of St John, another religious military order. Banners representing the order’s battles feature in the ritual, where historical accounts support moral teaching. The Order of the Temple then presents a Christian form of Masonic chivalry, with a candidate taking part in a ceremonial story of preparation and commitment. Its regalia can include a sword, a baldric, or shoulder belt, and a black-and-white banner associated with the Templars. Details of dress differ by jurisdiction.

These ceremonies adapt medieval imagery to Masonic instruction; they are not records of medieval Templar practice. The American York Rite motto, In hoc signo vinces, means “In this sign you will conquer.” Its use, like the ritual’s knightly costume and symbols, belongs to the later Masonic tradition.

Templar material also appears outside the York Rite. The 30th degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Knight Kadosh, is especially associated with the history and legends of the Templars. It belongs to a different degree system from the York Rite commandery. Each rite places its Templar themes within its own sequence of degrees and governing bodies.

Different systems and membership rules

Templar Freemasonry has developed in more than one organizational form. In the American York Rite, the commandery is the local body, operating under a state Grand Commandery and the Grand Encampment of the United States. Its four parts are the Red Cross, Saint Paul, Malta, and the Order of the Temple. The Malta order precedes the Temple order in this sequence.

In the independent tradition found in England and Wales, local Templar bodies are called preceptories; Saint Paul bodies are chapters; and Malta bodies are priories. These operate under a Grand or Great Priory, sometimes through an intermediate provincial level. This system has three orders rather than the four used in the American York Rite, and it confers the Order of Malta after the Order of the Temple. England and Wales also maintain separate Great Priories for the Temple and Malta.

Requirements for membership vary as well. In many Masonic jurisdictions, the basic lodge degrees are open to men who profess belief in a Supreme Being without requiring adherence to a particular religion. Templar orders may impose a narrower Christian qualification. In the independent tradition, candidates are commonly required to be Master Masons and Royal Arch Masons, and some jurisdictions require a declaration of belief in the Holy Trinity. Rules are not uniform: the British Federation of Le Droit Humain, for example, does not require that declaration, reflecting the principles of its wider Masonic organization.

Commemoration, not medieval continuity

The medieval Knights Templar were a Catholic military order active from about 1119 until their suppression in 1312. Masonic orders later adopted the Templar name, selected symbols, and stories of Christian knighthood. But the medieval order’s suppression and the later popularity of Templar legends do not establish that its members passed their organization into Freemasonry. No historical evidence demonstrates direct organizational descent between the medieval Templars and Masonic Templar bodies.

That distinction is central to understanding the tradition. Eighteenth-century Masons used Templar history in efforts to create new rites and forms of ceremonial chivalry. Later bodies adapted those ideas to their own rules and religious commitments. The result is a varied Masonic commemoration of the Templars, not a continuation of the medieval order.