Bernard de Clairvaux was an extraordinary man, humanly speaking. Yet,
a tree is to be judged by its fruits, and, from a Nordic point of
view, he cannot but be judged negatively, for the reason mentioned in
our previous post. If you see Christianity as a 'Judaism light' which
was injected into European peoples in order to divide them, when you
look at history, you cannot but consider that the second step of the
plan was to have them killed and to have them kill each other in the
various wars which resulted from this division.
Originally, the Templars were a bunch of nine knights in charge of
defending pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land in Jerusalem,
without any esoteric background and without any financial asset. The
Templars became a true military monastic order only when Bernard de
Clairvaux, the 'Second Pope' as he was called then, took them in
hand ; he is the one who wrote their rule. It was the first time ever
a group of secular monks banded together and took the monastic vows.
It's a short step from this to the idea that Chivalry was an attempt
by the Church to domesticate the 'furor' of the berserkir.
As you point out, it has been argued that the offical rôle of the
Knight Templars, that is the defence and the conquest of the Holy
Land from the Saracens, was only a facade, and they had a secret
agenda, for which resources needed to be created. Many historians
believe that the Knight Templars invented modern Banking System ;
some even think that they learned banking, as well as Kabbalah, from
the Jews, and that, when they set up a string of banks all over
Europe and all along the road to the 'Holy Land', they asked Jews to
help them manage them. As a matter of fact, one cannot but
acknowledge that there are many arguments in favour of this thesis.
Even the work of scholars favourable to them can be most helpful in
this respect : "The highly disciplined Templar troops were powered by
a vast and efficient resource system. Free from the plague of complex
feudal obligations and limitations, the Templar command structure was
stable, consistent and efficient. These attributes made them a
powerful war machine, especially in comparison to their secular
contemporaries.
The operation and management of such a unique group also required
innovation in its basic internal organization. The Templars had a
dual organizational structure with the Master at the Head. Beginning
with the Seneschal and flowing down through the Commanders of the
Lands, a complex system of administration existed for the raising of
revenue, maintaining of castles, and support of the Brothers when not
on campaign. A similar hierarchy existed in Europe under the eight
Western or Provincial Templar Masters. The main job of the European
administrative branch, which included the majority of the Order¹s
members, was to create the resources necessary for the Order to
pursue its primary role: Defense and conquest of the Holy Land from
the Saracens.
The following organization chart provides a good frame of reference
for how the peacetime side of the Order was structured.
Templar administrative organization.
The Order¹s structure altered while on campaign. It formed a second
branch that was led by the Marshal. He acted as Commander in Chief of
the brothers under arms, reporting directly to the Master (Rule 103).
The Brother Knights and Sergeants were transferred from the command
of the Houses to the Marshalcy while on campaign. The Marshalcy also
controlled the horses, weapons, and other directly military equipment
(Rule 102). This structure is actually somewhat simpler:
Templar organization while engaged in battle.
This duality can be somewhat challenging for the casual student. It
is also further confusing in that the same individuals moved between
the two branches, occupying different roles. The Commander of the
Land of Jerusalem is a good example. His peacetime role was to be the
Chief Administrative Officer in the kingdom of Jerusalem and the
Treasurer of the Order. In this capacity, he reported through the
Seneschal. This job was much like that of a modern regional COO and
overall CFO combined. In wartime, however, he would become a simple
Squadron Commander under the authority of the Marshal (Rule 103).
Thus, one might say he had "two bosses", a common complaint of
personnel in modern matrix organizations.
It is fascinating to realize that the duality of the Templar
organizational structure bears a striking similarity to modern
organizational theory. Some of the most sophisticated principles
employed in private business and military organizations can be found
in the system described above. There are three basic types of
organizations, which are generally recognized; Functional,
Projectized, and Matrix. Functional and projectized organizations are
the most common. In a functional model, organizational units are
identified by basic functional definitions. Which to say; the kind of
work performed. Personnel are grouped in these units and authority
and responsibility flow within these divisions. In a projectized
model, organizational units are formed around products or projects.
Personnel are not divided along functional lines until further down
the organizational tree, if at all. The matrix structure is a less
common model in which the previous two are blended together.
Personnel are grouped into major divisions according to function, but
are then "farmed out" to support projects. This is the most complex
of the three types.
A modern executive, drafting a matrix organization for a group like
the Templars, would create something like this:
Templar organization in a typical matrix structure.
Viola! This is the actual organizational structure that was used with
the minor exception that the post of Treasurer was combined with that
of the Commander of the Land of Jerusalem (Rule 111). This was no
doubt due to the physical proximity of the Commander to both the
Order¹s headquarters and the capital city of the Holy Land. The
ultimate "product" of the Templars was the making of war on the
enemies of the Christian States. The Marshal was in charge of
this "product". The three lands and eight Provincial Masters were the
functional groups charged with raising revenue and the literal "care
and feeding" of the Brothers when not on campaign.
This is an extraordinarily sophisticated structure for a medieval
institution. Remember that the Matrix Model has only recently gained
wide spread popularity in our own time. It is clearly the most
complex of the choices available. It is also much more difficult to
execute successfully, requiring many more choices to be made. The
Templars seem to have adopted this model very early in their history.
Their environment would have encouraged this from the start. Their
mission was fighting in Outremer, but their resources were scattered
throughout the Western Europe and the Near East. This created the
need for a matrix structure. The monastic nature of the Order enabled
its application. As a church organization, a unifying coherency of
authority was implicit".
Beyond this, the reader is referred to the brilliant analysis made by
Astle in 'The Babylonian Woe' of the relations between priesthood and
money in the antiquity.
--- In
evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com, "Rowan Berkeley"
<rowan_berkeley@y...> wrote:
>
> Interesting you should mention Clairvaux, and in such a negative
light too. It has been argued elsewhere that
> the real agenda behind the Templars was an early instantiation of
the Judaising mystique which we now see in
> full flower in the masonic heresies of 'the holy blood and the holy
grail', etcetera - and in the associated
> Rennes Le Chateau nonsense.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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