Preface.

The history of the Order of the Knights Templar has recently occupied the public's attention once again. Both ancient and modern writers who have described the history of these famous knights have always been divided into two parties: one side portrays them as entirely guilty and deserving of the harsh fate that befell them, while the other side depicts them as completely innocent, sacrificed to the tyranny and greed of Philip the Fair Philip IV of France (1268–1314), whose desire for the Order's wealth and power led to their sudden arrest and eventual dissolution..

The obscurity of the era in which this Order flourished, the complete lack of evidence that could serve to justify these knights, and even the mutilated and ambiguous nature of the trial records trial records: originally proceßakten, referring to the legal transcripts from the early 14th-century inquisitions that still exist here and there, favor the opinion of those who—following Dupuy, Gürtler, and others—declare this Order to be guilty. In more recent times, Messrs. Anton and Nicolai Karl Gottlob von Anton and Friedrich Nicolai were 18th-century scholars who researched the Templars' alleged secret doctrines and symbols. have, in various ways, occupied themselves with the investigation of the accusations—