Knights Templar

Explanation:

The Knights Templar was an order formed during the Crusades in 1119, and in modern pop culture represents the quintessential crusader. The order was founded following the First Crusade, ostensibly to provide protection to Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. It was based at the site of what was believed to have been Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, hence the name. The Templars, along with other orders such as the Knights Hospitaller (also known as the Knights of Malta), are granted a particular moral nobility in their modern misinterpretation, in contrast to the image of marauding invaders, that is perhaps due to the fact that the order lived by monastic rule starting in the 1130s. This monastic rule required the Templars to live a lifestyle of poverty and devotion to the order as a religious Christian organization. Within the larger modern imagination of the Crusades as a conflict between Christians and Muslims (see Siege of Acre), the Knights Templar further emblematize the supposed moral correctness of the Christian side. Following the loss of crusader territories in the Levant, the order became more involved in European financial markets. Because the French king was deeply indebted to the order, he advocated for their suppression in 1312. After their effective dissolution, the Templars became heavily mythologized, associated with organizations such as the Freemasons and Illuminati, though without historical evidence. 

Representation

 “The symbol of the red cross on the white shield, which appears frequently in the Grail stories, was a standard symbol of martyrdom in the Middle Ages. The Templars did carry a red cross on white, but so did many other religious people. Knights who appear in the Grail stories carrying a red cross are Christ’s knights or martyrs, not Templars.” (Nicholson, The Knights Templar, p. 244)

Examples:

1. Peter R. Neumann. "Christchurch and the rise of the far right". Washington Post Blogs . March 19, 2019 Tuesday. https://advance-lexis-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5VNW-DNJ1-JB4M-V20N-00000-00&context=1516831. (accessed July 16, 2019)

“On a personal level, the identitarian ideology makes it possible for terrorists such as the Christchurch attacker to connect with a long line of warriors for "European culture." As Thomas Hegghammer pointed out years ago, one of the strongest narratives for both Islamist militants and right-wing extremists is that of the Crusades. Like Anders Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist who killed 77 people in a July 2011 attack, the New Zealand attacker portrayed himself as a member of the Knights Templar - a Crusader order with a fearsome reputation in battles against Muslim adversaries.”

2. Daily Mail Reporter. "'I did it, but it wasn't a crime': Norwegian mass killer Breivik denies it was wrong to slaughter 77 as he gives white-power salute on opening day of trial". MailOnline. April 16, 2012 Monday.

“Breivik attempted to justify his views in a 1,500-page manifesto published on the internet before the atrocities. He claimed to be part of a secret organisation modelled on the medieval Christian military order the Knights Templar, which aimed to purge Europe of Muslim influence in a revolution that would target what he called 'cultural Marxists' in the initial phase.”

References/Further Reading

Some useful sources on the Knights Templar include:

The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Edited by Robert E. Bjork. Oxford University Press, 2010.

Barber, Malcolm. The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Haag, Michael. The Templars: The History and the Myth. New York: HarperCollins, 2009.

Nicholson, Helen. The Knights Templar: A New History. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton, 2001.

William of Tyre. A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea. Translated and annotated by Emily Atwater Babcock and A. C. Krey. New York, Columbia University Press, 1943.