Knights Templar Motto Be Without FEAR T-Shirt

The order was formed c. 1119 CE when seven knights, led by a French nobleman from Champagne, Hugh of Payns, swore to defend Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem and the Holy Land and so created a brotherhood who took monastic vows and lived together in a closed community. In 1120 CE Baldwin II, the king of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (r. 1118-1131 CE), gave the knights his palace, the former Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount of Jerusalem, for use as their headquarters. The building was commonly referred to as ‘The Temple of Solomon' and so the brotherhood quickly became known as ‘the Order of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon' or simply the ‘Templars’.