08/20/2026
⚔️ TODAY IN TEMPLAR HISTORY — AUGUST 20 ⚔️
August 20 marks two significant connections to the history of the Knights Templar.
📜 August 20, 1308 — The Absolution of the Templar Leadership
While imprisoned and facing accusations of heresy, Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and other senior Templar leaders were secretly absolved by representatives acting under the authority of Pope Clement V.
The episode is recorded in what is now known as the Chinon Parchment, rediscovered in the Vatican archives centuries later. It provides important evidence that the Templar leaders received ecclesiastical absolution even as the political and judicial campaign against the Order continued.
✠ August 20, 1153 — St. Bernard of Clairvaux
August 20 is also the feast day of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who died on this date in 1153.
Bernard, the influential Cistercian abbot of Clairvaux, became one of the Knights Templar's most important early advocates. He supported the Order at the Council of Troyes in 1129, where the Templars received formal ecclesiastical recognition, and was closely associated with the development of their Latin Rule.
He also wrote De Laude Novae Militiae — In Praise of the New Knighthood, a powerful defense of the Templar vocation and its unusual combination of monastic discipline and military service.
From the man who helped give the Order its spiritual foundation in the 12th century to the imprisoned Grand Master who received absolution nearly two centuries later, August 20 connects two remarkable chapters in Templar history.
Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam.
✠ Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Name give glory. ✠
