Templar Territory

A castle on the sea at the other end of the Mediterranean from where the Holy Land is located: Peñíscola, the last castle of the Temple, obtained in property and built during the 13 years before its end. To speak of Peñíscola and Templars is to speak of alchemy, magic, forbidden knowledge and legends about the end of the Temple and its riches.

1303, the Christian dominions in the Holy Land had been lost more than a decade before when Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Order of the Temple, returned to France to organize a new Crusade. Resources and support were needed, but they decided to buy Culla, in the High Maestrazgo. What was the Temple trying to do? Was it worth investing so much for so little?

Jaime I el Conquistador, one of the longest-lived kings of Spain, has told us his story in the Llibre dels fets. But there are facts that do not count for not discrediting his achievements and out of respect for the Templars, who protected him, raised and accompanied him in the conquest of his kingdom. They were granted Chivert and other possessions to control the border.

The Temple disappeared; the Church, the nobility, the king and other peninsular orders wanted to benefit from everything that belonged to him. The property of the Temple was divided and James II interceded for a new Order, that of Montesa, to inherit it. Territorial control, economic control or something else? What were the interests behind Templar inheritance?

There were not only Crusades in the East and not always Christianity raised its weapons against Islam. At the beginning of the 13th century, Innocent III approved a Crusade against the Occitan populations, accused of heresy, who took refuge in the Maestrazgo. Those lands belonged to the Temple and the kings contradicted the Pope's orders. Why defend heresy?

A stone with inscriptions, subterranean currents, initiatory paths, black virgins, a Grail and a heresy. Since its disappearance, the end of Temple has been enveloped in a halo of mystery so great as not to be believed. However, many of these unknowns have fascinated all kinds of people, from researchers to the curious in search of riches.