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50 free The Knights Templar trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Knights Templar trivia quiz covers the rise, fall and afterlife of the most famous military order of the Middle Ages. The easy questions are the ones any history buff should know: what colour cross they wore, which city held their headquarters, which French king had them arrested, and the date that gave Friday the 13th its reputation. From there it goes deeper into the record: the nine knights and their two-to-a-horse seal, the abbot who wrote In Praise of the New Knighthood, the papal bull that freed them from taxes and local law, the letters of credit that made them early bankers, the island they once owned outright, the grand master who charged into Ascalon with forty men, Hattin, Acre and Arwad, the Chinon Parchment, the last grand master's curse from the pyre, and the Portuguese order that quietly carried on. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on the order, Jacques de Molay, Hugues de Payens, Philip IV, Temple Church and Baphomet before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Crusades, medieval history and Holy Roman Empire quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What colour was the cross worn on the Templars' white mantles?
Red
The cross was a symbol of martyrdom; dying in battle was believed to assure a place in heaven.
Q 02The Templars' original headquarters stood on which site in Jerusalem?
The Temple Mount
They were housed in a wing of the royal palace in the captured Al-Aqsa Mosque, above what was thought to be Solomon's Temple.
Q 03What was the Templars' original purpose when founded around 1118-1119?
To protect pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem
Bandits routinely slaughtered pilgrims on the road inland from the coast at Jaffa.
Q 04Which French knight founded the order and became its first grand master?
Hugues de Payens
He is thought to have come from the village of Payns, about 10 km from Troyes in Champagne.
Q 05What did the Templars' early seal, showing two knights on a single horse, emphasise?
The order's poverty
The order began with about nine knights and relied entirely on donations.
Q 06Which influential abbot championed the Templars in his letter In Praise of the New Knighthood?
Bernard of Clairvaux
He was a nephew of founding knight André de Montbard and the driving force behind the Cistercians.
Q 07At which 1129 church gathering was the Templar order officially approved and given its rule?
Council of Troyes
The white mantle was assigned to the knights at the same council.
Q 08Which papal bull of 1139 exempted the Templars from local laws and taxes, answerable only to the pope?
Omne Datum Optimum
In practice they still had to respect the rulers whose money they banked.
Q 09Roughly what proportion of Templars were non-combatants running the order's economy?
As much as 90%
At their peak the order numbered perhaps 15,000-20,000, only a tenth of them actual knights.
Q 10From 1150 the Templars issued what to pilgrims, an early form of banking and possibly the first cheques?
Letters of credit
Pilgrims deposited valuables at a local preceptory and reclaimed equal value on arrival in the Holy Land.
Q 11Which entire Mediterranean island did the Templars at one point own?
Cyprus
They also owned fleets of ships, farms, vineyards and castles, arguably making the order the first multinational corporation.
Q 12At the 1177 Battle of Montgisard, some 500 Templar knights helped defeat which Muslim leader's army?
Saladin
His force of more than 26,000 was beaten by the Templars and several thousand infantry.
Q 13Which pope gave the Templars permission in 1147 to wear the red cross on their uniforms?
Eugenius III
The permission came at a Paris meeting as French, Spanish and English Templars set off on the Second Crusade.
Q 21Under torture, Templar recruits were made to confess to doing what during admission ceremonies?
Spitting on the Cross
One prisoner said he had spat three times 'but only from my mouth and not from my heart'.
Q 22The Templars were accused of worshipping an idol known by what name?
Baphomet
Scholars think the name is an Old French corruption of 'Mahomet'; the goat-headed image came from Eliphas Lévi in 1856.
Q 23Which pope disbanded the Templars in 1312 under pressure from the French crown?
Clement V
Based in Avignon, he had originally wanted to merge the Templars with the Hospitallers.
Q 14Which city, given to the order around 1150, became the first major Templar castle?
Gaza
It formed part of the ring of fortresses guarding the Kingdom of Jerusalem's southern border against Fatimid Ascalon.
Q 15Grand Master Bernard de Tremelay and forty knights died charging alone through a breach at which 1153 siege?
Ascalon
The rest of the crusader army failed to follow them in; the city fell days later anyway.
Q 16Blunders by grand master Gerard de Ridefort contributed to which devastating 1187 defeat?
The Battle of Hattin
Jerusalem fell to Saladin the same year.
Q 17After the loss of Jerusalem, the Templars made which seaport their headquarters for the next century?
Acre
It fell in 1291, followed by their last mainland strongholds at Tortosa and Atlit.
Q 18The Templars' loss of which tiny island in 1302-03 ended the crusaders' last foothold in the Holy Land?
Arwad
It lies just off the coast from Tortosa; the Mamluks took it after a failed attempt to coordinate with the Mongols.
Q 19Which French king ordered the mass arrest of the Templars in 1307?
Philip IV
Known as Philip the Fair, he was deeply in debt to the order from his war against England.
Q 20On what date in 1307 were the grand master and scores of French Templars arrested at dawn?
Friday 13 October
The warrant began: 'God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom.'
Q 24At which 1312 gathering did the pope issue the bull Vox in excelso dissolving the order?
Council of Vienne
A companion bull, Ad providam, handed most Templar assets to the Hospitallers.
Q 25To which rival order was most Templar property transferred after the dissolution?
The Knights Hospitaller
The kingdoms of Castile, Aragon and Portugal were the exceptions.
Q 26Under King Denis I, the Portuguese Templars survived by changing their name to what?
The Order of Christ
Portugal was the first country in Europe where the Templars had settled, only two or three years after their founding.
Q 27Who was the 23rd and last grand master of the Templars, burned at the stake in Paris in 1314?
Jacques de Molay
He asked to be tied facing Notre-Dame with his hands together in prayer.
Q 28Where was the pyre built for the last grand master's execution?
On a small island in the Seine
The Île des Juifs lay near the palace garden; the sentence was pronounced on a scaffold before Notre-Dame.
Q 29According to legend, whom did the dying grand master summon to meet him before God within the year?
Pope Clement and King Philip
Clement died only a month later, and Philip died in a hunting accident the same year.
Q 30Which misfiled Vatican document, found in 2001, shows the pope absolved the Templars in 1308?
The Chinon Parchment
Barbara Frale found it; the Church now regards the persecution as unjust.