The Templar Pirates: The Secret Alliance to Build the New Jerusalem

by Ernesto Frers, Ariel Godwin (Translator)

The maritime history of the Knights Templar following the Church’s attempt to expunge them in southern France

• Shows that the pirates of legend originated with the Knights Templar’s secret navy

• Reveals the Templars’ secret objective to establish a new universal order based on spirituality, wisdom, and individualism--the New Jerusalem

• Examines the secret history of the Templars’ influence in international politics

When the Vatican condemned the Order of the Temple in 1312, many of those who escaped took to the sea. Their immediate objective was to take revenge on the Church. Recent discoveries confirm that ships of the Templar fleet that went missing at La Rochelle later reappeared--first in the Mediterranean and later in the Atlantic and Caribbean--to menace the Church’s maritime commerce. These Templar vessels often flew the famed Jolly Roger, which took its name from King Roger II of Sicily, a famed Templar who, during a public spat with the Pope in 1127, was the first to fly this flag.

Opportunistic buccaneers were quick to see that vast wealth could be gained in pursuing the Templars’ harassment of the Pope’s interests on the high seas, and they spread a reign of terror across the shipping lanes of the New World. Some unaffiliated pirates, in admiration of the Templar egalitarian ideals, even formed their own secret societies, and together with the Templars were part of the ferment that gave rise to independence movements in France and the New World and contributed to the growth of Freemasonry.

The Templar Pirates is the story of the birth and actual conduct of piracy on the seas of the New World and of the influence the Templars had on their constituents, and, by their wealth, on the governments of nations old and new.

Genres: History

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 2007

About the author

Ernesto Frers specializes in medieval history and has investigated enigmatic and occult subjects for many years. He has published widely in his field and is the author in English of The Templar Pirates. He lives in Spain.

Reviews

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This work is a disjointed effort to link the Templars, Freemasonry, and other unrelated movements. As a retired history teacher I feel that though well written it is undocumented conjecture as the Templar records disappeared upon their fall and no documentary evidence is cited. The story appears to be based on legend and myth and while a relaxing read take it with a grain of salt. Because of the lack of authentic documentation I can not put it on my history shelf.

[Liutauras · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good toilet book, lot's of assumptions but little evidence

[Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

so... this book seems to cover more about the history of pirating/ privateering and the like than it does about templars and their relation to pirates, but it was still an interesting and informative read.

[Hans · Rating 2 out of 5]

Psuedo-history filled with "what if" conjectures and conspiracy theories. As much as I would love some of this stuff to somehow be true it is a quintessential example of poor scholarship. I checked the author's references and was appalled by the poor quality of his sources. Using discredited theories to weave his own.

I don't totally fault the author, sometimes to get a theory out there to be further explored you have to start with the little you have. There may yet be some truth to his hypothesis but the biggest danger of publishing this work as 'history' and doing it poorly is not only that no one will take it seriously, but also that an otherwise worthy idea for research could be discredited and ruined.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pirate and sailor parts were interesting and reasonably well documented. Unfortunately, this book falls prey to the same issues that plague so many other books written about freemasonry. The portions concerning the Templars wandered all to often in the realm of speculation and conspiracy theory.

Additionally, while not blatantly anti-Catholic, the church certainly played the roll of villain in this narrative.

[John Somers · Rating 1 out of 5]

1/20.