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The film: The lost treasure of the Knights Templar
The 12-year-old Katrine spends her summer holidays every year on the Danish island of Bornholm. There she found a close confidante in the pastor Johannes. And then there are her friends Mathias, Nis and Fie. But this summer should be a very special one that none of the friends will ever forget, because the four have discovered an incredible secret. In one of the ’round churches’ on the island there is said to be an immeasurable treasure: the legendary treasure of the Knights Templar. But a tragic incident gives the initially fun treasure hunt a new twist. The children aren’t the only ones following the clues. Suddenly they are in danger and the greatest adventure of their lives begins.
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Facts about the Knights Templar
This “background material” was originally developed for use by guides for the Bornholm Medieval Center. Since the topic of knights is also interesting for many others, we would like to summarize the historical and archaeological knowledge about Knights Templar, Crusades and round churches here.
The film “The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar“, which premiered in February 2006, has greatly increased interest in Bornholm, round churches and Knights Templar.
The film is only a fiction (idea, imagination) and is based on the ideas of journalist and author Erling Haagensen that the Knights Templar of Jerusalem had their fingers in the pie, where the churches on Bornholm are located and how they should look.
Erling Haagensen
Erling Haagensen (born October 20, 1945 in Denmark) is a Danish author and film director who is best known for his controversial theory about the connection of the Bornholm round churches to the Knights Templar. He has published a number of popular historical and local history books, most of which dealt with Bornholm’s subjects.
Erling Haagense’s idea is that the order of knights wanted to save the secret treasure and hide it where no one would find it. A treasure that is not necessarily gold and silver, but contains, for example, secret information about knowledge (books, texts). Erling Haagensen is not a real researcher. That is why he can also write down ideas that build on old reports about the Knights Templar as guardians of the Holy Grail and develop hypotheses about possible connections between the Templars and Bornholm.
Historical sources, castles and other buildings testify to a large extent of the Knights Templar in Europe – but so far not in the Nordic countries such as Denmark or Sweden. There are no real traces of the Knights Templar in Denmark.
However, there are sources that indirectly state that the Knights Templar might have been in Denmark at some point – perhaps they sought protection when the Pope banned the Knights Templar. There are still many questions about the Knights Templar. Have you been to Bornholm? Research over the next few years will have to show that.
No sources about Knights Templar in Denmark
“There are no sources (writings, books, references) that refer to Templars in Scandinavia” (Villads Jensen 2005, p. 51). Knights Templar lived in many Western European countries, but we have no sources or physical evidence that says anything about the Knights Templar in Denmark.
We only know that they took part in battles near the Baltic Sea a few times in the 13th century, but not that they should have stayed in the area permanently.
On the other hand, it is surprising if they are not firmly connected with the Baltic Sea region, since they were native to almost all other Western European countries.
Either it is that she hasn’t been here or we just don’t know because there are so few extant sources. (Villads Jensen 2002, p. 55). In 1308, on the orders of Pope Clement the 5th French Templars were arrested. The Danish King Erik Menved also received a request. The letters were sent not only to the king, but copies also came to vault seat in Lund command to have it translated into the vernacular and by reading, publish in all churches.
Of course it was a standard letter to all Western Christianity, but it is still strange that it should be sent to Denmark when it was completely free of the Knights Templar (Lind et al, p. 129). Templars northernmost possession against Denmark (Nicholson, p. 104.): It is not surprising that people look for signs of Templars in Denmark.
Among other things, Bornholms were round Churches as copies of the temple rule of Tomar in Portugal suggested. Round churches, however, are not unique to the Templars. Some of them were built across Europe during the Crusade, and they are also known from at least until the 8th century.
The round churches are generally to be understood as copies of the tomb of Jerusalem. A single limestone painting in the ship’s church near Jelling was also included in the argument that the Templars stayed in Denmark. The painting shows a horse with two riders – the usual symbol for the Templars. However, the picture is difficult to interpret, maybe the rear driver is a woman, and then it has to be a whole different story. (Lind et al., P. 129). Knight Templar seal with two riders on one horse.
The film and Erling Haagensen
The adventurous Danish children’s / family film“The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar” can be understood as a mixture of the “Da Vinci Code” for children, with a touch of children’s books “The Five” and the movie “The Lost Treasure” with Indiana Jones.
The film is based on Bornholm journalist and author Erling Haagensen’s idea that the Knights Templar should have saved the Holy Grail, or at least part of their secret treasure, on Bornholm because no one would find it there – or perhaps because the Knights Templar had originally come from Bornholm?
Myths about Knights Templar and the Holy Grail
The order has been surrounded by mysteries and myths since the time of the Knights Templar. By the end of the 12th century, many thought knights were knights and heroes. Since then we could live with many good and exciting stories about the hunt for the Holy Grail with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Indiana Jones and many more.
The fascination of mysterious and hidden relationships, sacred geometries, secret treasures and sinister rituals will undoubtedly always be present.
The legend of the Templars tells that they hid the Holy Grail in an unknown place and that knowledge of this treasure had to be continued by the medieval Freemasons who traveled around building the great cathedrals after the dissolution of the Knightly Order in 1312.
Chivalric novels about the pursuit of the Holy Grail, along with the story of Tristan and Isolde, were the most widespread literary myth of the European Middle Ages. The first novel about the Grail was written by a Frenchman, Chrétien de Troyes, around 1185. Here the Holy Grail was a fish dish that was part of a mysterious ritual procession. Later in the Middle Ages, the Holy Grail became a magical gem, a hostile bar used to keep the Lord’s Supper, the cup in which the blood of Jesus was collected on the cross; a Lord’s Supper and finally the ark with the ten commandments that God gave Moses.
According to The Hague, the treasure consists mainly of writings that contain secret knowledge. Haagensen refers to Østerlar’s round church as one of the possible hiding places. He took measurements that showed signs of “human activity to a depth of at least seven meters below the church floor” (Haagensen Bornholms Runde Kirchen, p. 122). Haagensen interprets this as a crypt, but writes elsewhere that it can also be a time. The measured area begins a few meters outside the church wall and extends over approx. 10 meters below the church and therefore does not resemble a crypt as we know it from other churches.
Haagensen believes that the Templars are behind the placement and construction of the Bornholm churches as part of the Crusades in which the churches were placed to form a sacred geometry of hexagons along with Christiansø, silver and gold, but an archive of secret knowledge.
Perhaps the secret of calculating “pi” – knowledge that would not otherwise be added to the 17th century? Perhaps Bornholm was some kind of practical training area for testing a geometric knowledge? Maybe a knowledge with which you can calculate the circumference of the earth?
In his last book, Haagensen states that the round churches were built as astronomical observatories from which one could overlook the island. Haagensen isn’t the only one fascinated by the idea of sacred geometry. The search for sacred geometry in landscape and architecture has a long tradition. For example, at the beginning of the 20th century, a stream of discoveries began in places of old age that were lined up in a row – springs, estates, lakes, islands, crossings, moats, churches, ancient castles, and more. You speak of “line hunters”. The theories evolved and also became associated with “alternative ideas,” energy lines, navigation lines for UFOs, and more.
Knights Templar – A Brief Introduction
The Order gradually settled in most of Western European countries, where they congregated to be the frontline knights, and they also took on important financial duties such as lending money and, from the mid-13th century, caring for the French Royal Treasury. which also held fortified houses and castles in areas where a strong central power was lacking that could maintain law and order, for example in southern France and Ireland.
The temple lords did not live in monasteries, but on their castles at the front, in small houses and large “command posts” all over Europe. The temple order existed for about 200 years. It was founded in 1120 (some historians mention 1118 or 1119),
Approved by the Pope in 1129 and disbanded in 1312 after criticizing the wealth of the order because of the obvious rivalry with other orders and its brutal methods.
The contemporary criticism of the wealth of the order is felt to be exaggerated. The Templars became great in power and were surrounded by mysteries both now and in the future. Why did you get this? great power? Saved on the knowledge that the established church will keep hiding for everything in the world? Knowledge that someone still knows and tries to protect? However, no factual sources suggest that the Templars were literal, poetic, or intellectually oriented.
In the words of the historian Kurt Villads Jensen, the Templars were “raw paintbrushes”. While other orders of knights (e.g. the Johanites) developed refined historiography and poetry, the Knights Templar seem to have no literature on the history of their order, nor did they explore the heroic, theological, or the more meditative genre, which is otherwise prevalent in the present. They don’t seem to have had any kind of intellectual ambition. On the other hand, they were already included in literature at the end of the 12th century, when many expected the knights of knights and heroes were Templars. Knights were mainly copied and distributed from the Cistercian monasteries.
(Villads Jensen 2005, pp. 44 and 47).
There are no intelligent or physical traces of Templars in Denmark. You have been to many other European countries and, in principle, could have been to Denmark, but it is not known.
Deepening of the Knights Templar
Establishment of the Knights Templar
The Knights Templar was the first military order within the Catholic Church. The Knights Templar’s own archive has long been lost. We therefore do not have our own interpretation of the order history. Helen Nicholson writes that the archive was likely lost due to the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus in 1571, when the archive was removed to the Knights of St. John
(The Hospital Order) after the dissolution of the Temple Order by the Pope in 1312. Contemporary sources disagree as to when the order was created and what its main purpose was. In the academic literature one meets both 1118, 1119 and 1120 as the year in which nine knights drew to Jerusalem.
The most widespread belief is that the Order came into being at the initiative of a group of knights who either went on crusades or made peaceful pilgrimages to the Holy Land, seeing that the land needed warriors. They made four promises to the Patriarch of Jerusalem: to regularly live in poverty, celibacy, and obedience, and to protect pilgrims who went to Jerusalem. Sources speak of nine knights who departed in 1120 and nine years later, in 1129, were recognized by the Pope as the first order of the Catholic Church.
Mission structure, purpose and tasks.
The order’s temple order was an international order of knights – an order of monks with celibacy, poverty and obedience, but also with the task of fighting militarily. In contrast to other monastic orders, the Templars were not educated and engaged in spiritual speculation. Nor did they live in monasteries, and neither do all historians call the order of a monk. They were a close and closed brotherhood. The Knights Templar were primarily warriors.
Before the Crusades, the church had an ambiguous view of the war. On the one hand war might be necessary, on the other hand it was a sin to kill. Even soldiers who took part in a so-called just war had to write and punish for killing.
The score depended on how many had been wounded and killed – 40 days for wounds, 1 year for killing. As a rule, the stand consisted of fasting, the first third of the sentence consisted exclusively of bread and water. Fasting could be replaced by alms. However, it could be difficult to keep track of how many people have been killed. Hence, William the Conqueror’s Army of 1066 (the conquest of England) archers received a standard bid. With the first crusade sermon by Pope Urban II. In 1095, the Church’s relationship to war was turned upside down. Now it was a curse in itself to go to war against the infidels.
By killing Muslims, Christians could even sin their sins and earn a place in paradise and for the best of the martyr’s crown. War became a legal means for the Christian Church to exterminate “evil” – pagans, heretics, Muslims. The Church has now argued that the Knights Templar – and the other crusaders – were not viewed as “male murderers” but as “evildoers”. About the Orderwriter, Lind et al. in Danish Crusades “as follows:” In this respect there was not much difference between a religious knight and any other religious brother in a monastery or religious house. They were all bound by their eternal promises in a lifelong service to God and nearly realized through the fellowship they had once joined. The monk lived in prayer service where the goal was to break personal sin by serving almost and Christ in him. The scribe not only waged an internal battle against sin and evil, but also an external physical battle against the enemies of the Church and Christ. The winner of the order could only lead this internal and external struggle against sin and evil if he renounced the world in which he had grown up – yes, on himself and on one, and everything submitted to his strict rules “(Lind. 253 ). The Temple Order of the Temple was, as I said, established to protect the Christian pilgrims in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. For this purpose they had their headquarters in the Temple Square in Jerusalem – in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which the Knights Templar called “Temple of Solomon”, although the walls of this temple had long since disappeared.
“Temple of Solomon”: The Muslims built the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem at the end of the 7th century on the ruins of the “Temple of Solomon” from the 9th century BC. Today Jerusalem is of great importance to Jews, Christians and Muslims. For Christians, Jerusalem is the city that was conquered by King David and in which his son Solomon built a great temple, the “Temple of Solomon”, to the only God. For Muslims, the Temple Mount is the place where Prophet Muhammad rose to heaven. For the Jews, it includes the mountain on which Abraham would sacrifice his son Isaac, but was prevented when God sent him a ram instead. Before the first crusade (1095-1099), Jerusalem was not of great importance to the Muslim world. It was given in return after the city was conquered in 1099, when several Muslim princes gathered to reclaim the city.
Religious houses in Europe
The Templar Order spread quickly in most of Western European countries. North to northern Poland and Germany. In Europe, the brothers lived mainly in small unpaved houses and large “commandos” with small chapels and huge barns. From here one could recruit new members who were trained in the function of the order and the rules of life during a stay in the order. Older brothers could retire when they could no longer fight, and one could gather for the brothers on the frontlines of the Holy Land.
The European branches of the Order received solid support from kings and local nobles, who often entered as leisure members and were buried with the fighting brothers. Among other things, they gave the order large gifts. in the form of areas that have been cultivated. The Knights Templar – and the other military orders – quickly became popular and rich and took part in the crusades on the religious borders in Europe, on the Iberian Peninsula (Spain) and in Eastern Europe (Villads Jensen 2005, p. 50). However, the Knights Templar houses never matched the size or wealth of the great monasteries when resources were sent to the fighting brothers in the east.
The functions of the bourgeoisie
The functions of the bourgeoisie were both to protect pilgrims and to defend, attack, participate in important royal campaigns, provide military advice and refuge for allies (Nicholson).
The military should be able to withstand the Muslim attack armies.
The castles were “raided” against Muslim territory, property and people. Not necessarily to conquer land, but to take animals, people and other prey that could turn into values – for example. triggers. The castle in Gaza, for example, was directly targeted for raids against the city of Ascalon and against the caravans there.
The knights accompanied the pilgrims on the pilgrimage route to Jerusalem and to the Jordan River, so that the pilgrims could bathe in the holy river.
The knights could play a military role in major royal campaigns and in effect act as the royal ruler of the militia.
They could give military advice.
The castles could serve as refuge for allies who fled Muslim armies.
Crusader States: States that arose as a result of the Crusades, such as the Kingdom of Jerusalem and other areas that descend into Jerusalem. Throughout the Crusader States, the Crusaders and their descendants were a minority. Their power rested in large part on huge castles, which were among the strongest fortifications of the Middle Ages.
The Knights Templar quickly gained a decisive military role in the Crusader states and gained great independence from kings and princes: they owned several of the most important castles of the Crusader states, organized money transfers and lent money, and came from the mid-13th century They administered the treasury of the French king .
Monk – and warrior at your fingertips
The union of the forms of life of the monk and the warrior, as it went along with the creation of knighthoods in the 12th century, was an innovation. The founding of the order in 1120 then also required an explanation. Some thought it was a good idea, others thought it was Bornholm’s Medieval Center 2006 6 | Side worried. The founder of the order therefore asked his relative, the Cistercian abbot Bernhard von Clairvaux, to write the rules of the Knights Templar, which he did around 1128. At the same time Bernhard wrote a script for their praise: “A script for the Temple Templars – a praise for the new knights”. This is both a defense for the innovation that the Templars were and a script for edification for the members (Lind et al., P. 253):
Bernhard from Clairvaux, 1090-1153, French Cistercian Labbed. Central figure in his European contemporary ecclesiastical and religious life and in the explosive expansion of the Cistercian order. Through his writing, which literally reflects the cultural renewal of the 12th century, he is also an important representative of Christian mysticism for posterity.
Bernhard von Clairvaux explains in his letter that the work of the Templars was a constant struggle against evil on two fronts, both internally in following Christ and externally with sword in hand in the battle for God. In this way the Knight Templar used both the weapons of the spirit and the flesh, and this had to be even better than fighting evil in the familiar way, either as a knight or as a monk. Thus the knight monk was doubly protected with both the armor of faith and the armor of steel. Bernhard emphasized especially well that these knights of Christ did not take the same risk as the common secular knights, who both lost their lives and their eternal happiness as they fought and killed because of vanity and greed. The new knights, on the other hand, would surely win eternal life because their life as monks was adorned with prayer and asceticism and they fought for Christ. Bernhard fully agreed with the medieval ideas of just war when he emphasized that the bottom line was the right intention and the good cause: if the knight killed to defend Christ and the Christians, then it was not too common Murder: “If he kills someone who hurts, he is not a male murderer (Homocida), but, if I may say, an evil murderer (Malicida).” (Lind et al., Pp. 253-254). Bernhard adds, however, that the pagans should not be “slaughtered” when there are other options. But it is better to slaughter them than to rule the righteous and lead them into injustice (Kurt Villads Jensen 2005, 45). One of the most important themes in Bernhard’s work was martyrdom: “Fight with joy, die with joy, because you fight for God” … “Rejoice, you brave warrior, when you live and win in the Lord, but rejoice even more if you die and follow the Lord ”(Villads Jensen 2005, p. 45).
Critical voices in the 12th century, however, called the Temple Order “a new monster”. One of Bernhard’s own brothers from the Cistercian Order wrote: “A new monster, a new knightly order, which must emerge from the fifth Gospel, because it certainly has nothing to do with Bornholm’s Medieval Center 2006 7 | Page the four well-known Gospels! For they are established to force the unbelievers to the Christian faith with spears and clubs, and they plunder unhindered those who are not Christians, slaughtering them with great piety Christ’s martyrs “(Villads Jensen 2005, p. 46).
Sultan Saladin took no chances and had the Templars beheaded at every opportunity. He shouldn’t enjoy them walking around freely. They were so fanatical that there was no hope that they would be converted to Islam (Villads Jensen 2005, p. 46).
Saladin, 1138-1193, was the Sultan of Egypt and Syria from 1174; In the Muslim historical tradition, Saladin is portrayed as the leader of the Muslims fighting the Christian crusaders.
The power and strength of the Knights Templar became mythical. Among other things, reports of an English battle in 1187, in which one of the Templars (Jacquelin de Mailly) continued the fight alone against thousands of Muslims after his own brothers had been killed. When he was finally dead, many of his opponents scattered dust on him, picked it up, and sprinkled it on themselves to share his strength (Villads Jensen 2005, 46-47).
General information on orders of knights
Orders of knight were originally religious, regular knight communities that were supposed to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land during the Crusades of the 12th and 12th centuries. Her mission also included fighting and repenting unbelievers. The order of knights was usually directly subordinate to the Pope and independent of local princes and churches – for example the temple order and the Johanites (the hospital order). Later, in the 14th to 14th centuries, secular orders of knights were created with princes as rulers – e.g. the Danish elephant order, which had or has no military functions. Some of the most important knights were the Johannites, the Templars and the Teutonic Order. They originally appeared in Palestine while others commanded the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula. In the Baltic countries, swordsmen fought for a short time. On their costume, the knights had a cross that was sewn on and soon got a certain color and shape. Later the knights wore a metal cross as a badge. Excerpt from John Lind et al.: Danish Crusade – War and Mission in the Baltic Sea: “One of the most important military and theological innovations of the crusade were the knights of the order. Here a gentleman could lead a religious life in the form of a monastery and earn abandoned and spiritual merit, but this through what he had trained all his life, namely to fight. And in the permanently mobilized orders of knights in the border regions with knowledge of the enemies and the terrain, the crusades received some elite troops, which meant far more military than the enthusiastic but often inexperienced crusaders who participated in shorter periods of time. The order of knights quickly spread to most of Western Europe, where they built houses, preached crusades, and raised money for the order. In countries with religious borders, the fortified conventions and guilds were preferred and preferred by royal power with large landowners; They were given land to conquer, and they submissively stood up for the new land, defending it against the pagans’ attempts to recapture it. The major international orders, particularly the Templars and Johanites, and later the Teutonic Order, shared their efforts between the Holy Land and the local areas – e.g. on the Iberian Peninsula and in Hungary. Other assignments were specially created, for example, to take part in the games at a specific location.
The Swordbrødreordenen (Sværdbrødreordenen), which never grew up and Bornholms Medieval Center 2006 10 | Page did not exist very long and only took part in the fighting in Livonia [approx. present Estonia and Latvia – eds.] ”(Lind et al., p. 128). The order of knights was a further development of the reform judgment of 1000 and the attempt of the God-Peace-Movement to put the war in the service of the church and to fight the “evil”.
The God of Peace Movement: a movement in the 1000s, particularly in the south of France. God’s peace wanted to limit the war by forcing the laity not to fight among themselves on certain days. The movement was supported by the Cluny Monastery. His successful attempt to turn inner nourishment into a common struggle in church service may be one of the reasons for the 1st Crusade in the years 1095-99. Divine peace, however, is controversial as 80% of the sources come from a work that has been proven free.
In addition to the knights, the order consisted of clergymen who could not kill as priests, and auxiliary troops; Most of the orders went to women early.
Crusades and round churches
As already mentioned, crusades were combined pilgrimage and warfare, mission and conquest of land – by Christian forces in the 1000s to 1200s, originally to liberate the Holy Land for Muslim rule or to secure Christian possessions in the region . Later in this period, the Crusades were directed at pagans, Muslims, heretics, and non-Catholic Christians in various parts of Europe.
The crusades could then have a purely political purpose as at one time the popes began to forgive the sins of some of their political opponents in Europe. The Crusades were a Europe-wide project that belonged to the authority of the Pope and strengthened the papacy. They were one of the greatest community projects of the Middle Ages and no country or area was untouched by them. Historians still disagree on how many people left and why the popes, bishops, princes and individuals actually took part in the crusades. Were they in search of wealth and honor, or were they driven by a pious religious belief? However, it seems clear that the prospect of indulgence was vital to the individual crusader – i.e. H. Remission of the penalty received for the sins committed in life. It is said that about 100,000 people could have started in the first crusade, which began in the spring of 1096 – today it would equal nearly a million and a half people. (Lind et al., P. 139).
Mobilization of the Crusaders
To bring crusaders to the Holy Land, the Pope sent his personal envoys all over Europe, including Scandinavia. The whole of Denmark was mobilized purely ideologically by inciting sermons in churches and places of worship. The crusade sermon took place throughout the Middle Ages. While the Knights Templar – and other knights – were elite soldiers of a certain order, “ordinary” crusaders promised the Pope or his envoy to lead crusades for a limited time, e.g. 1 year Everyone could take the cross. The first crusade, which left for Jerusalem in 1096, was also called the People’s Crusade because it consisted mainly of groups of poor peasants who were not trained at all or possessed the necessary weapons. We know that seven of Denmark’s richest men left on the First Crusade, each probably with 50-100 warriors and waiters in their followers. Unfortunately it was all over when they arrived. The Danes could visit the holy places in peace and quiet and buy relics and other souvenirs – and then return home (Lind et al., Pp. 100-101, 141, 23.24). Erik Ejegod was the first European king to lead the crusade immediately after conquering Jerusalem. However, he died in Cyprus in 1103 while Queen Bodil reached Jerusalem and died on the Mount of Olives where she was buried.
The 1st Crusade to the Holy Land took place from 1096 to 1099 and aimed to liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims. In 1244, Christians definitely lost Jerusalem to the Muslims. There are talk of eight great crusades against the Holy Land, the last of which took place in 1270. Only the first crusade was a complete success for the attackers.
The Pope initiated the Crusades, and the Crusade itself was led by nobles, kings, or princes, each responsible for their own group. Culturally, the Crusades gained great importance by bringing Western and Central Europeans into direct contact with the Mediterranean population and by incorporating a number of pagan peoples on the Baltic Sea into Christianity. In economic terms, the Crusades led to increased trading activity in both the Mediterranean and the Baltic region.
Crusade for the Baltic Sea
As early as the 1100s, there were problems recruiting crusaders from Northern Europe, as many in the area felt that there were many pagans fighting and being converted in their own immediate neighborhood. In 1147 the Pope therefore gave the Christians in Northern Europe “divine liberation”, in the Baltic Sea region and not in the Mediterranean region for crusades. The crusade name was then used for a number of cruises in the Baltic Sea region, which could have both a Christian mission and political rule as their goal – Bornholms Mittelalterzentrum 2006 12 | For example the crusades against the Venders of 1147. The German state of Prussia and the Baltic states, as well as the Danish conquest of Estonia in 1219, were also the results of crusades. However, there was crusade in the Baltic Sea long before the Pope gave his blessing. As early as the 9th century there were political alliances and military expeditions to defend and spread Christianity. It is possible that the early Sankt Knudsgilder, who were housed in several places along the Baltic coast as far as Estonia, was a crusade, rather than a group of peaceful traders, as historians otherwise have meant them in the 1900s. Among the arguments for this assumption is that guilds have only Knud Lavard as patron. During the 1100s, Knud Lavard was increasingly producing as a crusader, in 1168 finally getting status crusader saints with papal recognition (Wien Berg. 2003, p. 23).
Everything about round churches
Seen through contemporary Danish eyes, the Bornholm round churches are unique. In a larger time perspective, they are not even that unique to Nordic and European eyes.
There are about 31 round churches known in the Nordic countries – 15 in Denmark, 15 in Sweden and 1 in Norway. Some have disappeared, some are ruins and others have been rebuilt into the unknown.
The four Bornholmers are the best preserved – possibly because the island could not afford to tear them down or rebuild them, as was the case in several other places (Wienberg 2002a, p. 187). There is broad consensus that the round churches exemplified the tomb of Jerusalem. The tomb itself, in which Jesus was presumably buried, is surrounded by a rotunda. Both the Knights Templar and other builders across Europe built round churches based on this model. If you follow the beginning of the medieval sailing route (which does not cross the Baltic Sea, but along the coast from island to island) from Denmark to Estonia, you will find a number of “deviant” churches, which seem to be very different in the outside world, but have It is common that they were created to perform different functions.
Some are round, some have oversized towers or a single tall massive ship, and they have oversized magazines. The round churches have church rooms at the bottom, a storage room at the top and a shooting range at the top. It was not uncommon for churches to be used for various non-church purposes in the Middle Ages. You could look like a seamstress, like a school, like a pavilion, a pub, and more. The unusual thing is that you build special rooms and floors here to fulfill the various functions. Which features are affected has been hotly debated since the 17th and 17th centuries. The churches were interpreted as a refuge for the parishioners and their possessions in times of attacks by not least the hikers, as warehouses for trade goods, as magazines for taxes, etc.
They have been called defense churches, which is the most popular theory. Others have highlighted the churches as storage rooms, calling them magazine or trade churches, for example. A third theory emphasizes the symbolism of the unusual floor plan and structure of the church – a symbol of the tomb of Jerusalem. Jes Wienberg summarizes the three main theories and does not believe that it is “either – or”, but points out that churches were built to fulfill precisely more functions: they not only served as a church, they possibly functioned also as a magazine / storage room They may have a defensive function and / or a certain symbolic meaning. Hence the term “multifunctional churches”.
Some of the multifunctional churches had all three functions apart from being a church, such as Østerlars and Nylars: Magazine (warehouse), defense facility and ecclesiastical symbol.
Others had two functions, such as the towers of the Aa Church and the Ibs Church: defense and magazine. (Wienberg 2003). We do not know who built the churches, when they were built, or for what specific purposes.
Often the Bornholm round churches were dated based on historical events. It was assumed that they were built as defensive churches against the ravages of the Vender and therefore had to be built around 1150 before Rügen’s conquest in 1169.
Another precept is that Bornholm was the supply base for the crusading armies on the way to Estonia, Øsel and Finland in 1100-1200 century.
One can imagine that the management fleet marched into Bornholm to supply and pay for the property’s goods and income. If it is true that the magazine churches kept supplies and the like, it is understandable that they should have had to be strengthened against pagan attacks. (Wienberg 2002b, p. 205).
The round churches as symbols of the burial church in Jerusalem seem to be an obvious expression of the crusade ideology (Wienberg 2003, p. 24).
The Crusades followed. In addition to the fact that the Crusades had the sub-goal of gaining control of the transit trade in the Baltic Sea, especially of fur products from Russia / Novgorod to Germany / Lübeck, the Crusades in themselves meant a recovery in trade. The armies – on both sides – needed weapons, horses and food, which led to a flourishing economy in the Baltic Sea from the mid-12th century to the mid-12th century. The deal could be in the hands of aristocrats, farmers, clergymen, and guilds. (Wienberg 2003, pp. 23-24). In the Nordic countries, the round churches occurred mainly on Zealand and Bornholm and in Sweden in Möre, Västergötland, Östergötland and Uppland. Churches with round towers are mainly found in southern Schleswig and Skåne. Gotland was neutral with sales on both sides, and maybe that’s why there are no round churches or round towers on the island.
“Bornholms Medieval Center from the perspective of the Crusade ideology 2006 14 | Side Bornholm convinces. Bornholm belonged to the Archbishop of Lund, the same archbishop who was behind the Crusades. “(Wienberg 2003, 24).
Dendrochronological (timing with the help of wooden rings in the wood) was carried out on three “deviating” churches in Möre and one on Øland. The church in Øland is particularly well organized. The stone church is built approx. 1120, the tower approx. 1180 and the fortified upper floor approx. 1242, +/- 5 years. As in Møre and Øland, the Bornholm church building seems to have taken place in several phases. The question is whether the Bornholm churches fit into the roughly outlined dating of the churches in Möre and on Øland:
They build normal churches: Ca. 1100-1170.
During the Danish Baltic build partly from the beginning, partly by rebuilding multifunctional churches: Ca. 1170-1240.
During the Danish Civil War, the multi-functional churches are fortified partly from the beginning and partly by rebuilding: Ca. 1240-1340
During the Valdemar Atterdag, the multifunctional use of the churches will gradually cease. Ban on fortifying churches: After 1340. (Wienberg 2003, p. 22).
Nylars Round Church was built once, while the uppermost Stokverk was built for later with a parade in Østerlars Round Church. However, much later nothing can be said. (Wienberg 2003, p. 26).
The defense work in the round churches and other multifunctional churches is usually not convincing in relation to the actual fortifications of the time castles or fortified churches in other parts of Europe. They are more reminiscent of the formation of battlements (supplying a wall with peaks and shards) on early medieval castles in England and the defensive details of the Renaissance mansions. In both cases the intent was to demonstrate his rank and power and repel attacks. Without city walls, city walls and high entrances, the churches could not hold their own against a war army, but they were good enough to prevent a general robbery (Wienberg 2003, 26).
The carvings of the carvings are interpreted as drawings of slave castles. Palle Lauring described Østerlar’s round church as “a cross spider in the middle of a web of pagan threads” (Wienberg’s “Sacred Geometry” in Order against chaos. Nordic Academic Press, Lund 2004, pp. 23-57). Erling Haagensen has examined the historical source material and established research. However, he is not bound by research requirements and can freely develop his hypotheses and answer the questions that the established research leaves open. About himself he says on a radio show “All Time History”, Part 1, February 26, 2006: “I am a half-occupied robber. I have no actual training as a historian, mathematician, astronomer, or in any of the other areas where this is involved. And maybe it is actually the case that I will succeed in making these discoveries. “The program closes with a comment by Professor Jes Wienberg from Lund University, who thinks Haagensen’s hypotheses are unlikely. You can read the comments by Wienberg and Haagensen in Bornholmske Samlinger 2002, pp. 175-212. You can read more about his hypotheses on the Haagensens website: www.merling.dk
Haagensen has published the following books:
Bornholm’s secrets – on the trail of the Templars’ secrets and forgotten science. Bogan 1993
The tax master’s tax. Bogan, 2000
Bornholm Rundkirker. Bogan 2003
In his books, Haagensen also contains questions about the possible descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, the history of the Templars, the Freemasons as successors to the Templars, excavations in Jerusalem, the history of the Baltic Crusades, the goldmen of Bornholm, and various antiquities Units of measurement, to the Egyptian pyramids, to various ancient units of measurement fifth element ”and much more. The Hague hypotheses essentially correspond to the plot in the book and film Da Vinci Mystery, which in turn is based on the book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln: The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Haagensen has a collaboration with Henry Lincoln, among others.
APPLIED LITTERATUR The store Danske Encyklopædi 2004: Al-Aqsa, Gudsfred, Korstog, Ordener, Ridderordener, Templar Lord, Salomon. Jensen, Kurt Villads: “Korstog omkring Østersøen” i Mare Balticum. National Museum, København 2002, pp. 47-58. Jensen, Kurt Villads: Politics bog om korstogene. Politics Forlag, København, 2005. Lind, John (m.fl.): Danske korstog – krig and mission i Østersøen. Høst og Søn, København 2004, især indledningen og p. 128-134. Nicholson, Helen: The knights templar – a new history. Sutton Publishing 2001. Wienberg, Jes: “Mellem viden og vrøvl” i Bornholmske Samlinger 2002a, pp. 175-188. Wienberg, Jes: “Middelalderen uden mystik” i Bornholmske Samlinger 2002b, pp. 204 – 206. Wienberg, Jes: “Østersøens flertydige kirker” i Bornholmske Samlinger, 2003, pp. 10- 35. Vedrørende afsnittet “Filmen om Tempelriddernes skat”: Haagensen; Erling: Bornholms mysterious. Bogan 1993. Haagensen; Erling: Templar skat. Bogan, 2000. Haagensen; Erling: Bornholms Rundkirker. Bogan 2003. Haagensen, Erling, hjemmeside: www.merling.dk Wienberg, Jes: ”
