Templars Cipher

Templars Cipher

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The Knights Templar’s Cipher

In the Middle Ages travellers feared bandits. How could you take money from one place to another without losing it? To help, a group of rich warrior monks called the Knights Templar stepped in with their network of castles and invented international banking.

Castles and Ciphers

To send money you gave it to the knight at your nearest castle. They gave you a note saying how much you had given them. You could take the note to a far away castle where the local Knight would swap it back for money.

This did not fully solve the problem though. Bandits could forge notes. The Knights Templar solved the by using ciphers: secret algorithms for scrambling messages that only those with the secret could unscramble. Only the Templars knew the secret of their cipher. This was the start of international banking which still needs ciphers to work today.

The Knights Templar’s Secret

The Templar’s cipher is based on their flag which includes a red cross. It is made of four arrow-head shapes. The Templars created 25 symbols combining triangles and dots, pointing in the four directions of the arrowheads in the cross. Each letter of the alphabet except J was substituted for one of the symbols using an easy to remember pattern.

More about Templar Cipher

In discussing the Cross and the Octagon, the Cipher writing was mentioned as being derived from the component parts of the eight-pointed Cross. It is really a most ingenious and yet simple device, the key to which each Knight wore upon his breast.The alphabet is divided into two series, the letter N being the central point and belonging to neither. The signs are then arranged in three groups of eight letters, four being taken from each series, the second series is a repetition of the first, the signs being differentiated by dots.

N. — is the chosen centre of the two groups of letters and is a combination of the two vertical arms—it is in the form of the St. Andrew’s Cross and is the real Cross of Initiation. This form of the Cross is the centre of the operative M.Ms' Square VII° Talisman [swastika] and is still used in the Great Commemoration Ceremony of the Operative Free Masons VII°.

When or how this system arose is not known, but as stated before, three of the letters appear in the Paris MSS. (13th century), and the same characters are found on seals undoubtedly Templar and of early date.

Templar Cipher //Encoder