The History of the Knights Templars, the Temple Church, and the Temple

by C. G. Addison

THE TEMPLE CHURCH.

The restoration of the Temple Church—The beauty and magnificence of the venerable building—The various styles of architecture displayed in it—The discoveries made during the recent restoration—The sacrarium—The marble piscina—The sacramental niches—The penitential cell—The ancient Chapel of St. Anne—Historical matters connected with the Temple Church—The holy relics anciently preserved therein—The interesting monumental remains.

“If a day should come when pew lumber, preposterous organ cases, and pagan altar screens, are declared to be unfashionable, no religious building, stript of such nuisances, would come more fair to the sight, or give more general satisfaction to the antiquary, than the chaste and beautiful Temple Church.”—Gentleman’s Magazine for May, 1808, p. 1087.

“After three centuries of demolition, the solemn structures raised by our Catholic ancestors are being gradually restored to somewhat of their original appearance, and buildings, which, but a few years since, were considered as unsightly and barbarous erections of ignorant times, are now become the theme of general eulogy and models for imitation.”[459]

It has happily been reserved for the present generation, after a lapse of two centuries, to see the venerable Temple Church, the chief ecclesiastical edifice of the Knights Templars in Britain, and the most beautiful and perfect relic of the order now in existence, restored to the simple majesty it possessed near seven hundred years ago; to see it once again presenting the appearance which it wore when the patriarch of Jerusalem exercised his sacred functions within its walls, and when the mailed knights of the most holy order of the Temple of Solomon, the sworn champions of the christian faith, unfolded the red-cross banner amid “the long-drawn aisles,” and offered their swords upon the altar to be blessed by the ministers of religion.

From the period of the reign of Charles the First down to our own times, the Temple Church has remained sadly disfigured by incongruous innovations and modern embellishments, which entirely changed the antient character and appearance of the building, and clouded and obscured its elegance and beauty.

Shortly after the Reformation, the Protestant lawyers, from an over-anxious desire to efface all the emblems of the popish faith, covered the gorgeously-painted ceiling of this venerable structure with an uniform coating of simple whitewash; they buried the antique tesselated pavement under hundreds of cart-loads of earth and rubbish, on the surface of which, two feet above the level of the antient floor, they placed another pavement, formed of old grave-stones. They, moreover, disfigured all the magnificent marble columns with a thick coating of plaster and paint, and destroyed the beauty of the elaborately-wrought mouldings of the arches, and the exquisitely-carved marble ornaments with thick incrustations of whitewash, clothing the whole edifice in one uniform garb of plain white, in accordance with the puritanical ideas of those times.

Subsequently, in the reign of Charles the Second, the fine open area of the body of the church was filled with long rows of stiff and formal pews, which concealed the bases of the columns, while the plain but handsome stone walls of the sacred edifice were encumbered, to a height of eight feet from the ground, with oak wainscoting, which was carried entirely round the church, so as to shut out from view the elegant marble piscina on the south side of the building, the interesting arched niches over the high altar, and the sacrarium on the eastern side of the edifice. The elegant gothic arches connecting the Round with the oblong portion of the building were filled up with an oak screen and glass windows and doors, and with an organ-gallery adorned with Corinthian columns and pilastres and Grecian ornaments, which divided the building into two parts, altogether altered its original character and appearance, and sadly marred its architectural beauty. The eastern end of the church was, at the same time, disfigured with an enormous altarpiece in the classic style, decorated with Corinthian columns and Grecian cornices and entablatures, and with enrichments of cherubims and wreaths of fruit, leaves, and flowers, exquisitely carved and beautiful in themselves, but heavy and cumbrous, and quite at variance with the gothic character of the edifice. A huge pulpit and sounding-board, elaborately carved, were also erected in the middle of the nave, forming a great obstruction to the view of the interior of the building, and the walls and all the columns were thickly clustered and disfigured with mural monuments.

All these unsightly and incongruous additions to the antient fabric have, thanks to the good taste and the public spirit of the Masters of the Benches of the societies of the Inner and Middle Temple, been recently removed; the ceiling of the church has been repainted; the marble columns and the tesselated pavement have been restored, and the venerable structure has now been brought back to its antient condition.

The historical associations and recollections connected with the Temple Church throw a powerful charm around the venerable building. During the holy fervour of the crusades, the kings of England and the haughty legates of the pope were wont to mix with the armed bands of the Templars in this their chief ecclesiastical edifice in Britain. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries some of the most remarkable characters of the age were buried in the Round, and their mail-clad marble monumental effigies, reposing side by side on the cold pavement, still attract the wonder and admiration of the inquiring stranger.