Their Legs Were Crossed

We were walking down Fleet Street in London searching for another church.  Sometimes I think I have an insatiable appetite for the architecture of the medieval churches. We had stopped in Twinings Tearoom for the traditional English tea, and with that good caffeine fix we were ready to do more exploring.  Our quest was to find the Templar Temple.  The name itself suggested a hint of mystery. After all, we had seen the film "The Da Vinci Code".

We found it on a narrow street between Fleet Street and the Thames River. Taller buildings and trees surround it. It has a small courtyard to the side.  In that courtyard is a column with a statue of a mounted knight atop it.  Images from films such as "The Kingdom of Heaven" cloud my mind.  It is quiet and the muffled sounds of Fleet Street sound like the thunder of the hooves of mounted knights from another age.  We enter the coolness of the stone walls. Our eyes adjust to the darkness and our noses to the consumate odor of the centuries.  After seeing many medieval churches this one is truly unique--it's round.  The main nave is indeed circular, but the chancel area is rectangular.  But then the chancel was added to the original structure 200 years later. Why round?  Because its design is based on the circular Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the most holy place in Christendom. 

The church was consecrated in 1185. The king himself was in attendance. Recall that the Knights Templar were crusaders, protectors of the poor, and  sought to reclaim the Holy Land from the clutches of Islam. The Templars were also known to have developed a banking system and are thought to have had connections to the famous banking family of the Rothschilds. The Knights Templar fell out of favor, probably because they became too powerful, and were persecuted into presumed extinction.

They took their solemn oaths in this circular nave. We stood in the very places the knights had taken their monastic vows. The acoustics are extraordinary here, not unlike those in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir practice hall in Salt Lake City. As we talked in hushed tones our voices reverberated back on our ears. 

In the nave, which is some fifty-five feet in diameter, are effigies of knights long since dead.  As we looked at these likenesses of members of the Knights Templar we noticed that some of them had their legs crossed.  We were able to find out that crossed legs indicated that they did not die in battle.

We noted church service times on the placard out front in the event we would be around for a religious service.  It would have been neat to have attended a service in such a place. However, we decided that we could hear a pint calling us by name to the nearest pub.