Did the Free Masons originate from the excommunicated knights templer?

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

Did the Free Masons originate from the excommunicated knights templer. And is it true that the knights templer where excommunicated for ordering the slaughter of muslim women and children in one of the crusades they led.

[Nihil Obstat]

No, none of that is true.

[Maximilianus]

Severely superficial synopsis but:

• The Templars were victims of King Phillips greed and Pope Clement V weakness. In France there was an inquiry(torture) that had some knights confess to sacrilege(which scholars believed were trumped up by the order's enemies), a subsequent Papal inquiry which extended into the rest of Europe found few Templars guilty. Pope Clement V never condemned the Templars but dissolved them.
• The knights that were not found guilty of the charges placed on them had the option of joining other orders or returning to secular life. Their property was given to the Knights of Malta, and in at least a couple of cases two new military orders were formed from the Templars.
• No actual historical evidence other than concocted pseudo-history in the 18th Century makes them affiliated with the origins of the Freemasons.