The Templars
The Order of the Temple was founded around 1119-1120 in Jerusalem by Hugues de Payns and a handful of knights, to protect pilgrims. Recognised at the Council of Troyes (1129), with the backing of Bernard of Clairvaux, it became a powerful religious and military order, endowed with a vast network of commanderies across Europe. Under pressure from Philip the Fair, its members were arrested in 1307; Pope Clement V suppressed the order in 1312 (Council of Vienne). The last Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, died at the stake in Paris in 1314. Their loyalty, their discipline and their tragic end have made them figures of honour and of mystery.
Freemasonry
Modern speculative Freemasonry was born with the founding of the Grand Lodge of London in 1717; Anderson's Constitutions appeared in 1723. It took root in France as early as the 1720s and 1730s. Symbolic heir to the cathedral builders, it offers a path of moral and spiritual self-improvement, founded on fraternity, tolerance and freedom of conscience. Many of its members took part in the struggles for civil liberties.
Templars and Freemasons, each in their own way, recall a truth all too readily forgotten between two tax returns: liberty is also an inward affair. Self-mastery, the search for meaning, fidelity to an ideal; all that cannot be decreed, and is not yet taxed.
Sources: Order of the Temple (source: Wikipedia, “Order of Christ (Portugal)”) · Freemasonry (sources: Wikipedia, “Freemasonry”; Grande Loge de l’Alliance Maçonnique Française, alliance.fm)