Dedicated to Researching Rosslyn Chapel, The Knights Templar and Scottish Freemasonry

This form of cross is often claimed to be a Knight Templar cross. The design is technically known as a cross patée. However, to say that is it only a Knight Templar symbol would be incorrect and misleading.

This symbol was in use, not only by the church, before and after the the Templars were founded (c.1118) and dissolved (1312).

Helen Nicholson in here book The Knights Templar - A New History (2001) makes, and illustrates, this point.

The High Kirk of St Giles has no known connection with the Knights Templar and the present of a so called Templar cross suggests that there must be another explanation. The fact that the cross has a crown on top is a clue indicating that is relevant to the monarchy. Place and context must be used to assess such items and as we have seen elsewhere the interpretation of symbols is fraught with difficulty for the unwary.

More to follow…