Under pressure from King Philip, Pope Clement V reluctantly dissolved the Knights Templar in 1312. The group's property and monetary assets were given to a rival order, the Knights Hospitallers. However, it's thought that King Philip and King Edward II of England seized most of the Knights Templar's wealth.

Who killed the Templars?

In 1307, the year of the Knights Templar's fall, King Phillip IV was the king of France. He is the once responsible for arresting and banishing Jews from France. He also arrested, tortured, and finally burned the Templars to death as a punishment of their blasphemous acts.

Were Knights Templar ever defeated?

At the battle of La Forbie in Gaza in October 1144, an Ayyubid army defeated a large Latin army and 300 Templar knights were killed. 230 captured Templar knights were beheaded after the Battle of Hattin in 1187, won by the army of Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria (r. 1174-1193).