Chapter 6: What survives · §2 The Masonic revival
A Chain of Antiquarians
Thomas Dunckerley, an influential figure in the growth of English and Welsh higher-degree Freemasonry, claimed in 1791 that the Order of the Temple had never truly ceased to exist. He suggested the group had entered a long, protective hibernation. This assertion was a foundational myth for a growing cultural movement rather than a historical fact supported by the medieval record. By the late eighteenth century, the Enlightenment fascination with Gothicism and the antique had formed the Masonic Knights Templar. This body did not aim to farm the Cleddau or manage the agricultural granges of Pembrokeshire. Instead, it became the primary custodian of the Templar name in Wales during a period when the physical ruins of the Order were at their most neglected and forgotten state.
The institutionalisation of this memory in Wales was rapid and concentrated in the urban centres of the south. The Grand Conclave of the Order was established in 1791, and within a few decades, specific Welsh encampments, later called Preceptories, were formed in Monmouth and South Wales. These bodies consisted largely of the professional classes, including lawyers, clergymen, and local landowners who were increasingly captivated by the romanticised history of the crusades. For these men, the medieval Templar acted as a model of chivalric virtue. This was a sharp contrast to the rapidly industrialising landscape of the Welsh valleys. Their interest lay in the moral architecture they believed the medieval knights represented, away from the mundane realities found in the 1338 extenta.
A clear distinction exists between the organic survival of a medieval institution and the deliberate reconstruction of one for modern use. The Welsh archives contain no evidence of a hidden line of Templar succession stretching from the 1540 dissolution of the Hospitallers to the eighteenth-century Masonic lodges. The connection to the Latin East was severed when the last Hospitaller brothers left Slebech. The Masonic revival performed a vital function in the history of the Welsh estates by preserving an interest in the topography of the Order. The members of the Preceptory of St George in Monmouth, for instance, were among the first to engage in pilgrimage scholarship. They visited the sites associated with the knights and recorded the precise state of decay they found there.
This era of quiet scholarship was often the only thing preventing the complete erasure of the Templar footprint. Many of the early Welsh Masonic Templars were also members of local antiquarian societies, such as the Cambrian Archaeological Association. Their dual interests meant that when they met in their lodges, they discussed the latest findings from the excavations of medieval sites or the translation of Norman-French charters. They were fascinated by the Knight Templar effigies found in Welsh churches. Many of these figures were actually secular Marcher lords, but the masons began the process of cataloguing the physical remains in a way that the Barlow family at Slebech had never bothered to do during their long tenure.
The restoration of certain sites owes much to this Victorian flourishing of chivalric interest. While the actual stone and mortar of the old preceptories were often reused for farm buildings or grand houses, the masonic interest in the chivalric orders ensured that the history of these sites remained in the public consciousness. In South Wales, the gatherings of these new-age knights often included lectures on the history of the Crusades and the role of the Welsh contingents. Although their rituals were entirely modern creations, their commitment to the preservation of the Templar memory meant that when the modern era of professional archaeology arrived, the sites had not been forgotten by the local population or the landed gentry.
In the small towns of the Welsh Marches, the legacy of this revival is still visible in the architecture and the private libraries of the long-established lodges. These collections often contain nineteenth-century transcripts of medieval documents that were otherwise difficult to access before the digitisation of the National Archives. The Welsh historiography presents a paradox. A movement based on a fictional continuity did more to protect the genuine history of the Templars than the decades of institutional silence that preceded it. These men provided a bridge between the ruinous neglect of the post-Reformation era and the rigorous preservation of the modern day, keeping the archives intact and the sites identified.
These eighteenth-century gentlemen cannot be credited with modern historical accuracy, for they were prone to the same romantic excesses as the novelists of their day. They frequently conflated the Hospitallers and Templars or attributed every cross-legged effigy to a brother of the Order. Their veneration of the past ensured that the name of the Temple was not lost to the damp soil of the Cleddau. By the time the twentieth century dawned, the Templar was no longer a forgotten medieval ghost. He had become a staple of Welsh local history, ready to be reassessed by the cold, clear light of contemporary evidence and the scrutiny of modern scholars and field archaeologists.
The story of the movement's survival now leads us to the final assessment of what this disparate collection of ruins, names, and legends tells us about the character of medieval Wales.