Real Templar Secrets

Yesterday, I made a phenomenal discovery—or at least I think it is. I was looking on YouTube for any tracks from an CD of Ensemble Organum called Chante Corse, which are Franciscan chants from 17-18 century Corsica. I always loved the Eastern flavor. Listen for example to the Tantum Ergo.

But what I discovered blew me away. Ensemble Organum has also produced a CD of chants from—ready for this?—the Knights Templar. Apparently, the chants are from 12th century manuscripts found in the Temple in Jerusalem. Here are the real Templar lost secrets and ancient wisdom and—guess what?—its all Catholic. No Templar baloney here.

I am linking to several videos from YouTube that feature tracks off the CD.

The first is Crucem Sanctam Subiit:

Crucem sanctam subiit,
qui infernum confregit,
accinctus est potentia,
surrexit die tertia. Alleluia.

Lapidem quem reprobaverunt
aedeficantes factus est
caput anguli, alleluia.

He bore the Holy Cross,
who broke the power of hell;
He was girded with power
He rose again the third day, alleluia

The stone that the architects rejected
became the cornerstone, alleluia.

It is half chant and half military march, as the Templars were both monks and knights. Awesome:

more about “Gloria.tv: CRUCEM sanctam subiit… E…“, posted with vodpod

The other track I am posting is the Templar version of the Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen). One version of the origin of this Marian antiphon in such common usage within the Western Church is that it was written as a crusader march:

It has also been attributed to Adhémar, Bishop of Podium (Puy-en-Velay), whence it has been styled “Antiphona de Podio” (Anthem of Le Puy). Adhémar was the first to ask permission to go on the crusade, and the first to receive the cross from Pope Urban II. “Before his departure, towards the end of October, 1096, he composed the war-song of the crusade, in which he asked the intercession of the Queen of Heaven, the Salve Regina” (Migne, “Dict. des Croisades”, s. v. Adhémar). He is said to have asked the monks of Cluny to admit it into their office, but no trace of its use in Cluny is known before the time of Peter the Venerable, who decreed (about 1135) that the anthem should be sung processionally on certain feasts.