First Templar Nation: How Eleven Knights Created a New Country and a Refuge for the Grail

Overturns the long-established historical narrative about the origins and purpose of the Knights Templar

• Explains how and why the Templars created Europe’s first nation-state, Portugal, with one of their own as king

• Reveals the Portuguese roots of key founding members, their relationship with the Order of Sion, the Templars’ devotion to Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist, and the meaning and exact location of the Grail

• Provides evidence of Templar holy sites and hidden chambers throughout Portugal

• Includes over 700 references, many from new and rare sources

Conventional history claims that nine men formed a brotherhood called the Knights Templar in Jerusalem in 1118 to provide protection for pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. Overturning this long-established historical narrative, Freddy Silva shows that the Order of the Temple existed a decade earlier on the opposite side of Europe, that the protection of pilgrims was entrusted to a separate organization, and that, in league with the Cistercian monks and the equally mysterious Order of Sion, the Templars executed one of history’s most daring and covert plans: the creation of Europe’s first nation-state, Portugal, with one of their own as king.

Including over 700 references, many from new and rare sources, Silva reveals Portugal, not Jerusalem, as the first Templar stronghold. He shows how there were eleven founding members and how the first king of Portugal, a secret Templar, was related to Bernard de Clairvaux, head of the Cistercians. The author explains the Templars’ motivation to create a country far from the grasp of Rome, where they could conduct their living resurrection initiation--whose candidates were declared “risen from the dead”--a secret for which the Church silenced millions and which the Templars protected to the death.

Placing the intrepid Knights in a previously unknown time and place, Silva’s historical narrative reveals the Portuguese roots of key founding members, their relationship with the Order of Sion, the Templars’ unshakeable devotion to Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist, and how they protected a holy bloodline in Portugal. He also provides evidence of secret Templar holy sites, initiation chambers, and hidden passageways throughout Portugal, often coinciding with pagan and Neolithic temples, and explains how their most important site forms a perfect triangle with the Abbey of Mont Sion in Jerusalem and the Osirion temple in Egypt. The author also reappraises the meaning of the Grail and reveals its exact location, hidden in plain sight to this very day.

Table of Contents:
1 1125. An oak table in a large hall in a small county named Portugale . . .
2 1095. November. In the Auvergne, a mountainous region in central France . . .

3 1096. August. Constantinople, capital of the Holy Roman empire . . .

4 1096. August. With the northern army, preparing to depart . . .

5 1098. On the desert road near Antioch . . .

6 140 BC. In a land in western Iberia called Lusitania . . .

7 1099. June. Outside the gates of Jerusalem . . .

8 Thirty years earlier. Orval. A town downriver from Bouillon . . .

9 1114. Braga. A very old city in Portugale . . .

10 1100. Jerusalem. In the palace of the new king . . .

11 1100. Braga. Hearing foreign voices . . .

12 1117. Bethlehem. At a ceremony . . .

13 1117. Guimarães. In the court of Countess Tareja . . .

14 1126. Clairvaux. A very, very, very modest abbey in Champagne . . .

15 Seven Years Earlier. Clairvaux. A special moment on June 24 . . .

16 1125. Late Autumn. Porto. Disembarking after a long sea voyage . . .

17 1127. Autumn. Aboard a galley in the Mediterranean . . .

18 1128. April. Braga. An office where lots of documents are signed . . .

19 1128. January. A major gathering at Troyes, a town in Champagne . . .
20 1128. Back in Clairvaux. Upon the conclusion of the conclave . . .

21 1128. April. A chamber in the royal residence of Guimarães . . .

22 1128. Meanwhile in Champagne . . .

23 1128. June 24 A battlefield outside Guimarães . . .

24 1129. March. Afonso reveals himself . . .

25 1139. Ourique. Preparing to battle the Moors . . .

26 1139. Clairvaux. Early dawn, outside the chapel . . .

INTERMEZZO

27 1867. Jaffa. A mule train heading toward Jerusalem . . .

28 1146. Coimbra. At home with Afonso and his new bride . . .

29 1147. April. Braga. The mysterious Prior Arnaldo in his new abode . . .
30 1119. Temple Mount. A tunnel, eighty feet beneath . . .

31 1147. Braga. Gualdino Paes also moves into his new domicile . . .

32 1121. Saint-Omer. In the home of a cryptographer named Lambert . . .
33 1947. Qumran. Two goatherds, in a cave, by the Dead Sea . . .

34 1159. Ceras. A pile of rubble near a dilapidated town . . .

35 68 AD. Mount Sion. Men in white, hiding scrolls and other important things . . .

36 1159. Coimbra. The king of Portugal’s desk, part I . . .

37 1159. Coimbra. The king of Portugal’s desk, part II . . .

38 1159. Coimbra. The king of Portugal’s desk, part III . . .

39 1160. March 1. A dawn ceremony on the promontory above Thamar . . .
40 Present Era. April. Inside the rotunda of Tomar . . .

41 1865. The Vatican. Pope Pius IX gets all steamed up . . .

42 Present Era. April. By the rotunda, amid the secrets of the beehive . . .

43 Present Era. April. Musing outside the beehive . . .

44 1165. Monsanto. Peculiar behavior on an unusual hill . . .

45 Present Era. Monsanto. And other places for musing . . .

46 1147. Sintra. A funny thing happens on the way to the castle . . .

47 Present Era. Sintra. In the Forest of Angels . . .

48 Present Era. April. In the shadow of a statue in Tomar . . .

49 1153. Gossip in the alleyways of Jerusalem . . .

50 1312. Southern Portugal. The templars enjoy a six-year vacation . . .

51 Present Era. Aksum. A feast day when the Tabotat are seen in daylight . . .

52 Present Era. Tomar. Staring at the rotunda . . .

53 Present Era. A circular hall in a small country named Portugal . . .

EPILOGUE

Lusitania. Where knowledge is stored, guarded by a goddess whose symbol is a triangle . . .

Notes

Bibliography

Image Credits

Index

About the Author

About the Author :
Freddy Silva is a leading researcher of alternative history, ancient knowledge, sacred sites, and the interaction between temples and consciousness. He has appeared on Discovery Channel, BBC, and Coast to Coast AM radio. He is the author of 5 books, including The Lost Art of Resurrection, and lives in Portland, Maine.

Review :
“In this well-told story, author Freddy Silva has filled a long-standing need for a real understanding of the Templars’ early history, their search for treasure in the Temple of Solomon, and the creation of an independent Portugal with a Templar knight as king. First Templar Nation is a fascinating contribution to the body of knowledge of the Order.”