Re: Knights Templar (KT) reference in Kate Bush FAQ

[leiter@panix.com (Philip Dahl)]

Marek Lugowski (marek@casbah.acns.nwu.edu) wrote:

: Someone(s) knowledgable, pls. explain the connection of Kate Bush to
: Knights Templar.  The Knights Templar I am aware off were just hire-on
: "knight"-thugs, a gang, in modern parlance, an order, 

Well, the Knights Templar I am aware of were crusading knights who 
captured Jerusalem and owned more property throughout the West than 
anyone but the Church, provided travel and banking services throughout 
Europe and the Mediteranean, counted King Richard the Lionhearted as an 
honorary member and sheltered him in his exile, and was wiped out by the 
Inquisition at the start of the 14th c. so that the Church and local 
Kings could devide up the loot.  They are claimed as predecessors by the 
Scots Guard, by Freemasons, and the sails of Christopher Columbus' ships 
are depicted bearing the Templar Cross.  They are also associated in 
legend with the Celtic Kingdom of Scotland which kept it's independence 
from England in the 13th to 15th c.  In general, they are seen in lore 
as a noble order bearing mystic knowledge linking the Holy Lands with a 
Celtic Kingdom--pretty hot stuff for a Romantic imagination.

: later, after evacuating that locale, hanging
: out on Malta with nothing much to do, 

No, that was the Hospitallers, aka the Knights of St. John, and they had 
plenty to do to turn back a vastly outnumbering army of Turks who chased 
them there from Palastine and then from Rhodes.

: and later, upon a [WWII-relevant (!)]
: regrettable invitation to northern Mazovia (Poland, Masury lake district,
: the town & castle of Malbork), by a certain idiot Polish prince dude who
: had decided that, wimp yet greedy for land, he had border disputes with
: the inocuous leave-us-alone-and-we-will-be-out-of-your-face-okay? Prusses
: (Balt-speaking indiginous forest people of that region, very fierce in
: combat & not wishing to be Christianized) -- took a fealty oath and became
: lodgers to Mazovia, settling the land, in exchange conducting a basically
: bloody pacification campaign, as we say in the 20th century, under the
: noble guise of bringing Salvation and the Lord's word to the unwilling.
: (The usual story.)

That sounds like the Teutonic Knights, not the Knights Templar.

: To cut the TK gaffa short, The Templar Knights I know of seem to have
: been an absolute *antithesis* to everthing Kate Bush as known to me
: stands for.  This makes the mystery of her album cover sign that much
: more urgent.

Given the way your conception of history is so strongly colored with 
ideology, there's no reason to think you have any clear conception of 
what K8 is doing either.  Why any of this would be *urgent* I don't know.

For anyone interested, "The Temple and the Lodge", by Michael Baigent and 
Richard Leigh, is a well-told if sometimes speculative history of the 
Templars, the Kingdom of Scotland, and the Freemasons.  (I'm not a member 
of any of these, incidentally!)

Phil Dahl
leiter@panix.com