Templar ring

"A ring with a red cross pattée in a white circle. The Order of the Knights Templar!"

―William Robert Woodman^[src]^-[m]

A Templar ring is an adornment worn by members of the Templar Order since at least the mid-12th century that signifies membership in the Order. Typically, the rings bear a simple design of a red cross pattée, the Templar insignia.

History

Middle Ages

The use of Templar rings dates back to the Middle Ages. After King Alfred restructured the Order of the Ancients' Isu-worshipping broken remnants in England into the more Christian-focused Knights Templar in the late 9th century, they could no longer use the Ancients' medallions embossed with Yggdrasil to signify group membership.^[1] It is unclear what iconography they used over the next nearly 300 years, if any, but when they received Pope Eugene III's blessing to use the cross, the Templars began adorning the cross pattée onto their tabards and other accessories from the 1160s onwards.^[2]

Within 30 years, they were forging rings bearing the cross on them; the Templars' Grand Master Robert de Sablé gifted one such ring to Maria Thorpe when she joined the group and trained under him.^[3] Despite the Levantine Assassin Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad having assassinated Robert at the Battle of Arsuf,^[4] an act that removed Robert's safeguarding of Maria's standing in the Order,^[5] she still wore the ring in 1192,^[3] but would eventually discard or store it elsewhere in the years after marrying Altaïr and joining the Assassins.

Maria's ring was not the only one made, as Altaïr would see another that same year. After a mysterious figure dropped a lift with stone blocks on a Kyrenian monk who was about to tell Altaïr about the Templar Archive on Cyprus, Altaïr gave chase, but the figure escaped and all he found was a ring that had slipped off the man's finger.^[6] A third ring uncovered in Constantinople still had wax on it, indicating that members could also utilize them as signet rings.^[7]

Renaissance

In 1482, a corrupt merchant in Constantinople wore a Templar ring, which Yusuf Tazim took notice of while he and his friend Davud bin Hassan broke into the man's home to rob him. However, Yusuf did not yet understand the meaning of the red cross displayed on the ring, and was forced to escape after Davud sacrificed himself to stall the merchant and allow Yusuf to flee with their loot.^[8]

In the early 16th century, the Chinese Templar Qiu Ju, a member of the Eight Tigers, wore a Templar ring.^[9]

Age of Imperialism

In 1712, the British Templar Wilson wore a ring that left a cross-shaped scar on Edward Kenway's face when Wilson punched him while escaping the Kenways' burning farmstead.^[10]

Edward later saw another Templar ring worn by Captain Benjamin Pritchard of the East India Company's merchant ship Amazon Galley.^[11] With Edward's fellow crewmen from the privateer ship Emperor having turned to piracy following the War of the Spanish Succession's conclusion,^[12] they captured Pritchard and tortured him in the Amazon's captain's cabin for the location of rumored treasure. While the Emperor's Captain Alexander Dolzell led his crew in looting the Amazon,^[13] Edward noticed Pritchard's ring, only for Edward's rival Blaney to steal it for himself.^[11]

In 1715, the Caribbean Templars' Grand Master Laureano de Torres y Ayala gave three Templar rings to the new recruits Julien du Casse, Woodes Rogers, and Edward Kenway—the latter having impersonated the British Assassin turncoat Duncan Walpole—during their induction ceremony into the Order.^[14] After Edward was revealed as an imposter, Torres reclaimed the ring.^[15]

In the early 18th century, certain members of the Templar-affiliated Shimazu clan wore Templar rings.^[16] In January 1725, a British Templar in command of an East India Company ship wore a ring until he was killed by the Caribbean Assassin Adéwalé.^[17] Grand Master Alan Jacob also wore a Templar ring, albeit only in private, to keep his affiliations secret.^[18]

In February 1725, a Templar wore a ring to his meeting with the Qing businesswoman Lee Huiyin. He demanded the late Dutch explorer Hendrik's sea log that Lee had in exchange for the Order ceasing all hostilities against her company, but unbeknownst to the man, Lee already knew of the Order's existence and correctly identified him as a member upon seeing the ring that most civilians would have overlooked.^[19]

Templar rings had their greatest usage in the United States both before and during the American Revolution. During the Seven Years' War, the British Army General Edward Braddock wore a Templar ring to signify his membership in the Order. Braddock was assassinated by his fellow British Templar Haytham Kenway during the Braddock Expedition in 1755 for his ruthlessness, following which Kenway took the ring from Braddock and awarded it to Charles Lee upon his induction into the Order's recently-established Colonial Rite.^[20]

Upon being fatally wounded in an attack on Fort Frederick in 1757, the British Colonel George Monro gave his Templar ring to Shay Cormac, who shortly after was inducted into the Colonial Templars.^[21] The last known ring in North America was seen nearly 20 years later, when a British Templar naval captain in the Royal Navy bore one until he was killed by the Colonial Assassin Ratonhnhaké:ton in 1776.^[22]

Early modern era

By the early modern era, the wearing of Templar rings was largely discontinued by the Rites, though it did not stop their sporadic appearances in later decades. In a new tradition started by the French Rite just before the French Revolution, silver pins originally crafted by the Templar silversmith and Sage François-Thomas Germain briefly became the new symbol of recognition for the wider Order^[23] and later their internal enforcers, the Black Crosses.^[24]

In 1868, an assassin tasked to eliminate Maharaja Duleep Singh of the Sikh Empire in London carried a Templar ring in his pocket. After his assassination attempt failed and he was killed by the British Assassins Jacob and Evie Frye, the twins found the ring in his pocket, informing them of his affiliations.^[25]

During the early 20th century, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's leading Secret Chiefs wore Templar rings, though the Hermetic Order was unaware of the Templars' existence or influence in their organization.^[26]

General Erich Albert of the German Army wore a Templar ring in World War I. During the Christmas truce of 1914, Albert enlisted the aid of a British medic to perform surgery on a German soldier. After the surgery, Albert noticed the doctor's interest in his Templar ring and offered to trade it with him until he noticed the man's Assassin burn mark around his finger and was assassinated.^[27]

In 1927, the British Rite's Grand Master Thaddeus Gift wore a Templar ring. After the Black Cross Albert Bolden killed him for his corruption, he severed Gift's ring-bearing finger and placed it in a box,^[24] whom the Templars intended to present to the Kuomintang's leader Chiang Kai-shek as an invitation for him to join the Order, and also as a warning about the consequences of betraying the Templars.^[28] Gift's son Darius was tasked to deliver the box to Shanghai,^[24] but the actor Ruan Lingyu stole it shortly after his arrival in the city,^[29] having been hired to do so by Soong Ching-ling.^[28]

Soong, the widow of the Shanghai Rite's late Grand Master Sun Yat-sen, was aware that Chiang had no loyalty towards the Templar cause and would double-cross the Order as soon as he seized power, so she wanted to preserve the box's contents. However, Ruan had secretly removed the Templar ring and the finger it was attached to from the box before the package reached Soong.^[28] Ruan later showed the box's contents to Darius, leading him to realize that the Black Cross had killed his father.^[30]

Modern times

John Roberts wore a Templar ring during the 21st century.^[31]

In 2014, after uploading Shay Cormac's file to the Assassin network, Melanie Lemay presented a Templar ring to the Helix research analyst "Numbskull", offering them a place in the Order.^[32]

In 2019, the Japanese Templar Kaori Kagami wore a Templar ring while she worked as a doctor at Abstergo Industries' facility in Yokohama, Japan.^[9]

In 2023, a Templar supervising Shimazu Sei's mission to find a Piece of Eden in Southeast Asia wore a Templar ring.^[33]

Behind the scenes

The Templar rings in the Assassin's Creed franchise can be seen as counterparts to the various marks used by the Assassins, beginning in the Ptolemaic Kingdom with finger amputations up until the Middle Ages, then burn marks during the Renaissance. In contrast to the left ring finger favored by the Assassins, Templar rings are typically worn on the right ring finger, marking a physical difference between the two orders.