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Written by Simon Williams
The Templar Cipher appears online as a Maltese Cross substitution code. Historians cannot trace it to the medieval Knights Templar. The first documented use links to 18th-century Freemasonry. What the Templars actually used was institutional secrecy, not a cipher alphabet.
In the shadowed vaults of medieval legend, the Knights Templar stand as masters of mystery. Founded in 1119 to protect pilgrims on the perilous roads to Jerusalem, these warrior-monks amassed wealth, power, and an aura of secrecy that has never faded. Their white mantles bore the red cross pattée; their preceptories dotted Europe and the Holy Land. Yet one question lingers: did they truly employ secret codes to guard their communications and treasures?
Modern fascination centres on what is often called the "Templar Cipher": a geometric substitution system that replaces letters with fragments of the eight-pointed Maltese Cross.
This cipher appears in online charts and history blogs, promising to decipher encrypted messages from the Crusades.
The so-called Templar Cipher is, in reality, a variant of the Pigpen Cipher (also known as the Freemason’s Cipher or Masonic Cipher). The classic Pigpen uses a tic-tac-toe grid and crossed lines, with dots to mark positions: letters fill quadrants, and symbols represent edges or corners.
The Templar version adapts this to the Maltese Cross, four arrowhead shapes forming an eight-pointed star. Letters fill the arms and intersections, often clockwise or in specific orders, with dots differentiating duplicates.
Historical sources trace Pigpen-like systems to at least the 16th to 18th centuries. Freemasons adopted it widely; some Masonic Knights Templar bodies (a later chivalric order within Freemasonry) used the Maltese Cross variant.
No primary documents from the medieval Knights Templar (1119 to 1312) prove they used this cipher. Trial records from 1307 to 1312, papal bulls, and surviving charters mention no secret codes tied to the Maltese Cross. The eight-pointed cross itself became strongly associated with the Knights Hospitaller (later Knights of Malta) from the 16th century onward, not the Templars, whose emblem was the simpler red cross pattée.
Claims of Templar use often stem from 18th to 19th-century Masonic lore or romantic retellings. The cipher’s geometric elegance fits the era’s fascination with occult symbols, but evidence points to post-medieval invention, likely by Freemasons reviving “Templar” traditions.
The Templars did practise secrecy: they used basic codes in correspondence, guarded banking ledgers fiercely, and employed seals and passwords. Their financial system, deposits in one preceptory redeemed elsewhere, relied on institutional trust, not complex cryptography. Frequency analysis (known in the Arab world centuries earlier) could crack simple substitutions anyway.
The idea captivates because it bridges the Templars’ real innovations, proto-banking, international networks, with modern cryptography. Today’s Bitcoin wallets and secure ledgers echo the principle: prove value without moving assets.
Masonic orders kept the legend alive, blending medieval chivalry with Enlightenment symbolism. Blogs, books, and puzzle sites perpetuate the diagrams, turning speculation into “fact.”
The Maltese Cross endures: firefighters, ambulances, and military honours wear it as a badge of bravery and service. Its eight points, loyalty, piety, honesty, bravery, glory and honour, contempt of death, helpfulness to the poor and sick, respect for the church, embody the chivalric ideal the Templars pursued.
Secret codes? Perhaps not in the 12th century. But the Templars’ true cipher was their unbreakable code of conduct, vows that turned nine knights into a legend.
In the end, the real mystery is not a hidden alphabet. It’s how a small order of warrior-monks forged trust across continents, guarded by nothing more than shared honour and the shadow of the cross.
This article is part of the Histories and Castles Knights Templar series. Start with Who Were the Knights Templar? for the full story of the Order, or browse the complete Knights Templar series.
The medieval Knights Templar (1119 to 1312) used seals, passwords, and basic correspondence codes, but no historical evidence connects them to the geometric cipher now called the “Templar Cipher.” Their financial security relied on institutional trust and physical access controls across their preceptory network, not on a written substitution code.
The Templar Cipher is a geometric substitution system that maps letters to fragments of the eight-pointed Maltese Cross. It appears frequently in online puzzles and popular history, but its documented origins lie in 18th to 19th-century Freemasonry, not in the medieval Order of the Temple. No Templar document from 1119 to 1312 has been found using it.
Yes, essentially. The Templar Cipher is a variant of the Pigpen Cipher (also called the Freemason’s Cipher), a geometric substitution system that dates to at least the 16th century. The classic Pigpen uses a grid; the Templar version adapts the same principle to the Maltese Cross shape. Both were used extensively by Masonic lodges from the 18th century onward.
The earliest reliable evidence places Pigpen-style geometric ciphers in the 16th to 18th centuries, with widespread Masonic use in the 18th and 19th centuries. The specific “Templar” framing, using the Maltese Cross, appears to have developed within Masonic Knights Templar bodies (a later chivalric degree within Freemasonry) rather than in the medieval Order itself.
The real Templars relied on institutional secrecy: sealed documents, controlled access to preceptories, an oral tradition of passwords, and the trust network of brother knights across Europe and the Holy Land. Their financial letters of credit used an encoding system for the amounts, but the security came primarily from the Templar network itself rather than from an uncrackable cipher.
The cipher persists because it connects two compelling ideas: the genuine mystery surrounding the Templars, and modern cryptography. Masonic orders kept the legend alive over centuries, and the internet has amplified it through puzzle sites, Dan Brown novels, and history blogs. The visual elegance of the Maltese Cross design also makes it memorable and shareable, regardless of its historical accuracy.
Published: 25 April 2026 | Last Updated: 11 July 2026
This episode explores the origins and impact of the Knights Templar. Part of the Histories and Castles Deep Dive series.
