Every Knights Templar Motto and What It Really Meant

If you look up a knights templar motto list, you will find noble Latin phrases mixed freely with lines invented for the cinema, and hardly anyone tells you which is which. This guide sorts them honestly. A few, such as the Order’s humble prayer Non nobis, Domine, are genuinely rooted in the medieval Templars and their scripture. Others, like In hoc signo vinces, were adopted much later by very different groups. And one of the most beloved lines of all was actually written for a 2005 film. Below is what each phrase really means, where it truly comes from, and how to tell a documented motto from a romantic modern one.

“Non Nobis, Domine”: The Prayer of Humility

The phrase most deeply woven into Templar spirituality is Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam, which means “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name give the glory.” It comes straight from scripture, Psalm 115:1 (numbered Psalm 113:9 in the Latin Vulgate the brothers would have known), so the words predate the Order by more than a thousand years.

Why, then, does it feel so unmistakably Templar? Because it captures the paradox at the heart of the Order. These were fighting men who had taken monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and who were expected to credit every victory to God rather than to their own prowess. Bernard of Clairvaux, who championed the young Order and wrote In Praise of the New Knighthood, framed them as exactly this kind of paradox: soldiers whose true weapon was faith, not fame. A warrior brotherhood that publicly disowned personal glory needed exactly this kind of prayer. It pairs naturally with the Order’s most famous emblem, two knights sharing a single horse, an image explored in the story behind the two-knights seal and its motto, which likewise preached poverty and self-effacement. Of all the phrases people attach to the Templars, this is the closest to a documented spiritual motto.

“Beauseant!”: The Battle Cry and the Banner

If any war cry belongs to the Templars, it is Beauseant! (also spelled Baucent or Bauceant). The word was also the name of the Order’s distinctive war banner, usually described as black above and white below. The name itself derives from an Old French term for a piebald, black-and-white horse, a fitting image for a two-toned flag carried into the thick of a crusade.

Tradition gives the colours a striking meaning: fair and white toward the friends of Christ, black and terrible toward His enemies. Shouting the banner’s name in the press of battle rallied the brothers to their standard and reminded them exactly what they fought under. This was the cry that would have sounded on the Order’s hardest days, from the catastrophe at the Horns of Hattin in 1187, where Saladin destroyed the crusader army and executed many captured Templars, to the desperate last stand at the fall of Acre in 1291. The precise construction and proportions of the banner vary between sources, so the finer details deserve a light hedge, but the cry and the banner are firmly part of the Order’s documented identity. It is one of the Templars’ most recognizable devices, and you can decode the deeper meaning behind the Order’s symbols in more detail elsewhere.

“In Hoc Signo Vinces”: Borrowed From an Emperor

In hoc signo vinces, meaning “In this sign you shall conquer,” is genuinely ancient, but its roots are not Templar at all. The phrase belongs to the Roman emperor Constantine, who according to tradition saw a heavenly sign before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD; the early accounts by Eusebius and Lactantius differ in their details. Constantine won that battle, and his subsequent turn toward Christianity reshaped the Roman world, which is why the words carried such weight for later Christian soldiers. It is a Christian and specifically Constantinian motto, though, born nearly eight centuries before the Order of the Temple existed.

Its strong association with the Templars is largely modern. The phrase travelled down through later Christian military symbolism and, above all, through the Masonic Knights Templar, an 18th-century-and-later fraternal body that borrowed the medieval name and imagery but is a separate organisation entirely, not a continuation of the original knights. So while you will see In hoc signo vinces on plenty of Templar-themed items today, there is no evidence the medieval brothers ever used it as a battle cry. It earns a place on the list, but only when honestly labelled as adopted rather than original.

“Be Without Fear”: A Modern Motto With Real Heart

Perhaps the most quoted “Templar” line online is this: “Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong.” It is moving, quotable and deeply chivalric, and it is not medieval. These words were written as a knighting oath for the 2005 film Kingdom of Heaven, not recorded in any Templar Rule or chronicle.

That honest caveat does not diminish it. The oath endures because it distils the ideals the historical brothers actually vowed to serve, courage, honesty, humility before God and the protection of the weak, into language a modern ear can feel instantly. For today’s admirers of the Order it has become a genuine rallying phrase, a way of carrying the Templar spirit without claiming a false pedigree. Knowing that it is cinematic rather than historical lets you wear it with a clear conscience: as an ideal to live up to, not a forged relic to hide behind.

How to Read a Templar Motto Honestly

When you meet a phrase billed as a Templar motto — or, as modern fans often search for it, a Knights Templar slogan — a little sorting goes a long way. These rough categories cover almost everything you will encounter:

• Documented and scriptural: Non nobis, Domine. Biblical and older than the Order, yet authentically central to its devotion.
• Documented and martial: Beauseant! The banner-cry that historians genuinely connect to the brothers, with only minor details hedged.
• Adopted later: In hoc signo vinces. Ancient and Christian, but tied to the Templar name mainly through modern and Masonic channels.
• Modern and cinematic: “Be without fear…”. A beautiful film oath that speaks to the ideal but was invented in 2005.

Plenty of other Latin tags circulate online with confident but unsourced “Templar” labels, so treat any phrase without a real medieval citation with friendly scepticism. Many admirers still love to wear a favourite phrase on a modern dog tag, and there is nothing wrong with that, as long as you know which category it truly falls into.

Wearing the Words

A motto is meant to be carried, not filed away in a footnote. Whether the words are a psalm the brothers actually prayed or a line from a film that captured their spirit, what matters is that they mean something to the person who wears them. “Be without fear” has earned its place in the modern Templar heart precisely because it puts an old ideal into words we can still rally behind today.

Understand where each phrase comes from and you can wear it proudly and honestly, as inspiration rather than invention. That, in the end, is the whole point of a motto: to keep a value close, spoken over your heart, every single day you put it on.