Knights Templar Tattoo Meaning: Symbols & Designs

• Templar Uniform Editorial
• October 19, 2026
• Categories: History & Lore
• Tags: Crusader Cross, Knights Templar, Templar Symbols

A Knights Templar tattoo almost always means one of five things to the person wearing it: faith, brotherhood, protection, sacrifice, or heritage. The designs that carry those meanings are a small, specific set drawn from the real Order of 1119–1312: the red cross pattée, the seal of two knights on one horse, the black-and-white Beauséant banner, the Latin prayer Non nobis, Domine, and the skull and crossbones. Each symbol has a documented meaning, a legend attached to it, and a modern reading that tattoo wearers add on top. This guide separates the three so you know exactly what your ink will say.

If what you actually want is the four-armed cross with four small crosses between the arms, that is the Jerusalem cross, a crusader symbol rather than a Templar one. It has its own page: crusader cross tattoo meaning. Everything below is about the Templars specifically.

What does a Knights Templar tattoo mean?

A Knights Templar tattoo signals Christian faith held as a soldier holds a post: with discipline, brotherhood and readiness to sacrifice. The core symbol is the red cross pattée, which the Order wore from 1147 as a sign of martyrdom and service to Christ, not of conquest. Modern wearers add protection, veteran identity and family heritage to that meaning.

The historical Templars were a religious order first. A brother took the monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, prayed the hours, and was forbidden to own even his own cloak outright. The fighting was the job; the faith was the identity. That is why a Templar tattoo reads differently from a generic knight or sword tattoo. The knight says courage. The Templar says courage in service of something. Whoever sees it understands the wearer is claiming a code, not just an aesthetic.

Three readings tend to stack on top of each other:

• Faith as duty. The Order existed to protect pilgrims on the roads to Jerusalem. The cross on the mantle was a vow made visible.
• Brotherhood. The Rule bound the brothers to eat together, sleep in a shared dormitory and never leave a brother on the field while the banner still flew. The two-knights seal is the shorthand for this.
• Sacrifice and memory. The red of the cross was explained in the Order’s own era as the colour of martyrdom. The skull and crossbones adds a memento mori: remember you will die, so live rightly.

Which symbol should the tattoo use?

The red cross pattée is the only symbol the Order wore on its own body, so it is the most historically defensible Templar tattoo. The two-knights seal, the Beauséant banner and the motto Non nobis Domine are also documented. The skull and crossbones rests on a legend, and Baphomet comes from a 19th-century drawing, not from the Templars.

Here is how each option stands up, from most documented to least.

1. The red cross pattée. Pope Eugenius III granted the Templars the right to wear a red cross on their white mantles in 1147, on the eve of the Second Crusade. Manuscript images show several shapes, but the splayed-arm cross pattée became the standard, worn over the heart on the left side of the mantle. For a tattoo this is the cleanest choice: four arms that widen toward the ends, in red, with no extra ornament. The common mistake is to drift into a Maltese cross (eight points, the Hospitallers) or an Iron Cross (German military). Our guide to the red cross on white explains what the colour meant to the brothers themselves.

2. The seal: two knights on one horse. The Order’s seal carried the Latin legend Sigillum Militum Xpisti, “seal of the soldiers of Christ,” around two mounted knights sharing a single horse. The usual explanation is poverty: the first brothers were so poor they rode two to a mount. Other readings see the knight and his sergeant, or the dual nature of a monk who fights. All three readings make it a strong brotherhood tattoo, and it is the most distinctive Templar image after the cross. The two-knights seal explained walks through the surviving impressions.

3. The Beauséant. The Templar war banner was split black over white. The Rule ordered that no brother retreat while it still stood. As a tattoo it is usually rendered as a small rectangular flag on a lance, or as a black-and-white field behind a cross. It carries the plainest meaning of all: hold the line. See the story of the Beauséant for its colours and what the name may mean.

4. The motto: Non nobis, Domine. “Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to Your name give the glory” is the opening of Psalm 115 and is the motto most firmly associated with the Order. It makes a quiet script tattoo, often set under a cross or around a forearm. Two warnings. First, proofread the Latin before the needle touches you: Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam. Second, Deus vult (“God wills it”) is the First Crusade battle cry of 1095, not a Templar motto, and it has picked up heavy political baggage online. Every Knights Templar motto sorts the genuine phrases from the invented ones.

5. The skull and crossbones. The link between the Templars and the skull and crossbones runs through the legend of the Skull of Sidon, a macabre story recorded well after the Order’s fall, and through the later Masonic Knights Templar, who use the emblem openly. It is a legitimate Templar-adjacent tattoo, but understand it as memento mori rather than medieval fact. Our post on the Templar origin of the skull and crossbones gives the legend in full.

What to avoid: Baphomet. The name appears in the 1307 confessions extracted under torture, where brothers were accused of worshipping an idol. The goat-headed figure people tattoo today was drawn by Éliphas Lévi in 1856. A Baphomet tattoo is an occult image with a Templar footnote, not a Templar image. If that is the meaning you want, fine; if you want the Order, it is the wrong symbol.

Is a Templar cross tattoo offensive?

Not in itself. The cross pattée is a Christian emblem worn by millions on jewellery, apparel and church furnishings, and most people read a Templar tattoo as faith or heritage. Because a few extremist groups have borrowed crusader imagery, context matters: pairing the cross with a prayer or the Order’s own motto makes the intended meaning unmistakable.

This is the question people hesitate to ask the artist, so it is worth a direct answer. The Templar cross has been borrowed by extremist movements, most visibly in the 2011 Norway attacks and in “Deus vult” meme culture. That borrowing is a distortion of an order whose actual Rule required brothers to pray seven times a day and give a tenth of their bread to the poor. It does not make the symbol itself extremist, any more than a national flag becomes extremist when a hate group waves it. Design choices carry the meaning: a cross with Non nobis beneath it says one thing; a cross with a slogan about crusading against your neighbours says another. Choose the first.

Design, placement and colour: what works on skin

Tattoo artists see the same three problems with Templar designs. Here is how to avoid them.

• Get the cross shape right. Bring a reference image of the cross pattée, not a search for “Templar cross,” which returns Maltese, Iron and Jerusalem crosses mixed together. Four arms, narrow at the centre, flaring to flat ends.
• Treat red ink as a decision. Red pigments fade faster than black and can be a problem for some skin. Many wearers get the cross in black linework and let the red live on the shirt. Others go full red for the historical colour. Ask your artist which red they use and how it ages.
• Placement with meaning. The mantle carried the cross over the heart, so the left chest is the historically literal spot. Forearms suit the motto script. A full knight figure, white mantle and all, needs the space of a shoulder or back to keep the cross legible.
• Keep the detail down. The Order’s own art was flat and bold: a cross, a seal, a banner. Fine-line chainmail and realistic faces look impressive fresh and blur within a decade. The simpler the Templar design, the better it ages.

For a sense of how the individual symbols fit together, Knights Templar symbols and what each one means covers the whole set in one place.

Wear it before you ink it

A tattoo is permanent; a shirt is not. Most people who come to us asking about Templar ink have already been wearing the symbols for years. The Eagle and Symbol of Knights Templar tee puts the cross and the eagle, our two most-asked-about designs, on a heavy distressed print that looks like it has been through a campaign. Wear it for a season. If you still want it on your skin, you will know the meaning is yours and not a passing phase.

The short version

A Knights Templar tattoo means faith held with military discipline. The cross pattée is the documented core; the two-knights seal, the Beauséant and Non nobis Domine are the authentic supporting cast; the skull and crossbones is legend worn as memento mori; Baphomet is a 19th-century import. Pick the symbol whose real history matches what you want to say, get the shape right, and let the design stay as plain as the Order’s own.