The templars were a secret society (that is they had private initiation ceremonies just like any frat, social club, etc today - although the vows they swore were probably taken far more seriously).
They had a lot of money. That money was confiscated by force, including the torture and killing of members. This was backed up by lots of claims of devil worship and the like to get common people to be OK with it.
The money was tied to the records.
Is it that surprising that in this process all the records were destroyed? The powerful didn't want the records and the legal hassle they entail, they just wanted the gold. The common folks didn't want to be spiritually corrupted by the blasphemous works (that they likely couldn't read anyway). The records were probably burned or scraped clean and re-used (see palimpsest) since paper and parchment were expensive commodities.
There may be a document or two hiding in various corners of some old monastary library or in some book binding somewhere - as recently as 2001 some records surfaced from the vatican secret archives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinon_Parchment but like a lot of other knowledge of that era, most of it is probably lost.
The templars were a secret society (that is they had private initiation ceremonies just like any frat, social club, etc today - although the vows they swore were probably taken far more seriously).
They had a lot of money. That money was confiscated by force, including the torture and killing of members. This was backed up by lots of claims of devil worship and the like to get common people to be OK with it.
The money was tied to the records.
Is it that surprising that in this process all the records were destroyed? The powerful didn't want the records and the legal hassle they entail, they just wanted the gold. The common folks didn't want to be spiritually corrupted by the blasphemous works (that they likely couldn't read anyway). The records were probably burned or scraped clean and re-used (see palimpsest) since paper and parchment were expensive commodities.
There may be a document or two hiding in various corners of some old monastary library or in some book binding somewhere - as recently as 2001 some records surfaced from the vatican secret archives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinon_Parchment but like a lot of other knowledge of that era, most of it is probably lost.