1. Baphomet: A History

The first occurrence of the name Baphomet is believed to have been in a 1098 letter regarding the Siege of Antioch (occurring during the First Crusade) by Anselm of Ribemont, in which he described enemy Turkish soldiers as [Calling] loudly upon Baphometh. This instance of the name is now believed to have been an alteration of Mahomet: the prophet Muhammed. The name (now rendered Bafomet) was then used to refer to Muhammed in various other writings surrounding the Crusades, including Occitan poems.

Following this, in trials from 1307 to its dissolution in 1314, numerous members of the Knights Templar, a powerful Catholic French military order, were arrested and accused of heresy, blasphemy, and idolatry of a figure of the same name. While never produced, the idols they were accused of worshipping were described as including a human head with a long beard, a cat, and a head with three faces, the foremost of which is assigned to the name.

In 1782, Christoph Friedrich Nicolai further claimed that the Templars were Gnostic, asserted an alternative etymology for the name of Baphomet (from Greek baphon 'baptism' + metous 'wisdom') and connected the name to the Pythagorean pentacle.