Did Portugal have an advanced colonial and trading empire because of Templars?

The top answer to this Quora question from a Portuguese person seems to indicate so.

João Silva, lives in Portugal
Updated yesterday

Actually, Portuguese were capable to manage a global empire for 584 years because of three factors:

  • Portugal was the only country in Europe that did not burn Templars changing their name to the Order of Christ (the Order was eliminated in 1789) The Templars of the New Order no longer had to fight in the Crusades and for that reason they took to the sea in their fight against Islamic and Mediterranean pirates that attacked Portugal’s Atlantic shores. Years passed and the Order’s Grand Master, Prince Henry, decided to invest the Order’s wealth in expanding its territory by sea, establishing new trading posts (especially in India) in order to bypass Milanese and Venetian intermediaries (who charged high prices on goods due the Rise of Ottoman Empire), and spreading Christianity across the World.
  • Portugal was the most technologically-advanced European country and its military technology was at least 70 years ahead of its time (according to Rainer Daehnhardt), largely due to the financial help of the Order of Christ (ex- Templars). The Portuguese invented the breech loading swivel cannon, European firearms, advanced fire weapons, the grenade launcher, the black sword among others. It was also the leading country in naval engineering, inventing the caravel (small and swift)
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, the carrack (larger)

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and the galleon (largest)

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, and naval constructors were capable to build an entire ship in one week using pre-fabricated parts. The Portuguese also invented several astronomy devices key for navigating in the high sea. Portugal also commissioned the most advanced war ships of its time such as that which St. Catherine of Mount Sinai launched in 1512 equipped with 140 cannons when other nations hardly have cannons on their boats. It also created new military strategies and siege tactics without par in the rest of the world and was capable of settling fortifications in foreign lands quickly due its technology of prefabricated stone housing.

  • The Portuguese had (and still have) strong Visigothic, Roman and Celtic customs, adept at dealing with hardships. Portugal was a historical trader (had commerce with the Greeks and Phoenicians) and were skilled at diplomacy (with some exceptions in some former colonies in India and East Africa).
The decay of the Portuguese Empire was due to a number of factors: poor decisions by King Sebastian, the 1755 Earthquake (that almost totally destroyed Lisbon), some colonial excesses and wars with 6 different nations at the same time that crippled Portugal both economically and militarily, opening the door to other countries to take advantage of Portugal’s worst years to seize control of their trading routes, naval and military technology.

In summary, ideal conditions led Portugal to manage and build the first and the last Modern European Empire.

Post Scriptum:
Answer update due the recommendations and grammar corrections of some viewers specially Sean Young and Steffen Taschner. To them my best regards.

So how accurate is this narrative?
 
Good lord it's so wrong. I need a real keyboard to answer it.

Basically, Portugal was stuck at the end of the continent and wanted to hit the Moroccan hard. This started a cycle of development and exploration that led to India.
This was financed through taxes and the last bit thanks to Jewish, well, converted, and Italian (Genoese) capital

Difficulties in the Empire started in 1560 due to a mix of terrible management, Ottoman attacks and Dutch rising
 
Its an interesting theory, but I can't help but think that Portugal's success with colonial adventures is explained, 90%, by looking at a map of Europe.
 
I shall go by his points one by one

  • Portugal was the only country in Europe that did not burn Templars changing their name to the Order of Christ (the Order was eliminated in 1789) The Templars of the New Order no longer had to fight in the Crusades and for that reason they took to the sea in their fight against Islamic and Mediterranean pirates that attacked Portugal’s Atlantic shores. Years passed and the Order’s Grand Master, Prince Henry, decided to invest the Order’s wealth in expanding its territory by sea, establishing new trading posts (especially in India) in order to bypass Milanese and Venetian intermediaries (who charged high prices on goods due the Rise of Ottoman Empire), and spreading Christianity across the World. - First the Templar statement is incorrect, as both Scotland and Aragon avoided burning the Templars. Now while he is partially correct relating to Prince Henry being the Grand Master of the Order of Christ the order in itself wasn't the one that expanded the Portuguese Empire as private individuals were allowed to do it when they received the authorization of the Crown, second incorrect is that Henry wasn't the main force behind the Early Empire, despite all the myths, D.Pedro, and D.Duarte had during his father's time received the full support of John, from letters of credit from Italian banks and maps, actually at this point D.Henry had more interest in carving a lordship for himself in North Africa, as you can see for his opposition of returning Ceuta in exchange for Prince Fernando that had been captured by Henry's failed attempt to capture Fez. Plus the Order of Christ was more accustomed to sailing in the Med and exploration was for them, at first, a waste of resources given that we had Muslims just down south.

  • Portugal was the most technologically-advanced European country and its military technology was at least 70 years ahead of its time (according to Rainer Daehnhardt), largely due to the financial help of the Order of Christ (ex- Templars). The Portuguese invented the breech loading swivel cannon, European firearms, advanced fire weapons, the grenade launcher, the black sword among others. It was also the leading country in naval engineering, inventing the caravel (small and swift) - It appears that my countryman read "Men, Swords and Balls" by Mr. Rainer and while I enjoyed the book and admite that most of it it's probably correct Rainer avoided some points that contradict him. When Rainer says 70 years ahead of its time he refers to naval technology compared to the one the Portuguese sound in the Indian Ocean not to the all world, the Swivel was indeed one of our inventions, at least according to the Military Museum of Lisbon (if anyone likes artillery I urge you to go there, the collection of cannons is impressive), but Rainer forgets to mention that we were rather dependent on foreign imports relating to firearms, experts and large quantities of good metal so many of the Black Swords were just German Blades to which Portuguese smiths added the Guard known has Papyrus Guard. Also again most of the Portuguese finance to our adventures either came from Italy or Flanders, our two main markets, and the Caravel that he mentions is the Armed Caravel, the most famous version of the ship, as the original was of mix Arab-Iberian origin and was a fishing vessel.

, the carrack (larger)


and the galleon (largest)


, and naval constructors were capable to build an entire ship in one week using pre-fabricated parts. The Portuguese also invented several astronomy devices key for navigating in the high sea. Portugal also commissioned the most advanced war ships of its time such as that which St. Catherine of Mount Sinai launched in 1512 equipped with 140 cannons when other nations hardly have cannons on their boats. It also created new military strategies and siege tactics without par in the rest of the world and was capable of settling fortifications in foreign lands quickly due its technology of prefabricated stone housing. - It appears that Mr.João is a bit of a exaggerator, the ships Rainer mentions are small crafts not large ocean vessels. A ship per week would be rather hard considering our dependence in imports relating to some of the materials needed for the ships, still the number of vessels in 1586 in commission was rather impressive 304 compared to the 650 of Spain and considering that Spain had a population 7 times superior to ours. The rest is mostly correct, but I must correct some parts: the St.Catherine was indeed the most powerful ship at the time of it's construction but most of it's 140 guns were small guns, also most nations were already placing artillery on their ships at this time, the strategies developed were indeed new, has they were considered on a Global Scale but complications in sending word to the men in Asia made them obsolete most of the time, Malacca was a great example it was great on a map but when we got it, it lost most of it's importance because of the heavy hand of the Portuguese Conquerors/Pirates/Merchants/Mercenaries (yes we were all of this in Asia, many times at the same time), the siege tactics were mostly our pioneering of Gun Diplomacy and he appears to ignore the planning that the Fortifications needed and the time needed to prepare everything.

  • The Portuguese had (and still have) strong Visigothic, Roman and Celtic customs, adept at dealing with hardships. Portugal was a historical trader (had commerce with the Greeks and Phoenicians) and were skilled at diplomacy (with some exceptions in some former colonies in India and East Africa). - Skilled at diplomacy...ahahahahaha!!!! Oh God this is hilarious! Our "Skill" was mostly avoiding all European conflicts like if it was the plague, while most countries on the Indian Ocean and SEAsia may be a bit pissed at reading Portugal and Skilled Diplomacy on the same phrase. All the peoples that he mentions were long gone from the memory of the Portuguese of the time and the dealing of hardships was mostly we having no way to go from here other than the ocean, we are literally with our backs to the seawall, so when you have no way to go sure you are going to fight to the bitter end, hard times usually bread hard men and 15th century Portugal was a hard land. Points for him for being correct on historical trader, but I think that it was the Greeks and Carthaginians that did the trading not the Lusitani or the other tribes of the area.
The decay of the Portuguese Empire was due to a number of factors: poor decisions by King Sebastian, the 1755 Earthquake (that almost totally destroyed Lisbon), some colonial excesses and wars with 6 different nations at the same time that crippled Portugal both economically and militarily, opening the door to other countries to take advantage of Portugal’s worst years to seize control of their trading routes, naval and military technology. - he's ignoring the silver bullion crisis during the reign of John III and the earthquake that happened in Lisbon during his reign, the fact that while Sebastian was an idiot the Kingdom had already been on the way to stagnation, that while we got hit by the wars that Spain dragged us to we made gains in South America during this period and that the economy of the Portuguese mainland received a boost during the reign of Philip I of Portugal and that it was impossible to keep the trade routes and technology from leaking.

If you have any question relating to anything fell free to ask them.

Edit: Forgot to mention that Morocco may also be bit insulted by the Skilled Diplomacy bit.
 
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