What is the connection between the Templars and the Royal Arch degree in Freemasonry?

The earliest known recorded reference to a Masonic Knight Templar, dated August 28, 1769, appears in the minute book of St. Andrew's Royal Arch Chapter in Boston, where the degrees of Excellent, Super-Excellent, Royal Arch, and Knight Templar were conferred together under the collective title of the four degrees of a Royal Arch Mason 2. Elsewhere, body charters were frequently used to confer both degrees alongside others. In 1782, the High Knights Templars of Ireland, Kilwinning Lodge in Dublin, utilized a Scottish Craft warrant to confer the Royal Arch, Knight Templar, and Rose Croix degrees 2. Similarly, in 1791, the Camp of Baldwyn at Bristol worked a seven-degree rite that embraced the Craft, the Royal Arch, Knights Templar, Knights Rose Croix, and Grand Elected Knights Kadosh 1. Another historical seven-degree system placed the Knight Templar degree directly after the Royal Arch and Past Master degrees 1.

Despite these early administrative and ritual overlaps, Knight Templarism was never properly part of a single unified rite with the Royal Arch 1. In the American Masonic System, Royal Arch Masonry and Knight Templarism operate as distinct and independent Rites, though each maintains comity and requires its members to be Master Masons in good standing within the Craft 1.