Overview
The age of the crusades - complex, battle-torn and fiercely pious - encompassed the rise and fall of a singular Order of fighting men, equally devoted to God, war and the defense of Palestine. Here is a meticulously researched and completely absorbing history of that order.
The Knights Templar joined together in 1118, shortly after the first Crusades had swept through the Holy Land and won Jerusalem from Islam. In the strict hierarchy of the feudal world, where every man owed loyalty and allegiance to his overlord, the Templar obeyed no one except the Pope. Acquiring land and castles by gift, conquest and purchase in every part of Europe and the eastern Mediterranean, they became a church within the Church, a state within the State. They were bankers, merchants, diplomats and tax gatherers, and though they themselves were poor, the wealth of heir Order was legendary.
Were the Templars, as St. Bernard said, "worthy of all the praise given to men of God," or were they, as Pop Clement V thought, "horrible, wicked and detestable"? Drawing on a rich variety of original source material, Stephen Howarth assesses the faults and fine qualities of the brotherhood, examining the reasons for its initial allure and eventual, ignominious obliteration. Brilliantly elucidating to a wide audience and understanding of the chaotic age that pitched Richard Coeur de Lion against Saladin, and Christian against fellow Christian.