Medieval Christianity: The Templars

Indignant at the discrepancies between the fantasies,on which "writers on history of every kind and hue have indulged themselves without restraint",and the available evidence,Regine Pernoud draws a different portrait of these Christian warriors.From their origins as defenders of pilgrims to the Holy Land to their dramatic finish as heretics burned at the stake,Pernoud offers a concise but thorough account of the Templars' contribution to Christendom.-Back cover.

This is a unique collection of translated sources which,in addition to documenting the origins of the Order and the circumstances of its suppression and dissolution,examines the many and varied facets of its activities during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.The documents have been chosen not only to illustrate the history of this most fascinating and enigmatic of institutions,but also to reflect the wider society within which the brothers of the Order lived and died.As such,this book is an invaluable resource to those interested in the medieval period.-Back cover.

This book describes the trial (which lasted until 1314), and covers the initial confessions of the brothers under torture, their subsequent attempts to defend themselves, and the final repression. Its argument extends beyond the Templars themselves, and examines the significance of the affair in relations between the French monarchy and the papacy. [Back cover].

"The Knights Templar, part monastic order, part military force, lived by a firm code, or rule, which exists in differing versions. The Catalan version, presented here with facing English translation, is represented by Barcelona, Archivo de la Corona de Aragon, Cartas Reales, MS 3344; although, compared to the French Rule (also translated by Judi Upton-Ward), it is complete, it nevertheless contains important clauses not found in other manuscripts. In her introduction, the editor discusses the content, language and dating of the manuscript, and provides background information, derived from the French Rule, on the circumstances of the Knights Templar. There is also a brief description of the provincial organisation of the Order, with particular reference to the houses in Aragon, where it is most likely that the manuscript was used; a summary of clauses; and a concordance with both de Curzon's 1886 edition of the French Rule and Delaville Le Roulx's partial transcription of the Catalan Rule. Footnotes to the English translation elucidate the text; give biographical information on the named officers of the Order where possible; and indicate significant differences from the French Rule."--Jacket.

The Order of the Temple was founded in 1119 with the limited aim of protecting pilgrims around Jerusalem. It developed into one of the most powerful corporations in the medieval world which lasted for nearly two centuries until its suppression in 1312. Despite the loss of its central archive in the sixteenth century, the Order left many records of its existence as the spearhead of crusading activity in Palestine and Syria, as the administrator of a great network of preceptories and lands in the Latin west, and as a banker and ship-owner. Because of the dramatic nature of its abolition, it has retained its grip on the imagination and consequently there has developed an entirely fictional 'after-history' in which its secret presence has been evoked to explain mysteries which range from masonic conspiracy to the survival of the Turin Shroud. This book offers a concise and up-to-date introduction to the reality and the myth of this extraordinary institution.

The monk and the knight-the two quintessentially medieval European heroes-were combined in the Knights Templar and in the other military orders founded in the era of the Crusades.With characteristic eloquence,Bernard of Clairvaux voices the clerics's view of knights,warfare,and the conquest of the Holy Land in five chapters on the knights' vocation.Then the cistercian abbot who never visited Palestine and discouraged monks who proposed doing so,in another eight chapters,provides a spiritual tour of the pilgrimage sites guarded by this "new kind of knighthood and one unknown to ages gone by".-Back cover.

The reasons for the emergence and establishment of military orders on the various borders of western Christendom and within the West are discussed,as are the military functions and roles which they assumed.The orders made a major contribution to the defence and expansion of Western Christendom,and this required considerable funds and reserves of manpower.This book describes the ways in which these were obtained,and gives an account of extensive governmental machinery developed to enable the orders to carry out their tasks effectively.Although their members combined a military with a monastic way of life,the military orders are shown to have differed from other religious foundations not only in their daily routine but also in their administrative structure and in their predominantly lay membership.-Back cover.

From their humble beginnings in Jerusalem as a late eleventh-century hospital and an early twelfth-century pilgrim escort, Hospitallers and Templars evolved into international military religious orders, engaged in numerous charitable, economic, and military pursuits. At the heart of each of these communities, and in many ways a mirror of their growth and adaptability, was a central convent led by several high officials and headquartered first in Jerusalem (to 1187), then in Acre (1191-1291), and then on Cyprus (since 1291), from where the Hospitallers conquered Rhodes (1306-1310), and where fate in the form of a heresy trial caught up with the Templars. The history, organization, and personnel of these two central convents to 1310 are the subject of this comparative study.

The great religious orders of Christianity--the Benedictines, the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Jesuits--are well known for their monasteries, their learning, and their missions around the world. But in the Middle Ages and beyond, there was another kind of religious order whose profession it was to bear arms in defense of Christendom. This illustrated work tells the extraordinary story of the military orders of the Church. From their humble beginnings in the early twelfth century as caretakers of the sick and protectors of pilgrims to the Holy Land, military religious orders quickly expanded their numbers and goals. They not only fought for the holy places but also helped turn back the advance of Muslim armies into western Europe and aided the spread of Christianity to lands along the Baltic. The Knights of St. John, the Knights Templar, the Knights of Santiago and of Calatrava, the Teutonic Knights, and other formal military orders played a fearsome, sometimes brutal, but currently neglected role in the history of Christianity. Coupling a narrative with historic art, Michael Walsh examines the development, beliefs, spirituality, and cultural contributions of these determined soldier-monks. Walsh draws on a wide range of historical documents, introducing readers to the missions, lifestyles, writings, and buildings of the various military orders and highlighting their spiritual, intellectual, artistic, and educational legacies.

Overview: The Templars and the Hospitallers were the two earliest and most famous of the major Military Orders of the Roman Catholic Church from the early twelfth to the middle of the thirteenth century. In this book, Jonathan Riley-Smith attends to the Templars' and Hospitallers' primary role as religious orders, not as military phenomena or economic powerhouses. In a prologue, four chapters, and an epilogue, Riley-Smith discusses the origins of the orders in dedication to the protection of pilgrims to the Holy Land (Templars) and to the care of the poor and the sick among them (Hospitallers). He examines their traditions and early history, the organization of their communities, modes of governance, and, in the fourth chapter, important differences between the orders and a brief account of their respective fates in the wake of the Crusades. The Templars were eventually persecuted by the Church and the order suppressed. Riley-Smith speculates that the violent end of the order was caused both by jealousy of its wealth and by internal problems of governance that left it vulnerable to accusations of conducting blasphemous rites. The Hospitallers survived in one form or another to the present day; vestiges of the original order inform the contemporary Knights of Malta.

The new religious orders of the 12th and 13th centuries were established as international orders, yet they were dependent on local conditions and power structures. This book examines the tensions that arose from this and how they evolved.

The Templars, the Hospitallers, the Tuetonic Knights and the Knights of the Spanish and Portuguese orders were 'noblemen vowed to poverty, chastity and obedience, living a monastic life in convents which were at the same time barracks, waging war on the enemies of the Cross'. This book offers a general history of these orders.