“Dan Jones is an entertainer, but also a bona fide historian. Seldom does one find serious scholarship so easy to read.” – The Times, Book of the Year A New York Times bestseller, this major new history of the knights Templar is “a fresh, muscular and compelling history of the ultimate military-religious crusading order, combining sensible scholarship with narrative swagger" – Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem A faltering war in the middle east. A band of elite warriors determined to fight to the death to protect Christianity’s holiest sites. A global financial network unaccountable to any government. A sinister plot founded on a web of lies. Jerusalem 1119. A small group of knights seeking a purpose in the violent aftermath of the First Crusade decides to set up a new order. These are the first Knights Templar, a band of elite warriors prepared to give their lives to protect Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. Over the next two hundred years, the Templars would become the most powerful religious order of the medieval world. Their legend has inspired fervent speculation ever since. In this groundbreaking narrative history, Dan Jones tells the true story of the Templars for the first time in a generation, drawing on extensive original sources to build a gripping account of these Christian holy warriors whose heroism and alleged depravity have been shrouded in myth. The Templars were protected by the pope and sworn to strict vows of celibacy. They fought the forces of Islam in hand-to-hand combat on the sun-baked hills where Jesus lived and died, finding their nemesis in Saladin, who vowed to drive all Christians from the lands of Islam. Experts at channeling money across borders, they established the medieval world’s largest and most innovative banking network and waged private wars against anyone who threatened their interests. Then, as they faced setbacks at the hands of the ruthless Mamluk sultan Baybars and were forced to retreat to their stronghold in Cyprus, a vindictive and cash-strapped King of France set his sights on their fortune. His administrators quietly mounted a damning case against the Templars, built on deliberate lies and false testimony. On Friday October 13, 1307, hundreds of brothers were arrested, imprisoned and tortured, and the order was disbanded amid lurid accusations of sexual misconduct and heresy. They were tried by the Pope in secret proceedings and their last master was brutally tortured and burned at the stake. But were they heretics or victims of a ruthlessly repressive state? Dan Jones goes back to the sources tobring their dramatic tale, so relevant to our own times, to life in a book that is at once authoritative and compulsively readable.

An order of warrior monks founded to protect pilgrims to Jerusalem, the Templars were among the wealthiest and most powerful bodies in the medieval world. Yet two centuries later, they were arrested, accused of blasphemy, heresy and orgies, and their leaders were burnt at the stake. Part guide, part history, this book investigates the Templar legends and legacy - from the mysteries of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, via nineteenth century development of the Freemasons, through to Templar appearances in Dan Brown and Indiana Jones. This book explains the whole context of Templar history, including the recent evidence discovered by the Vatican that the Templars were not guilty of heresy. It also features a guide to Templar castles and sites.

Overturns the long-established historical narrative about the origins and purpose of the Knights Templar • Explains how and why the Templars created Europe’s first nation-state, Portugal, with one of their own as king • Reveals the Portuguese roots of key founding members, their relationship with the Order of Sion, the Templars’ devotion to Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist, and the meaning and exact location of the Grail • Provides evidence of Templar holy sites and hidden chambers throughout Portugal • Includes over 700 references, many from new and rare sources Conventional history claims that nine men formed a brotherhood called the Knights Templar in Jerusalem in 1118 to provide protection for pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. Overturning this long-established historical narrative, Freddy Silva shows that the Order of the Temple existed a decade earlier on the opposite side of Europe, that the protection of pilgrims was entrusted to a seperate organization, and that, in league with the Cistercian monks and the equally mysterious Order of Sion, the Templars executed one of history’s most daring and covert plans: the creation of Europe’s first nation-state, Portugal, with one of their own as king. Including over 700 references, many from new and rare sources, Silva reveals Portugal, not Jerusalem, as the first Templar stronghold. He shows how there were eleven founding members and how the first king of Portugal, a secret Templar, was related to Bernard de Clairvaux, head of the Cistercians. The author explains the Templars’ motivation to create a country far from the grasp of Rome, where they could conduct their living resurrection initiation--whose candidates were declared “risen from the dead”--a secret for which the Church silenced millions and which the Templars protected to the death. Placing the intrepid Knights in a previously unknown time and place, Silva’s historical narrative reveals the Portuguese roots of key founding members, their relationship with the Order of Sion, the Templars’ unshakeable devotion to Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist, and how they protected a holy bloodline in Portugal. He also provides evidence of secret Templar holy sites, initiation chambers, and hidden passageways throughout Portugal, often coinciding with pagan and Neolithic temples, and explains how their most important site forms a perfect triangle with the Abbey of Mont Sion in Jerusalem and the Osirion temple in Egypt. The author also reappraises the meaning of the Grail and reveals its exact location, hidden in plain sight to this very day.

• An examination of the interactions of the Christian Knights Templar and their Muslim counterparts, the Assassins, and of the profound changes in Western society that resulted. • Restores the reputation of the secret Muslim order of the Assassins, disparaged as the world's first terrorist group. • Dispels many myths about the Knights Templar and provides the most incisive portrait of them to date. A thousand years ago Christian battled Muslim for possession of a strip of land upon which both their religions were founded. These Crusades changed the course of Western history, but less known is the fact that they also were the meeting ground for two legendary secret societies: The Knights Templar and their Muslim counterparts, the Assassins. In The Templars and the Assassins: The Militia of Heaven, occult scholar and secret society member James Wasserman provides compelling evidence that the interaction of the Knights Templar and the Assassins in the Holy Land transformed the Templars from the Pope's private army into a true occult society, from which they would sow the seeds of the Renaissance and the Western Mystery Tradition. Both orders were destroyed as heretical some seven hundred years ago, but Templar survivors are believed to have carried the secret teachings of the East into an occult underground, from which sprang both Rosicrucianism and Masonry. Assassin survivors, known as Nizari Ismailis, flourish to this day under the spiritual leadership of the Aga Khan. Wasserman strips the myths from both groups and penetrates to the heart of their enlightened beliefs and rigorous practices, delivering the most probing picture yet of these holy warriors.

Arguably one of the most provocative, puzzling, and misunderstood organizations of medieval times, the legendary Knights Templar have always been shrouded in a veil of mystery, while inspiring popular culture from Indiana Jones to Dan Brown. In The Templars, author Michael Haag offers a definitive history of these loyal Christian soldiers of the Crusades—sworn to defend the Holy Land and Jerusalem, but ultimately damned and destroyed by the Pope and his church. A bestseller in the United Kingdom—the first history of the enigmatic warriors to include findings from the Chinon Parchment, the long-lost Vatican document absolving the Knights of heresy—The Templars by Michael Haagis fascinating reading.

Barber's classic account endeavours to tackle the unresolved controversies surrounding the consequences of the trial.