The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God’s Holy Warriors

“Dan Jones is an entertainer, but additionally a bona fide historian. Seldom does one discover severe scholarship really easy to learn.” – The Occasions, E-book of the Yr

A New York Occasions bestseller, this main new historical past of the knights Templar is “

a contemporary, muscular and compelling historical past of the last word military-religious crusading order, combining wise scholarship with narrative swagger" – Simon Sebag Montefiore, creator of Jerusalem
 
A faltering warfare within the center east. A band of elite warriors decided to struggle to the demise to guard Christianity’s holiest websites. A worldwide monetary community unaccountable to any authorities. A sinister plot based on an online of lies.

Jerusalem 1119. A small group of knights looking for a function within the violent aftermath of the First Campaign decides to arrange a brand new order. These are the primary Knights Templar, a band of elite warriors ready to present their lives to guard Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. Over the subsequent 200 years, the Templars would grow to be essentially the most highly effective spiritual order of the medieval world. Their legend has impressed fervent hypothesis ever since. 

On this groundbreaking narrative historical past, Dan Jones tells the true story of the Templars for the primary time in a era, drawing on in depth authentic sources to construct a gripping account of those Christian holy warriors whose heroism and alleged depravity have been shrouded in fantasy. The Templars have been protected by the pope and sworn to strict vows of celibacy. They fought the forces of Islam in hand-to-hand fight on the sun-baked hills the place Jesus lived and died, discovering their nemesis in Saladin, who vowed to drive all Christians from the lands of Islam. Specialists at channeling cash throughout borders, they established the medieval world’s largest and most modern banking community and waged personal wars in opposition to anybody who threatened their pursuits.

Then, as they confronted setbacks by the hands of the ruthless Mamluk sultan Baybars and have been compelled to retreat to their stronghold in Cyprus, a vindictive and cash-strapped King of France set his sights on their fortune. His directors quietly mounted a damning case in opposition to the Templars, constructed on deliberate lies and false testimony. On Friday October 13, 1307, tons of of brothers have been arrested, imprisoned and tortured, and the order was disbanded amid lurid accusations of sexual misconduct and heresy. They have been tried by the Pope in secret proceedings and their final grasp was brutally tortured and burned on the stake. However have been they heretics or victims of a ruthlessly repressive state? Dan Jones goes again to the sources tobring their dramatic story, so related to our personal instances, to life in a e book that’s directly authoritative and compulsively readable.