Please note that this item is copyright Richard Alexander.
It may be freely copied for non-commercial use, provided this copyright notice
remains attached and the text is not altered without my permission. Commercial
use of the text is forbidden without agreement as to payment. (Normally I will
accept the usual wordage rate.)
Read, Piers Paul. “The Templars”. Phoenix Press, London, 2001. (1st pub Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1999). Pbk, xiii, 350pp. Illus (some col), maps, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0-75381-087-5 £8.99
People wanting another dose of speculation about some aspect of the Templars, or the “Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Jesus Christ and the Temple of Solomon” as they were originally called in 1119, can stop reading here. This isn’t the book for you. Instead what the author has done has been to take the best historical material currently available and written a straight forward, no messing history of the Templars and their place in medieval history.
Read takes considerable efforts to situate the founding of the Templars within their historical and religious context, (the first quarter of the book), so we get a potted history of the rise of both the dominant monotheisms of that time, Christianity and Islam, culminating in the first Crusades and the perceived need to protect Christian pilgrims in the “Holy Land” from attack, either by way of armed escorts or later by imposing military fortifications and participation in various military adventures.
Due to their initial success in Palestine, the Order
(alongside their contemporaries in the Hospitallers) accumulated considerable
wealth and became an active player in the internecine squabbles and open warfare
that took place in Outremer, as they described it. It is estimated that some
20,000 Templars (including their sergeants, turcopoles and servants) died on
active service in undertaking their religious-military duties.
Read emphasises the financial sacrifice made by individual
Templars in becoming Knights, many actually gave up their personal property to
the Order, or sold property in order to undertake Crusades as well as the
personal restrictions in becoming a soldier monk - their daily regime was as
rigorous as equivalent orders such as the Dominicans or Cistercians. However,
all that sacrifice eventually counted for nought, as the “Holy Land” was
swiftly reconquered by Muslim forces by 1290.
Deprived of their raison d’etre the Templars, and their extensive land-holdings and wealth, became increasingly vulnerable to the rapacious greed of the western European nobility (ostensibly keen to fund a new crusade but strangely that never seemed to happen) in particular King Philip IV (Philip the Fair) of France, who having already helped himself to the wealth of both Lombards and Jews was looking for another ready source of funds. Read details the struggle between Philip and the Popes soon after, which led to Philip’s attempts to suppress the Temple and sequester its resources for his own benefit.
The ensuing trials, ordeals, torture, imprisonment and, in some cases, death of senior and other Templars took several years. The Templars proved singularly inept in their defence in France, but elsewhere, despite the Pope’s urging, the Templars conducted a more vigorous defence of themselves and their order. In places where there was no torture, there were hardly any confessions of the charges of all manner of evil doing, whereas in France there were confessions and retractions (and retractions of retractions). But by 1314 the last Grand Master, James of Molay, was finally burnt as a heretic and the destruction of the temple was complete.
Throughout Christendom the property of the temple was divvied up with assorted kings, aristocrats and other military-religious orders taking their share. Individual Templars (those who had survived the ordeals) either relocated to other Orders, were pensioned-off or, in a few cases, became mercenaries and outlaws. Of the so-called heresies, there was never much by way of evidence, apart from what was produced by torture and the imagination of the torturers. The author makes a very brief run through of the various conspiracy and speculative books that have been published over the years, with another splurge just recently. He is pretty dismissive of most of it, for good reason.
Piers Paul Read has written a competent account of the Templars. He advances no new hypothses, no new conspiracies but rather it is based on recognised historical works. I doubt if anyone who has already read widely on the Templars, will need to buy this, but those wanting a sensible introduction to the subject, which is easy to read and well argued, will find this as good as any.
Not an essential buy, but if you’re interested in
the subject, and need an introduction, this is a good buy.
7/10
Richard Alexander