The Templars

By Dan Jones

I typically avoid retelling the tale or background of a book. For that, I think it is better to focus on the authors work instead. My job is to assess I believe, and in this instance, I am glad, since the Templars and their role in the crusades is a riveting but it is also intricate and would take some dissembling.

Poor fellow-soldiers

The Templars, or ‘Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon’, or Knights Templar, were Catholic knights taking holy war to the East. Their crusades, from around 1119 to 1312, were typified by bloodshed, power and self-righteousness. In fact, the Templars became anything but ‘poor’, becoming influential in power bases, finance and geographically.

The thing was, the unification of religion and righteous war justified any brutality, any bloodshed, any power grabbing on both sides – Islam and Christianity. Once it was decided at the Council of Nablus that any cleric could take up arms in the cause of self-defence, the gloves were off.

Jerusalem was the fulcrum for these encounters, and the Templars were founded on the Temple Mount by Hughes of Payn in 1119. They were far from the only order formed during these times. The Teutonic Knights, Knights Hospitaller, the Knights of St Lazarus. There were various power-brokers – probably often truly devout, but also sensing opportunity for power and prestige.

The Templars received a degree of power from the off. Endorsed by the Church, and later by Pope Innocent II’s papal bull were exempted from local laws. They ultimately only had to answer to the Pope. Eventually they had established a huge financial network, across Christendom, Europe and the Middle East. Through this, they were able to receive favour, partake in crusades and thus in a bi-directional system, get rewarded in prestige and prosperity for supporting powerful kings and nobles in their crusades.

Saladin, as documented in this book, was to prove a prickly thorn in the side of the west’s religious wars. At the battle of Montgisard, 500 Templar knights on horseback charged out ahead of several thousand infantry to defeat an army of 26,000. The latter number likely being highly exaggerated but perhaps indicative of the overwhelming odds. The templars were shock troops, heavily armoured, skilled and believing in what they would fight in. They would give no quarter.

Power in the West...and East

This book acknowledges the wealth and power of the Templars but focusses on the military aspects. It is for the most part a faithful recounting, detailing the difficulties of encountering Saladin, the charisma and genius of Richard Lionheart, or the interactions with the Knights Hospitaller. It is often to the point but readable – quickly and deftly analysing the decisions, actions and certainly not neglecting recognition of the brutality of the times.

There’s a bewildering cast of figures, power plays rivalries between the east and west, perceived slights, rights and beheadings. Sometimes I wondered if we could pause to explore more aspects of an action, since despite being readable, I sometimes found it tricky to connect myriad dots throughout the narrative of the Templars.

It is very accurate, as I described it above to call it a faithful retelling. If you already know the crusades well, it won’t be the best book, since much of it is a recounting that perhaps lacks new ground. But Jones does write well, and he has an erudite ability to deliver a timely phrase, to summarise the events, aura or fantasy of the Templars. An advantage is that he reads the audiobook very well – no doubt helped by his airtime from many history programmes on TV.

As the middle of the thirteenth century approached, then, the Templars had reached extraordinary maturity as an organization. In the Holy Land they were an increasingly autonomous military entity, occupying large numbers of castles and pursuing policies best suited to themselves, even when these cut across the wishes and interests of the highest secular authorities. Pp.274

Final Score

In conclusion then this is a good overview of the Templars. It focusses on the battles, the power brokering, the brutality of the Templars role in the crusades. But it perhaps doesn’t delve beyond this as much as I’d like – the decline of the Templars, the reliance of Kings for loans from the Templars, the fantastical legacy of the Templars mentioned in the conclusion. Could we perhaps have seen these taken further? I’d argue so. But at the same time, there’s very little wrong with this as an introduction to the Templars.

7/10