The Knights Templars have become associated with legends concerning secrets and mysteries handed down to the select from ancient times. Their financial acumen, their military prowess and their work on behalf of Christianity during the Crusades still circulate throughout modern culture. They were formed in the early 12th century to protect pilgrims to Jerusalem from the Muslims. This large organization of devout Christians during the medieval era served the nations of Europe mightily in the Crusades. Unfortunately, over time they became too rich and powerful and in the mid-14th century, support for the order faded. Charles G. Addison examines their beginning, their end and their legacy. This book goes into minute detail describing the immoral scheme of the French King Philip IV and the Pope Clement V to arrest and try for heresy a lot of the Knights Templars (like James of Molay, the Last Grand Master). The latter part of this work discusses the architecture in England of the Temple Church.

Edition with illustrations and complete footnotes (609).

Excerpt: The extraordinary and romantic career of the Knights Templars, their exploits and their misfortunes, render their history a subject of peculiar interest.

Born during the first fervour of the Crusades, they were flattered and aggrandized as long as their great military power and religious fanaticism could be made available for the support of the Eastern church and the retention of the Holy Land, but when the crescent had ultimately triumphed over the cross, and the religio-military enthusiasm of Christendom had died away, they encountered the basest ingratitude in return for the services they had rendered to the christian faith, and were plundered, persecuted, and condemned to a cruel death, by those who ought in justice to have been their defenders and supporters. The memory of these holy warriors is embalmed in all our recollections of the wars of the cross; they were the bulwarks of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem during the short period of its existence, and were the last band of Europe’s host that contended for the possession of Palestine.