The Rise and Fall of the Templar Knights

I have been reading “The Rise and Fall of the Templar Knights." My interest in this group was sparked by the film “Ivanhoe” based on the novel by Sir Walter Scott. In the movie, Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert (played by Ciaran Hinds), the Templar Knight is the main antagonist of Ivanhoe, the hero Saxon knight. The Templar Knights are portrayed as covenant breakers, corrupt, mad, evil, destitute, etc. Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert tries in the film to find the his way back and redemption in his love for the beautiful Jewish heroine Rebecca. In the end, Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert cannot win Rebecca, but is willing to die in combat to Ivanhoe to save Rebecca.


I was fascinated by Sir Walter Scott’s depiction of the Templar Knights and to some extend by the acting of Ciaran Hinds who really steals the movie with Susan Lynch who plays Rebecca. Was the film accurate? Who exactly were the Templar Knights? What was their history?

With these thoughts in my head, I ordered the “Rise and Fall of the Templar Knights.”
The Knights of the Templar were created after the 1st Crusade and headquartered in the church created out of the Al Aqsa Mosque in 1118 AD on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The idea was to create a religious order of men who were monks who would live with vows of poverty and to defend the Latin Kingdom (Crusader States) in the Middle East. The order was supported by such notables as St. Benarnd de Clairvoix. These knights were the most trained and disciplined fighting force of their day. Similar in many respects to elite special forces used today. Small in overall number but with incredible impact in battle. In many battles, these knights were instrumental in victory in spite of often being heavily outnumbered. For instance at the Battle of Montgisard in 1177, the Templar Knights with 500 fellow knights and a few thousand infantry took on Saladin’s army of about 30,000. Saladin was caught by surprised and utterly crushed losing about 20,000 of his men including his personal elite guards, the Mamluks.

The Precarious state of the Latin Kingdom



Prior to his battle with the Crusader states, Saladin had united the two great Muslim nations of Egypt and Syria. The picture here from 1180 shows the Saladin’s kingdom in red and the small Latin Kingdom in between the two greater parts of his Empire. Saladin was a in one respect a bit like Ulysses Grant in the US civil war. He could afford to lose battles and yet prevail because of the vast resources of men and wealth at his disposal nearby. After his defeat at Montgisard, Saladin rebuilt his army and won at the Battle of Hattin. Aftterwards, he took back Jerusalem (1187) and every Christian city except for Tyre. Tyre alone held out while the 3rd Crusade was put together by Richard, Frederick Barbarossa of Germany and Philip Augustus of France to save the Latin Kingdom. The main elements of the 3rd crusade did not arrive till four year later in 1191. Led by Richard, the army quickly re-established the Latin kingdom along the Mediterranean coast. In one of the great battles of the Middle Ages, Saladin was again defeated. This time at the Battle of Arsuf. With this and other victories, Richard is able to put the Latin Kingdom’s pieces back together with the exception of Jerusalem.



The story around the 3rd crusade is really central to the whole fate of the Latin Kingdom. It only took one military defeat and the Latin Kingdom faced extinction. Only by diligence on the part of the European monarchies could the Latin Kingdom be preserved. Eventually with Western apathy, church corruption and internal feuding, the Latin Kingdom would be allowed to fall. The Picture to the right is the Crusader castle near Jaffa.

Fall of the Latin Kingdom

The end finally occurred in the year of 1290s. The Latin Kingdom were attacked by the Mamluks. The Mamluks were illiterate slaves who were trained as part of an elite military caste which came to rule Egypt and much of the Middle-East. The Mamluks were supplied with steel and wood by the Italian merchants who competed with each other to gain the favor of the Mamluks and secure the valuable trade routes through the Middle East. In 1268, the great city of Antioch was taken with the slaughter of 17,000 people and the enslavement of 100,000. The only aid that came was a small force of 1,000 brought by Prince Edward of England to Acre. In 1291 Acre was besieged by a Mamluk force of 160,000 infantry, 60,000 cavalry and 1,000 catapults. The defenders were a little over 15,000 with remnants of the: Templars, Hospitallers, Teutonic Knights, Italians, Franks and the Knights of Lazarus (an order of fervent leperous Knights). After repeated assaults, the city fell. Everyone was slaughered or enslaved with the report of woman and children being raped first. The Christian slaves were so numerous that their price was said to be worth less than a pair of shoes. After the destruction of the Latin Kingdom, the Mamluks poisoned every well and fell every tree along the coast to prevent the Crusaders from ever returning.

Destruction of the Order

With the defeat and slaughter, there was a demand from the angry European populace asking why the Latin Kingdom was lost. Philip “the Fair” (like handsome) of France had a ready answer. A year before, he had visited the Templar Knights in Paris. He had seen within their building much money and valuables stored. The Templar Knights were expert financiers and had built a sophisticated system that enabled pilgrims to deposit their goods in Europe and travel safely to Jerusalem. The Templar wealth seen by King Philip did not actually belong to the Knights but served as collateral for their innovation of what is today called a “Letter of Credit.” These letters were given to pilgrim who were journeying to Jerusalem. This allowed the pilgrims to travel without carrying their money and being targeted for robbery while being able to draw money along the way at various points. Philip of France first plan was to gain all the assets of the order by getting the Knights to report to him instead of the Pope. The other monarchs in Europe and the Templars stopped Philip. On Oct 13, 1313, Philip launched his second plan. He had all the Templar Knights within the realm of France arrested. The Knights were subjected to the torture until they agreed to the charges against them which included idolatry and sodomy. After torture, the Knights would be forgiven as long as they did not recant their confession. If they did recant their false confession, the penalty for recanting was death by burning. 48 Knights of the Templar in France recanted their confessions and were burned alive. Those burned alive included the Grand Master of the order, Jacques de Molay.

The French Pope Clement V extended this persecution to all the other states in Europe where the Templars were rounded up and thrown into prison. Those who lived could only do so by not exposing the truth. In addition to the persecution, King Philip and the French Pope Clement V, produced a long list of propaganda against the Templars for public consumption. So powerful was their campaign that the propaganda was believed up to the 20th century.

Last Word

According to legend, Jacques de Molay cursed Philip and Clement from his execution pyre. He challenged the King and Pope to meet him before the judgment seat of God within the year. Both the Pope and the King died that same year. The 300 year old Capetian dynasty in France collapsed during the next 14 years.

In the last hundred years, many documents have been found which have allowed historians to clear the name of the Templar Knights. In 2002, a copy of the Chinon Parchment was found in the Vatican Secret Archives. The document indicated that Pope Clement V who was instrumental in destroying the Templar Knights had secretly absolved Jacques de Molay and other leaders of the Order. Maybe this was Clement’s way of dealing with his own treachery before God.

The Mamluk’s continued in Egypt until the early 1800s when the Turkish governor had all 3,000 of them slaughtered with their relatives after inviting them to a celebration. Picture below is of one of the Templar churches that survives in London.