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    The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors
    Unavailable
    The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors
    Unavailable
    The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors
    Audiobook15 hours

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

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    An instant international bestseller, this major new history of the knights Templar by the bestselling author of The Plantagenets is "another triumphant tale from a historian who writes as addictively as any page-turning novelist.” –The Guardian

    Jerusalem 1119. A small group of knights seeking a purpose in the violent aftermath of the First Crusade decides to set up a new order. These are the first Knights of Templar, a band of elite warriors prepared to give their lives to protect Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. Over the next two hundred years, the Templars would become the most powerful religious order of the medieval world. Their legend has inspired fervent speculation ever since. But who were they really and what actually happened?

    In this groundbreaking narrative history, the bestselling author of The Plantagenets tells the true story of the Templars for the first time in a generation, drawing on extensive original sources to build a gripping account of these Christian holy warriors whose heroism and depravity have so often been shrouded in myth. The Templars were protected by the pope and sworn to strict vows of celibacy. They fought the forces of Islam in hand-to-hand combat on the sun-baked hills where Jesus lived and died, finding their nemesis in Saladin, who vowed to drive all Christians from the lands of Islam. They were experts at channeling money across borders. They established the medieval world's first global bank and waged private wars against anyone who threatened their interests.

    Then in 1307 the Templars fell foul of a vindictive King of France, whose lawyers built a meticulous case against them. On Friday October 13, hundreds of brothers were arrested, imprisoned and tortured, and the order was disbanded amid lurid accusations of sexual misconduct and heresy. They were tried by the Pope in secret proceedings and publicly humiliated. But were they heretics or victims of a ruthlessly repressive state? Dan Jones goes back to the sources tobring their dramatic tale, so relevant to our own times, in a book that is at once authoritative and compulsively readable.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 19, 2017
    ISBN9780525524489
    Unavailable
    The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors

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    Reviews for The Templars

    4/5

    29 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      So much has been written of the Templars that is pure supposition and groundless in historical fact that it was a great relief to find this book. A detailed book that takes time to get through but we'll worth it. Wonderfully balanced and pulling together Templar history in a way I have not encountered before it is a very finely written book that I enjoyed very much.
    • 4/5
      Not a quick read, but a lot of information, much of it new to me. Well-worth the time and energy.
    • 5/5
      I haven’t been able to read as much as I usually do, but today (October 13th 2019) I managed to find the time to finish this belter of a book.And as I’m writing this, it dawned on me that there is an ironic symbolism in that, given the topic of Dan Jones’ superb book.The Knights Templar – or, to give them their proper title, the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon – started out as a rag-tag band of crusading knights based at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, but grew into a major player in world politics (and finance) spreading their influence from the Holy Land to the Hebrides.They became a vital part of every major operation of successive Crusades, pushed the boundaries of finance and banking – but ultimately, this order of what was essentially (intended to be) warrior monks was brought down by very secular means.And yet, they still influence our collective imagination to this day.Jones does a spectacular job of boiling down the (at times extremely) motley history of this legendary order to a format that makes it approachable, enjoyable – and at the same time solidly academic.He draws not only upon Western sources – we also get to hear from chroniclers, courtiers, diplomats and poets from the other side of the conflict. A nice touch, that adds a lot of depth to the narrative.I flat out loved it, to be honest. Finishing it on October 13th – the date of their downfall in 1307 – was an unexpected little flourish. And if you like your medieval history well-written, impeccably researched and entertaining in tone – you will too.An easy 5/5 for this one.
    • 4/5
      Interesting potted history of an enormously influential order that's started out as group of humble knights vowing to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land and ended up as a banking and property cartel that had forgot how to fight in favour of getting very very rich. This of course was their downfall, as an unscrupulous French king greedy for their riches engineered their humiliating downfall. Yet in their heyday, the Templars were feared as the most potent fighting force in the Holy Land, doomed for immediate execution by the Muslims if captured because they were simply too dangerous to let live. Often their bravery was their own worse enemy as they swore to fight to the death, rather than escaping to fight another day. However, as the fortunes of the Holy War turned against the Crusaders, and European rulers became less and less interested, their numbers and influence dwindled. Poor choices by reckless and greedy leaders led to them being almost exterminated as a fighting force when the Crusaders were finally evicted from the Holy Land. However, even after they disappeared from Europe, they lived on in fiction and fantasy, the subject of so many conspiracy theories, with which the author deals briefly at the end of the book. Entertaining and well-written history, definitely recommended for those who lack the patience or the inclination to deal with more academic, authoritiave works.