The Knights Templar by Stephen Howarth

This one I read a while back, as the continuous pre-1066 history was starting to becoming, in a small way, tiresome. I thought it might also help me to settle a growing religious confusion within me, which is the choice between Paganism or Christianity. Funnily enough I found this book about two years ago in a charity shop for £1; ironically, just prior to finding it I was confronted on the street by an evangelical Christian who was protesting outside the local council offices, mainly against abortion. I had a pleasant conversation with him on the topic, as I am also in alignment with the Christian take on the matter, and it finished with him saying a prayer for me before I moved on.

Stephen Howarth makes a statement early on in which he explains that the knowledge of the Templars is constantly evolving and that his own book will no doubt be out of date in a decade or so; it was published in 1982. Perhaps there is a lot more knowledge know on the Templars than the book portrays, or perhaps the book was intended as more of an introduction to the Templars, as it felt very much like a brief history of the Crusades. Of course, the chronology of the Crusades is very important in understanding the history of the Templars, however there was much more focus on this than the customs and attitudes of the knight’s order. This may well be because in the imagination of the laymen the history of such a prestigious order must be bottomless, when in reality there may well have been some very simple and few sets of rules and traditions that they adhered to down the centuries. To join the Templars was to accept a life of celibacy and impoverishment, where the individual would spend his usual week getting up early and labouring intensively, reciting psalms and only eating protein on two days of the week. The lack of elaboration in these areas could well be put down to the fact that the Templars were secretive in their internal affairs. A trait which ultimately led to their destruction.

The events start with Peter the Hermit and his extraordinary rise from peasant to military leader, leading the peasants Crusade which resulted in disaster. Peter himself managed to latch onto the more organised armies of the first Crusade with what troops he had left. The pope had thought up the idea of Crusading with a pragmatic view to resolving unemployment in Europe, and to prevent the brothers of the Christian faith from in fighting; giving them a common foe. The second stage of the first Crusade was fronted by three military leaders with an army each. One of these, called Stephen of Blois, was not keen on going Crusading at all, but was urged by his wife to do so. In the end he chose Crusading over his nagging wife, which we know from the letters he sent her while he was away. He was so unenthusiastic about Crusading that he procrastinated in southern France for a few extra days so that the other two armies would always be ahead of him. Eventually all three armies converged on Antioch, but with a long and protracted siege which placed the armies of Christendom in an almost hopeless position. Stephen of Blois told his comrades that he was ill and had to turn back, along with his army. Unfortunately for Stephen, Antioch fell the following night after he left via a bribed blacksmith opening the gates. This was a double tragedy for Stephen as when he got home the news of the victory had reached the ears of his wife, who was furious with him, and demanded he return to the Holy Land. He obliged his wife, and died in battle shortly after returning. The Authors comedic approach on this saga was much enjoyable.

With the success of the Crusade there became a demand for a standing army that could offer protection for the newly conquered provinces. This is where the Templars became a major force and the dominant power in the area for centuries to come. Once they proved their worth as a religious and military institution, the pope gave them their blessing, thus making them in many ways a personal army for the Papacy. Pope Innocent then issued the papal bull ‘Omne Datum Optimum’ which allowed the Templars to keep all the spoils of war, as well as a bull which stated that those who go on Crusade were excused murdering Muslims, and furthermore they were absolved of previous sins for doing so. This essentially gave the Templars free reign in the Holy Land, and resulted in them acting law until themselves, and frequently disobeying the orders of the Kings of Jerusalem; as we will see with our next interesting character, Reynauld De Chatillon.

Reynauld De Chatillon first appears in the early events following the second Crusade. Antoich which was previously ruled by Raymond (who had died at the battle of Inab), was now being ruled by the child Constance, whose mother, Alice, was acting regent. The issue with this was that Alice was in favour of allegiance with Byzantium and was planning to marry her daughter to the prince, which would have eventually restored Byzantine rule to Antioch. Reynauld was on his way to the Holy Land with an army when a message reached him from King Baldwin asking him to deal with the issue at hand. Reynauld rushed to Antioch and informed Alice that the gates must be opened, and that they had arrived to help defend Antioch from a huge Muslim army which was in the area. He also told her to take cover in the highest tower, and that he would see to the defences. This of course was a lie, and as soon as the gates were opened and Alice was hiding in a tower, Reynauld seized the child Constance and married her there and then, thus making himself Prince of Antioch. Following this Reynauld went frequently raiding and battling Muslim armies, winning many great victories until he became somewhat over confident, and attempted to siege Aleppo with a tiny force of around 500 troops. This naturally failed, and Reynauld was imprison in Aleppo for 15 years. In the book the author makes no mention of how long he has been imprisoned until after he is released, leaving the reader to assume that his exploits end with the siege of Aleppo.

He suddenly appears on the scene again when the King of Damascus releases a group of 150 Templar captives as thanks for Jerusalem helping to lift the siege of Aleppo. Reynauld immediately resumes where he left of, and starts by capturing himself the castle of Karak; using it as an excellent position in which to launch raids on the silk road. He subsequently becomes a big wheel in the Templars due to the immense wealth he starts to accumulate, and then he puts into action the most daring deed of his career yet. He builds five warships on the dead sea and trains a crew to man them, and after doing this, he has the ships transported over land to the Gulf of Aqaba! From this point the ships engage in acts of piracy along the coast, and made Reynauld the richest man in Christendom. These ships remained unmolested for almost a year before Saladin was able to raise a fleet and destroy them. After this Reynauld went back to his life of raiding the silk road, and made the mistake of raiding a caravan which contained Saladin’s sister, leading to Saladin supposedly claiming that he would personally slay him. Reynauld also led the army for King Baldwin IV (the leper king) against Saladin at the battle of Montgisard, resulting in a purely amazing victory which showed 500 knights route an Islamic army of 20,000. After such a spiffing career Reynauld then participated in the calamitous crusader defeat at the Horns of Hattin, and was captured and beheaded by Saladin himself. Many historians portray Reynauld as an idiot who destroyed Jerusalem by continually breaking treaties signed with Saladin, but some have attempted to renovate him, as the only man who was doing anything to stop Islamic expansion. An interesting point by the authors brings up the crimes of Richard the Lionheart and compares them with Reynauld; then going on to explain that if Reynauld had started out with the reputation that Lionheart had, he would have been hailed as a hero instead of demonised as a villain.

These are the most interesting parts of the chronology of the Crusades. Frederick and the IV crusade is also very interesting, in that it was not sanctioned by the pope, and Frederick himself became excommunicated, and it was Templar law that anyone who socialised with a person excommunicated would result in themselves enjoying the same status. However, when it became apparent that Frederick was going to successfully reconquer Jerusalem, it produced the humorous movement which seen the Templars march alongside Fredricks army with a mile different between the two. They claimed they just happened to be marching in the same direction… Unfortunately, Saladin had Jerusalem’s walls demolished, and so any future occupation by crusaders would be short, as it would prove impossible to defend the city in the long term.

In Europe the Templars had become a major economic powerhouse, holding incredible power. This, coupled with the secrecy of the order eventually resulted in their downfall. Philip ‘The Fair’ of France had already borrowed a significant amount of money from the Jews, and following this he physically removed them from the country, so that the loans would not have to be repaid. Philip was debasing his currency fast, and so needed a fresh source of income. Philip simply repeated his tactic with the Templars, and with him being the most pious king in Europe he hoped he could also claim all their assets. Rumours were first spread about how behind closed doors the Templars were sodomising each other, and were worshiping heathen idols. There was no validity to these claims, but Philips strength of words and action eventually got him what he wanted, or at least partially. He had all the Templars arrested, with only 20 evading capture in France, and demanded all other Christian nations do the same, of which most did. He then extracted confessions under torture, strengthening his case. In England, Edward the II and public opinion did not believe the accusations, and so the Templars were put on a loose form of house arrest. Furthermore, when Philip tried to have all the Templars in Europe expedited to France, he found in England that he could not do this as the English common law was valued above any international religious laws, and so the Templars in England were let off lightly. Eventually after years of squabbling Philip got what he wanted, and all unrepentant Templars were burned at the stake and thus bringing an end to the order. Unfortunately for Philip though, the pope had all the assets of the Templars transferred to the Knights Hospitallers, who managed to adapt to life after the fall of Outreamer much better than their counterparts. The last Master of the Templars was Jacques De Molay, and he had been in the order for about 50 years when he was burned at the stake. He is blamed in some ways as being responsible for the downfall of the order, as his age and past experience made him stubborn to a changing world.

This was a mighty fine read, even if there were a few inaccuracies. Some of the facts have appeared to change in the years since this was written, and it looks like there are much more in-depth books on the market, in terms of the customs, traditions and rituals of the Templars. But in all I was deeply impressed, and it has led me to discover books on some of the historical figures mentioned. Such as ‘God's Wolf: The Life of the Most Notorious of All Crusaders: Reynald de Chatillon’ by Jefferey Lee, which I will purchase when I feel in the mood for another non-Celtic or Anglo-Saxon read. It was also somewhat shameful of me not to have read at least some basic history of the Crusades up until now, so it was nice to have also ticked that box when enjoying this title.