Templers of the mass amass a very considerable land empire in Western Europe. They are personally poor, but as an institution they're extremely rich. And from these donations and then acquiring more lands, exchanging, they build up coherent bodies of territory that become financially efficient. The slippage is beginning to happen now, isn't it? Can you give us a date? In 1291 the Mamluks defeat them and capture the city of Acre - which near enough marks the end of the Crusader states.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the military order founded around 1119, twenty years after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem. For almost 200 years the Knights Templar were a notable fighting force and financial power in the Crusader States and Western Europe. Their mission was to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land, and they became extremely wealthy yet, as the crusader grip on Jerusalem slipped, their political fortune declined steeply. They were to be persecuted out of existence, with their last grand master burned at the stake in Paris in 1314, and that sudden end has contributed to the strength of the legends that have grown up around them.
With
Helen Nicholson
Professor of Medieval History at Cardiff University
Mike Carr
Lecturer in Late Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh
And
Jonathan Phillips
Professor of Crusading History at Royal Holloway, University of London
Producer: Simon Tillotson