Mamluk Sultan in Egypt had some Templars who were in his prisons brought out. He asked them if they would now like to convert to Islam because apparently the order was a great heretics. And they replied, no. They were good Christians and they were remaining Christians. So I think probably for the Mamluk's of Egypt, it didn't make a great deal of difference that the Templars as an order had gone. But earlier on, the Templars were very much seen as a terrible menace. After the Battle of Hateen, Saladin has them rounded up. Over 200 are executed in cold blood by his holy men.
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