The Templars built up a land empire in Western Europe to send money to the Holy Land. They are personally poor, but as an institution they're extremely rich. 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. That near enough marks the end of the Christian presence in the Near East.
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