In France, Philip is essentially after their land, but the papacy actually manages to resist this. The Pope instructs that the properties of the Templars will instead be transferred to the hospitalers. In other regions outside of France, in England, in Spain, the monarchs do get hold of some of the Temple of Possessions. So it's sort of a mixed bag, depending where we're looking at. It seems that this grand wonderful order, which had everything, as it were, monastic, and the warrior defending the pilgrims of the Holy Land, and the very hell, just collapsing petty persecution. Yes, very, very quickly.
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