The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars | 5,144 ratings

Price: 1.99

Last update: 12-19-2024


About this item

“Dan Jones is an entertainer, but also a bona fide historian. Seldom does one find serious scholarship so easy to read.” – The Times, Book of the Year

A New York Times bestseller, this major new history of the knights Templar is “a fresh, muscular and compelling history of the ultimate military-religious crusading order, combining sensible scholarship with narrative swagger" – Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem
 
A faltering war in the middle east. A band of elite warriors determined to fight to the death to protect Christianity’s holiest sites. A global financial network unaccountable to any government. A sinister plot founded on a web of lies.

Jerusalem 1119. A small group of knights seeking a purpose in the violent aftermath of the First Crusade decides to set up a new order. These are the first Knights Templar, a band of elite warriors prepared to give their lives to protect Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. Over the next two hundred years, the Templars would become the most powerful religious order of the medieval world. Their legend has inspired fervent speculation ever since. 

In this groundbreaking narrative history, Dan Jones tells the true story of the Templars for the first time in a generation, drawing on extensive original sources to build a gripping account of these Christian holy warriors whose heroism and alleged depravity have been shrouded in myth. The Templars were protected by the pope and sworn to strict vows of celibacy. They fought the forces of Islam in hand-to-hand combat on the sun-baked hills where Jesus lived and died, finding their nemesis in Saladin, who vowed to drive all Christians from the lands of Islam. Experts at channeling money across borders, they established the medieval world’s largest and most innovative banking network and waged private wars against anyone who threatened their interests.

Then, as they faced setbacks at the hands of the ruthless Mamluk sultan Baybars and were forced to retreat to their stronghold in Cyprus, a vindictive and cash-strapped King of France set his sights on their fortune. His administrators quietly mounted a damning case against the Templars, built on deliberate lies and false testimony. On Friday October 13, 1307, hundreds of brothers were arrested, imprisoned and tortured, and the order was disbanded amid lurid accusations of sexual misconduct and heresy. They were tried by the Pope in secret proceedings and their last master was brutally tortured and burned at the stake. But were they heretics or victims of a ruthlessly repressive state? Dan Jones goes back to the sources tobring their dramatic tale, so relevant to our own times, to life in a book that is at once authoritative and compulsively readable.

From the Publisher

Epic history from New York Times bestselling author Dan Jones. Features an image with 7 of his books

Top reviews from the United States

  • M. Joslyn
    5.0 out of 5 stars Read this Book first for Templar History. Good Read and Well Researched.
    Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2019
    I have been reading many books about the Templars. Their story is truly fascinating, and this book gives so much background about how they came to be. It covers everything from their beginnings, to the major battles of the Crusades they fought. The chapter on Richard the Lion Heart and the Third Crusade is priceless. The arrests, trials and machinations of Philip IV tell the tale of what lengths he went to in order to seize their property and destroy them. Jones also goes into the years since their disbanding, and the various theories of where they went after 1307. He makes some very plausible arguments that are enlightening to western culture. The writing is excellent and keeps you as engaged as a novel. I highly recommend this book as a starting point for learning about these fascinating men who continue to inspire us.
  • Anonymous XYZ
    4.0 out of 5 stars Short history of the templars but gets bogged down in the details.
    Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2018
    This is a review of the Kindle version of this book.
    I read a lot of medieval history and in this pursuit I've also read my fair share of books by Dan Jones. I have generally enjoyed the books written by Dan Jones and wouldn't have bought this one if I hadn't.
    The Templars were an order of knights formed in 1118 and disbanded in 1214 when the last master was executed. In this book Dan JOnes attempts to cover the whole sweep of this history across Europe and the middle east. Given the huge sweep of this book the narrative style used by Dan Jones should have made this a very readable book. Unfortunalely given the scope of the subject I don't think a single book, however well written would work perfectly. Inevitably the book gets bogged down in the history of the crusades and it becomes a list of people and batlles. The sweep of the history doesn't come through and the European events are rather downplayed until the very end. This is meticulously researched and perhaps the fact that the research shatters one's preconceptions is part of why I'm not giving this five stars. It did become a bit of a slog to read through though. Never tedious but the style and content didn't quite match. The final chapter (epilogue) on the Templar's legacy in popular culture was also brief and uninspiring.
    I did enjoy this book and learned a lot about the crusades and fall of the Templars. You have to really want to read this book though unlike Jones's other works on the Plantagenets (for example). So this was an interesting book but not one I'd recommend for the casual reader. If you want a gateway to Templar history this is a great start but it's not for everyone.
  • Joan Kline
    5.0 out of 5 stars Everything I never learned in school
    Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2024
    Extremely well written. Provides a wealth of objective information about the rise and fall of the Templars and the Crusades that I never learned in school. Eye opening history.
  • Robert Clark
    5.0 out of 5 stars Not exciting, but very good
    Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2023
    The Templars. A group of knights known more through fiction and myth than through fact and reality. In THE TEMPLARS, Dan Jones does an excellent job of sifting through the legends and presenting the Templars as they actually were, good, bad, and indifferent. Jones faces the fictions and myths with verifiable facts, and presents the Templars as they actually were. Because of the volume of data Jones uses and the detail he goes into, THE TEMPLARS is, at times, a bit tedious. This is something difficult to avoid in a history as well documented as THE TEMPLARS. If you are interested in the reality of the subject, it’s a price well worth paying for an exceptionally good historical account of a much maligned group of crusaders.
  • Paul
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating look at the rise and fall of a holy order
    Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2017
    Dan Jones continues his trend of offering a sweeping history at a glance. Much like his previous books he covers an wide range of history relatively briefly, yet does not lose either the human interest or the sweeping narrative. His books tend to be overviews inviting further study. That is not to say they lack insight, depth, or research. Quite the contrary. Jones's unique talents allow him to explore centuries within a few hundred pages in an insightful way. The Templars exemplifies this. He covers the order from birth to eventual demise, deconstructing why they were needed and how they rose to prominence. He continues into their hubris and the ways in which the world, particularly rulers, could not allow such a powerful group to continue. The book contains numerous photos, maps, and first hand accounts from the times that help make for a wonderful read. It is highly accessible and thoroughly fascinating. If you know nothing of the Templars except what you have seen in movies or read in popular fiction, Jones offers up a delightful dose of reality that is no less fascinating than the myths surrounding this famed group.

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