Warrior Knight Templar 1120-1312 Osprey Books

The order of the Temple was a military-religious organisation that was set up in the early decades of the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, to protect pilgrims and settlers in the Holy Land. Many people in western Europe were enthusiastic about the new order's work in the Holy Land and gave it donations of land, money and property such as horses and armour, to help its work. The kings of the Iberian peninsula also gave the order castles and asked them to help fight the Muslims on their own frontiers. In the Holy Land itself, because the kings were weak, the Knights Templar also gained a great deal of political power. The Muslim rulers who bordered the Crusader states feared their military skills and executed any Templar they captured, but despite their fearsome reputation (they believed they were God's warrior, fighting on God's behalf) the Knights Templar were never a large military force. In 1291 the last of the crusader strongholds in the Holy Land were abandoned and the military orders fled to Cyprus. The Templars were planning a new crusade to recapture the Holy Land, when they came under attack from King Philip IV of France in 1307. The order was finally dissolved in 1312, its members sent to other religious orders and its property passing to the control of the Hospitallers.This book examines the men who joined the order and why they joined it, focusing on those who fought against the Muslims in the Holy Land. Based on the rule of the order and on other surviving contemporary accounts, it provides an effective insight into the daily lives of the warriors, from their admission ceremony to their training, organisation in the field and how they fought in battle.