Book Overview
This book describes the formation and extinction of The Templars - the fiercest fighters of all the Franks, an order of knights created by Hugh of Payns in 1119 whose objective was protecting catholic pilgrims who were visiting the Holy Land in Jerusalem. As Giovanni Boccaccio conveys in De Casibus Vivorum Illustrium, life moves in perpetual flux, with moments of triumph (the Christendom expansion in the Holy Land fighting along Richard the Lionheart's crusade), followed by despair (when defeated by Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Suria, and Baybars, Mamluk who repossessed the Holy Land to Islam) (an vice versa). During almost 200 years the Templars manned dozens of castles in the Holy Land, became bound up in the Reconquista, put down a presence at most of the royal courts in Europe, acquired estates all over Christendom and made powerful enemies. Between 1307 and 1314, the Templars were comprehensively crushed under King Philip IV of France, who were interested in The Templars’ wealth and possessions after expelling Jews from France and sizing their wealth, and Pope Clement V, a French Pope who was trying to avoid clash with Philip IV. Their property was impounded, their wealth was taken, their reputation was shredded, and their members were imprisoned, tortured, killed, ejected from their homes and humiliated. Those who survived this process either died in prison, were uprooted and sent to new homes, or in a few rare cases redeployed to new military orders. James of Molay, the last Templar master, was burned after an inquisition judgment and cursed their enemies praying: "God knows who is the wrong and has sinned. Soon misfortune will come to those who have wrongly condemned us: God will avenge our death". Vox in Excelso papal bull profered by From Pope Clement V defined The Templars fate: "Therefore with a sad heart ... we suppress, with the approval of the sacred council, the Order of the Templars, and its rule, habit and name, by an inviolable and perpetual decree, and we entirely forbid that anyone from now on enter the order, or receive or wear its habit, or presume to behave as a Templar. If anyone acts otherwise he incurs automatic excommunication."