The Tragedy of the Templars: The Rise and Fall of the Crusader States – The Knights Templar: Bravery and Betrayal in the Crusades - Softcover

Haag, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062059750 ISBN 13: 9780062059758

Publisher: Harper Paperbacks, 2013

Synopsis

From Michael Haag, bestselling author of The Templars: The History and the Myth, comes The Tragedy of the Templars, an exciting new look at the rise of Templar power and the saga of their destruction.
 
Founded on Christmas Day 1119 in Jerusalem, the Knights Templar was a religious order dedicated to defending the Holy Land and its Christian pilgrims in the decades after the First Crusade. Legendary for their bravery and dedication, the Templars became one of the wealthiest and most powerful bodies of the medieval world—and the chief defenders of Christian society against growing Muslim forces.
 
In The Tragedy of the Templars: The Rise and Fall of the Crusader States, Haag masterfully details the conflicts and betrayals that sent this faction of powerful knights spiraling from domination to condemnation.
 
This stirring and thoroughly researched work of historical investigation includes maps and full-color photographs of important cultural sites, many of which doubled as battlefields during the Crusades.

About this title

About the Author

Historian and writer Michael Haag has written widely on the Egyptian, Classical,and Medieval worlds. He is the author of The Templars: The History & the Mythand Alexandria: City of Memory, a definitive study of Cavafy, Forster, and LawrenceDurrell in the city, as well as travel guides to Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. He livesin London.

From the Back Cover

Founded on Christmas Day 1119 in Jerusalem, the Knights Templar was a religious order of fighting knights dedicated to defending the Holy Land and Christian pilgrims in the decades after the First Crusade. Legendary for their bravery and dedication, the Templars became one of the wealthiest and most powerful bodies of the medieval world—and the chief defenders against the growing Muslim military campaign to reimpose foreign rule on a Christian society.

In The Tragedy of the Templars, historian Michael Haag explores the rise and fall of the Templars against the background story of the Crusader venture in the Holy Land, which even after four centuries of Muslim occupation had remained a predominantly Christian community with whom settlers from the West intermarried and created a distinctive civilization.

A stirring work of historical investigation, The Tragedy of the Templars masterfully details the conflicts and betrayals that sent the Knights Templar spiraling from domination and power to being burned alive at the stake.

Reviews

Romanticized and demonized since the Middle Ages, the legendary Knights Templar devoted their lives to Christ as a military force sanctioned by the papacy to liberate and defend the then-predominantly Christian city of Jerusalem. Haag (The Templars: The History & the Myth) explores their evolution from 12th-century protectors of pilgrims trekking to the Holy Land to wealthy Crusaders frequently at war with Islamic forces across the Middle East and the Iberian peninsula. Throughout, the book suffers from one-sidedness: the author consistently characterizes the Muslims as brutal and vengeful, whereas the Templars are given relatively generous treatment as brave messengers of progress and development. Still, Haag's account sparkles with fascinating ephemera, as when he quotes a 12th-century narrative of the creation of the myth of the Holy Grail, or when he describes the game-changing moves of the bold queen Eleanor of Aquitaine or the greedy, villainous Philip IV. The Templars were eventually defeated by the Muslims, but it was their own religious kin that brought them down: rumors of heresy and bizarre initiation rites were rampant, and Pope Clement—under the orders of Philip IV—finally disbanded the Templars in the 14th century. A dense and entertaining volume especially suited for those already interested in the order. 3 maps. Agent: George Lucas, Inkwell Management. (Aug.)

Their formal name shortened from the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, the Templars were the elite military force of the Christian states established by the Crusades. Haag’s history of the Templars prefaces the organization with the origins of the First Crusade, which in 1099 reclaimed Jerusalem for Christianity. Travel to the Holy Land nevertheless remained dangerous, and providing protection to pilgrims was one reason the pope sanctioned the Templars. The order’s ensuing growth into a religious army reigns as the theme of Haag’s account, which covers the Templars’ role in the wars between Christendom and Islam. But beyond spiritual fervor and organizational discipline, landholdings and banking operations underlay the corporate success of the order. Wealth also, Haag recounts, contributed to the Templars’ ultimate downfall. Having lost its military justification to exist with the final extinction of the Crusader states in 1291, the order’s assets were snatched by the king of France, leaving the pope to abolish the Templars in 1312. In league with The Crusades (2010), by Thomas Asbridge, Haag’s work will pique the interest of medievalists. --Gilbert Taylor

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0062059750
• ISBN 13: 9780062059758
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448