The modern memory of the military-religious orders

This volume examines the pervasive and persistent appropriations of the military orders across a broad chronology and several regions, including Mexico, Brazil, and Greece, areas beyond the traditional focus of prior research in medievalism.

Templars, Hospitallers, and Teutonic Knights, the military orders are among the most iconic aspects of the crusades and several still survive as chivalric honours or charitable organisations. In popular culture, the orders, particularly the Templars, have been the subject of or inspiration for films, books, television, and video games, from Star Wars to The Da Vinci Code and Assassin’s Creed. In this volume, an overview of the early legacies of the military orders in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is followed by studies of the Templar conspiracy theories of Rosslyn Chapel, the Venerable Order of St John’s creation of a medieval past, the legacy of the Hospitallers in modern Greece, the military orders in nineteenth-century Mexico, and the use of the Knights Templar by the far-right in Bolsonaro’s Brazil. Ultimately, it expands the scope of the field and indicates further avenues for research.

The Modern Memory of the Military-religious Orders is a valuable resource for students and scholars of the crusades, the military orders, and medievalism.

Rory MacLellan is a postdoctoral research fellow at Historic Royal Palaces. He specialises in medieval religious history, especially the crusades and the military-religious orders. His first book is Donations to the Knights Hospitaller in Britain and Ireland, 1291–1400 (2021).