The Knights Templar

Paper Summary:

The paper explains how the Knights Templar organization became one of the richest religious orders of the time and served a vital role in Middle Age Christian society. The paper discusses how the Knights helped guard pilgrims journeying to the Holy Land, engaged in Holy Crusades to rid the Middle East and Europe of "infidels" and provided many services to the Catholic Church. The paper relates that today, the Knights are remembered as pious, innocent men who were wrongly accused of heresy and executed.

From the Paper:

"The Knights Templar began as a rather informal group that formed around the end of the 11th century to help protect pilgrims journeying to the Holy Land (Jerusalem and surrounding areas), and at first, there less than a dozen of these knights. The leader of the group was Hugues (Hugh) de Payens, and after a while, de Payens and his followers were given a place to stay in a wing of the palace on Temple Mount in Jerusalem. They became an established religious order with a formal name in 1129. Two Templar historians write, "The Knights of the Temple of Solomon of Jerusalem were established as a religious Order of the Latin Church in 1129, when they were officially accepted at the Council of Troyes in Champagne.""

Sample of Sources Used:

• Cavendish, Richard. "Knights Templar Arrested in France: October 13th, 1307." History Today Oct. 2007: 60+.
• Dafoe, Stephen. "A History and Mythos of the Knights Templar." TemplarHistory.com. 2008. 4 July 2008.<http://www.templarhistory.com/>
• The Templars: Selected Sources. Trans. Malcolm Barber and Keith Bate. New York: Manchester University Press, 2002.

More papers on The Knights Templar:

• Term Paper # 120499 : "The Knights Templar"
• Essay # 30310 : "The Knights Templar"
• Term Paper # 149422 : "The Fall of the Knights Templar"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: