Penance, Fear, and Redemption - The Religious Climate That Birthed the First Crusade

The Crusades quickly developed as a mass movement following Pope Urban's call. How and why could they be such a success in an age of fragmented politics and limited communication? A survey on how the effect of medieval Christian beliefs and religious motivations shaped the crusading spirit across Europe.

Sacred Space in Pattern and Paint: Templar Art at Montsaunès and elsewhere

The murals of Montsaunès do not tell sweeping crusade epics but transform the chapel through painted ashlar, rectangular panels filled with geometric patterns (checkerboards/damier, lozenges), rosettes and cosmological motifs (stars, sun-wheels), and consecration crosses. This ornamental program, typical of mid-12th to 13th-century Templar sites, sacralises the space rather than narrates events. 

Comparing Montsaunès with other Templar chapels reveals the diversity of Templar visual culture and invites a broader reflection on how the order shaped sacred space across medieval Europe.

Templar Presence in Switzerland - fact or fiction

The presence of the Knights Templar in what is now Switzerland was never extensive, but it is historically attested. What are the facts?

Assassins and Templars - Faith, Fear and Myth Revisited

Steve Tibble’s Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood revisits two of the most mysterious movements of the medieval world: the Islamic Nizari Isma‘ilis (popularly known as the “Assassins”) and the Christian military order of the Templars. Both groups, he argues, were far less exotic than legend suggests yet far more central to the history of medieval warfare, diplomacy, and ideology. What they shared was their religous background bound by faith and a readiness to die. Some reviews.

The Flight of the Templar Master of Lombardy (1308) - blow to Papal Credibility

The general perception is that on 13 October 1307, all Knights Templar in France were arrested. This is not accurate. At some places in France Knights Templar were safe. Or were they?
This is the story of Giacomo da Montecucco, Knight Templar, in 1307 General Preceptor ("Master") of the Templar Knights of Lombardy, Tuscia, Land of Rome and of Sardinia ànd one of two personal Chamberlains to Pope Clement V at Poitiers.

The Flemish Templars: From Commandery to Inquisition, 1307–1312

The history of the Knights Templar in the County of Flanders, starting as early as 1127, is marked by establishment, socio-political entanglement, and eventual dissolution, set against major conflicts like the Franco-Flemish war of 1297-1305 and the arrests of 1307. 

Bernard's conversion - a family matter of spiritual and material importance

When the young squire Bernard de Fontaine, the later Cistercian abbot Bernard de Clairvaux, entered monastic life at Citeaux, he was not alone. At the time and later all members of his knightly family from the Duchy of Burgundy, rather than pursuing dynastic or political ambitions, embraced monastic life. Their story illustrates the importance of lay monks (monachi laici), men who entered religious communities as adults without clerical education or fluency in Latin, yet went on to hold positions of influence in monastic estates.

The Fall of Ruad (Arwad) Island on 29 September 1302: The Last Templar Bridgehead Lost

By 1302 the Crusader enterprise in the Levant had reached its terminal phase. The Fall of Ruad (Arwad) on 29 September 1302 represented not only a military defeat, but also a symbolic and institutional turning point, particularly for the Knights Templar. The struggle over Ruad, an islet about 3 km off the Syrian coast near Tortosa, offers a concentrated case study of late Crusader strategy, the limitations of cross-cultural alliances (notably with the Mongols), and the final role of the military orders. 

Crusading Before the Crusades - Rewriting Medieval History

For over a century, historians have pointed to Pope Urban II's dramatic call at Clermont in 1095 as the moment when crusading was born, complete with its revolutionary system of spiritual rewards for holy warfare. What if the Crusades didn't begin with the First Crusade?