Geo-politics in 11th and 12th century Francia

For the purpose of TemplarsNow the medieval geo-political landscape of what is now France is important. The County of Champagne, especially the area around Troyes, was the native region of many an early knight Templar. This geo-political situation was fragmented to say the least, as the adjacent maps show.

In 987, Hugues Capet was elected king. The monarchy becomes hereditary, and the Capetians reign over France for more than 800 years. Nevertheless, the first Capetian kings only directly control a very small portion of the French territory, called the royal domain, and some of their vassals are much more powerful than them. 
 

In the twelfth century, royal power began to assert itself against the princes of the kingdom, but faced from the 1150s to the birth of a "Plantagenet empire" grouping together in England and the western third of France. 

The Capetian kingdom reached its peak in the 13th century, with the monarchy regaining the power it had lost while French art and culture asserted in Europe. 

Philip Augustus (1180-1223) managed to conquer most of the French possessions of the Plantagenets, temporarily putting an end to the English threat and considerably enlarging the royal domain at the same time. 

Louis IX (1226-1270) behaves as a referee of Christendom and participates in the seventh and eighth crusades, which will lead him to be canonized very quickly by the Catholic Church


Source text (translated from French by TN) and illustrations (1: situation 1030; 2: situation 1180) www.cartesfrance.fr 

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Templars in Switzerland - then and now

As we have argued in an earlier post, certain historians and conspiracists alike suggest that the Knights Templar did in fact form Switzerland.  The evidence and likelyhood seem plausible. At the same time hard evidence is scarce and circumstantial at best. 

Templar locations in France pinpointed

TemplarsNow runs a project which pinpoints the geographical location of Templar sites in France. TemplarsNow has earlier done a similar job for The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg. 

920th Anniversary First Crusade Siege of Jerusalem

The Siege of Jerusalem took place from June 7 to July 15, 1099, during the First Crusade. This successful siege saw the Crusaders take Jerusalem from the Fatimid Caliphate and laid the foundations for the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Reliable books on the Crusades

TemplarsNow is always looking to identify, promote and (re)distribute sources of reliable information on the Knights Templar and their time. Therefore this blog quotes the valuable list of "the 15 most important Books on the Crusades" prepared in 2017 by Andrew Holt PhD.

Dr Holt reported on his project to identify the "most important" books on the Crusades. He asked 34 leading medieval historians to provide their own preferential list. Their replies resulted in a list of some 150 titles. Analyzing this as to the number of times each title had been mentioned by the scolars, Dr Holt identified "the 15 most important Books on the Crusades". The titles are shown below, including the number of times each title was mentioned.

Carol Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (Islamic Surveys) (1999). (13 mentions) Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (1986). (13 mentions) Carl Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade (1977) (11 mentions) Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades. 3 vols. (1951-1954). (11 mentions) Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 1095-1131 (1997). (7 mentions) R.C. Smail, Crusading Warfare 1097-1193 (1956, 2nd edition 1995). (7 mentions) Kenneth M. Setton, ed., A History of the Crusades, 2nd ed., 6 vols. (1969-89). (7 mentions) John France, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (1994) (7 mentions) Norman Housley, The Later Crusades, 1274-1580: From Lyons to Alcazar (1992). (6 mentions) Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (2006). (6 mentions) Paul Alphandéry & Alphonse Dupront, La Chrétienté et l’idée de croisade (1954, 1959). (5 mentions) Benjamin Z. Kedar, Crusade and Mission: European Approaches towards the Muslims (1984). (5 mentions) Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus (1993- 2009). (5 mentions) Joshua Prawer, Histoire du Royaume Latin de Jérusalem (1969-71). (5 mentions) Paul Cobb, The Race for Paradise: an Islamic History of the Crusades (2014). (4 mentions) Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert, eds. Gendering the Crusades (2002). (4 mentions) Norman Housley, Contesting the Crusades (2006). (4 mentions) Christopher MacEvitt, The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance (2007). (4 mentions) Hans Eberhard Mayer ed. In collaboration with Jean Richard, Die Urkunden der lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem (2010). (4 mentions) Joseph Michaud, Histoire des croisades, 4 vol. (1862). (4 mentions) James M. Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213-1221 (1986). (4 mentions) Queller, Donald E., and Thomas F. Madden. The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople. 2d ed. (1997). (4 mentions)  Support TemplarsNow™ by becoming a Patron, tipping us or buying one of our Reliable Books