Few authors have shaped our image of the Knights Templar as powerfully as Walter Scott. Yet his dramatic villains of pride and corruption bear little resemblance to the disciplined, austere warriors who founded the Order in 1119.
The illustration shows The abduction of Rebecca (1858) by Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863). Throughout his career, Delacroix was inspired by the novels of Sir Walter Scott, a favorite author of the French Romantics. This painting depicts a scene from Ivanhoe: the Jewish heroine Rebecca, who had been confined in the castle of Front de Boeuf (seen in flames), is carried off by two Saracen slaves commanded by the covetous Christian knight Bois-Guilbert. The contorted, interlocking poses and compacted space, which shifts abruptly from the elevated foregound to the fortress behind, create a sense of intense drama. Apart from the still life at lower left, the only element of calm is Rebecca herself.
In Ivanhoe (1819) and The Talisman, Walter Scott shaped a lasting popular image of the Knights Templar that diverges sharply from the historical record. Scott portrayed the Templars as fanatical and corrupt, totally divorced from Christian values and as implacable foes of English freedom. His villain, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, is described as valiant but stained with vices: pride, arrogance, cruelty, and voluptuousness.
Scott's motives were partly political. He perpetuated the idea of England as a Saxon country, subdued by dictatorial Normans, and the Templars, as the pope's knights, symbolised that foreign oppression. His popularity ensured that the myth of the proud, cruel, and corrupt Templar became implanted in the public mind. His influence was so great that in America a group of freemasons called themselves the Knights Templar, naming themselves directly after Scott's fictional version. Apparently, to these gentlemen the vision of collective strength and mystery of the Templar Order, that was also imaged as a powerful, secretive, international brotherhood, was enormously appealing. In 19th-century Romantic culture, the brooding, rule-breaking outsider was deeply attractive, not repellent.
This blog is original work by TemplarsNow, based in part on an AI-assisted quickscan. Sources and further reading: "Ivanhoe – the Templar as an Evil Villain", The Templar Knight (Tony McMahon); J.H. Woodger (2017) "Sir Walter Scott's Templar Construct", Massey Research Online (academic thesis). The painting The abduction of Rebecca by Delacroix is kept at Metropolitan Museum of Art, (Met Fifth Avenie in Gallery 801). The present picture is Public domain published by the MetMuseum. Another version is kept at the Musée du Louvre.
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