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Bernard de Clairvaux and the Making of a Respectable Knighthood

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In 1129, a small band of knights secured papal favour and grew into one of medieval Europe’s wealthiest institutions. A 2012 thesis argues t...

Templars in the Far North - Sweden, Norway, and Finland Compared

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Templar romance has colonized the medieval imagination of the entire Nordic world, from Norwegian round churches to Finnish field crosses. W...

The Golden Ratio in Gothic Cathedrals - Chosen or by Accident?

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Every guidebook to Chartres or Notre Dame eventually mentions phi , the number 1.618, said to govern the proportions of the nave, the facade...

Beyond the Templars - Hospitaller Traces in the Low Countries

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TemplarsNow normally restricts itself to the Order of the Temple. Yet across the Low Countries the Knights Hospitaller left a far denser and...

The Lords of Breda - Founders of the Only Dutch Templar Commandery

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The Knights Templar left astonishingly few documented traces in the medieval Low Countries. Yet one noble family stands apart from all the ...

Nobles of the Low Countries and the Knights Templar

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Most Templar attributions in the Low Countries dissolve under source-critical scrutiny: sixteenth-century chronicles, misread place-names, c...

Peter the Hermit - Preacher of the People's Crusade

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A barefoot preacher from Picardy set half of Europe marching toward Jerusalem months before the regular armies departed. Peter the Hermit le...

Near Contemporary Templar Iconography - How the Order Was Actually Pictured

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Centuries of romantic engravings and nineteenth century imagination have shaped the popular image of the Knights Templar, yet only a handful...

Tempel in the Low Countries - Water Control, Power, and Place

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In medieval Holland and Zeeland, controlling water meant controlling people. The word tempel named not only sacred spaces but sluice mechani...