France, being the homeland of the Knights Templar, still holds unnumeranle Tempar sites and history., well worth visiting.
On the website templiers.net a host of templar sites in France and their history is described in great detail. The same is true for the Project Beauceant website on templiers.org. Regrettably, these websites differ in detail, number and location of commanderies presented. Furthermore, locating the indicated sites on modern maps is hardly possible in the first case and rather difficult in the second.
Therefore, TemplarsNow runs a project which pinpoints the geographical location of Templar sites in France on a modern Google-map. TemplarsNow also done a similar job for The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
The French maps are being constructed by combining the information of both websites mentioned above and plotting it on modern Google-satellite maps, one per Department. In the process, the geographical location of most sites are checked, if necessary, on ING-maps and the Cassini-map and other sources on the internet. Primary source is the templiers.net website. Additional information is used from the templiers.org website and from other sources on the internet. The site description on the maps uses snippits of text (for now in French) and photographs, mainly from the templiers.net website. Other sources such as the French Wikipedia websites, and other sources mentioned therein, are used as cross reference and for additional information. If such information is presented, the sources are indicated.
The illustration above presents a part of the resulting map for the Creuse Department (23). All completed maps are summed up below.
On the maps four types of Templar sites are distinguished:
- major actual Templar site which at present holds (a) major building(s) and/or ruins dating 12th to 14th century
- actual Templar site, as can be inferred from (a) toponym(s) at the site, which at present holds (a) building(s) and/or ruin(s) with a purpose similar to Templar times, such as a farm or chapel
- historical Templar site where as yet no remains are found but of which the former Templar presence can be inferred from (a) toponym(s) etc
- historical Templar site which is mentioned in the sources but whereof no Templar traces whatsoever have as yet been found in the field
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Obviously these new TemplarNow maps could not have been made without the information provided by the websites http://templiers.net and http://templiers.org as well as aditional sources. Therefore these maps should mainly be seen as the elaborated and augmented representation and visualisation of the great work of others.
The as yet available departmental maps are indicated on the map below by a small red Templar cross. They can be opened by the links below the map.
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| This map shows the pre-2016 Regional boundaries. source map |
For now maps for the following Departments are available:
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03 Allier 10 Aube 11 Aude 12 Aveyron 15 Cantal 18 Cher |
19 Corrèze 21 Côte d'Or 23 Creuse 26 Drôme 34 Hérault 36 Indre |
38 Isère 42 Loire 43 Haute-Loire 46 Lot 48 Lozère 52 Haute-Marne 58 Nièvre |
63 Puy de Dôme 69 Rhône 71 Saône et Loire 81 Tarn 87 Haute-Vienne 89 Yonne |
Some other sources on Templar sites in France are:
Le Marais des Templiers - une visite du Paris médiéval dans le Marais
Knights Templar in the Provence
Knights Templar sites in northwest France
Most important Templar sites in France http://templiers.org/commanderies.php
