France

France, being the homeland of the Knights Templar, still holds unnumerable 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 as mentioned on the websites mentioend 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 IGN-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:
  1. major actual Templar site which at present holds (a) major building(s) and/or ruins dating 12th to 14th century
  2. actual Templar site, as can be inferred from (a) toponym(s) at the site and/or the present day building(s) and/or ruin(s) with a purpose similar to Templar times, such as a farm or chapel
  3. historical Templar site where as yet no remains are found but of which the former Templar presence or similar use as in Templar times can be inferred from for instance (a) toponym(s) etc
  4. historical Templar site which is mentioned in the sources but whereof no Templar traces whatsoever have as yet been found in the field
The symbols used for each category are:

category 1
category 2
category 3
category 4


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. Which is acknowledged gratefully.

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.

This map shows the pre-2016 Regional boundaries. source map

Maps for the following Departments are available:

01 Ain
02 Aisne
03 Allier
08 Ardennes
10 Aube
11 Aude
12 Aveyron
15 Cantal
16 Charante
17 Charante Maritime
18 Cher
19 Corrèze
21 Côte d'Or
23 Creuse
24 Dordogne
26 Drôme
30 Gard
34 Hérault
36 Indre
38 Isère
42 Loire
43 Haute-Loire
46 Lot
48 Lozère
51 Marne
52 Haute-Marne
58 Nièvre
59 Nord
60 Oise
62 Pas de Calais
63 Puy de Dôme
69 Rhône
71 Saône et Loire
79 Deux-Sèvres
80 Somme
81 Tarn
86 Vienne
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





Some important Templar sites in France http://templiers.org/commanderies.php