Templar and Cistercian Refectories - Same Meal, Different Setting

Bernard de Clairvaux helped draft the Templar Rule, and the order's meals were built almost line for line on Cistercian custom: silence, scripture read aloud, equal rations. Yet the rooms where Templars ate rarely resembled a Cistercian refectory at all. What did the two orders actually build, and why did the buildings diverge?

Myth vs Mud - What Archaeology Tells Us About the Knights Templar

For over seven centuries, Templar commanderies have fired the popular imagination as fortified bastions of a warrior brotherhood. Yet systematic archaeological investigation across France tells a strikingly different story: one of farms, chapels, cemeteries, and artisan workshops. Can material evidence alone finally displace the myth with historical reality?

Medieval Islamic Coines Found at Cluny Abbey, France

In September 2017, archaeologists of Université Lumière Lyon 2 and CNRS excavating the historic Abbey of Cluny in Burgundy, France, uncovered one of medieval Europe's most remarkable monetary treasures, a cache that had remained undisturbed for approximately 850 years. The discovery comprised over 2,200 silver coins minted at Cluny but also 21 gold dinars of Islamic origin, along with precious artifacts including a Roman signet ring. What do these finds tell us?