Barbara Frale. The Templars: The Secret History Revealed. Trans. Gregory Conti. New York: Arcade, 2009. E-book.

If you decide not to read this book, at least read the introduction. The introduction is written by Umberto Eco, one of the most acclaimed writers of this generation. Because the Knights Templar were both a military and religious order and because they were harassed by the French government, many rumors and tales grew around them. Even today they appear as a larger than life organization in people’s conspiracy theories. (For one hypothesis connecting them with the Grail Legend, see Weston’s From Ritual to Romance, which inspired Eliot’s The Waste Land.)

Frale tries to present the reality. She is a research librarian at the Vatican Library, so she has access to historical records of the Roman Catholic Church going back to the early Middle Ages. The introduction explains how she rediscovered the actual papal inquest on the Knights Templar in the early fourteenth century which explained in some detail their mission and also exonerated its leadership of any wrongdoing.

That did not keep Jacques de Molay and Geoffrey de Charny from being executed by the King of France in 1314. That effectively put an end to the order, but the Pope’s inquest lets the reader see some of the issues and accusations concerning the order at the time.

To a Protestant reader in the English-speaking world, perhaps the most interesting detail is that King Philip IV of France was attempting to create a French church independent of the Vatican more than two centuries before Henry VIII successfully did it in England.

The Templars does not focus on that episode, though it has a lot to say about it. This is a document-based history of the order from its founding at the end of the eleventh century until its disbandment after De Molay’s death.

We read about each of seven Crusades, some more organized than others, and how the Knights Templar along with the Knights of St. John (more famous today for their defense of Malta in the sixteenth century) protected pilgrims and worked with the “Frankish” Crusader Kingdoms that were established in the Near East.

We do read about things from the Knights’ point of view. Christian pilgrims had been traveling to the Holy Land for centuries, but at the time of the Crusades the Moslem governments in the area were putting more restrictions on trade and travel. The initial impetus for the First Crusade was simply to keep the holy sites, especially those in Jerusalem, open. The Knights Templar received their name because it was their call to guard the sacred locations in Jerusalem such as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the site of the Jerusalem Temple (today Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Wailing Wall).

Perhaps the most interesting and surprising figure in this story is Bernard of Clairvaux, the pre-eminent Catholic scholar and saint in the thirteenth century. He was the person who drafted, with input from the Knights and the Pope, the rules for the Order of the Knights Templar.

To be an officer, once had to prove noble lineage for several generations. The knights also took monastic vows of poverty and chastity. They preferred widowers. Other than their simple monastic garments, their weapons, and their armor, they were only allowed to own four francs worth of possessions. They also had to obey all orders from superiors. In other words, they also took a vow of obedience.

Men from the middle class could serve as sergeants in the order, but as with any army at the time period, they would be foot soldiers and servants. Their vows, however, were similar to those of the officers.

Two rumors about the Knights may have contributed to some hostility towards them. According to some testimonies, the initiation ceremony of a Knight Templar included having the initiate do something considered blasphemous like spitting on a cross. This was supposedly done to test his obedience. Frale suggests that these tales may be spurious, or the testimonies may have been coerced by French law enforcement.

This reviewer was curious to see if the author mentioned anything about the connection with the Shroud of Turin, a hypothesis first proposed by Ian Wilson in his book on the Shroud. Like Wilson, the author mentions rumors that the Knights Templar had some idol that they worshiped, but draws no conclusion from that observation other than to note the idea that the idol was the Shroud first was proposed in the 1970s, when the first edition of Wilson’s book came out.

In effect, this is a sober, unsensational story of some historically significant religious knights. She notes that after the final fall of Acre, both the Knights of St. John and the Knights Templar set up headquarters in Cyprus. The Knights of St. John would go to Rhodes until driven out by the Turks and make their most famous stand in 1565. But that, as we have seen, is another story.