The Knights Templar were the wealthiest, most powerful - and most secretive - of the military orders that flourished in the crusading era.
Their story - encompassing as it does the greatest international conflict of the Middle Ages, a network of international finance, a swift rise in wealth and influence followed by a bloody and humiliating fall - has left a comet's tail of mystery that continues to fascinate and inspire historians, novelists and conspiracy theorists.
A gripping popular history of one of the most storied and misunderstood organizations of the medieval period. Best-selling historian Dan Jones is ideally suited to tell the incredible story of the Templars rise and fall.
A bestselling author, television presenter and award-winning journalist, Dan Jones is the author of popular history books including The Hollow Crown and A Realm Divided.
'Anyone who has read Jones’s earlier medieval chronicles, The Plantagenets and The Hollow Crown, will know what to expect here: fast-paced narrative history depicted with irresistible verve, bloody battle scenes and moments of laugh-out-loud wit. This is another triumphant tale from a historian who writes as addictively as any page-turning novelist.' - The Guardian
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9781781858929
Number of pages: 512
Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
Exhilarating, epic, sword-swinging history... A skilful storyteller [...] he enlivens the narrative with bloodcurdling details and arresting turns of phrase... There is also fine scholarly intuition' - TLS
Told with all Jones's usual verve and panache, this is a dramatic and gripping tale of courage and stupidity, faith and betrayal - Mail on Sunday
Jones is certainly an entertainer, but also a fine historian who knows how to render serious scholarship into accessible prose - The Times
Another triumphant tale from a historian who writes as addictively as any page-turning novelist - Observer
When it comes to rip-roaring medieval narratives, Jones has few peers, and in the Templars he finds the perfect subject - Sunday Times
A fresh, muscular and compelling history of the ultimate military-religious crusading order, combining sensible scholarship with narrative swagger, featuring a cast of exuberantly monstrous sword-swingers spattering Christian and Islamic blood from Spain to Jerusalem - Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem: The Biography
The story of the Templars, the ultimate holy warriors, is an extraordinary saga of fanaticism, bravery, treachery and betrayal, and in Dan Jones they have a worthy chronicler. The Templars is a wonderful book! - Bernard Cornwall, author of The Last Kingdom
Snappy, well-paced... The author's ambition, he says, is to tell the story of the Templars in a straightforward way and "to write a book that will entertain as well as inform". He has done precisely that' - Daily Telegraph
Full of tales of bloodshed, bravery and betrayal, this is a passionate guide to the unstoppable rise and spectacular fall of the poster boys of the Middle Ages - The Tablet, Books of the Year
[The Templars'] colourful story is grippingly told by the excellent Dan Jones - Mail on Sunday
I knew very little about the Templars before picking up this book. Of course, they've been depicting in the odd Hollywood film, but most of us know better than to believe any such depiction to be accurate. Here,... More
A wealthy, powerful and militaristic order of monks they may have been, but their influence and participation in most of the significant events in the history of the crusades is the key point in this new popular... More
The Templars are poorly served in the popular history genre - most books about them are either quite heavy, scholarly examinations or elaborate conspiracy theories. This is neither - it's a good, comprehensive... More
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