Knights Of The Cloister

The iconic Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller were driving forces throughout the long history of the European crusades in the Holy Land (1096–1297).

Knights of the Cloister examines these two orders closely, using original charters and manuscripts to describe and detail their activities in southern France, their heartland. It highlights their extraordinary achievements by looking at:

• their relationship with the heretical Cathars
• their interaction with the pope, local bishops, abbots and nobles
• shipping and pilgrimages
• banking
• individual knight’s careers and family connections
• confraternity, burial, and requiem masses for their patrons
• local justice on their lands
• recruitment
• their involvement in the Albigensian crusade and the Spanish Reconquista
• sending men, horses, weapons, and money to the battle in the East
• their success compared to other new religious orders that flowered in this age of ‘popular piety’ such as the Cistercians, Franciscans, and Dominicans.

Other themes addressed include the orders’ relationship to Occitanian society and to the laiety, their involvement with pilgrimage to Jerusalem, their innovative administrative structures, and their logistical operations.