The Templars and Their Sources

Even 700 hundred years after the suppression of the Order of the Temple and the execution of the last grandmaster, Jacques de Molay, there is no shortage of publications on this influential military order. Yet unlike other medieval institutions the Templars are subject to speculative fiction and popular myth which threaten to swamp the fruits of scholarly endeavour. Fortunately, recent years have produced a thriving academic scholarship which is challenging these myths. More and more sources are currently being edited, particularly those for the trial of the Templars (1307–1312). Others are still awaiting in-depth study, among them, surprisingly, the greater part of the charters that cover more than one hundred and fifty years of the Order’s history.

The papers in this volume step into this gap and critically evaluate new directions in Templar studies on the basis of as-yet unedited source material. Open issues and desiderata regarding the sources are discussed and from a range of inspiring results a new status quaestionis is proposed that will not only provide a better understanding of the Order’s archaeological, economical, religious, administrative and military history, but also set new points of departure for the editing of charters and administrative documents. The papers here are grouped into six sections, focusing on the headquarters of the Order, its charters, manpower and finance, religious life, and finally the suppression and the Order’s after-life.

Karl Borchardt is a Senior researcher at Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Munchen, and Assistant Professor of Medieval History at Universitat Wurzburg. He has published numerous articles and edited volumes on the Knights Hospitaller and Knights Templar including Comptes de la commanderie de l'Hopital de Manosque pour les annees 1283 a 1290 (2015 with D. Carraz and A. Venturini), Documents concerning Cyprus from the Hospital's Rhodian Archives: 1409-1459 (2011 with A. Luttrell and E. Schoffer) and The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean and Europe (2007 with H. Nicholson and N. Jaspert).

Karoline Doring is working as a postdoc at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat in Munich on the networks of the military orders at the papal curia in the 13^th century. Her PhD was entitled Turkenkrieg und Medienwandel im 15. Jahrhundert (2013), and she has recently finished another monograph on fictitious correspondences between Ottoman sultans and Christian princes from the 14^th–16^th centuries.

Philippe Josserand is a Senior Researcher in medieval history at the Universite de Nantes. He has published various studies on the Iberian Templars and other Spanish brethren such as Eglise et pouvoir dans la peninsule Iberique. Les ordres militaires dans le royaume de Castille (1252–1369) (2004), and co-edited the reference work Prier et combattre. Dictionnaire europeen des ordres militaires au Moyen Age (2009) and Elites et ordres militaires au Moyen Age. Rencontre autour d’Alain Demurger (2015).

Helen Nicholson is Professor of Medieval History at the School of History, Archaeology and Religion at Cardiff University. Her publications on the Templars include The Proceedings against the Templars in the British Isles (2011), The Debate on the Trial of the Templars (1307–1314) (2010 with J. Burgtorf and P.F. Crawford) and The Knights Templar: A New History (2001).