1. In his preface, Read refers to “a common perception of the crusades as an early example of west European aggression and imperialism.” (p xi) In what ways and to what extent might recent American policies and activities in the Middle East be seen as equivalent to the crusades ?

2. To what extent does Read’s account of the founding and expansion of Islam and its conflicts with Judaism and Christianity promote a better understanding of present-day circumstances, developments, events, and animosities in the Middle East?

3. “Despite their involvement with the financial, logistical and military aspects of war,”Read states, “the Templars do not appear to have lost sight of their commitment to the defence of the Holy Land and recovery of Jerusalem.” (p 215) To what extent did their military activities and increasing wealth and holdings compromise their founding commitment, and how?

4. Read notes that it is difficult today “to understand how so many belonging to their country’s elite should have chosen a life of selfabnegation” in the monastic orders. (p 95) What explanation does he give for so many having made that choice ?

5. What were the chief motivations, according to Read, of those who joined or granted donations and privileges to the Templars?

6. What was Bernard of Clairvaux’s importance in the history of the Templars and in twelfth-century Europe? To what extent did his “personal magnetism and spiritual power” serve the purposes of fanaticism and injustice? Read quotes Bernard as addressing the Knights of the Temple, in De laude novae militae: “Rejoice, courageous athlete, if you live and conquer in the Lord, but exult and glory the more if you die and are joined to the Lord.” (p 106) What expectations might these words have engendered among the Templars and other crusaders?

7. What events and factors contributed to the Templars’ increasing readiness “to prefer their own judgement on military matters to that of the Latin princes” (p 146) and to prefer their own judgment in financial and other areas? What factors enabled them to determine for themselves the terms and conditions of their participation in the affairs of the Holy Land kingdoms and principalities and those of Western Europe? With what consequences?

8. What parallels might we draw between the jihad (Holy War) of Nur ed-Din and Saladin and the jihad proclaimed by Osama bin Laden and others against the United States and other Western nations?

9. What was the impact on the crusaders of the complex political and dynastic relationships, joined through marriage and treaties, in the Middle Ages? In what ways did these relationships affect both the growth and downfall of the Templars?

10. How did the Templars become “the bankers of Christendom” (p 183), and how did their activities as such affect the rulers of Western Europe, the Church, and the fate of the Order itself ? In what ways and to what extent did the Templars’ later management of money and financial exchanges and services undermine their original purpose and contribute to their dissolution?

11. Writing about the Albigensian Crusade, Read notes: “Feudal loyalties and political interests became inextricably entangled with religious zeal leading to paradoxical alliances.” (pp. 193–194) What were some of those paradoxical alliances throughout the crusades and what entanglements of loyalties, interests, and beliefs gave rise to them?

12. What was the role and importance of comradeship and friendship within each of the military orders and among the orders themselves? Why was friendship so important, and how was it manifested?

13. What circumstances and developments—political, religious, and other—led to the demand, in the 1290s, that the orders of the Temple and the Hospital merge? To what extent was that demand justified? To what degree were the two orders justified in opposing a merger, and what were their arguments against merging? Why was Philip IV of France, in particular, determined to destroy the Temple? Why might so many of the Templars arrested have confessed to the heinous charges brought against them?

14. “Why,” asks Read, “in the words of Peter of Bologna, did the members of the most formidable military force in the Western world go to their deaths ‘like sheep to the slaughter’?” (p 283) How does Read answer this question?

15. Why didn’t the Templars adapt, as did the Hospitallers, after the fall of Acre? What elements of personalities, hierarchy, and the order’s structure and rule contributed to that failure?

16. “Far more than the Hospitallers or the Teutonic Knights,”Read notes, “the Templars captured the imagination of chroniclers and poets alike.” (p 303) What characteristics and actions of the Templars might account for the continuing fascination with them and their legacy?

17. Read asks: “What should be the wider verdict of history on the Knights of the Order of the Temple?” (p 309) How would you answer his question?

18. What remains today of the military orders of the Middle Ages? What relevant purpose do those remnants serve in the twenty-first century? What might be the relevance, specifically, of the Templars and their history to our own time and world ?

About the Author

Piers Paul Read studied history at Cambridge University and has written twelve acclaimed novels and three works of nonfiction. His novels have won the Hawthornden Prize and the Geoffrey Faber, Somerset Maugham, and James Tait Black awards. He lives in London.