The Templars

The History and the Myth: From Solomon's Temple to the Freemasons

By: Michael Haag

Narrated by: Guy Bethell

Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

Arguably one of the most provocative, puzzling, and misunderstood organizations of medieval times, the legendary Knights Templar have always been shrouded in a veil of mystery, while inspiring popular culture from Indiana Jones to Dan Brown. In The Templars, author Michael Haag offers a definitive history of these loyal Christian soldiers of the Crusades - sworn to defend the Holy Land and Jerusalem, but ultimately damned and destroyed by the Pope and his church.

A best seller in the United Kingdom - the first history of the enigmatic warriors to include findings from the Chinon Parchment, the long-lost Vatican document absolving the Knights of heresy - The Templars by Michael Haag is a fascinating, must-listen book.

©2011 Michael Haag (P)2017 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Haag sifts through the history and the legends to illuminate these mysterious Holy Warriors.... [Fans] of The Da Vinci Code and other fictions relating to the Templars will enjoy this well-written […] and solidly researched book. Highly recommended." ( Library Journal)

Nice book

A pretty thorough review of various sources on the Templars. I find this narrative more believable since the author takes a pragmatic view and strips down the magic - the simplest explanation is usually the most correct one. Not thrilled with the narrator - he often slurs the words and his character impersonations are somewhat annoying. His grandpa in the armchair style is somewhat endearing, though.

Demystifying

In movies, TV, and old books the Knights have been present. The stories always conjuring up mystery. Thanks for clearing things up some. Great listen.

Solid but not perfect

The author distorts some of his early facts in the gospels and their dating thus showing his scope is grand but stretches himself too thin. He also rightly accuses previous authors to exaggerating their claims on the Templars without good evidence (which he is quite right); but then he does the same thing by dismissing 100% of all these “myths” with a hand wave instead of evidence why all of them are false? So overall a good introduction but the author should have ranked for example that Templar’s discovered America perhaps a “2” on possibility and then the Masonic link a “5” possibly instead of continuing to laugh and hand wave these all as “just silly” but not refuting or ranking based on plausibility, explanatory scope/power, etc.
The voice over is PERFECT for this book though and that bring my rank from a 3 star to 4 star. (I have an MA in classical history so though I am no expert neither am I a novice)

historical info

I am a history buff and wanted to learn more about the templers good listening to

Rather bad narration

This work is full of historical detail, and it is probably a great read in print. The narrator, however, has a sloppy, lazy, British accent which gets worse when quoting sources used in the work. If I read it again it will be in book form or with a different narrator.

Comprehensive

A good historical reference of a great mystery. I appreciate the references to locations and other texts at the end of narration.

Great book!

Terrific story and historic accounts of the Knights Templar. Well read by the narrator. A must listen or read by any Templar historian.

Very Informative

I chose this book because I was interested in the Templars and looking for true facts, and this book delivers. The narrator was clear in his reading and held my interest. I found out quite a bit of new information and I want to learn more about the Templars.

Fact, fiction, opinion..

Struggled to finish this one. My take away is that the author is rather pleased with their a priori conclusions. Several opinions are proffered as empirically data resultant despite a lack of corroborating evidence. The leaps notwithstanding are skillfully woven into the story however.

Surprisingly Informative

This book was surprisingly informative even though the events of the Crusades had been old news for a while or at least in my ears.  In the first two chapters, the author Mr. Michael Haag discusses the ancient and biblical events that had led themselves to the building of King Solomon's temple, and in Chapter Five, he discusses the nine founding knights of the Temple Order and when they and Hugues de Payens gathered themselves together.  In Chapter 13 (of course), he discusses the downfall of the Poor Knights of Christ and has partially validated some things in the History Channel's TV series Knightfall (2017-19); for example, the grandfather of Guillaume de Nogaret had been a Cathar although the show states that his parents had been Cathars before they were burned at the stake by Pope Boniface.  This book states that de Nogaret had led a small army to overpower Boniface and his small entourage of Templars and Hospitalers before the local people and warriors chased them away.  The pope died sometime thereafter before another would replace him for a year whom Clement V would later replace in 1305. 

The audiobook has depicted Clement V as the much, much lesser of two evils and says that the Chinon Parchment that was discovered in 2001 and made public in 2007 states that the Pope had conducted an investigation and a trial of the Templars and absolved them of the charge of heresy, so King Philip of France killed only the French Templars before the Pope could publish his absolvement.  Philip was allowed to arrest the Poor Knights thanks to a long-standing loophole in the legal system that had allowed a papal Inquisitor whom Philip employed to investigate everybody other than the Pope on the grounds of heresy.

Thankfully, the book talks about what became of the Templars in other countries like Spain and Portugal whose monarchs would incorporate the warrior-monks into new orders.  In Chapter 17, the author talks about the many conspiracy theories that surround the Templars and whether they went to the Americas or not, and in his last chapter, he brings up the presence of Templars in contemporary literature, music, video games (not Assassin's Creed), television (not Knightfall), and films like my beloved Kingdom of Heaven (2005) of which the author's interpretation was quite accurate: the Christians were not entirely good, the Muslims were not entirely bad, and the only heroes were the humanitarian agnostics like the characters of Orlando Bloom and Jeremy Irons.  Mr. Haag asserts that Ridley Scott and the others had not done their homework or at least not sufficiently, but in the bonus content on DVD, both the actor Irons and the director said that they had researched the subject but that some things were just matters of "artistic license" like the killing of Saladin's sister.

The the forbidden-love affair in Knightfall is still partially and hypothetically possible because this book claims that all three sons of Philip failed to conceive a male heir, and the book Crusaders (2019) by Dan Jones who advised the TV show claims that Phillip persecuted his daughters-in-law for alleged infidelity, so it is possible that the queen's hypothetical affair with a Templar had caused Philip to perceive adulteresses everywhere, and perhaps he had also needed an excuse to find new daughters-in-law who would conceive sons. Finally, the narrator Mr. Guy Bethal is an Englishman who reads with conviction and actually tries to change his voice when he quotes people even though his accents have not sounded the least bit Russian, Arabic, or French.