HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: The official website for BBC History Magazine
date: 2025-02-12T13:12:27.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Conspiracy: legends of the Knights Templar
items: Templars on trial: why were the Knights accused of such heinous crimes?
items: The Knights Templar: everything you wanted to know
items: Richard the Lionheart may not have spoken English – plus 7 more surprising facts
items: The rise and fall of the Knights Templar
items: The Knights Templar
items: History explorer: The Knights Templar
items: Crusade logistics and the battle over the slave trade
items: Living through the Crusades: 3 poems and songs that reveal how medieval people felt about the holy war

Conspiracy: legends of the Knights Templar
type: item
date: 2024-02-08T11:50:13.000Z
creator: Rob Attar
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Knights Templar
description: Historian Steve Tibble casts his eye over the myriad of conspiracy theories connected to the medieval military order
encoded: In the early 14th century, the Knights Templar were suppressed and the 200-year history of this military religious order came to an abrupt end. Or did it? What if some of the Templars escaped persecution to operate secretly until the present day, holding on to precious religious relics and maybe even discovering America? In this new episode of Conspiracy, Rob Attar is joined by medieval historian Steve Tibble to explore why myths have surrounded the Templars from the Middle Ages until the present day – and to explain how Rosslyn Chapel and the Holy Grail fit into the story. View Green Video on the source website

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Conspiracy: legends of the Knights Templar
type: item
date: 2024-01-18T11:44:54.000Z
creator: Rob Attar
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Knights Templar
description: Historian Steve Tibble casts his eye over the myriad of conspiracy theories connected to the medieval military order
encoded: In the early 14th century, the Knights Templar were suppressed and the 200-year history of this military religious order came to an abrupt end. Or did it? What if some of the Templars escaped persecution to operate secretly until the present day, holding on to precious religious relics and maybe even discovering America? In this new episode of Conspiracy, Rob Attar is joined by medieval historian Steve Tibble to explore why myths have surrounded the Templars from the Middle Ages until the present day – and to explain how Rosslyn Chapel and the Holy Grail fit into the story.

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Templars on trial: why were the Knights accused of such heinous crimes?
type: item
date: 2023-10-10T11:42:39.000Z
creator: Steve Tibble
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Knights Templar
description: From 1307, members of the Knights Templar were beaten, brutalised and put to death on charges of heresy, Satanism and mass murder. But, asks Steve Tibble, were this elite band of holy warriors fitted up for crimes they didn’t commit?
encoded: They arrived with no warning, striking swiftly as a guillotine blade. As dawn broke over France on 13 October 1307, hundreds of royal troops stormed the residences of Templar knights, rounded up the brethren and put them in chains. The knights were caught completely unawares – and the charges that were set out against them were extraordinary. Allegations included participating in Satanic initiation ceremonies; spitting or trampling on the crucifix; worshipping idols; and kissing their brothers on the navel, penis, lips and anus in profane masses. It was a spectacular fall from grace for the Knights Templar, a military-religious order that had long been esteemed across Europe and beyond. For nearly two centuries, since the order’s foundation in Jerusalem c1119, the Templars had been charged with defending residents of, and pilgrims to, the crusader states of the Middle East. Once celebrated across the Christian world for their unwavering courage in battle and the zeal with which they served God, suddenly they were being reviled and at- tacked. How and why did this dramatic collapse in fortunes come about? The driving force behind the assault on the Templars was France’s King Philip IV, ‘the Fair’. Philip was outwardly pious, but also in great need of cash. Indeed, he had a track record of crushing minority groups in pursuit of easy money. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2023/09/RCHM49web-a9059e3.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="An illustration showing King Philip IV next to Knights Templars who are about to be burnt at the stake." title="Philip IV, known as ‘the Fair’ – for his looks, not for his grasping, vindictive character. As well as targeting the Templars, he expelled all Jews from France. (From De casibus virorum illustrium by Giovanni Boccaccio, via Alamy)" /> In the early 1290s, he had arrested all of the so-called Lombard bankers – Italian moneylenders – in France, and confiscated their goods. And in 1306, he had expel…

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The Knights Templar: everything you wanted to know
type: item
date: 2022-10-02T10:07:57.000Z
creator: Emily Briffett
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Everything you wanted to know about history (podcast series)
subject: Knights Templar
description: Helen Nicholson answers listener questions on the crusading medieval military order made famous by its mysterious connections to the Holy Grail and Masonic order
encoded: Who joined the Knights Templar? When not waging war, what did they get up to on a day-to-day basis? And how did they become associated with the Holy Grail? In this Everything you wanted to know episode, Emily Briffett speaks with Helen Nicholson to uncover the answers to your top questions about the crusading military order.

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Richard the Lionheart may not have spoken English – plus 7 more surprising facts
type: item
date: 2020-04-08T12:10:00.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Crusades
subject: Family and parenting
subject: Knights Templar
subject: Medieval battles
subject: Medieval kings and queens
description: Richard I – aka Richard the Lionheart – is remembered for being a chivalrous medieval king; for battling Saladin during the Crusades; and for rebelling against his father, Henry II (1133–89). His name has become an English legend, but how much do you know about him? Here, writing for History Extra, author Douglas Boyd reveals eight surprising facts about Richard the Lionheart...
encoded: Was he really betrothed at the age of nine? Did he spend most of his time abroad, fighting the Crusades? And did King Richard ever meet the legendary Robin Hood, as the 1973 Disney film suggests? Find out more about Richard the Lionheart (1157–99)… Despite being born in England, Richard may not have spoken English Richard was born in September 1157 in what was then known as ‘the King’s Houses’, a palace built by his great-grandfather Henry I outside the north gate of Oxford city because it was a comfortable ride from there to his hunting tower at Woodstock. Standing near the present site of Worcester College, the palace was later demolished, but a commemorative plaque on the north side of Beaumont Street records its existence and the possibility that two kings of England may have been born there: Richard I and his younger brother John. However, Richard did not spend a great deal of time in England and he may not have learned to speak English. In his whole reign, he spent no more than six months north of the Channel. Did you know that Richard I is buried at Fontevraud Abbey in Anjou, where his father – and later his mother – were buried, while his heart was kept at Rouen Cathedral? There was a notable social divide in England At that time, half of England was owned by a network of 200 related Anglo-Norman families (and the rest by the crown and the church). In the century since the Norman Conquest, followers of William the Bastard and his successors married noble Anglo-Saxon women to form a new French-speaking aristocracy. Their wealth and even their food were supplied by the toil of their native Anglo-Saxon serfs, few of whom rose to greatness. Traces of the racial and class divide of this time still exist in modern English. For the live animals herded, tended, milked and slaughtered by the natives we still use their Anglo-Saxon names like sheep, calf, cow and swine. For the cooked meat on the table, which only the French-speaking overlords were allowed to eat, we u…

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The rise and fall of the Knights Templar
type: item
date: 2019-06-27T11:35:35.000Z
creator: Dan Jones
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Crusades
subject: Knights Templar
subject: Medieval battles
subject: TV interest
description: Dan Jones tells the story of a crack unit of holy hard-men who spent 200 years defending crusaders' interests in the Middle East with unblinking ferocity
encoded: On a cripplingly hot day at the start of July 1187, Saladin, the sultan of Egypt and Syria, stood beside his son al-Afdal and peered across the battlefield towards a red tent on a hill. The sultan’s face was pale with worry. The armies before him had been fighting for hours, tortured by near-unbearable heat, dust and smoke, which billowed up from the desert scrub Saladin’s own men had set alight. Thousands of men and horses lay dead. The enemy – a vast force led by the Christian king Guy of Jerusalem – was badly battered and falling back, but until the king’s red pavilion fell, victory would not be complete. Al-Afdal, youthful and bullish, cheered every Christian charge that the Muslim army repulsed. Saladin scolded him. “Be quiet!” he said. “We have not beaten them until that tent falls.” Moments later, the sultan’s angst turned to tearful jubilation. The tent collapsed, King Guy was captured and the battle of Hattin was over. The Christians’ holiest relic – a fragment of the True Cross – was seized. The dead were left to rot where they lay, while the living were led off in disgrace: the lowliest Christian prisoners for slaves, and the more valuable for ransom. Dan Jones on the Templars and ‘Knightfall’ The Templars on trial: a very muted inquisition But there was one category of captives who received quite different treatment from all the rest. A reward of 50 dinars was offered to anyone who could present the sultan with a member of the military orders: Hospitallers and Templars. These knights and sergeants were the elite special forces within the armies of the cross. They were the most dedicated and highly trained warriors in the Holy Land. And Saladin had special plans for them. Band of brothers In 1187 the Order of the Poor Knights and of the Temple of Solomon was about 68 years old. The Order had first been assembled in 1119 at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by a French knight called Hugh of Payns. Hugh had travelled to the east around the time …

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The Knights Templar
type: item
date: 2017-09-14T15:21:29.000Z
creator: Dan Jones
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Crusades
subject: Knights Templar
description: Dan Jones and Suzannah Lipscomb discuss the rise and fall of the medieval military order who became the stuff of legend
encoded: In a special extended-length episode popular historian Dan Jones is joined by Dr Suzannah Lipscomb to discuss his new book The Templars, which explores the rise and fall of the medieval military order who became the stuff of legend.

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History explorer: The Knights Templar
type: item
date: 2017-01-19T10:18:52.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Crusades
subject: Knights Templar
subject: Medieval battles
subject: Medieval kings and queens
description: Helen Nicholson and Charlotte Hodgman visit Temple Church in London to explore an order of warrior monks who won glory on the battlefields of the Holy Land in the 12th and 13th centuries...
encoded: This article was first published in the January 2017 issue of BBC History Magazine Hidden in plain sight between bustling Fleet Street and the busy waters of the river Thames is Temple Church, an oasis of calm in the heart of London. Our journey to the church is by way of a ‘secret’ passageway, a cobbled lane that today echoes to the clip-clop of smart shoes and the rumble of cases. The passageway conveys you to a site that, 800 years ago, was the English headquarters of the Knights Templar, an order of warrior monks whose raison d’être was to guard pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land and protect territory captured during the First Crusade. Hidden in plain sight between bustling Fleet Street and the busy waters of the river Thames is Temple Church, an oasis of calm in the heart of London. Our journey to the church is by way of a ‘secret’ passageway, a cobbled lane that today echoes to the clip-clop of smart shoes and the rumble of cases. The passageway conveys you to a site that, 800 years ago, was the English headquarters of the Knights Templar, an order of warrior monks whose raison d’être was to guard pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land and protect territory captured during the First Crusade. Consecrated in February 1185, with Henry II – the order’s most high-profile patron – most likely present, Temple Church originally formed part of a much larger monastic compound of domestic buildings, military training facilities and cloisters, leading straight down to the Thames. The church’s very shape would have made it stand out from the buildings surrounding it, as it still does today. The circular nave – the first part of the church to be built – mirrors the shape of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which is claimed to contain the sites of both the crucifixion and tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. As we enter Temple Church, winter sunlight streams through the tall glass windows, illuminating the effigies of some of its more famous residents. Famed knight Willi…

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Crusade logistics and the battle over the slave trade
type: item
date: 2015-08-13T13:59:36.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Crusades
subject: Knights Templar
subject: Medieval battles
subject: Slavery
description: Christopher Tyerman describes how the medieval campaigns to capture the Holy Land were arranged, while Ryan Cronin discusses some remarkable letters regarding the slave industry
encoded: Oxford historian Christopher Tyerman talks to us about his new book How to Plan a Crusade. Meanwhile, we pay a visit to the University of Cambridge where Ryan Cronin introduces some remarkable documents relating to British slave ownership.

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Living through the Crusades: 3 poems and songs that reveal how medieval people felt about the holy war
type: item
date: 2015-02-04T10:48:44.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Crusades
subject: Knights Templar
subject: Medieval life
description: In 1095, Christian knights mounted a religious war against Muslims in Jerusalem in an attempt to reclaim the Holy Land. Known collectively as the Crusades, the military expeditions transformed the western world, and left a profound legacy in inter-cultural and inter-faith relations nationally and worldwide. Now, long forgotten songs and poetry that reveal contemporary responses to the holy war have been made publicly available online
encoded: In the first archive of its kind, researchers from the universities of Warwick, Royal Holloway College in London and La Sapienza University in Rome are uploading the works of troubadours and trouvères (medieval musicians and poet-musicians), which illustrate public perception of the Crusades. The archive will be populated over the next four years with contemporary poems and songs, alongside translations and historical context of their original composition and performance. Funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council of the UK, the project promises to bring to life “the profound and disturbing legacy of the Crusades”. Professor Linda Paterson from the University of Warwick, who is leading the project, said: “Modern editions of these medieval texts are very often out of date and scattered in journals and disparate publications. This project aims not only to edit and collate the texts, but make them easily available to the public; they are a valuable resource for not only academic researchers, but also students and school-teachers and are particularly relevant in the current global political climate.” Here, writing for History Extra, Paterson shares three of her favourite poems and songs to feature in the archive: 1) Marcabru, Pax in nomine Domini I chose this troubadour song because it’s perhaps the most brilliantly robust crusade song urging men to go on crusade: not to the Holy Land where the French have made a mess of the Second Crusade, but to Spain, to take part in the Reconquista. It has a powerful, solemn tune, a recording of which can be heard on the website – listen here (click the logo to the left of the title). The modern English translation of the poem reads: I. Peace in the name of the Lord! Marcabru made the vers and the tune. Hear what he says: how the heavenly Lord in His loving-kindness has created for us, in our vicinity, a washing-place such as never existed before, apart from over there near the valley of Josaphat in Outremer; but it is about t…

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