The first Templars were French knights dedicated to protecting Christians on pilgrimage to holy sites. Highly trained and passionately devoted to God, they fought with no fear of death and eventually became monks, albeit monks with no problem using a sword on their enemies.
The Knights built the world's first multi-national corporation, a huge network of castles, farms and ships all designed to make money to support the Crusades. This financial empire helped Richard the Lionheart and the King of France, but it also raised suspicions that these "holy men" were growing too powerful and independant. Thus began the accusations of heresy - and the burnings at the stake.
The Templar organization was without frontiers and constructed a financial system years ahead of its time. It was this vastly powerful Templar corporation that enabled their elite warrior knights to survive on the frontline, the Holy Land, surrounded by the hostile forces of Islam. But beholden to no nation, the Templars could and did play their own hand in the deadly game of Middle Eastern politics. Negotiating with the enemy meant yet more controversy, and so they sowed the seeds of their own downfall.
Professor Malcolm Barber, the world's leading Templar historian, explores the impressive rise and rapid fall of a group ahead of its time. Did the Knights cause the Crusades to ultimately fail? What happened to the surviving heroes of the Order? And - even more important - was there a secret treasure and where might it be now?