The Masters and Commanders of the Knights Templar
Chair: Isra Shah (irshah@uchicago.edu)
Crisis Director: Andrew O'Shaugnessy (aoshaughnessy@uchicago.edu)
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon—better (although less loquaciously) known as the Knights Templar—was a monastic military order active throughout the twelfth through fourteenth centuries. While most famous for their peerless military prowess and fanatical courage, very few of the Templars were ever actually fighting men. Instead, the bulk of the organization was devoted to acquiring and husbanding the colossal financial system that provided for the Order’s primary mission: wresting control the Holy Land from the Saracens. Granted a special dispensation from the Pope excusing it from secular taxes and fealties, the Order was a decisive martial force and an international commercial and banking institution. Indeed, it was arguably history’s first multinational corporation, a key stakeholder in enterprises from Britain to Antioch. By no means, however, is the martial potency of the Templars to be forgotten. Their crack knights and hardy sergeants held critical fortifications throughout the Crusader States and were able to change the tide of pivotal battles.
It fell to the Masters and Commanders of the Knights Templar to win great victories—in the court, of the coin, and by the sword. Political jealousies among secular lords not only threatened the Order, but endangered the Crusades themselves. The Order had to maintain their many economic interests which were the foundation of their influence. In an age when men had God on their lips and murder in their hearts, Templar officers could not long forget their prime function: the sweat and blood of holy war.