The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple

The New Knighthood:A History of the Order of the Temple. By Malcolm Barber. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1994. Pp. xxii, 441; 14 figures, 17 plates. $69.95.)

There has long been a need for an up-to-date and reliable history of the Order of the Temple in English. Malcolm Barber has now supplied that desideratum with The New Knighthood, a lucid account of the Order from its modest beginnings in the Holy Land around 1119 to its dramatic dissolution by papal decree in 1312.

Although the loss of the main archive (probably during the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus in 1571) hampers discussion of the growth of the Order in the East, Barber argues for a more vigorous expansion of the nascent Temple than is suggested by William of Tyre's oft-quoted account of its foundation. Greater early success renders explicable not only the recognition accorded to the Templars at the Council of Troyes in 1129, but also the evidence from...