The Templars and the Hospitallers were the two earliest and most famous of the major Military Orders of the Roman Catholic Church from the early twelfth to the middle of the thirteenth century. In this book, Jonathan Riley-Smith attends to the Templars' and Hospitallers' primary role as religious orders, not as military phenomena or economic powerhouses. In a prologue, four chapters, and an epilogue, Riley-Smith discusses the origins of the orders in dedication to the protection of pilgrims to the Holy Land (Templars) and to the care of the poor and the sick among them (Hospitallers). He examines their traditions and early history, the organization of their communities, modes of governance, and, in the fourth chapter, important differences between the orders and a brief account of their respective fates in the wake of the Crusades. The Templars were eventually persecuted by the Church and the order suppressed. Riley-Smith speculates that the violent end of the order was caused both by jealousy of its wealth and by internal problems of governance that left it vulnerable to accusations of conducting blasphemous rites. The Hospitallers survived in one form or another to the present day; vestiges of the original order inform the contemporary Knights of Malta.
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In this book, Jonathan Riley-Smith attends to the Templars’ and Hospitallers’ primary role as religious orders, not as military phenomena or economic powerhouses.
"In this book, Jonathan Riley-Smith provides an approachable and expert introduction to the two most famous and most active military orders, the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller, and their activities in the Levant. It is a first-rate study, energetically and engagingly written by the world's most accomplished historian of the crusades." —Thomas Madden, St. Louis University
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780268040581
Publisert
2009-11-15
Utgiver
Vendor
University of Notre Dame Press
Vekt
223 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Dybde
9 mm
Aldersnivå
UP, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet

Biographical note

Jonathan Riley-Smith is Dixie Professor Emeritus of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of many influential books and essays, including The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam.