Circle of Willis
Well-known member
The Templar Order was one of the three most famous military orders of medieval Christendom alongside the Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights, and also the only one of the three to not have survived into modernity (even if only as defanged, pale shadows of their former selves - certainly as far as we know, neither the Hospitallers nor the Teutons have any secret armies lying around anywhere these days). They had a dramatic rise & fall, for within two centuries they had not only became the tip-of-the-lance for many Christian armies in the Crusades but also amassed a supranational financial empire spanning numerous castles, estates and businesses across Europe. And that was on top of managing arguably the first Christian banks (narrowly beating out those of Renaissance Italy) and pioneering cheques with how they handled pilgrims' transactions & deposits.
Of course, the Templars' wealth attracted the ire & envy of powerful European monarchs, chief among them the autocratic and ruthless Philip the Fair of France. After managing to install a puppet in the Chair of Saint Peter, Clement V (who was also the first of the Avignon Popes, infamous for their corruption and blatant favoritism toward France in international politics), Philip arranged for the Templar leadership to be arrested and tortured into 'confessing' to blasphemy & demon worship. Clement dissolved their order, their bountiful assets were confiscated by the secular authorities, and their last Grandmaster Jacques de Molay was burned at the stake (among others). Legend has it that he cursed his tormentors, and that this curse's final poison fruit was the extinction of the senior Capetian bloodline of which Philip (who died on a hunt some months afterward) was the patriarch at the time: though it had seemed unassailable with 300 years of unbroken father-son succession behind it and three adult, married heirs ahead of Philip, a series of dramatic affairs and relatively young deaths annihilated the royal family not even 20 years after De Molay's immolation - passing the French throne on to their Valois cousins, and setting up the Hundred Years' War with England.
Still, the damage had been done, with the Templars destroyed pretty much everywhere except Portugal and Aragon (where they regrouped as the Order of Christ and Order of Montesa, respectively). Nowadays, aside from being a curiosity for historical discussions, they've mainly become fodder for conspiracy theories. But what if the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon had managed to avoid this ignominious fate? I think a good POD (besides just making the crusades more successful so that the Templars still seem indispensable militarily to Christendom) would be to give them their own order-state, as the Hospitallers and Teutons had, and thus a reliable bastion where they could wall themselves up if attacked by secular monarchs like Philip IV: in this regard two possibilities are Cyprus, which the Templars briefly ruled but found to be too much of a hassle to hold directly & sold off to the King of Jerusalem, and Alfonso of Aragon wanting to will his kingdom to them. How could a surviving Templar Order, or even an 'État Monastique des chevaliers Templiers', affect the course of late-medieval European history & beyond?
Of course, the Templars' wealth attracted the ire & envy of powerful European monarchs, chief among them the autocratic and ruthless Philip the Fair of France. After managing to install a puppet in the Chair of Saint Peter, Clement V (who was also the first of the Avignon Popes, infamous for their corruption and blatant favoritism toward France in international politics), Philip arranged for the Templar leadership to be arrested and tortured into 'confessing' to blasphemy & demon worship. Clement dissolved their order, their bountiful assets were confiscated by the secular authorities, and their last Grandmaster Jacques de Molay was burned at the stake (among others). Legend has it that he cursed his tormentors, and that this curse's final poison fruit was the extinction of the senior Capetian bloodline of which Philip (who died on a hunt some months afterward) was the patriarch at the time: though it had seemed unassailable with 300 years of unbroken father-son succession behind it and three adult, married heirs ahead of Philip, a series of dramatic affairs and relatively young deaths annihilated the royal family not even 20 years after De Molay's immolation - passing the French throne on to their Valois cousins, and setting up the Hundred Years' War with England.
Still, the damage had been done, with the Templars destroyed pretty much everywhere except Portugal and Aragon (where they regrouped as the Order of Christ and Order of Montesa, respectively). Nowadays, aside from being a curiosity for historical discussions, they've mainly become fodder for conspiracy theories. But what if the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon had managed to avoid this ignominious fate? I think a good POD (besides just making the crusades more successful so that the Templars still seem indispensable militarily to Christendom) would be to give them their own order-state, as the Hospitallers and Teutons had, and thus a reliable bastion where they could wall themselves up if attacked by secular monarchs like Philip IV: in this regard two possibilities are Cyprus, which the Templars briefly ruled but found to be too much of a hassle to hold directly & sold off to the King of Jerusalem, and Alfonso of Aragon wanting to will his kingdom to them. How could a surviving Templar Order, or even an 'État Monastique des chevaliers Templiers', affect the course of late-medieval European history & beyond?