Having researched and taught on the Knights Templars for almost two decades, I have strange stories to tell. I’ve heard many conspiracy theories, some of which can be repeated, while others should remain buried. I’ve read far-fetched allegations about the Templars’ involvement in deep plots within the Catholic Church, watched tedious films featuring Templar zombies, and received instruction on their role constructing the Egyptian pyramids (quite a feat for an institution founded in the 12th century).

Unfortunately for the proponents of such tales, the Templars described in the surviving medieval sources were rather less lurid than they might wish.  Worse – at least for ardent conspiracy theorists – professional historians studying the Templars have a tendency to start talking about dull things such as land grants, legal disputes over property rights, ecclesiastical tithes, or provincial administrative hierarchies, which don’t capture the imagination in quite the same way.

So were the Templars actually far more banal than their technicolour modern mythology might suggest? The simple answer is a resounding ‘no’. There is much about the Templars that is astonishing, starting with their fundamental conviction that waging holy war in the name of Jesus Christ (who told his followers to love their enemies) was an acceptable vocation. Other eye-catching aspects of the Templars’ activities include their construction of massive crusader castles and huge sea-going ships.

There is another aspect to their history, however, that is far less well-known, but needs to be better understood. This is the question of why and how the Templars acquired such enormous power and prominence. Starting with virtually nothing in the 1120s, by the 1180s the order possessed a vast network of estates spanning from the Middle East to the furthest reaches of western Christendom. How did they achieve this? In a single word: marketing.

The Templars’ origins go back to the era of the First Crusade (1095-99). During that vast holy war to capture Jerusalem, the first crusaders established three new territories in the Middle East, each centred around a major city seized during the campaign: the county of Edessa, the principality of Antioch, and the kingdom of Jerusalem. A few years later, in 1109, the conquest of Tripoli led to the formation of a fourth ‘Crusader State’ (as they are often referred to today). After these initial conquests, a handful of crusaders remained to settle and defend these territories, seeking to expand their frontiers, supported by subsequent waves of crusading armies. Warriors flocked to the region from western Europe and so did many merchants, adventurers and mercenaries. Pilgrims took ship for the Holy Land in huge numbers, crossing the Mediterranean to make landfall at ports such as Jaffa, Acre and Tyre, and then setting out on the difficult roads through the hill country to Jerusalem.

The Templars’ story begins with these unprotected pilgrim groups. At this time, the region around Jerusalem was in a state of chaos having been a frontier zone between the area’s major powers for decades (long before the crusaders’ arrival). The crusade added a further layer to the disorder, and many raiders and bandits exploited the resulting vacuum to prey upon newly-arrived pilgrim groups, who were unfamiliar with the terrain.

For this reason, a group of knights assembled to provide armed escorts for these pilgrims and to deter would-be attackers. They continued this work for many years without attracting much attention and without growing substantially in number. They became known as ‘Templars’ – probably a nickname (at least initially), referencing their early living quarters on the Temple Mount.

At this stage, the Templar order could simply have continued indefinitely as a small operation and then disappeared from history leaving scarcely a trace. The major change in its fortunes took place in 1127 when King Baldwin II of Jerusalem sent the Templars’ leader Hugh of Payns on a diplomatic mission to gather support from western Christendom. As Hugh travelled from country to country, many became interested in this new phenomenon, these ‘Templars’ and their vocation. The First Crusade and its conquest of Jerusalem had created a major sensation across Christendom in 1099 and so, a generation later, in 1127-29, plenty of families and individuals wished to offer support for an institution committed to Jerusalem’s ongoing defence. These included many nobles whose relatives fought in the First Crusade and who now wished to continue the family tradition. Meanwhile, the highly-influential head of the Cistercian monastic order, Bernard of Clairvaux, vigorously championed the Templars, presenting them as role-models for Christendom’s knightly families.

The Templars’ international reputation grew rapidly from this point on; donations poured-in; and the papacy formally endorsed the Templars as an institution of the Catholic church. These were important building blocks in the order’s development, setting in motion a powerful dynamo for growth. Steadily, the Templars’ financial framework formed itself around this outburst of popularity and, viewed from a solely economic perspective, the Templars began to operate in a manner not dissimilar to a charity. In essence they sought and received donations in recognition for their commitment to a widely recognised goal. The root of their wealth was thousands of pious gifts made by donors from across Christendom year-by-year. Noble families during this era were accustomed to making donations to local abbeys, churches and monasteries; such donations formed a customary part of their everyday spirituality. It was therefore a simple matter for them to channel some of these gifts to the Templars. Around this time, an older medical institution in Jerusalem began to take on military responsibilities, later becoming known as the Knights Hospitaller, and operating internationally in much the same way as the Templars.

For these reasons, the Templars suddenly began to attract supporters from across the social spectrum who expressed their admiration via cash gifts, grants of land and new recruits. Equipped with this wealth, the Templars could then channel huge quantities of money and resources into their activities in the Crusader States. No longer just pilgrim escorts, the Templars bought and garrisoned castles, and began deploying large military contingents.

Even so, this could so easily have been a short-lived phenomenon. Lots of other institutions – including hospitals, cathedrals and other monastic orders – sought to attract donations from wealthy benefactors. The challenge facing the Templars was to maintain a high level of interest across western Christendom for as long as possible; in short, they needed to pay close attention to their public relations and marketing.

They achieved this goal in many ways. Perhaps most importantly when they received gifts of land in western Europe – such as estates, houses, churches, etc – they didn’t simply sell these assets, rather they retained them as outposts for their order. Later, they began to group their regional landholdings together into clusters known as ‘commanderies’, each centred around a small headquarters for its local region and administered by the order’s personnel. In time, the order built up hundreds of these commanderies, enabling their staff to engage with communities at a local level across many different countries, including the kingdoms of France, England, the empire of Germany, and Italian city states. Their representatives could then build up long-term relationships with neighbouring noble, aristocratic and merchant families, reminding them of their work and encouraging them to act as benefactors for the order.

Meanwhile, the Templars either took over or constructed many churches and here, too, they went to great lengths to draw attention to their labours in the distant Holy Land. They decorated their churches with frescoes depicting their members’ activities either on the battlefield or at prayer; they embellished these buildings with objects recalling Jerusalem and the sacred sites of the Holy Land. In some cases they even constructed their churches with distinctively round naves, thereby imitating the rotunda of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (the most important Christian church in Jerusalem, encompassing the sites of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection).

Templars stationed in the Crusader States contributed to this process by sending update reports to their officers in western Europe describing their recent wars, castle-building projects, and treaties. These bulletins could then be distributed through their network of commanderies. Again, by these means, they sought to remind their supporters about their work and the costs it entailed, encouraging them to redouble their commitments to the order. At times, these news reports could be delivered in an extremely dramatic fashion. In 1177 the Templars’ sister order, the Knights Hospitaller, sent a wounded brother knight to carry tidings of victory to western Christendom following the battle of Montgisard. The Hospitallers operated according to a similar model to the Templars, and they saw clearly that a veteran knight bearing the fresh scars of combat could have a dramatic effect in drawing attention to their labours.

For the cultivators of the order’s public image in western Christendom, however, victory and defeat in the Middle East raised both opportunities and challenges. A victory might cause an outpouring of celebration among a military orders’ benefactors, but it might also signal to donors that the order now possessed adequate resources and no longer required their assistance. From a marketing perspective, victory needed careful handling.

News of defeat on the battlefield similarly raised both problems and opportunities for the Templars. In July 1187 Saladin scored a major victory against the kingdom of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hattin, following which he executed his Templar prisoners. Then, in October of this year, he reconquered Jerusalem, inflicting two substantial defeats on the order. When envoys arrived in western Christendom bearing news of these events, the response was immediate – the Templars received an outpouring of support. Viewed from a public relations perspective, defeat could have a dramatic effect in prompting patrons to open their strongboxes, but it could raise difficulties as well.

A single defeat, even a major defeat, could provoke sympathy among patrons, but repeated defeats might have the opposite effect. During the following century, the Crusader States managed to partially rebuild their position, following substantial losses back in 1187. By 1244 they could  –  once-again – exert a level of influence in Middle Eastern politics roughly equal to their prominence during the previous century. Nevertheless, from 1260 until 1291, the Crusader States endured defeat-after-defeat, culminating ultimately in the final collapse of their territories on the Levantine mainland.  The Templars were closely intertwined with all these wars and, again, they frequently tried to use news of defeat to persuade benefactors in western Christendom to extend their support. Even so, while patrons might view a single defeat charitably, there was a danger that they would view repeated defeats rather differently. Relentless failure does not play well with benefactors who wish to believe that their donations will help an institution to achieve its stated goals. Consequently, in the later decades of the 13th century the Templars became increasingly concerned about how their mounting defeats might play out with their supporters; in particular, they became sensitive to any accusation that might seek to assign blame to their order.

Meanwhile, across the turbulent lifespan of the Crusader States (1097-1291), tens of thousands of pilgrims and crusaders travelled out to the Holy Land seeking either to visit the sacred sites in the area and/or to offer their services as warriors. Here, too, the Templars saw an opportunity both to better achieve their goals and to bolster their public image back in western Christendom. To this end, they provided accommodation and support for pilgrims travelling through Christendom’s heartlands, en route to the Italian and southern French ports that were the first waystations on the long journey to Jerusalem. Templar and Hospitaller ships then ferried these travellers across the Mediterranean. Some of these vessels were very large, in some cases capable of carrying over a thousand passengers. Then, after their arrival in the Crusader States, visiting warriors could fight in the Templars’ armed contingents, while Templar escorts took pilgrims on tours around the holy sites, and those requiring medical attention could receive care from the Knights Hospitallers’ hospital in Jerusalem (and later in the city of Acre). A notable feature of this hospital is that it offered medical care to anyone regardless of religion.

Supporting visiting pilgrims and crusaders dovetailed with the Templars’ and Hospitallers’ main vocation of defending Jerusalem and the Crusader States but, by providing wide-ranging facilities for visitors, they also won considerable praise from returning pilgrims, who spoke admiringly about the support they had received. Many made donations to the orders, either during their stay in Jerusalem, or soon after their return home. Notably, the Templars encouraged this process in several ways. According to the ‘Templars Rule’ (a document setting out the order’s rules and regulations) the Templars’ master handed out gifts to the order’s supporters in the Holy Land, such as a silver goblet or a squirrel-hair robe. Notably, these were items which weren’t especially expensive, but which communicated a high level of prestige. I’ve always suspected that the order handed out these gifts in the hope that they would become family heirlooms. It isn’t difficult to imagine former crusaders regaling their friends and relatives with stories of their adventures in the distant Holy Land, while brandishing their Templar-given chalice as evidence. The purpose of these gifts, as with so many of the Templars’ actions, was to build up long-term relationships with benefactors; a situation where aristocratic families saw support for the Templars as a generational commitment, a cherished aspect of their family identity.

In this way the Templars grew to become an institution with purchasing power comparable to that of a monarch. Donations provided ongoing revenue, but the order’s growing portfolio of assets (chapels, towns, mines, salt pans, industries, roads, etc) provided substantial revenues in their own right, much of which could then be channelled to the Holy Land. None of the above should imply that the Templars sought money as an end in itself; rather it gave them the means to vigorously pursue their military activities in the Middle East.

The Templars prospered for well over a century, but their rise to prominence contained the seeds of their future collapse. Put simply, the Templars managed to become a massive international operation in large part because thousands of benefactors sincerely believed them to be devout defenders of Jerusalem; they built their entire institution around this belief. What happened if anything damaged this public image?

The Templars’ downfall came in the early years of the 14th century. The background to this event was Philip IV of France’s persistent wars with Flanders and the kingdom of England. These conflicts encumbered the king with a huge amount of debt from which he could find little relief. He tried extracting money from his kingdom’s Jewish communities, Catholic clergy, and Italian bankers, but he couldn’t raise sufficient funds. Then he began to cast predatory eyes towards the Templars. The Templars’ efforts to defend the Crusader States during the last decades of the 13th century brought their order to the brink of bankruptcy, but they still possessed huge stretches of valuable farmland. This is what Philip wanted. Consequently, he arrested the order’s personnel in France, accused the order of heresy, and demand that the pope dissolve them. These events marked the beginnings of the Trial of Templars. It isn’t clear who truly spearheaded the resulting campaign against them; was it Philip himself? Or was it his leading ministers who persuaded their master of the order’s guilt? Either way, after years of pressure, the pope eventually conceded and dissolved the order.

The crucial point in this process is that Philip attacked the order at its weakest point – its public image. If he could persuade at least some of the wider public that the Templars were heretics, or even just sow doubt about their ‘true’ nature, then the whole edifice would become brittle and come crashing down. The order was strong only while its benefactors remained prepared to defend it, but, by tainting the order with allegations of heresy, these patrons would suddenly fall away, perhaps fearing the possibility of guilt by association. It only compounded matters that the order had just failed in its historic objective of defending the Crusader States. In these ways, an institution that rose to enormous power and fame in the 12th century through its construction of a powerful public image, fell when Philip IV tore down this same public image in the 14th.

For institutions dependent on the goodwill and support of others, effective communications are essential. Modern historians are reasonably unanimous in their verdict that the accusations of heresy levelled against the Templars were either largely or wholly baseless, but that isn’t the point. If you can persuade people that there’s ‘no smoke without fire’, then there doesn’t need to be a fire. The central importance of public image in the history of the Templar order may also go some way to explaining why, even today, we continue to haggle over the way the order is presented and remembered, including even the most unlikely of conspiracy theories. This debate is historic; it started the moment the order came to Christendom’s broader attention all the way back in the 1120s.