'tis but a scratch: fact and fiction about the Middle Ages
Talking about popular conceptions of the Middle Ages and their historical realities. Join Richard Abels to learn about Vikings, knights and chivalry, movies set in the Middle Ages, and much more about the medieval world.
'tis but a scratch: fact and fiction about the Middle Ages
The Knights Templar, Part 3: From History to Legend (with Steve Tibble)
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This is our third and final episode on the crusading order of the Knights Templar. In today's episode, my cohost Dr. Steve Tibble and I talk about the "afterlife" of the Templars, and how and why a military order suppressed in the early fourteenth century has become the go-to for so many conspiracy theorists. Among the topics discussed in this episode are: Templars and Freemasonry; Sir Walter Scott's shaping of their image in his novels, Ivanhoe and The Talisman; the (mis)use of the Templar legend by late nineteenth century French Occultists, racist Neo-Templarists and today's White Supremacists, in the videogame, "Assassin's Creed," and in the "non-fiction" best-seller Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, and the even better selling novel that drew upon it, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. The last seems to have opened the floodgates for conspiracy theories featuring the Templars, including their role in 9/11!
I highly recommend Steve Tibble's newest book, Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood (Yale University Press, 2025).
This episode includes a snippet from the trailer of the 1972 movie "Tombs of the Blind Dead" (which is NOT highly recommended)
Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
