ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on speculative writing from the late twentieth-century onwards, and the earlier writers who contributed to the development of the Templar myth. The history of the Knights Templar has been a source of intense debate among academic historians, speculative writers and even the general public for centuries. Templar myths, sometimes referred to as Templar ‘after-history’, have focused on a reinterpretation of the history of the Templars in the period from the Order’s foundation in the early twelfth century to its suppression in the early fourteenth century as well as the creation of a new history of the Order post-suppression. The history of the Knights Templar has been a source of intense debate among academic historians, speculative writers and even the general public for centuries. The use of genuine medieval sources to create the Templar myth does require some intellectual dexterity on the part of speculative writers in terms of source selection and source interpretation.