ABSTRACT
Research into the activities of the Templars in the Levant is hampered by the disappearance of their central archive. We know much less than we would like about their estates and the location of their houses in the East, the make-up of the central convent, the names of commanders and castellans in the Levant, and the powers of the grand masters. Rudolf Hiestand, the latest to write on the matter, suggested that the archive was probably transferred to the Hospitallers on Cyprus and was lost with the island in 1571.1 For the following reasons I am inclined to believe that it was in Europe at least until the fifteenth century.
