ABSTRACT
As a military order, the Templars were assuredly dedicated to Holy War and served as a special unit in the Frankish army. However, as a pragmatic organization functioning in the East, where treaties and alliances with the "infidel" were a common phenomenon, one find the Templars of the Latin Kingdom also participating in negotiations and peace processes. In honor of Sophia, who has contributed to the rewriting of the history of the Templars and has addressed many of its non-military aspects, this chapter surveys some of those peacemaking efforts, framing them as stemming not from a shift in their ideology of Holy War or in the concept of their task as milites Christi, but from realpolitik, their desire to accrue power and revenues. Templar "peacemongering" efforts illustrate how, given the weakness of the central government, different entities assumed autonomy in the waning days of the Latin Kingdom.
