Reprint of the original, first published in 1874.

'Their existence was a meteor, which illuminated the age in which they flourished', Reverend G. Oliver, TEMPLE BRUER AND ITS KNIGHTS TEMPLAR, 1841The Knights Templar was a military and religious order that dominated medieval Europe for nearly two hundred years until it was suppressed in the early 1300s. The warrior monks then disappeared from history into myth, their true nature forgotten and woven into fantasy. But the traces they left behind on the land can still be seen, and, with a combination of stunning photography, historical imagery and detailed descriptions, this book provides not only a history of the Templars but also the first comprehensive survey of all the Templar sites in Britain. The author has researched and visited every site; he explains what there is to be seen, and the history and mythology behind it - as well as directions on how to get there.

A richly detailed, sometimes challenging work, Charles Addison's The History of the Knights Templar traces the rise and fall of this legendary religious-military organization. Addison was an official member of the Templar Inner Table when he composed his definitive study. This newly edited 2018 edition from The Templar Press updates some of Addison's more archaic wording into modern English.

Founded as the main church of the Knights Templar in England, at their New Temple in London, the Temple Church is historically and architecturally one of the most important medieval buildings in England. Its round nave, modelled on the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, is extraordinarily ambitious, combining lavish Romanesque sculpture with some of the earliest Gothic architectural features in any English building of its period. It holds one of the most famous series of medieval effigies in the country. The luminous thirteenth-century choir, intended for the burial of Henry III, is of exceptional beauty. Major developments in the post-medieval period include the reordering of the church in the 1680s by Sir Christopher Wren, and a substantial restoration programme in the early 1840s. Despite its extraordinary importance, however, it has until now attracted little scholarly or critical attention, a gap which is remedied by this volume. It considers the New Temple as a whole in the middle ages, and all aspects of the church itself from its foundation in the twelfth century to its war-time damage in the twentieth. Richly illustrated with numerous black and white and colour plates, it makes full use of the exceptional range and quality of the antiquarian material available for study, including drawings, photographs, and plaster casts. Contributors: Robin Griffith-Jones, Virginia Jansen, Philip Lankester, Helen Nicholson, David Park, Rosemary Sweet, William Whyte, Christopher Wilson.