Knights Templar

:For other uses of the term, see Templar (disambiguation).

Popular culture

The Knights Templar have had several influences on popular culture, not all of them entirely accurate:

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Novels & Comics

• A Templar Knight, Sir Brian de Bois-Gilbert, is the villain in Sir Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe (1820), but the hero in the 1982 Television adaptation.
• Templar Knight Hinkle Von Vampton serves as the main villain in Ishmael Reed's postmodernist satire Mumbo-Jumbo (1972).
• The Knight Templars legacy also features in Lawrence Durrell´s The Avignon Quintet (Monsieur (1974), Livia (1978), Constance (1982), Sebastian (1983), Quinx (1985)).
• The mythos of the Knights Templar as keepers and defenders of the Holy Grail is a central plot point in Umberto Eco's novel Foucault's Pendulum (1988). Foucault's Pendulum slyly acknowledges the public perception of the Templars; one character tells a Templar scholar, "If somebody brings up the Templars, he is almost always a lunatic."
• The well-known Swedish author Jan Guillou has written a trilogy about Arn Magnusson, a fictional Swedish character from the Middle Ages who was forced to become a Knights Templar, went to Jerusalem and after returning to Sweden, was a leading military figure shortly before the time of Birger Jarl. The triology was well recieved both by critics and by the general public. The books have been translated into several languages, including German, Spanish and English. The trilogy, dubbed the Crusades trilogy, consists of the following books:
• The road to Jerusalem (1998)
• The Knight Templar (1999)
• The kingdom at the end of the road (2000)
• Recent interest in Templar mythology (and Freemasonry) has been sparked by its prominent role in Dan Brown's apocryphal novel and bestseller, The Da Vinci Code (2003), and its upcoming movie adaptation.
• Katherine Kurtz has written many books with Templar characters and themes.
• Two Uncle Scrooge comic book stories by Don Rosa feature the finding of the treasure of the Templars. Rosa points out that he wrote the stories before the Dan Brown novel was published.
• Several works by Michael Jecks feature the character of Bartholomew Baddlesmere, a former Knight Templar. Jecks also has a published work, The Last Templar, containing a description of the fall of the Templar order.

Films & Video Games

• The mythos of the Knights Templar as keepers and defenders of the Holy Grail is also a central plot point in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).
• The movie The Saint (1997) features a character assuming the name of Simon Templar, and the opening scene references the Knights Templar.
• Templar mythology (and Freemasonry) also has a prominent role in the 2004 movie, National Treasure.
• The 2005 film Kingdom of Heaven shows the incompetent last King of Jerusalem, Guy de Lusignan, and his bloodthirsty henchman, Reynald de Chatillon, as Templars, but historically this is inaccurate.
• The Templars are mentioned in various video games such as Ion Storm's Deus Ex, Deus Ex 2 and Revolution Software's Broken Sword adventure series. Many derived plots reap one way or another from the Illuminatus trilogy.
• A quartet of horror films (Tombs of the Blind Dead, Return of the Evil Dead, The Ghost Galleon, and Night of the Seagulls) by Spanish director Amando de Ossorio depict the Knights Templar as ressurected mummies in search of human blood.