Templar Edification

The Knights Templar formally the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ of the Temple of Solomon played a significant military role in the Crusades, a series of religious wars initiated by Western European Christians primarily between 1095 and 1291. These campaigns aimed to recapture Jerusalem and other holy sites in the Levant from Muslim control, while also defending Christian pilgrims and the Crusader states established after the First Crusade. Levant is French for rising sun in the east Mediterranean. Now Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria. Home of Abrahamic religions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam or Mohammedism. The phrasing "drive back the encroachment of the Muslims" reflects a perspective common in medieval Christian sources and some modern interpretations: viewing Muslim expansion particularly by the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia and ongoing control of formerly Christian territories in the Middle East as an existential threat to Christendom that needed to be reversed or contained ...

This month, I’d like to make a book recommendation. Consider it a home-stretch supplement to your summer reading list. I’ve known of Malcolm Guite (pronounced like “kite”) for some years now. An Anglican priest and poet, he’s been the featured speaker for the Canadian Rockies Theological Conference, which several of my Order—the Society of the Holy Trinity—have attended and enjoyed. I own some of his books of liturgical poetry, and often share his sonnets online, especially for Michaelmas. This year saw the release of the Rev’d Guite’s magnum opus, an Arthuriad entitled Merlin’s Isle. Rabbit Room Press published the first of its four volumes, Galahad and the Grail, in April, with a second tome, The Coming of Arthur, due out in November. The action starts in media res, with the arrival of the Grail Knight, the achievement of the Holy Grail, and the subsequent healing of the Fisher-King and his Wasteland kingdom. Rev’d Guite retells the tale in epic English ballad form, which he requests...