Templar

by Michael Bentine

On Christmas Eve 1180 Simon de Crecy, just seventeen years old, sets off from his Normandy home for the stronghold of Gisors, one of the great system of Templar 'commanderies' that stretched all the way from England to the Holy Land. With Simon is Bernard de Roubaix, the Templar whose life he has saved in a skirmish with robbers and who has revealed to Simon that he is the son of the lately deceased Odo de Saint Amand, Grand Master of the Order of the Temple. It is his father's wish that Simon join the Corps of Templar Sergents.

At Gisors Simon completes his training in the capable charge of the veteran sergent Belami, learning all the arts of warfare with lance, battleaxe, sword and mace as well as the codes of chivalry, while also developing a keen interest in stonemasonry and the building of the great Gothic cathedral at Chartres, a task which is to become his life's mission.

But it is in the Holy Land that Simon's training is put to the test. Only the presence of the Templars and Hospitallers and the threat of Saladin's Saracens in the south, prevent the kingdom of Jerusalem from splitting between the rival factions. Over the next few years Simon de Crecy will play a key role in the progress of the Third Crusade and the eventual treaty between Saladin and the Lionheart.

Templar is permeated by the mysteries of magic, of the para-normal and the esoteric; a language understood by all the principal characters, whether Simon through his 'flying dreams' or hallucinations, or Maimonedes the marvellous healer, or even Saladin, the great rival Gnostic to the Templars.

400 pages, Hardcover

First published November 3, 1988

About the author

Michael Bentine CBE (26 January 1922 – 26 November 1996) was a British comedian, comic actor and founding member of the Goons. He was Peruvian Briton as a result of his father's nationality. In 1971, Bentine received the Order of Merit of Peru following his fund-raising work for the 1970 Great Peruvian Earthquake.