The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders

by Desmond Seward

The military religious orders emerged during the Crusades as Christendom's stormtroopers in the savage conflict with Islam. Some of them still exist today, devoted to charitable works. The Monks of War is the first general history of these orders to have appeared since the eighteenth century. The Templars, the Hospitallers (later Knights of Malta), the Teutonic Knights, and the Knights of the Spanish and Portuguese orders were 'noblemen vowed to poverty, chastity and obedience, living a monastic life in convents which were at the same time barracks, waging war on the enemies of the Cross'. The first properly disciplined Western troops since Roman times, they played a major role in defending the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, in the 'Baltic Crusades' which created Prussia, in the long reconquest of Spain from the Moors, and in fighting the 'Infidel' right up to Napoleonic times. This celebrated book tells the whole enthralling story, recreating such epics as the sieges of Rhodes and Malta and the destruction of the Templars by the Inquisition. Acclaimed on publication, it has now been revised and updated, with a concluding chapter to take events into the 1990s.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Religion, Medieval, Military Fiction, War, Military History

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Desmond Seward was an Anglo-Irish popular historian and the author of over two dozen books. He was educated at Ampleforth and St, Catherine's College, Cambridge. He was a specialist in England and France in the Middle Ages and the author of some thirty books, including biographies of Eleanor of Aquitane, Henry V, Richard III, Marie Antoinette and Metternich.

Reviews

[Skallagrimsen]

Of the monastic military orders of medieval Christendom, the Knights Templar are by far the best known. Not surprisingly, given their prominence in the bloodiest battles of the Crusades, their role in pioneering international banking, their rivalry with the enigmatic Assassins, the lurid story of their extermination by the king of France, and the dark legends and popular (if dubious) conspiracy theories that have attached to their name ever since.

Next in name recognition are the Knights Hospitaller (or knights of St John). In my view, they have at least as interesting a history as the more famous Templars. Originally tasked with providing food, shelter and medical care to Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, the Hospitallers evolved into a military order only in response to the escalating tensions of the Crusades. After the destruction of the Crusader states, they took the fight to the Mediterranean, commandeering powerful navies that would challenge Ottoman sea power even at its height. Their valor at the great sieges of Rhodes (1480, 1522) and Malta (1565) is the stuff of military legend. While Napoleon finally ended their career as a fighting force in the late 18th century, the Knights Hospitaller persist to this day, having completed a remarkable, thousand-year full circle back to their origins as a philanthropic organization administering to the needy and sick.

Least well known are the Teutonic Knights. They're significant for spearheading the now little-remembered Northern Crusades, which subjugated and compelled the conversion of the last remaining pagan tribes of Europe to Catholic Christianity. After the Reformation, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order broke with the Catholic Church, declared himself the hereditary Duke of Prussia, and united his dynasty to that of Electoral Brandenburg. Prussia-Brandenburg, from its capital of Berlin, would form the nucleus of the German Empire, and then the modern German state. In the 19th century the Teutonic knights featured as symbols of German Romanticism. In the 20th they were exploited as exemplars of "Aryan" purity and military prowess by the Nazi regime. Early Soviet filmography, by contrast, enlisted them to represent the innate wickedness of the German people.

There are many excellent books on the various military religious orders of Christendom, but The Monks of War by Desmond Seward is the only one I know to examine them comprehensively in one volume. I found it informative and readable, and recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.

[Manray9 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Desmond Seward's The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders is an overview of the long history of the militant orders of the Roman Catholic Church from the time of the crusades to the present. Most of the narrative is devoted to the well known orders – The Hospitallers of St. John, the Templars and the Teutonic Knights – but Seward also looks at the lesser orders, including the Knights of St. Lazarus, the three Spanish orders and the Portuguese orders. Any reader with an appreciation of valor on the battlefield cannot help but be moved by the defense of Rhodes by the Knights of St. John against Suleiman the Magnificent and their valiant stand in Malta during the celebrated siege of 1565. The Templars earned glory at the fall of Acre in 1291, when after aiding in the escape of many of the city’s women and children; they refused terms and died to a man in the rubble of their fortress. The dust jacket blurb from the The Times Literary Supplement said it best: “Undeniably the work of someone who knows and accepts the standards of critical history, but…who sees the past also as an epic of colorful spectacle.”

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Contenidos de interés, y muchos, pero formas poco amables.-

Género. Historia.

Lo que nos cuenta. El libro Los monjes de la guerra (publicación original: The Monks of War. The Military Religious Orders, 1972), con el exacto e ilustrativo subtítulo Historia de las órdenes militares, es un acercamiento al fenómeno de los “monjes de la guerra”, las razones de su creación, los eventos en los que participaron y su devenir a lo largo del tiempo, todo entroncado en los grandes eventos históricos que sucedieron alrededor.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifull written, thoroughgoing discussion of the early religious martial orders - the Knights Templar, Hospitallers, and the like. I found it an irresistible tale of some serious, murderous ideologues - when they ran out of shot to rain down on a besieged city, they used the heads of their enemies.

The MoW also illustrated how these martial orders needed standard mundane world trappings - structured hierarchies, a source of funding, and land - to maintain their organizations. The maps and illos were helpful in visualizing the time - and the organizations themselves!

I love works that illuminate parts of history that I am not familiar with, and that aren't tedious, impossibly dense or otherwise unreadable by anybody who's not already a specialist in those areas. The Monks of War is one of the good ones - scholarly, thorough, but not impossible.

[Luke McNamara · Rating 4 out of 5]

He writes in quite an engaging way despite this being a very academic text. Beware: this is long and detailed and you will be assaulted with latin, german, french quotes and titles that can be quite hard to keep track of.
Also this being an older book it uses some words which have went out of fashion and at times the author seems a tad biased towards the knights...

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in the Folio edition shortly after it came out in 2000.
I was fascinated at the extent of crusading history within Europe itself, both in the north and in Spain and Portugal as militant Christianity sought utter dominance in Europe as well as in the Holy Land. It was one of the first histories I read that looked at patterns across the whole of Europe and not just part of it.
I still dip into it from time to time if I want to get my mind clear about some connection or time frame.

[Exrex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably the best overview of the various military orders of knights ever written. None of the Templar mumbo jumbo, just facts and good history.

[Ronan Conroy · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading F.C. Woodhouse’s largely biased 1879 fan-book of the Christian Jihadi Crusaders, “The Military Religious Orders of the Middle Ages: The Hospitallers, The Templars, The Teutonic Knights and Others,” I was hoping Desmond Seward’s 1996 book “The Monks of War” would be more balanced and honest. That hope was dashed when I read on the liner note that “Since the first edition of ‘The Monks of War’ appeared in 1972 he has become a Knight of Malta.’” While I’m sure this has given him access to lots of information, it’s clear this guy is not exactly going to take an unbiased view of the subject matter.

I’ve expressed my general views of the Crusades in my review of Woodhouse’s book (https://ronanconroy.wordpress.com/201...), where I summarized them as “bizarre foreign invasions and land-grabs guised at the time in a cloak of religious duty.” I held that “the true motivation of the Crusades could only have been colonial in nature: seize a bulwark, fortify a position, and the benefits in trade and riches would be enormous,” and I called the military religious orders “medieval warrior monks who were essentially the shock-troops of the Crusades.”
There’s nothing in Seward’s book that deters me from these viewpoints, and in fact much that reinforces these obvious facts.

While Seward’s tone is not quite as sanctimonious as Woodhouse’s, he demonstrates a marked inability to come right out and condemn or even clearly relate the indefensible nature of invading foreign territory under false cover of religion. He’s more than able to condemn Islamic fundamentalist Jihad, such as that of the “Hasishiyum, ‘eaters of Hashish,’” who, we are told “were an extremist sect of the Shias, whose founder had placed an excessive emphasis on the doctrine of Jihad – that paradise was the reward for death in combat against unbelievers.”
But what of the Christian Jihad, the Christian Holy War, launched under mantras as violent and hate-filled as anything you will find in the doctrines of the Hasishiyum or any other such extremist sect?

“In St. Bernard’s words […] ’to kill a pagan is to win glory since it gives glory to Christ.’”
“Who fights the Order fights Jesus Christ.”
“No doubt the Knights found justification in the Old Testament. ‘[…] he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed as the Lord God commanded.’”

In fact, there’s a theme of justification and excuse-making through this treatise. At one point, Seward looks back poignantly at the decline of the great orders, giving a kind of “ah, god love them, they weren’t all that bad” speech. The excuses are pitiful nonsense such as “They meant well!” (“Yet the most hostile [historians] cannot deny their [the Knights] good intentions, for the Holy Land meant everything to them.”); “anyone in their shoes would have struggled for power!” (“they would hardly have been human had they refrained from politics”); “soldiers do what soldiers do!” (“to be combative and aggressive are necessary qualities in front-line troops”) and “everyone else at the time was just as bad!” (“If their asceticism wilted during the thirteenth century, so did that of almost every monastic order.”).
Perhaps the high-water mark of whitewashing is the statement: “No doubt much blood was shed but, even so, they were missionaries, not exterminators.”

Missionaries they may have claimed to be, defenders of a spiritual movement, of a religion citing a foundation on love, but many distinctly un-Christian deeds were done by these Monks of War, and not just to the “pagans” who were considered fair game. Take for example the Fourth Crusade, which “stormed Constantinople on 12 April [1204]” and then “for three days […] plundered and murdered their fellow Christians; even priests joined in the sack.” Clergy in battle, other than the sworn warrior monks, was not an uncommon occurrence. Witness “the Bishop of Acre carrying the True Cross at [the army’s] head” while “the heavy Frankish horsemen smashed into the Egyptian army.” Of course, there’s zero scientific evidence that any “true cross” was ever found, and plenty of scientific evidence that in fact no such thing was ever found. But let’s not drift subjects here.
Getting back to the topic of the Knights as missionaries, rather than exterminators, how about that time “The Poor Knights captured Nablus in 1242, massacring its inhabitants, including Christian Arabs.” Or even pettier acts such as when the “The Poor Knights claimed [a] widow’s house” and “she refused to leave, clinging to a door post, so a brother hacked off her fingers with a knife.” That’s some solid missionary work right there, brother.

Perhaps the north European crusades are the hardest to understand, armies massacring local inhabitants merely because these “untamed” pagans don’t worship your particular sky wizard. There isn’t even the thin veil of an excuse that the Holy Land crusades had - at least in those cases you could claim “That’s our Jesus’ land!” (though, really, how did Jesus become a white European, when he was born in the middle east? That’s a whole other story, though, right? Again, let’s not complicate things, here…).

In fact, this was less a matter of missionary work and more a matter of colonization, empire building, enrichment. Vows of poverty or not, military religious orders became corporations, acquired sovereign states, great riches, political might and influence, and wrestled with each other over succession and power.
“They had to fill such institutional vacuums as banking,” explains Seward, “for only they possessed the necessary vaults, organization and integrity.”
Integrity aside, orders became formidable business entities. It was “easy to believe that the Knights of Christ was the richest corporation in Europe” when one saw the “size and splendor” of their priory. It’s also easy to understand why the Hospitallers were so determined to hold onto the sovereign state of Rhodes - it sounds like a paradise!

“[At Rhodes] the rich merchants’ houses next to the collachium were both imposing and luxurious and, like the brothers’, swamped in a sea of flowers – roses, oleanders, bougainvillaea, Turkish tulips, mimosa and jasmine. Inland, as far as the eye could see, was a rich green vista of gardens, orchards, vineyards, farms, with an abundance of fig, nectarine and peach trees. Everything in the city, even its ramparts, was built of honey-coloured stone. The markets sold every luxury known – silks, spices, scent, sandalwood, damascene metalwork, precious stones, jet, furs, amber and slaves.”

I like the quick understated itemization of the slaves there at the end of that enticing list of luxury items. The plight of the slaves is not something Seward gets into too deeply. In fact, when it comes to “slaves” and “plight,” the main issue Seward identifies is that those galley slaves really stank, forced to defecate where they sat, chained as they were to their oars below decks. Seward mentions a number of times how tough the life of the sea-bound knight was, struggling for a comfortable berth, oftentimes having to plug their noses against the stench from below. It’s reassuring to learn that “Brethern returning from the stench of bilge and galley slaves knew the pleasure of hot baths.”

In the 1600s “the Order even acquired colonies,” though they sold them before long as they were unable to make the enterprise profitable.

With so much power and money in play, naturally there was conflict, and the orders squabbled with each other. Templars and Hospitallers fought each other for decades in the early 1200s, for example, over the disputed succession of Bohemond III of Antioch. The orders also fought with the church - “Brethren wrangled with bishops over dues, tithes and jurisdictions and were accused of admitting excommunicated men to their services. When in 1154 the Patriarch of Jerusalem ordered them to desist, the Hospitallers interrupted his sermons, shouting him down and shooting arrows at his congregation.” The arrows was a nice touch.

While many of the glorious battles and heroic siege defenses are indeed thrilling to read about, and clearly great deeds of warriors took place, and while the course of European and subsequent American history would look quite different without the medieval war monks, it’s impossible to come away from this subject without a sense of the hypocrisy that is regularly at the heart of the popular narrative.

That’s hardly surprising in the case of this book, written as it is by a Knight of Malta, and one who may in fact prefer that we return to a kind of medieval feudal system.

“[The orders] alone preserve the mystique of rank and birth in a world which finds aristocracy not merely alien but incomprehensible. For the military orders are the final refuge of the ancient régime.”

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cautionary tale about the fundamental challenge to any religious order, from the Buddhist sangha to the heights of Mount Athos: religious vocation, en masse, requires financial support. Thus, the Templars and Hospitallers, formed during the Crusades, and Teutonic Knights, organized to christianize Latvia, and the various orders of Spain and Portugal that defeated the Moorish kingdoms of Spain and occasionally ventured into North Africa. Unlike most religious orders, the mission of these groups was explicitly to either defend of conquer. To support those holy wars, they needed a huge treasury, a hierarchical organization, and productive land spread from Jerusalem to England for profits and recruiting. Probably, the money, land and power of the Templars brought them to the attention of Philip IV and led to their ruin. The Teutonic Knights survived to the writing of this book, no longer warriors, after creating Prussia and becoming the villains of Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky. The book is easy enough to read, although the reader is lost among the various meisters of an order. It is instructive, though, that the Templars began as the Poor Knights.

[Tim Weakley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good historical survey of all of the crusading religious orders, taking them up to fairly modern times. As someone who enjoys reading about the crusades, this book was a very good background piece.

[Luka Novak · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives a good overview of various religious orders that developed in 12 and 13th centuries in Europe and Levant. Attention is given to less known orders as well, not just main ones. Of course scope of subject and size of the book limits attention to details but still provides enough of all. Author also provides insight into other fronts of medieval religious wars, Reconquista in Spain and Baltic crusades.

Minor thing is that you can easily see author is British as he often provides some detail on England's role in it, or role of Englishmen. It's not a bias except when dealing with Napoleon's conquest of Malta, then under authority of knights Hospitalers.

Overall a nice work for person looking for some general information about the subject or a good starting point for further reading. Only minor gripe is that book sometimes uses quotes in French or Latin without providing English translation.

[Sonya · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very scholarly book. It was filled with dates, places, names, etc. and wanted to cover the entire history of all the major military religious orders from their beginning to today. Overall, it was interesting but it was hard to get through. It also had nice maps to show where the orders were based but was missing a map of where Malta was.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dry as month old toast and full of not much more than list making and name dropping for the most part.

Still, it does get interesting from time to time such as during the Northern Crusade and the Siege of Rhodes, and then it's pretty riveting stuff... but for the most part it's a yawn-fest.

Very biased for a purported academic tome too.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this rather dry and confusing. I persisted but I'm not sure to what end.

[Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an informative, if slightly rambling and not particularly balanced, history of the various religious orders that took up arms in defense of Christianity. Seward, whose love for the heroic aspect of these orders shines in quite captivating description of various sieges, argues for the just recognition that he feels has been withheld from the significant contributions that these orders made to the defense of the Christian faith. This attitude, combined with his unabashed praise for their aristocratic nature, makes the book feel slightly antiquated and too much of an apologia for the orders. However, Seward does manage to convey to the general reader the arc of their foundation, apogee and slow decline not-quite into oblivion. The book shines in describing their role during the Crusades, the spread of Christianity and German culture in the Baltic, the Reconquista and, especially, their obstinate stand against the Ottoman expansion. The book is much less interesting when it tries to squeeze in the smaller orders that have no other fame than being founded by this or that nobleman. Overall, the indulgent reader will be able to understand the great influence that these orders had during the apogee as well as the context in which they made the most effective impact.

[Matthew Welker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a very strong 3 stars. Monks of War is an exploration of the various Christian military orders that formed throughout the medieval period and their involvements in various events.

It mostly covers the Templars, Teutonic Knights, and the Hospitallers. So you’ll learn about their involvement in the Crusades in the Holy Land, Balkans, Reconquista, and so on. Learn about what happened to them and how some like the Hospitallers survived to the present day. It’s a general history book covering these orders well generally. I think the author had a fine writing style and felt his goal was to offer a new appreciation for these legendary orders.

I only rate it 3 stars because I felt at times he’d jump too quickly from the historical narrative to talking about a castle an order built, how one dressed, carried themselves, etc… Think the book could’ve use more focus and consistency with this approach, but ultimately the author I think still told what needed to be told.

So I think if you want a general book about the various Christian militant orders, well I think this is a good one especially if you’re looking for a jumping off point before diving further into the top. It would be a good primer.

[Eduardo Shanahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew about the military religious orders, mostly from reading novels or comics, but never studied them in any detail.
This book goes into good details about their origin, their most relevant events and their terminations, and philosophical changes.
I found puzzling that orders which started as warriors helping people in need transformed into clubs for aristocrats with the entry requisite of never have worked for a number of generations. The author, a Knight of Malta himself, mentions that maybe some of his pairs would not agree with some data, and I can imagine which areas would be argued.
It was very interesting and educating, and it took a good week to have it finished.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a wealth of information in the book. It covers close to 900 years of the histories of some of the most and least well known religious orders of knights. However, it does leave something to be desired in delivery for me.
Though I found it to be full of good information, it really lacked in narrative, presenting more like a textbook than a story. If that doesn't bother you, then I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the warrior orders of the church. But if you're looking for a cohesive and driving narrative, or at the very least a plethora of interesting anecdotes, this may not be the book for you.

[Joseph Carrabis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book picked up for research purposes, and to that purpose it's worth it.
But as a book to read read? As in, I wanted to enjoy reading this book? Seward was the history professor who put students to sleep with recitations of this person then that person and over there those persons. The people named are just that, names. No humanity, nothing of interest (and I'm sure they were interesting people. One doesn't take over countries and vanquish opponent military without being a little interesting).
Reading The Monks of War reminds me of reading the "begats" in the judeo-christian bible. Lots of this person then that person then another person and in the end, who cares?

[Matthew Dambro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent study of the medieval military orders. Seward has done the research and although somewhat dated is still an excellent introduction to the military monastic orders. He follows them through 1995. I believe he captures the real interaction between the two great ideas of the western middle ages; monasticism and armored cavalry. Seward is honest about the failings but also honest about the honor and courage shown by a few against the many. In this era of Islamic jihad; it is good to think on prior heroes who died on their feet rather than live on their knees.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book if you want a detailed history of the catholic military orders. Very detailed. 3.5 stars.

This book completes my Dewey Decimal Challenge for 2020, this being 271.79. Also it was a Kindle Unlimited, so no addition to 2020 book expenses.

What were my book expenses in this sh!t year? Well, I'll have to go look. BRB!

OK, I'm back. Cost of the 70 books I read in 2020 = $542.91, or $7.75 each. Not bad.

[Christopher Bergedahl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, this book wasn’t for me, even though I was rearing to pick it up. The book itself - and especially the cover - is beautiful to look at, but it makes for a cumbersome read at best. Enjoyed the section on the Hospitallers’ occupation of Malta, although the relevant chapter was altogether too brief.

[dejah_thoris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading and weeding from my father's collection. I didn't think I'd be able to get into this book because as a teenager I couldn't stand all the Templar history lessons. Maybe it has something to do with passing 40, but I couldn't put this paperback down. Onto more detail about the Albigensian Crusades.

[David Trawinski · Rating 3 out of 5]

After being so absorbed by the author’s storytelling in his treatment of the War of the Roses, I expected so much more than this title was able to deliver. Most of it had the engagement of a high school history class, producing a seemingly endless parade of facts with no real digestible storylines.

[Jason]

There's more to the Military Religious Orders than just the Templars and Hospitaliers. A detailed account of who, what, where and when. Felt a bit drawn out in places to pad the general information with unnecessary detail, esp. about the Spanish orders, but a great book and probably the authority on this particular subject.

[James Varney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but not as memorable as I hoped. Similar to "The Trial of the Templars" in that respect. Glad I read it, and will probably dip into it again at some point, but hasn't stayed in my head like the great books.

[Paithan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A general history written in a straightforward style. I liked it generally.

A few descriptive highlights, such as the dark pine forests of the Baltic and the fortified gardens of Rhodes, stand out to me.

[Robert Whelan · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a casual reader I found this to be very boring, especially the parts related to historical events that I had no prior knowledge about; definitely enlivened by some of the historical siege descriptions.

[James Woo · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[April · Rating 1 out of 5]

On and on and on and on and omg make it stop!