In the book it is explained that the Order of the Temple is the birth of the Templars. At the beginning the Templars were only guards to the sacred sites from the Muslims in outlaying areas after the First Crusade (pages 72-83) when Jerusalem was taken over. After a time, the Muslims were to regain their territory from the European invaders and the Templars had to become more militant monks than just guards in Jerusalem, they were to protect Christ’s homeland from invaders in a Holy War.
In the second part of the book, Read really spends a lot of time with detail and relevant information. Here the purpose of his book is clear with concrete material. Read recounts the story of the Templars founding, their actions as well as their famous “rules” (pages 133-136) which include chastity, the care of horses and even down to the way they “should cut cheese” (Read, page134). It is during this part of the book where Read can be confusing, although he is presenting clear and concrete material, he also has a tendency to expect the reader to know what he is talking about, for example certain Popes, or Kings, and for someone who has never done their research pertaining the crusades, one could get lost quite easily.
Read then accounts to following the crusades and what happened. The Second Crusade (pages 117-126) was considered a failure and “humiliation” (Read, p. 125). Muslim’s had reinforcements enter from the north and joined native forces while the leaders of the crusades were bickering over who would rule the city once it was captured, eventually being captured and having to abandon their siege and return to Galilee. The Crusades of the 12th century, through the end of the Third Crusade (pages 166-177) in 1192, illustrate the tensions and problems that plagued the enterprise as a whole. For the lords of Outremer a compromise with the residents and Muslim powers made sense; they could not live in constant warfare. And yet as European transplants they depended on soldiers and resources from the West, which were usually only forthcoming in times of open conflict. Furthermore, rivalries at home were translated into factional quarrels in Outremer that limited any common policy among the states.
Read also does a good job touch on the rulers and their conflicts in great depth. , the Lion-Hearted of England, of France, and , called Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor were three rival rulers. Richard and Philip had long been in conflict over the English holdings in France. Though English kings had inherited great fiefs in France, their homage to the French king was a constant source of trouble. Frederick Barbarossa, old and famous, died in 1189 on the way to the Holy Land, and most of his armies returned to Germany following his death. Philip II had been spurred into taking up the Crusade by a need to match his rivals, and he returned home in 1191 with little concern for Eastern glories. But Richard, a great soldier, was very much in his element. He saw an opportunity to campaign in the field, to establish links with the local nobility, and to speak as the voice of the Crusader states. Though he gained much glory, the Crusaders were unable to recapture Jerusalem.
After the disappointments of the Third Crusade, Western forces would never again threaten the real bases of Muslim power. From that point on, they were only able to gain access to Jerusalem through diplomacy, not arms. In 1199 Innocent III called for another Crusade to recapture Jerusalem during the Fourth Crusade (pages 186-189). But the Fourth Crusade didn’t even threaten Muslim powers. Crusades after the Fourth were not mass movements. They were military enterprises led by rulers moved by personal motives such as the Fifth Crusade (pages 196-206). Holy Roman Emperor vowed to lead a Crusade. He conducted his unconventional Crusade almost entirely by diplomatic negotiations with the Egyptian sultan. These negotiations produced a peace treaty by which the Egyptians restored Jerusalem to the Crusaders and guaranteed a ten-year respite from hostilities. In the third the third part of Read’s book (pages 247-313); he examines the downfall of the Templars. He makes the case that it was their wealth. Philip IV’s kingdom was in serious fiscal trouble due to many wars; he had already debased the currency, taxed the Catholic Church, and expelled the Jews so he could seize their property before turning his eye on the Templars. In well-coordinated raids he had all of the Templars in France arrested, and brought immense pressure to bear on the Pope to have the same done elsewhere. The Templars confessed to all manner of things: idol worship, blasphemy, and homosexuality being the chief accusations, all of which were dramatically against their Rules. Read makes the point that this was the time of the Inquisition; being tortured by, for example, having your feet held to the fire until the small bones fell out of the liquefied flesh, was probably enough to make anyone confess to anything and that many of the Templars, including the last Grand Master James of Molay, later recanted their confessions and were burned as obstinate heretics. Philip managed to get his hands on a good amount of Templar loot, as did monarchs in other lands, and the papacy got their share too. Read gives more space to the researches of later historians on whether the Templars were in fact guilty of anything and he finds the consensus to be that the Templars were not guilty of the charges, although it is difficult to be certain.
In his book The Templars, Piers Paul Read does a clear cut analysis of the Crusades and more explicitly the Templars. In his book though, read has a couple of fallbacks. Most importantly he is writing at a level that he presumes his readers have had previous historical background to the Crusades and the Templars because of his in depth historical analysis. Because of this, Read’s readers may be lost in regards to the people and places he refers to. Read takes the book at a fast pace from one event to the other with the mixture of so many people throughout that it makes it difficult for a reader to keep up.
From Read’s book though, you learn that about these military monks of the Middle Ages. You learn that they are as fascinating as they are strange, since the brutal and fearsome warrior who was also a man of the cloth. You learn how they came to exist, when to kill in battle seemed so antithetical to Christ's teaching, how they protected and cared for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, how they fought in military conflicts and why they disappeared in disgrace early in the 14th century. Each of these are endlessly intriguing questions, and Read addresses them thoroughly in his book, The Templars.