The Knights Templar have many references in popular culture, yet most of them quite inaccurate. The truth is that they were a Catholic military order that existed from the 1100s to the 1300s, to provide warriors in the Crusades. They were quite famous in medieval times, but stories and legends have grown about them over the centuries.

In modern works, the Templars are generally portrayed in one of two ways;

• as villains, or representatives of an evil secret society (e.g. Mumbo Jumbo, by Ishmael Reed)
• as the keepers of a long-lost treasure (e.g. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure)

Novels & comics

• Ivanhoe, an 1820 novel by Sir Walter Scott, has as its villain Sir Brian de Bois-Gilbert, a "Templar Knight".
• "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids", an 1855 short story by Herman Melville treats the Templars with great irony.
• 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 Foucault's Pendulum, a 1988 novel by Umberto Eco. It 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 Revenge of the Shadow King, by Derek Benz and J.S. Lewis, relates an alternate history of the Knights Templar, aligning them with an age-old order whose primary role is to defend the world from the powers of darkness. In this book, the Templars still exist and operate today from the shadows of an underground organization.
• 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 movie adaptation.
• The Last Templar, by Raymond Khoury is a Da Vinci Code-styled thriller.
• 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.
• 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.
• The 8-part comic miniseries Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman involved the treasure of the Templars.
• 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 Knight Templar, went to Jerusalem and after returning to Sweden, was a leading military figure shortly before the time of Birger Jarl. The trilogy was well received 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)
• 'Les Roi Maudits' by Maurice Druon depicts the death of the last Grand Master of the Order, and plays with the legend of the curse he laid on the Pope, Philip the Fair, and Guillaume de Nogaret.
• Graham Shelby's novels The Knights of Dark Renown and The Kings of Vain Intent both feature Templars in the Holy Lands.

Films, video games & music

• The novel Ivanhoe has been the basis for three movies and numerous television adaptations.
• The Ballad of Parzival by Sir Walter Scott, features Parzival the heroe as a knight templar. The ballad is the basis for Wagners great opera with the same name.
• 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.
• Dolph Lundgren plays the role of a modern day member of the Knights Templar in the 1998 movie The Minion.
• Templar mythology (and Freemasonry) also has a prominent role in the 2004 movie, National Treasure.
• The film adapatation of The Da Vinci Code(see novels and comics)
• The Jedi Knights of the fictional science fiction film epic Star Wars are also a spirituality-based fighting order. There are many parallels between the Jedi and the Knights Templar. One of the major ones is that of the Great Jedi Purge and Order 66. The Knights Templar were all simultaneously arrested and later executed by the orders of "Philip the Fair" on Friday the 13th to gain their power as they were convicted of witchcraft. In Star Wars, Chancellor Palpatine ordered clone trooper commanders to lead their clone troopers against the Jedi who had led them through the Clone Wars. The Order 66 order was justified by Palpatine falsely claiming the Jedi had attempted to overthrow the Galactic Republic. Only a few Jedi survived this mass execution.
• The 2005 film Kingdom of Heaven shows the incompetent last King of Jerusalem, Guy de Lusignan, and his bloodthirsty henchman, Reynald de Chatillon (not a Templar himself), as Templars.
• 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 resurrected mummies in search of human blood.
• 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 of these plots are derived one way or another from the Illuminatus trilogy.
• The Black Templars Chapter of Space Marines from the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop wargame are based directly on the historical Knights Templar.
• Infernal Crusade, from 2004 by TDK and Starbreeze.
• The Knights Templar feature as playable characters in Flagship Studios' upcoming game, London.
• Knights of the Cross is a concept about the Templars by German metal band Grave Digger.'
• The doom metal band 'Cathedral' wrote a song called Templars Arise! (The Return), found on 2001's Endtyme album.
• The Templars (band) a NYC Oi! band is inspired by the Knights Templar, it is where the bands name is from, also the albums titled "The Poor Knights of Acre" 1993 Sonic Aggression Records, "Return of Jacques de Molay" 1994 Dim Records, "1118-1312" 1997 Do A Runner/Go-Kart Records,"Night of the Seagulls" 1997 Headache Records, "Omne Datum Optimum" 1999 GMM Records, "Milites Templi" 2000 TKO Records/Templecombe Records, and "Outremer" 2005 GMM records. are dervied from events and locations of The Knights Templar. The Album "Omne Datum Optimum" 1999 GMM Records has a song titled "The Templars".
• The Templar Knights are featured in the 2001 French film Le Pacte des loups, in which the symbol of the Templar Knights is seen upon the walls of an old Templar stronghold and upon the Beast's armor. The cult seen in the movie is also supposedly a rogue templar organization, originally sent by the Pope to teach the King of France a lesson.
• The song "Night of the Seagulls" has Knights Templar-related lyrics as follows
• Templecombe Records The Templars (band) a NYC Oi! bands own label (in conjunction with TKO Records) is from a Knights Templar site in Sommerset, England.
• Songs by the Swedish power metal band HammerFall frequently refer to "Templars". One such song is titled "Templars of Steel". Their song "Steel meets Steel" tells the story of the templars and the siege of Jerusalem.
• It is implied in the 1985 BBC ecological drama Edge of Darkness that Knights Templar and Knights of Saint John were, in the late 20th Century, involved in a stuggle for nuclear supremacy over each other.

Knights Templar | Medieval Knights Templar | In popular culture