Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood

The story of the medieval world’s most extraordinary organisations, the Assassins and the Templars

The Assassins and the Templars are two of history’s most legendary groups. One was a Shi’ite religious sect, the other a Christian military order created to defend the Holy Land. Violently opposed, they had vastly different reputations, followings, and ambitions. Yet they developed strikingly similar strategies—and their intertwined stories have, oddly enough, uncanny parallels.

In this engaging account, Steve Tibble traces the history of these two groups from their origins to their ultimate destruction. He shows how, outnumbered and surrounded, they survived only by perfecting “the promise of death,” either in the form of a Templar charge or an Assassin’s dagger. Death, for themselves or their enemies, was at the core of these extraordinary organisations.

Their fanaticism changed the medieval world—and, even up to the present day, in video games and countless conspiracy theories, they have become endlessly conjoined in myth and memory.

Review

"An explosive, fast-paced journey into complex politics that brings together two of history's greatest legends. Here is the real story of the Assassins and Templars, carefully researched and engagingly told."--Matt Lewis, author of Richard III

"What happens when groups dedicated to martyrdom come into conflict? Assassins and Templars shows how two corporate and cult-like groups divided by faith and methodology were united in their attempts to survive and their demise at the hands of the Mamluks and Mongols."--Jessalynn Bird, editor of Papacy, Crusade, and Christian-Muslim Relations

"Yes - truth is stranger than fiction! We have here a significant work of scholarship: bold, innovative, well written and thoroughly persuasive."--Peter W. Edbury, author of The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade

"A gripping tale not just of ideological fanatics but also of the politicians who used them to do the slaughter then ruthlessly eliminated them when their usefulness was at an end."--Jonathan Harris, author of The Lost World of Byzantium

"An extremely readable narrative on an incredibly complex and ill understood relationship between a Muslim and a Christian group - filled with original insights and new interpretations."--Farhad Daftary, author of The Assassin Legends

About the Author

Steve Tibble is honorary research associate at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of The Crusader Armies, The Crusader Strategy, Templars, and Crusader Criminals.