First time in paperback: The best-selling novelist's sweeping popular history of the Knights Templar. In 1099, the city of Jerusalem, a possession of the Islamic Caliphate for over four hundred years, fell to an army of European knights intent on restoring the Cross to the Holy Lands. From the ranks of these holy warriors emerged an order of monks trained in both scripture and the military arts: The Knights of the Temple of Solomon, called the Templars. In this engrossing and authoritative chronicle spanning three centuries, Piers Paul Read explores the Templars rise to political and financial power, their catastrophic fall, and their far-reaching legacy. Drawing on the most recent scholarship, discrediting the legends and myths that have long surrounded the order, he has written a remarkable history of these vaunted and feared warriors.