Research Catalog

Title

The monks of war : the military religious orders / Desmond Seward.

Author

Seward, Desmond, 1935-2022

Publication

London ; New York : Penguin Books, 1995.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

415 p., [16] p. of plates : ill., maps, ports.; 20 cm.

Summary

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.

Subjects

• History
• Military religious orders > History

Genre/Form

History

Note

• "First published in 1972"--T.p. verso.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 379-390) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

I. Introduction -- II. Latin Syria 1099-1291 -- III. The Crusade on the Baltic 1200-1560 -- IV. The Reconquista 1158-1493 -- V. Readjustment 1291-1522 -- VI. The Last Crusade 1523-1571 -- VI. Baroque Paladins 1571-1789 -- VIII. Survival -- Against All Odds 1789-1995 -- Appendices: Orders of St John in the Modern World.

ISBN

• 0140195017
• 9780140195019

LCCN

^^^96145383^

OCLC

• 34990366
• SCSB-10749840

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library