Peter Partner (1924–2015)
Author of The Knights Templar and Their Myth
About the Author
Peter Partner was born in Little Heath, England on July 15, 1924. He went to Magdalen College, Oxford, to read law, but quickly switched to history. He worked as a journalist for the Observer in Rome and the Middle East. He started teaching history at the private school Winchester College in 1955 show more and stayed there for 30 years. He was a historian of medieval and Renaissance Rome as well as the Middle East. He wrote numerous books during his lifetime including A Short Political Guide to the Arab World, The Lands of St. Peter, Renaissance Rome 1500-1559, The Pope's Men, and God of Battles. He died on January 17, 2015 at the age of 90. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Peter Partner
Two Thousand Years - The First Millennium : The Birth of Christianity to the Crusades (Companion to the major TV… (1999) 37 copies
Two Thousand Years: The Second Millennium: From Medieval Christendom to Global Christianity (Vol 2) (1999) 23 copies
The Lands of Saint Peter: The Papal State in the Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance (1972) 14 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Partner, Peter David
- Birthdate
- 1924-07-15
- Date of death
- 2015-01-17
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- UK
- Occupations
- Historian
Journalist
Teacher
Members
Reviews
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Statistics
- Works
- 17
- Members
- 611
- Popularity
- #41,144
- Rating
- 3.3
- Reviews
- 5
- ISBNs
- 38
- Languages
- 5
Author Peter Partner notes there is a legitimate historical mystery about the Templars; was there the slightest shred of truth to the accusations or were they just a cynical ploy by Phillip the Fair of France and his bishops to confiscate Templar land and treasure? Most members of the Order were not knights but various auxiliaries – priests, clerks, foot soldiers, farriers, armorers, and so forth. In fact it was possible for any man to become a “lay Templar” for a relatively small annual subscription. The catch here was that the Templars – and all their co-fraternity – were directly under the Papacy, and therefore immune to local bishops and archbishops. A bishop’s main weapon against disobedience was the interdict; but Templar clergy were not subject to it, and therefore could administer sacraments even if a local bishop had interdicted them. That made the Templars unpopular with the upper clergy. The reputed wealth of the Templars was real, but it was mostly in land holdings. They did act as bankers, loaning money at interest (which also made them of mixed popularity with the clergy). Thus there was no great treasure to be seized, but there were a lot of land titles and promissory notes, so there was an incentive for Phillip and his clergy to act.
Partner’s cautious, noting that past historians have gone with the “cynical ploy” idea, because they are projecting their own disbelief in magic back into the past. However, at the time of the Templars, everybody believed in the power of sorcery. He also notes that almost all the Templar Knights were illiterate and uneducated; thus they may possibly have been duped into performing some ceremony that they didn’t really understand.
The Templars faded from history; then the woowoo started and they popped back up again. Templar woowoo divides into several categories:
* The Templars managed to hide their “treasure” from Phillip and his henchmen and it’s still out there somewhere. But, of course, like anybody who hides a treasure, the Templars left all sorts of cryptic clues to its whereabouts and if the clues can be deciphered the finder will be rich beyond the dreams of avarice. The “treasure” is sometimes just gold and jewels, but it may also include various artifacts – The Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant, the “real” Shroud of Turin, the True Cross, and etc. Seekers after Templar treasure include harmless fanatics and con artists who will guarantee finding the treasure with just a little more financing from their sponsors.
* The Templars actually were sorcerers and had uncovered the mystic secrets of the universe, which were hidden somewhere in the Holy Land. This may include some of the aforementioned artifacts of power and/or the standard paraphernalia of magic – The Philosopher’s Stone, the secret of turning base metal to gold, etc. Somehow the Templars failed to use any of this power to avoid being burned alive, but they left clues – cryptic, of course – for future seekers. Once again, promoted by individual harmless loons and un-harmless con men.
* The Templars didn’t disappear at all, but just went under cover. Various Templar Masters are still scattered around the world and still running things behind the scenes. The number of entities Partner has tracked down that claim some association with the Templars is astounding and reads like a list of everybody’s favorite conspiracies – the Freemasons (including numerous subsets), the Bavarian Illuminati, the Young Pretender, the French Revolutionaries, Mozart, Aleister Crowley’s Order of the Temple of the Orient, the British Union of Fascists, and just about every other conspiracy-fodder entity you can think of (although not, strangely, the Jews). Enumerating and tracing the cladistics of these organizations takes up a good half of the book.
Scholarly but still readable in the historical sections; just subtly tongue in cheek in the woowoo sections. Illustrations from medieval and Renaissance sources. Lots of endnotes and an extensive bibliography. Recommended as an addition to a library of woowoo source material.… (more)