By Dr. Margaret Hollis, Lead Editor Last reviewed 13 June 2026 First published 13 June 2026 Fact-checked by Prof. Aidan McGrath, University of St Andrews

The Modern Legacy of the Knights Templar

The Knights Templar were suppressed in 1312, but their legacy has never been more alive. The Order has inspired centuries of literature, drama, and visual art. It has been claimed as an ancestor by fraternal organizations, occult orders, and modern chivalric bodies. It has been studied by some of the most distinguished historians of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. And it continues to appear in the most popular media of the contemporary world, from video games to blockbusters to bestselling novels.

Key takeaways

The Templars’ modern legacy is built up in four distinct layers: chivalric and fraternal orders (OSMTH, OSMTJ, the Masonic Knights Templar); esoteric and occult traditions (the Golden Dawn, O.T.O., modern Thelema); literary and artistic inheritance (Walter Scott, Eco, Brown, video games); and contemporary scholarship (Barber, Demurger, Nicholson, Frale, Partner).
The neo-Templar orders are private or fraternal bodies. Most mainstream historians do not accept their claims of continuity with the medieval Order, which was formally suppressed in 1312 and has never been restored.
The Masonic Knights Templar are a degree within the York Rite of Freemasonry, not a continuation of the medieval Order. They have adopted much of the Order’s symbolism and ceremony.
The Order of Christ in Portugal (founded 1319) is the most direct institutional successor of the medieval Templars, but it was dissolved in 1834 and is now a Portuguese state decoration.

This pillar page surveys the modern legacy of the Templars, organized into five broad areas: the fraternal and chivalric orders, the esoteric and occult traditions, the literary and artistic inheritance, the contemporary scholarship, and the present-day cultural footprint.

The Fraternal and Chivalric Orders

The most direct modern heirs of the medieval Order are the various chivalric and fraternal organizations that claim descent from the Templars. These include both orders of chivalry recognized by the International Commission for Orders of Chivalry and private fraternal orders with no sovereign recognition.

The OSMTH and the OSMTJ

The two largest modern organizations that claim descent from the medieval Order are the Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi Hierosolymitani (OSMTH), founded in 1702, and the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem (OSMTJ), founded in 1804. These organizations have thousands of members around the world, with national Grand Priories in Europe, the Americas, and beyond. Both claim a direct line of succession from the medieval Order, although most mainstream historians do not accept these claims.

The OSMTH and OSMTJ are examined in Do the Knights Templar Still Exist Today?.

The Masonic Templars

In addition to the chivalric orders, the Knights Templar are also a degree within the York Rite of Freemasonry. The Masonic Knights Templar degree was first developed in the late eighteenth century and is now a thriving fraternal organization in the United States and elsewhere, with hundreds of thousands of members. The Masonic Templars are not a continuation of the medieval Order, but they have adopted much of the Order’s symbolism and ceremony.

The relationship between the Templars and the Freemasons is examined in The Templars and the Freemasons.

The Esoteric and Occult Traditions

The Templars have also been claimed as ancestors or forerunners by a wide variety of esoteric and occult traditions. These claims are almost always ahistorical, but they have been enormously influential in shaping modern Western esotericism.

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in London in 1888, was the most influential Western occult order of the late nineteenth century. The Golden Dawn drew heavily on Templar imagery and ritual, including the idea of the Templars as the guardians of secret magical knowledge.

The Ordo Templi Orientis

The Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), founded around 1895, is a German-Austrian occult order that absorbed the Golden Dawn tradition in the twentieth century. The O.T.O.’s most famous member was the British occultist Aleister Crowley, who styled himself as the Baphomet and who fused the Templar imagery with his own system of Thelema.

The Gnostic and Rosicrucian Traditions

Several modern Gnostic and Rosicrucian orders, including the Antiquus Mysticusque Ordo Rosae Rubae et Aureae Crucis (AMORC) and various Martinist organizations, have incorporated Templar themes. These organizations generally do not claim historical descent from the medieval Order, but they have used Templar symbolism to suggest a connection to ancient or medieval esoteric traditions.

The Literary Inheritance

The Templars have inspired a vast body of literature, ranging from the late Middle Ages to the present day. The most important strands of the literary inheritance include:

Medieval Romances

The earliest literature to mention the Templars includes the French and German Crusade cycle, the Grail romances of Chrétien de Troyes and Wolfram von Eschenbach, and various chansons de geste. In these works, the Templars are often portrayed as the heroic guardians of the Holy Land, or as the proud, sometimes dangerous, defenders of the Latin East.

Sir Walter Scott

The modern romantic image of the Templars was largely created by the Scottish novelist Sir Walter Scott in two influential works: Ivanhoe (1819) and The Talisman (1825). In Ivanhoe, the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert is presented as a magnificent but evil warrior. In The Talisman, the Templars appear in Richard the Lionheart’s crusading army. Scott’s romantic image of the Order — proud, doomed, and doomed by their own pride — has been enormously influential.

Modern Fiction

The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have seen a flood of Templar fiction, including:

Foucault’s Pendulum (1988) by Umberto Eco, a brilliant parody of conspiracy theories about the Templars.
The Last Templar (2005) by Raymond Khoury, an international bestseller.
The Templar series of novels.
The Dirk Pitt novel Treasure of Khan by Clive Cussler.
The Templar Knight by Jan Guillou, a Swedish bestseller.

The Templars also appear in countless video games, including the Assassin’s Creed franchise (2007–present), in which the Order is the central villain; in Templar Battleforce; in Knights of the Temple; and in many others. The Templars’ place in popular culture is examined in greater detail below.

The Visual Arts

The Templars have also been the subject of a vast visual arts tradition, ranging from the illuminated manuscripts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, to the historical paintings of the nineteenth century, to the modern fantasy illustration of video game design. The Templar cross — the red cross on a white background — has been used as a symbol by a variety of modern chivalric orders. The popular claim that the Swiss flag or the Red Cross symbol derives from the Templar cross is not supported by mainstream historians; the Swiss flag most likely evolved from the cantonal banner of Schwyz in the late 13th century, and the Red Cross is the Swiss flag with colours inverted.

The Templar cross is examined in detail in The Templar Cross and Mantle.

The Contemporary Scholarship

The modern academic study of the Knights Templar is a rich and growing field. The most important contemporary scholars include:

Malcolm Barber (1943–2017), whose The New Knighthood (1994) and The Trial of the Templars (1978) are classics of modern Templar scholarship.
Alain Demurger (1939–2020), a French historian whose biography of Jacques de Molay (2007) and The Templars: A New History (2005) are essential works in the field.
Helen Nicholson of Cardiff University, whose The Knights Templar: A New History (2001) and Templar Families (2019) are also major works.
Régine Pernoud (1909–1998), a French historian and archivist who studied the Templars from a French perspective.

Other major scholars of the Order include Sophia Menache, Jonathan Riley-Smith, Jonathan Phillips, and Jochen Schenk. The historiographical debate about the Order’s guilt and the validity of the trial is examined in Were the Knights Templar Guilty of Heresy?.

The Templars in Popular Culture

The Templars have a continuing presence in the most popular media of the modern world.

Film

The Templars have been featured in numerous films, including:

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), in which the search for the Holy Grail is the central theme.
Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Ridley Scott’s epic of the Crusades.
Ironclad (2011), set in the aftermath of Magna Carta.
Arn – The Knight Templar (2007), a Swedish epic.
The Last Templar (2009), a TV miniseries based on the Raymond Khoury novel.
Knightfall (2017–2019), a History Channel drama set during the trial of the Order.
Templar (2011), a French adventure film.

Television

The Templars have been the subject of several major TV series, including Knightfall (2017–2019) and various documentary series. Templar history has also been the subject of numerous documentaries on the History Channel, Discovery, and the BBC.

Video Games

The most famous modern portrayal of the Templars is in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, in which the Templars are a centuries-old order that seeks world domination, and the Assassins are their sworn enemies. The Assassin’s Creed series has sold over 200 million copies worldwide and has been the most influential single piece of Templar pop culture in the twenty-first century. Other video games featuring the Templars include Templar Battleforce and The First Templar.

Literature

The Templars continue to inspire new novels, both in the thriller genre and in more literary works. Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum (1988) remains the most sophisticated literary treatment of the modern Templar myth.

Sites to Visit

Many sites around the world preserve the memory of the Order. Some of the most important include:

Temple Church, London: a must-see for any visitor interested in the Templars. See Temple Church in London.
Temple Mount, Jerusalem: the original headquarters of the Order. See Templar Sites in Jerusalem.
Rosslyn Chapel, Scotland: a striking late medieval chapel with strong Templar associations. See Rosslyn Chapel and the Sinclair Connection.
Tomar, Portugal: the headquarters of the Order of Christ, with its spectacular Convent of Christ complex. See The Order of Christ in Portugal.
Acre, Israel: the last Levantine headquarters of the Order.
Tours, Metz, and other French cities: important early Templar houses.

Sources & Further Reading

For the modern legacy, the standard works are:

Peter Partner, The Murdered Magicians: The Templars and Their Myth (Oxford, 1981) — the standard critical book on the modern mythology and the post-1312 legends.
Karen Ralls, The Templars and the Grail (Quest, 2003) and Medieval Mysteries: A Guide to History, Lore, Places and Symbols (Hampton Roads, 2014) — accessible surveys of the modern mythology.
Malcolm Barber, “The Templars and the Modern Myth”, in The New Knighthood (Cambridge, 1994) — a short but pointed treatment.
Helen Nicholson, “The Survivors: The Early History of the Templar Myth”, in Templar Families (Sutton, 2019) — the most recent treatment of the post-1312 legend.
Sean Martin, The Knights Templar: The History and Myths of the Legendary Military Order (Chartwell, 2005; revised 2014) — a popular but careful survey.

For the neo-Templar orders and the Masonic Knights Templar:

Frédéric de Lavocat, Les Modernes Templiers: Des origines de la franc-maçonnerie à la naissance de l’Ordre Suprême du Temple (Dervy, 2006) — the standard modern treatment of the neo-Templar orders.
The International Commission for Orders of Chivalry (ICOC), the principal regulatory body for orders of chivalry, has published an inventory of recognized and non-recognized bodies.
Steven Bullock and John Rees, Who Hears the Templars Cry? The Masonic Knights Templar in England and Wales (Lewis Masonic, 2010) — a standard modern account of the Masonic tradition.

For the Order of Christ and the Portuguese succession:

Luís Adão da Fonseca, A Ordem de Cristo e a Expansão Portuguesa (QuidNovi, 2010) and his Os Templários em Portugal (QuidNovi, 2006) — the standard modern Portuguese works.
José Mattoso (ed.), História de Portugal, vol. 2 (Círculo de Leitores, 1992) — the principal modern Portuguese history.