Surviving templars

The templar order could not have survived, they're too unpopular.
But, if they could avoid crown and tiara mass punishment, they could have merged with the Hospitaliers, making them a bigger, wealthier and more powerful order.
 
The biggest problem the Templars had was that they made an enemy of the most powerful ruler of Christendom at the time. If Philip IV's financial troubles aren't that troubling, then perhaps they won't be suppressed en masse.
 
The biggest problem the Templars had was that they made an enemy of the most powerful ruler of Christendom at the time. If Philip IV's financial troubles aren't that troubling, then perhaps they won't be suppressed en masse.

The main problem for the templars aren't the financial needs of Philippe le Bel.

After all, he was always found a way to find money, to devalue it, to increase it, any way.

No, the problems with the order is that they formed a state within the french state in formation. The capetian wasn't that happy about it.
When the templars were busy to stop or trying to do it, in Palestina, he had no reason to be upset about them.
When they cessed to act as crusaders but as a financial and military power, he didn't like it.

Capetians, direct, Valois or Bourbons, awlays had a problem with people disaggreeing with the notion of centralized and undisputed power.
 
I don't think they would have had a significant impact if they had survived. The glory days of the monastic warrior orders was over. There were not any Crusader States really left to protect.

The Teutonic Knights had already developed into a order state that functioned more like an actual state than a military order. When the Reformation came, the order secularized and became Prussia.

The Hospitallers retained a fighting role because of their position on Rhodes, but essentially became pirates against Ottoman shipping and helping the dominant Catholic naval powers in the Mediterranean. After the Siege of Malta and Battle of Lepanto in the 16th Century, they became increasingly insignificant. They survive today as merely a Catholic order engaged in charity work.

The Templars have neither an significant contiguous land area they can call their own, nor a frontline presence against the Ottomans. They will probably be interested in forming some kind of monastic state, but I am not sure where that would be located. In any event, the local nobles would be against it.

I see four possibilities.

1) They remain essentially an international banking network and secularize sometime, probably in the 17th to 18th Centuries. Some kind of Catholic order probably remains distinct from its bank.

2) They form the basis of an international militant Catholic fighting order against the Protestants during the Wars of Religions using their membership and wealth to support Catholic kings against Protestant leagues and such. Their importance fades once some kind of civil peace is achieved. Eventually, any business aspects become secular although there may continue to be some kind of Catholic order.

3) The Templars succeed at forming some kind of monastic state. Unless this is in some kind of Northern European land where Protestantism takes hold, it remains Catholic. Eventually the order state secularizes and is likely taken over by some major power. Possibly, the order may find such land in the New World under the auspices of Spain or France (probably some small island in the Caribbean).

4) The Templars survive for a while until another king levels trumps up charges against them and destroys them.

In either case, their continue survival becomes an interesting footnote, but probably does not change history much.
 
I'm actually working on a Templar TL myself. The POD is going to be the will of Alfonso the Battler actually being carried out. IOTL he explicitly left his kingdom to be given to the Templars, Hospitallers, and Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. On his death though, his brother Ramiro was taken out of an abbey and made king.

However the effects of this will be very different from a Templar state continuing on historically but not being disestablished.
 
I don't think they would have had a significant impact if they had survived. The glory days of the monastic warrior orders was over. There were not any Crusader States really left to protect.

The Teutonic Knights had already developed into a order state that functioned more like an actual state than a military order. When the Reformation came, the order secularized and became Prussia.

The Hospitallers retained a fighting role because of their position on Rhodes, but essentially became pirates against Ottoman shipping and helping the dominant Catholic naval powers in the Mediterranean. After the Siege of Malta and Battle of Lepanto in the 16th Century, they became increasingly insignificant. They survive today as merely a Catholic order engaged in charity work.

The Templars have neither an significant contiguous land area they can call their own, nor a frontline presence against the Ottomans. They will probably be interested in forming some kind of monastic state, but I am not sure where that would be located. In any event, the local nobles would be against it.

I see four possibilities.

1) They remain essentially an international banking network and secularize sometime, probably in the 17th to 18th Centuries. Some kind of Catholic order probably remains distinct from its bank.

2) They form the basis of an international militant Catholic fighting order against the Protestants during the Wars of Religions using their membership and wealth to support Catholic kings against Protestant leagues and such. Their importance fades once some kind of civil peace is achieved. Eventually, any business aspects become secular although there may continue to be some kind of Catholic order.

3) The Templars succeed at forming some kind of monastic state. Unless this is in some kind of Northern European land where Protestantism takes hold, it remains Catholic. Eventually the order state secularizes and is likely taken over by some major power. Possibly, the order may find such land in the New World under the auspices of Spain or France (probably some small island in the Caribbean).

4) The Templars survive for a while until another king levels trumps up charges against them and destroys them.

In either case, their continue survival becomes an interesting footnote, but probably does not change history much.
Their true power was banking. They established the first form of banking in Europe, Templar International Banking Service anyone?
 
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