WI- What if the Knights Templar aren't massacred?

What if the French King, Phillip IV, doesn't kill off the Knights Templar? What happens to them? For example, do they create their own nation sorta like what the Teutonic Order did or do they just continue doing what they do?
 

Sir Chaos

Banned
What if the French King, Phillip IV, doesn't kill off the Knights Templar? What happens to them? For example, do they create their own nation sorta like what the Teutonic Order did or do they just continue doing what they do?

Too many kings owed them money. Something like that was going to happen sooner or later anyway.
 
Teutonic Knights maintain their own kingom in East Prussia, Poland and Estonia. They moderate rivalries between Russian, Polish and Germanic kings, bringing peace to the Baltic coast. Teutonic allegiance to the Catholic Church extends Rome's influence farther east.
 

Driftless

Donor
What if the French King, Phillip IV, doesn't kill off the Knights Templar? What happens to them? For example, do they create their own nation sorta like what the Teutonic Order did or do they just continue doing what they do?

Too many kings owed them money. Something like that was going to happen sooner or later anyway.

Functionally illiterate on this topic, but interested:

Don't the Knights need a local population base to draw on for foot-soldiers to help keep the kings at bay?
 
They could merge with the Hospitallers or they could make their own monastic state somewhere. In reality there are many options.
 
So long as they are stateless (albeit anachronistic for the age) they are at risk of being foreclosed.
I'd suggest a decade beforehand they get include in a minicrusage against Tunisia and build an orderstate there
 
Teutonic Knights maintain their own kingom in East Prussia, Poland and Estonia. They moderate rivalries between Russian, Polish and Germanic kings, bringing peace to the Baltic coast. Teutonic allegiance to the Catholic Church extends Rome's influence farther east.

This is all OTL, except for the peace part.
 
give them somewhere to have as a base (like Hospitaliers had Rhodes, later Malta, and Teutonic Knights had in the baltics), would be a good start, exactly where through is a good question, grabbing control of the ionian islands maybe? or would Venice have to large interest in that for them to pull it off?
 
give them somewhere to have as a base (like Hospitaliers had Rhodes, later Malta, and Teutonic Knights had in the baltics), would be a good start, exactly where through is a good question, grabbing control of the ionian islands maybe? or would Venice have to large interest in that for them to pull it off?
Cyprus certainly, if they can hold it (they didn't really want to since it was a pain in the ass), which should give them an extra 100 years of life if they do (until the Muslim states invade anyways).
 
I guess the survivors would never escape and make their way to North America to hide the Templar Treasure like all of those shows on the History Channel claim they did.

Sorry, couldn't resist...
 
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