The Most Powerful Factions of Knights in History (and what happened to them)

By Chris Livemore

The great military orders of the medieval world were not just groups of knights.

They owned castles, fleets, farms, hospitals, banks, and entire territories. Some answered only to the Pope. One effectively invented international banking. Another ruled its own state. And one still issues passports today! At their height, these organisations controlled wealth, land, and military power on a scale that often rivalled kings.

The Knights Templar

I first stumbled across the Knights Templar when watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, three brothers sworn to protect the Holy Grail, with one acting as its immortal guardian. They were orginally called the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Jerusalem, were founded around 1118/1119 to protect Christian pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land after the First Crusade. They were organised as a monastic order, taking vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity, and lived under a rule devised by Bernard of Clairvaux.

They developed one of medieval Europe's most sophisticated systems of letters of credit, allowing pilgrims and merchants to move money across continents without carrying large quantities of gold. You deposited money with a Templar house in Paris and collected it in Jerusalem without carrying gold across Europe. International banking at its finest.

It did not take long for the Templars to become a powerful religious and secular movement. At their peak they possessed hundreds of properties across Europe and thousands of members, servants, tenants, and dependents. They answered only to the Pope.

The end, when it came, was spectacular. In October 1307, King Philip IV of France, who owed the Templars enormous sums of money and had no intention of repaying them, had every Templar in France arrested simultaneously at dawn. Charges of heresy, blasphemy and various other offences were applied. The order was dissolved by Pope Clement V at the Council of Vienne in 1312. The last Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake in Paris in 1314, allegedly cursing both the King and the Pope from the flames.

Both the King and the Pope died within a year...

Their arrest on Friday 13 October 1307 is one of the reasons many people associate Friday the 13th with bad luck today, although historians still debate how much of the superstition can truly be traced back to the Templars.

The Knights Hospitaller

The Knights Hospitaller were founded in the 11th century, originally dedicated to providing care for sick and injured pilgrims in the Holy Land. They became a military order alongside their medical mission, fighting to defend Christian territories while simultaneously running the most advanced hospitals in the medieval world.

When the Templars were dissolved, the Hospitallers absorbed much of their property and continued operations. They held Rhodes for over two centuries before being driven out by the Ottoman Empire in 1522. They retreated to Malta. In 1565 they survived the Great Siege of Malta, holding off one of the largest Ottoman invasions ever launched. Their defence became legendary across Europe.

The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the direct descendant of the Knights Hospitaller, still exists today. It has observer status at the United Nations, issues its own passports, and operates humanitarian missions in over a hundred countries.

The Hospitallers have been going, in one form or another, for nearly a thousand years. They outlasted the Templars, the Teutonic Knights, and every other military order. They are, in the most literal sense, the last knights standing.

The Teutonic Knights

The Teutonic Knights were founded in 1190 during the Third Crusade by German lords fighting in the Holy Land. After a relatively brief period in the Holy Land, they found greater opportunities for expansion in the Baltic, where pagan peoples provided a different but equally legitimate crusading opportunity.

Wearing a black cross on white surcoats, the Teutonic Knights conquered Prussia, pushed into Lithuania, Estonia, and Russia, and became essentially a state in the guise of a religious order. Their fortress at Malbork in Poland is the largest brick castle ever built and one of the largest castles in the world. You can still visit it.

In 1410, a Polish-Lithuanian army defeated the order at the Battle of Grunwald, effectively ending its military power. The order survived in ceremonial form and still exists today as a Catholic religious order based in Vienna.

The Knights of Santiago

While the great military orders fought in the Holy Land and the Baltic, medieval Spain had its own crusading frontier: the Reconquista, the centuries-long struggle between Christian and Muslim rulers for control of the Iberian Peninsula.

The Order of Santiago was founded in 1170 in the Kingdom of León to protect pilgrims travelling to Santiago de Compostela and to fight on the Christian frontier. Named after Saint James the Greater, Santiago in Spanish, the order quickly became one of the most powerful military institutions in medieval Spain.

Like the Templars and Hospitallers, the knights combined religious devotion with military service. Unlike many military orders, however, members were permitted to marry, making Santiago unusual among Europe's warrior-monks. Over the following centuries the order accumulated vast estates, castles, and revenues, becoming one of the largest landowners in the Iberian Peninsula.

The Order played a significant role in the Reconquista, participating in campaigns that gradually expanded Christian control across Spain. By the late Middle Ages its wealth and influence rivalled that of some noble families and regional rulers.

The Order of Santiago still exists today, although its military role disappeared centuries ago. It survives as a historic order of chivalry under the protection of the Spanish Crown. Membership remains highly exclusive and is associated with Spain's noble traditions, preserving a direct connection to one of the most powerful knightly orders of the medieval world.

For an organisation founded more than 850 years ago, that is a remarkably long run.

The Order of the Garter

Founded by Edward III in 1348, the Order of the Garter is the oldest and most senior order of chivalry in Britain, and the direct ancestor of the knightly honours system that still operates today.

According to legend, Edward III founded the order after a ball at which a lady's garter fell to the floor, causing embarrassment. The King picked it up, tied it around his own leg, and said, in French, "Evil be to him who evil thinks." The motto has been the order's ever since.

The Order of the Garter has twenty-four companion knights plus the sovereign. Members include the monarch, senior royals, and individuals appointed for personal service to the Crown. It remains the highest order of chivalry in the United Kingdom.

It meets annually at Windsor Castle. Members wear blue velvet robes and plumed hats. The annual Garter Day procession still preserves many traditions that would be recognisable to medieval members of the order. St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle serves as the spiritual home of the Order, where each knight has a stall marked by their heraldic banner and crest.

The remarkable thing about these orders is that four of the five still exist. The castles changed hands. The crusades ended. Kingdoms rose and fell. Yet organisations founded by medieval knights continue to operate nearly a thousand years later. Medieval history has a habit of lingering longer than anyone expects.

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