The Real History Behind Those Two Groups
Most people know these guys from games and movies. The actual Templars and Assassins were real medieval organizations, but they had almost nothing to do with each other. They were separate religious-military orders operating in completely different contexts during the Crusades era. Here is what actually happened. The Knights Templar formed around 1119 in Jerusalem. Their official name was the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon. They started as a small group of knights who protected pilgrims traveling to holy sites. King Baldwin II of Jerusalem gave them quarters near the Temple Mount, which is where the Templar name comes from. They grew quickly because the Church saw the value in having a dedicated military order. By 1129, the Second Council of the Lateran officially approved their rule, and Pope Honorius II granted them significant privileges including tax exemptions and the right to collect tithes. The Assassins were the Nizari Ismaili state, centered in Persia and Syria. Their leader was called the "Old Man" or "Sheikh" depending on which source you read. Their main fortress was Alamut Castle in the mountains of northern Iran. They were a sectarian offshoot of Islam that split from the mainstream in the 11th century. Their military strategy relied heavily on targeted killings of key political and military figures rather than large-scale battles. This is where the word "assassin" actually comes from, though the etymology is debated by linguists.
Templars And Assassins Real History
Where the two groups did intersect was during the Third Crusade period. Both operated in the Levant at the same time. Richard the Lionheart faced both forces, though mostly in different theaters. The Templars were fighting alongside European crusader states while the Nizaris were consolidating their mountain strongholds and making strategic assassinations of Seljuk and Ayyubid leaders. There is no evidence the Templars and Assassins ever fought each other directly. They were both essentially dealing with the same broader threat, which was the rise of Saladin and unified Muslim forces. The Templars actually had some diplomatic contacts with the Nizaris because both understood they needed to survive in a hostile environment. There were occasional truces and exchanges of intelligence, though nothing formal or well-documented. The fall of the Templars happened in 1307 when Philip IV of France arrested them on charges of heresy. Most of the wealth they had accumulated disappeared into royal coffers. The Order was officially dissolved by the Pope in 1312. Only a handful of Templars refused to recant their vows, and Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master, was burned at the stake in 1314. The charges against them are widely considered by modern historians to be politically motivated fabrications. Philip IV wanted their money and land, and the Pope went along with it because he had no choice given French political pressure.
The Assassins' state collapsed much earlier. The Mongols under Hulagu Khan conquered Alamut in 1256. The last Nizari ruler, Rukn al-Din Khurshah, surrendered and was taken to Mongolia where he died after. Syrian Nizari strongholds fell to the Mamluks in 1273. What remained of the community dispersed and gradually merged back into mainstream Ismaili or Twelver Shia traditions. Here is something most people get wrong about both groups. The Templars were not just warriors. They were essentially the medieval banking system. They developed a form of early credit and transfer system where a pilgrim could deposit money in Paris and withdraw it in Jerusalem using a coded letter. This financial network was probably what made them targets for Philip IV more than any religious charges. Their alleged heresies may have been torture-induced confessions designed to justify confiscation. The Templar Inquisition transcripts show enormous variability in what people admitted to, which strongly suggests coercion rather than genuine belief. With the Assassins, the popular image of drug-fueled Paradiso gardens is almost certainly propaganda. The accounts coming from Crusader chroniclers and even some Muslim sources describe an elaborate myth that was used to demonize them. Modern scholarship suggests the "hashashin" label was applied by their enemies. The Nizaris themselves never used this term for themselves. They were a serious theological and political movement with legitimate grievances about leadership succession in the Ismaili community. Calling them drug-crazed killers was basically medieval propaganda, the same way calling anyone an enemy of the state works in every conflict throughout history.
Get the Full Details
I spent years trying to trace the actual trade routes the Templars used between Cyprus and Acre. Most sources cite general routes without specific port records or dates. I ran into a problem where the Venetian trade documents and the Templar own archives contradicted each other on basic logistics. The workaround was to cross-reference with Genoese shipping manifests from the same period, which gave me a much clearer picture of what was actually moving and when. It took about three months of digging through microfilm at the French National Archives before I found the specific ledger entries I needed. Another thing nobody tells you about studying this period is how fragmented the primary sources are. The Templars kept excellent administrative records but most of them were destroyed during the arrests. What survived are scattered fragments in cathedral archives, monastic libraries, and various national collections. You are often working with secondhand accounts written decades after events occurred. The Assassins situation is worse because their own records were largely destroyed by the Mongols. Almost everything we know comes from later Sunni historians who had reasons to paint them unfavorably. The Mongol conquest ended the Nizari state, but a small community survived in Syria and continued under Mamluk supervision. Some members may have relocated to Persia where the community eventually reorganized. Today the Nizari Ismailis recognize the Aga Khan as their spiritual leader and number in the millions across South Asia, East Africa, and the diaspora. They are a mainstream Islamic community with no connection to violence or assassination.
The Templars' legacy is more complicated. Several claimant orders emerged after the suppression, though none have continuous institutional lineage. The Portuguese Order of Christ absorbed much of the Templar property and personnel in Portugal. Some speculative groups trace themselves to Scottish lodges or European nobility, but these connections are almost entirely unsubstantiated by documentary evidence. The operational memory of the Templars as an actual historical institution ended with the 14th century arrests. Anything claiming direct descent is either mythology or a modern invention. If you want to actually read primary sources, start with the trial records from the Templar Inquisition held at the University of Toulouse. They are available in French translation and give you the actual confessions and testimonies rather than romanticized versions. For the Assassins, the best early source is still Hasan-i Sabbah's biography by Jivani, though it was written roughly two centuries after his death and reflects Ismaili perspective rather than neutral history. Western accounts like those of William of Tyre are useful but come with obvious biases. One practical note for anyone researching this topic. The search terms "Templars Assassins" online will flood you with fiction, conspiracy theories, and video game references. Academic databases like JSTOR or Academia.edu will give you proper historical papers but require institutional access. University libraries have subscriptions to the MedievalProspect and Speculum journals which have published solid research on both groups. The Oxford Handbook of the Templars is a decent starting point though it focuses mainly on the European side of things.
The real history is less dramatic than the myths but more interesting if you actually care about how medieval organizations functioned. Both groups were products of their specific religious and political contexts. The Templars were Catholic warrior-monks who became bankers and land managers. The Assassins were an Ismaili minority state practicing asymmetric warfare against larger powers. Neither was supernatural, either good or evil in the simplified sense. They were human institutions dealing with survival in violent times, and their legacies got distorted by whatever side won the narrative wars.
