Post by dustdevil28 on Feb 24, 2010 14:30:19 GMT -8
Just posted this over at THC, reposting here.
................
Well with THC set to shut down for the reboot in another week or so I thought I'd post what will be my last book review prior to the event.
Unfortunately I am located away from home and the book is inaccessable to me for the moment so i hope you will excuse me if the worth of this review doesn't hold up to the previous ones.
The book itself is pretty dated, being published sometime around 1989 so I'm guessing that a few of you may have read this one already. The theme of the book is to set the origins of the secret society group known as the freemasons with the distruction of the knights templar around the early 1300's.
For those unfamiliar a brief summation of the knights templar is that they are a group that originated during the crusades and along with their rival knights hospitlar they helped assure safe travel to the holy land and later served as valuable military units during the wars. Following the fall of the holy lands back to muslim control the knights templar mostly busied themselves seeking support for a future crusade to retake the lands. Mostly they were rebuffed. The did find relevance in a banking system the founded which allowed a person to deposit valuables in one place and withdraw it in another, a form of secure banking unknown at the time and through this and donations made to the organization the knights templar became a very wealthy organization. Enter King Phillip of France who along with the Pope allegedly conspired to confiscate the lands and wealth of the templars by accusing them of heresy and gaining confessions via torture
While not going into specifics we can say that torture in the 1300's was about as brutal as the human mind can envision. This took place with most templars across Europe, but in England a weak Kind Edward III delayed the imprisonment and later torture of the Templars for three months. This three months, according to the author, gave the templars enough time to organize themselves underground and eventually escape to Scotland away for the Pope's reach.
With the Templars facing torture and their families likely deaths the organization took strict vows and according to the author eventually masked their origins with the adoption of an appearance such as stone cutters or masons. The tittles of the degrees of the mason as well as the oaths tend to lend to the belief in a templar beginning though as the oaths make it clear how much trouble the masons expected to get into should they be caught or turned in by a spy or fellow brother.
All in all the author makes a pretty compelling case for this as the origin and the book serves as a good reminder of the dark days of mankind before a civilized society finally took form just a few century's ago. The one thing I will say though is that though the auther says that he is no mason the book to me definitly took on a pro mason view and tended to speak ill of, or dismiss any "anti-masons" out there. About the freemasons, if people wish to do such things it is their business so long as it does not effect the public trust, but i find little use and would never be interested in such an organization.
-DD, BB
................
Well with THC set to shut down for the reboot in another week or so I thought I'd post what will be my last book review prior to the event.
Unfortunately I am located away from home and the book is inaccessable to me for the moment so i hope you will excuse me if the worth of this review doesn't hold up to the previous ones.
The book itself is pretty dated, being published sometime around 1989 so I'm guessing that a few of you may have read this one already. The theme of the book is to set the origins of the secret society group known as the freemasons with the distruction of the knights templar around the early 1300's.
For those unfamiliar a brief summation of the knights templar is that they are a group that originated during the crusades and along with their rival knights hospitlar they helped assure safe travel to the holy land and later served as valuable military units during the wars. Following the fall of the holy lands back to muslim control the knights templar mostly busied themselves seeking support for a future crusade to retake the lands. Mostly they were rebuffed. The did find relevance in a banking system the founded which allowed a person to deposit valuables in one place and withdraw it in another, a form of secure banking unknown at the time and through this and donations made to the organization the knights templar became a very wealthy organization. Enter King Phillip of France who along with the Pope allegedly conspired to confiscate the lands and wealth of the templars by accusing them of heresy and gaining confessions via torture
While not going into specifics we can say that torture in the 1300's was about as brutal as the human mind can envision. This took place with most templars across Europe, but in England a weak Kind Edward III delayed the imprisonment and later torture of the Templars for three months. This three months, according to the author, gave the templars enough time to organize themselves underground and eventually escape to Scotland away for the Pope's reach.
With the Templars facing torture and their families likely deaths the organization took strict vows and according to the author eventually masked their origins with the adoption of an appearance such as stone cutters or masons. The tittles of the degrees of the mason as well as the oaths tend to lend to the belief in a templar beginning though as the oaths make it clear how much trouble the masons expected to get into should they be caught or turned in by a spy or fellow brother.
All in all the author makes a pretty compelling case for this as the origin and the book serves as a good reminder of the dark days of mankind before a civilized society finally took form just a few century's ago. The one thing I will say though is that though the auther says that he is no mason the book to me definitly took on a pro mason view and tended to speak ill of, or dismiss any "anti-masons" out there. About the freemasons, if people wish to do such things it is their business so long as it does not effect the public trust, but i find little use and would never be interested in such an organization.
-DD, BB