CHAPTER 1

The Templar Knight in Medieval Film

Archetypal Hero and Villain

The part of the Templar urtext that this chapter is examining is the warrior monk archetype which is adapted and reused as part of the reoccurring Templar narrative. The chapter aims to identify how my concept of the thematic Templar narrative has evolved over the centuries to include two aspects: the earlier aspect of the bad Templar knight from the 19th century and the second aspect of the good Templar knight originating in the 20th century. This chapter examines how the narrative has become fictionalized and how the Templar narrative emphasizes myth over historical fact. The case studies selected are the medieval epics Ivanhoe (Thorpe, 1952), a major Hollywood film and Kingdom of Heaven (Scott, 2005), a major American production with a budget of $130,000,000 (Box Office Mojo). Ironclad (English, 2010) is a smaller British production with a budget of $25,000,000 (IMDb). The ­multicountry-funded film series, Arn: The Knight Templar (Flinth, 2007) and Arn: The Kingdom at the End of the Road (Flinth, 2008), is defined by Film International as a “­Scandinavian-German-British ­co-production” (Hedling, 2008, p. 63). With a combined budget for both films at “22 million euros” (Hedling, 2008, p. 63), the films were the most expensive Scandinavian film production at release.

I have chosen these case studies because they demonstrate my concept of the Templar urtext. This chapter aims to understand why these notable films still incorporate and adapt the main warrior monk archetype. In examining the first pillar of the warrior monk, this chapter can explore how these different depictions of the Templar adapt the urtext and expand the popular perceptions of the Knights Templar in broader popular culture. The methodology will include a textual analysis of the case studies but also an analysis of the producer’s influences and intentions, including the political climate at the time of the film’s production. The chapter will draw on production sources, interviews, directors’ commentary, film critiques to understand the creative decisions and will use academic sources to highlight how the Templar narrative is being evolved. This approach will provide evidence for the filmmakers’ intentions and help us to understand how the film text has evolved the Templar narrative.

This chapter will firstly draw from Andrew Elliott’s work, which explores the archetype of the medieval knight as both hero and villain. Of course, the Templars were not just knights but also monks, so to address this, Chapter 1 also draws from Christopher Roman’s work on religion in film to frame the archetypes of religious characters and to analyze the portrayal of the Templar’s religion in these films. Once the archetypes are established, the chapter will then analyze the influence of the political climate in the films’ depiction of the Knights Templar. The case studies will be compared to the political climate at release, using analysis from Nickolas Haydock and Matthew Richard Schlimm in their comparisons with the post 9/11 climate and Jonathan Stubbs and Walter Srebnick’s critique of McCarthyism. This comparison is needed as looking at how historiography is interpreted and what function historical sources have in the medieval film will further enable a clearer understanding of the artistic choices behind the Templar depictions.

Pierre Sorlin demonstrates the importance of highlighting the significance of addressing the political climate at the time of production as he argues that the use of a fictional past in film “is no more than a useful device to speak of the present time” (­Hughes-Warrington, 2007, p. 58). ­Hughes-Warrington clarifies the role of historical events in a film by stating it “as a signifier of issues contemporary with filming, ranging from ethical beliefs to political aspirations” (2007, p. 58). If a historical film is assessed from that perspective, then the Templar narrative of the knight must be examined alongside the political climate during production. This approach will assist in ascertaining how the Templar urtext has expanded through the evolution of visual depictions in the Templar narrative.

Heroes and Villains—Separated by Violence

To understand the archetype of the medieval knight and to define the narrative of the knight’s separation into two aspects, this chapter must critique the depiction of violence in contrast to notions of chivalry. The hero and villainous knight are both defined by their actions; both are killers, and this chapter will first explore how the good and bad archetypes are separated. The Templars were both knights as well as monks, men of chastity and prayer, but first we will explore these men from their knightly perspectives (i.e., their warrior actions). However, violence has always been part of war, and it is no different for its depiction in the heroes’ narrative. In a chapter on violence in medieval fiction, Lesley A. Coote writes, “graphic violence is powerful because it seizes, and holds, the audience’s attention” (2012, p. 15). It is true that medieval epics climax in a battle to the death, such as with Ironclad’s desperate attempt to defend the keep, and both installments of Arn: The Knight Templar and Arn: The Kingdom at the End of the Road end with a ­full-scale field battle. Therefore, violence is a crucial audience expectation, and the predominant narratives are constructed around this theme.

Coote’s notion is,“The physical wound forms a punctum within the text, visual or literary” (2012, pp. 15–16). Coote defines punctum by citing Roland Barthes and writing, “Puncta … are particular points on a photographic image that add meaning to the image as a whole” (2012, p. 16). Coote uses this term in the argument: “The filmmaker needs the punctum’s specificity and dynamic to engage his/her audience with the medieval, at the same time opening up the possibility of other, related, meanings” (2012, p. 16). Coote’s notion that violence is a way of engaging the audience with the medieval world is reflected in the opening acts of Kingdom of Heaven. In the first act Balian murders his own brother (a priest played by Michael Sheen), and when a group of men come to arrest him, he and his father’s men (including Godfrey) brutally kill them. Even Godfrey’s nephew (Nikolaj ­Coster-Waldau) and a knight who surrendered meet the same violent end. This encounter could be an introduction to the violence that will underpin the rest of the film; using Coote’s notion this scene is a “welcome to Middle Ages” greeting from the director.

Coote references the significance of violence within the Arthurian legends. On the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, she writes, “The poet emphasizes the physicality of the wound, in order to fix attention on what the wounding signifies. This wound is punishment for Gawain’s deceit over his keeping of the green girdle,” (2012, p. 19). It is not what the wound represents that is of interest in this study; it is using violence as a story narrative in the chivalric tale. Coote highlights the importance of violence in the Arthurian romances, commenting on the aftermath of Sir Gawain decapitating the Green Knight: “Instead of continuing with the story, the poet describes how the bloodied head begins to roll around the room” (2012, p. 26). William F. Woods argues that violence is prevalent in the medieval film because “the pain in medieval movies is physical and bloody, and that is because our senses of the real is fundamentally visual; we tend to believe what we see” (2004, p. 45). Essentially, using violence as a narrative tool cements verisimilitude with the audience as physical pain is all too real.

However, if these chivalrous knights commit acts of violence, such as beheadings or like Balian and his father executing unarmed men, then they are no better than the villainous knights and warriors, the supposed chivalrous knights set out to defeat. Elliott informs us that:

codes of chivalry were added to later medieval imaginations of knights to play down their violence and emphasize their servitude, even while attempting to “faithfully” render the medieval knight, a modern film must try to convey these same values in order to align the knight with a modern understanding of a hero [2011, p. 60].

Elliott suggests that the film must align the knight with the guise of a modern hero to make the traditional Hollywood narrative work, one that the film Braveheart (Gibson, 1995) encapsulates. The ­peace-loving William Wallace (Mel Gibson) must inspire his country to take up arms and fight for freedom from the oppression of the cruel English. Elliott notes that medieval films create a relatable hero knight, still keeping with the spirit of the medieval tale by “Harnessing the shocking power of raw, unrestrained violence, these qualities are transferred to the villains who as a result come to embody its negative elements” (2011, p. 60). Elliott offers a strong example of this notion with his example of the protagonist and antagonist in Jerry Zucker’s First Knight (1995), which stars Sean Connery as the iconic King Arthur. Elliott writes, “by polarizing the pacifist Arthur … with the distinctly unhinged, and ­one-dimensional Malagant,” it paints “Arthur as the ideal, pacifist hero” (2011, p. 60). This depiction, of course, would justify any violence that Arthur or his knights commit as an act of ­self-defense against dangerous Malagant.

However, as King Arthur has been featured in stories since the Middle Ages, perhaps he may not need his role to be as established, unlike newer characters. Elliott offers an example from the Rob Cohen film Dragonheart (1996) which stars Dennis Quaid as Bowen the dragon slayer and David Thewlis as the villainous King Einon. Elliott writes, “the henchmen of the villainous Prince Einon are constructed as evil because of their aggression towards ‘the weak villagers’ …, which includes not only unarmed men but also women, children and the elderly” (2011, p. 60). Elliott then summarizes his point by simply stating, “[b]y constructing the ‘evil’ knights as an oppressive and brutal force, therefore, Dragonheart simply needs to place its hero, Bowen, into the opposite role of Redeemer/Deliverer for him to represent all of the positive values which the ­anti-hero lacks” (2011, p. 61). Coote states, “Scenes of violence to the body, on whatever type of screen…, make a very effective way for the writer/director to create meaning” (2012, p. 30), and this approach by writers and directors can be used to justify their heroes’ actions. The story uses violence to not only set the medieval scene but also to highlight the ideological differences of two warring factions, which inserts them into the traditional roles of hero and villain.

In medieval fiction, violence is used to introduce to the viewer what type of knight the Templar will be, either as the heroic Templar knight encapsulated within the later good Templar or the villainous Knights Templar as depicted in the ­19th-century works of Sir Walter Scott. Violence is a key indicator to depict the moral compass of the character as perceptions of knighthood are contrasted in the oppressive force and romantic notions. This contrast is highlighted by Elliott who references T.H. White, writing, “knighthood is based on a fundamental paradox: as one who fights for right, the knight is both lover and a fighter, responsible for both protection and aggression, peace and violence, honour and villainy” (2011, p. 53). Comparisons for these positive ideals are found in the second aspect of the Templar knight narrative, the good Templar. The protagonist in the film Ironclad is the English Templar knight Marshall (James Purefoy); introduced through immediate violent acts that tell the audience what kind of knight he is and what aspect of the Templar narrative the film is including. In one of the film’s opening scenes, King John (Paul Giamatti) and his army of German mercenaries arrive at the Darnay Castle, where Marshall, two of his Templar brothers and an abbot (who is a ­white-haired elderly man) are taking shelter from the previous day’s storm. King John hangs the castle’s rebellious lord, and then when the abbot tries to intervene, King John has his German mercenary leader, Captain Tiberius (Vladimir Kulich), brutally saw off the monk’s tongue with a dagger. This horrific image will justify to the audience the violent actions that Marshall then takes by rushing to the abbot’s rescue and slashing one of King John’s soldiers across the face with an axe. Marshall, King John and his soldiers committed acts of violence, but Marshall’s actions were for a just cause and “heroic” in comparison to the actions of King John.

Arn: The Knight Templar shows a similar example when Arn must kill a man to save a woman from a forced marriage. Direct comparisons can be made to the stereotypical trope of the damsel in distress, but it is a cliché that quickly establishes Arn as adhering to the good Templar aspect. Arn Magnusson (Joakim Nätterqvist) is a young monk trained by Broder Guilbert (Vincent Perez), who was once a Templar knight, but despite being indoctrinated into the warrior ideology, it was not until Arn grew to manhood that he had to put his abilities into use. By chance, Arn stumbles across a terrified woman who is being pursued by a group of armed men with dogs. The group’s leader accuses Arn of trying to steal his bride, despite the apparent fact that Arn is dressed as a monk. The group throw the young monk a weapon, and then the leader attacks Arn, forcing the young monk to kill his attackers in ­self-defense. With the attackers dead, Arn stares at his ­blood-covered hands, a clear depiction of the guilt for his arguably heroic actions.

Both the scenes from Ironclad and Arn: The Knight Templar described are clear examples of how the depiction of violence is used in the medieval epic to depict the morality of the character. Arn was acting entirely in ­self-defense against a group of brutish aggressors. Elliott explains, “the notion of unchecked violence is largely repugnant, and our modern heroes must walk a very fine line between cowardice and aggression” (2011, p. 59). This notion is evident in the scene described as Arn could have fled and left the girl to her fate, but he defended himself and repelled the attackers. If it was not any clearer to the audience that Arn’s actions were that of a hero, when he confesses his sins back at the monastery, the priest tells him, “You killed those men in ­self-defence. They were sinners; trying to force that poor young girl to marry against her will” (Flinth, 2007). It is how Arn uses his violent skills that define him as a medieval hero or as a good knight. Such as the necessity of Marshall’s actions to save the helpless old abbot, Arn’s heroics, with the inclusion of the damsel in distress, justify the violence as chivalrous. The actions described above demonstrate the critical defining factor in the good knight aspect of the Templar narrative as warrior violence is a key theme. However, it is how the Templar’s actions are perceived by the audience that establishes the Templar as the good Templar knight. At its essence, to be part of the good Templar aspect, the Templar’s violent actions must be justified, and in that they are protective and not oppressive.

In comparison to the good Templar knight, Kingdom of Heaven provides an example of how violence can also distinguish a Templar knight as an outright villain. Kingdom of Heaven first lets the audience glimpse the kind of characters these Templar knights are, when a large group of Templar horsemen commanded by Guy of Lusignan (Marton Csokas), Raynald of Châtillon (Brendan Gleeson) and the Grand Master Gerard de Ridefort (Ulrich Thomsen) brutally attack a convoy of Muslim merchants. Before charging down the hill towards the convoy, Guy comments, “This caravan is armed, Rainald,” then, Raynald replies, “Aye, no sport otherwise.” The Templars then roar, “God wills it!” (Scott, 2005), before they charge down the hill to slaughter the merchants. Scott uses ­close-ups on Guy to show his ecstasy as blood splatters across his face, while he and the Templars slaughter the almost defenseless merchants. Compare this to Arn and Marshall’s introduction to violence, which was defensive and justifiable. Guy and the Templars act without any justification, only that they enjoy plundering and killing Muslims. These Templars adhere to the bad Templar aspect of the knight narrative due to their excessive use of force that is not justifiable to the audience due to its purely oppressive nature.

Balian (Orlando Bloom) is the hero of Kingdom of Heaven; he is not a Templar, but his introduction to violence is the murder of his half-brother. On the surface, this sounds like the making of a villain, but it is the reason for his ­half-brother’s murder that the audience will find justifiable. At the beginning, Balian is a blacksmith and a tragic character; his first child was a stillbirth, and his wife took her own life as a result of the tragedy. Balian’s half-brother is a priest who attempts to gain Balian’s property for himself by trying to persuade Balian to leave for the Holy Land with Balian’s father, Godfrey of Ibelin. In a frustrated attempt to persuade him he tells Balian, “If you take the crusade you may relieve your wife’s position in Hell. I put it delicately; she was a suicide; she is in Hell.” When that fails to change Balian’s mind, he taunts that he had his wife’s head cut off before burial; he says, “For what she does there without a head?” (Scott, 2005). Balian realizes that the priest stole his wife’s golden cross necklace from her grave. In a fit of rage, Balian grabs the sword he is working on and stabs the priest in the chest, pushing him back onto the lit forge. Elliott explains “that the raw aggression which may well have brought knighthood into existence had to be pared down for the big screen, by the use of vengeance themes to justify them, and by increasing the delay between action and retaliation” (2011, p. 81). The vengeance of Balian’s actions justifies his violence, while in direct contrast to this Guy and the Templars portray raw aggression that an audience would find repulsive.

Elliott argues that even the knight’s choice of weapon singles him out as a disciplined noble warrior, writing, “The sword itself, then, acts as a device used to distance the knight from his opponent, and thereby to tame the raw aggression” (2011, p. 63). If the sword represents discipline, then how can the audience differentiate between the hero and villain if they are both using swords? In Kingdom of Heaven, Balian used a sword to slay his half-brother, while the Templars also used swords to slaughter merchants, but it is due to the level of bloodshed in the deeds that the audience can differentiate between the hero and villain. Balian’s killing of his ­half-brother, although brutal, had minimal bloodshed, while the Templars opening violence is a bloodbath. Elliott writes, “On a purely thematic level, therefore, the absence of blood serves to hint that the violence … is disciplined and pure, and that the knight was not transported by pure rage or fury, but—as is appropriate when the violence is suitably motivated—was enacted ‘humanely,’ and only to a degree which is justifiable and sufficient” (2011, p. 63). The emphasis on the Templars’ bloodshed depicts the horrors of the Templars’ wild and unchecked cruelty, which implies that Balian’s violence is more controlled and was justified in its reasoning. Kingdom of Heaven is about the clash of two cultures and the war that follows, so, of course, there will be an amount of blood spilling within the war, so the amount of blood spilled during the Templars’ murders of Muslim merchants underlines the unacceptable level of violence used by the Templars.

The Templar hero of the good Templar aspect carries an iconic weapon that stands the hero out from the other warriors in a similar way to King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur. When informed that Arn will be leaving the monastery, Broder Guilbert presents him with the sword he carried when he served as a Knights Templar. The sword has a cross carved into the pommel, and the guard has the Latin inscription translated to “In this sign thou shall conquer,” and Broder Guilbert tells Arn, “with this sword, no one has ever defeated me. But you may never draw it in anger or use it for your own gain (Flinth, 2007).” Marshall’s great ­two-handed sword is not introduced in such a way, but the significance of the weapon is shown as it cuts through his enemies with ease; again this sword has a Templar cross on the sword’s pommel. Carl James Grindley describes the role of the hero’s weapon as “In its purest form, the weapon’s tale is an encomium that sings the praises of arms and armour that, for the most part, contribute little to the overall narrative structure of a text but contain a concentrated symbolic functionality” (2004, p. 151). Although Arn and Marshall’s weapons provide little narrative propulsion, they are symbols for the knight’s martial ability and for marketing the film. For example, both films’ DVD covers prominently feature the Templar hero’s sword.

From looking at how the Templars can fit into the archetype of the fictional knight it is clear that the two distinct aspects of the Templar narrative of the knight run parallel with the use of violence to distinguish between these archetypes. The narrative of the knight includes both the good Templar knight and bad Templar aspects as these coincide with the obverse notions of violence and chivalry established in medieval romance. However, in reality, the Templars are more than warriors, and to understand how this Templar narrative of the knight has evolved in popular culture it is essential to explore the depiction of the Templar’s role as a monk in these films. In the same way of comparing the Knights Templar to good and bad knight archetypes, Templar knights should be examined as depictions of medieval religious acolytes to ascertain what aspects of their religious lifestyle the Templar knight narrative features in popular culture.

Warrior Monks

Despite the significance of the monastic lifestyle within the Order of the Knights Templar, it features minimally in the three films described previously. The most we see of a religious lifestyle for the Templars is the character of Arn, and that is him growing up in the monastery, engaging in prayer, studying literacy and learning martial skills; all of this was long before he became a Templar. Although, as a Templar knight, Arn prays after every victory by kneeling on the ground and bowing his head to his sword, turned upside down, symbolizing a cross. Prayer before or after a battle is a recurring physical representation of the religious devotion of the Knights Templar in the Templar film texts. The Knights Templar in Kingdom of Heaven scream “God wills it” (Scott, 2005) before they charge down the hill to murder the Saracen merchants. Of course, this is not pious like the silent prayers of Arn, but these Templars are polar opposites of the good Templar aspect, and their prayers would be just as villainous as their actions. However, the Templars in Kingdom of Heaven show utter contempt for the Christian ideology; for example, when arguing with Guy, Tiberius says to him, “I would rather live with men than kill them,” to which Guy replies sarcastically, “That sort of Christianity has its uses, I suppose,” followed by his Templar brothers laughing at his remark. In Kingdom of Heaven’s depiction of the bad Templar knight, we see them mock their own religion and only use it to justify war and violence. Later in that same scene Godfrey, the grand master of the Templars, calls for Jerusalem to go to war by declaring, “There must be war. God wills it,” and then the Templars all cry, “God wills it!” (Scott, 2005), despite openly mocking their own faith moments before. For the bad Templar, Christian faith is little more than a justification to go to war, which is the polar opposite to the pious Arn of the good Templar aspect.

The distancing of religious association in film is found in depictions of other medieval characters. For example, Christopher Roman addresses this by citing Gwendolyn Morgan’s work on the depiction of Joan of Arc. He writes, “in our efforts to explain away the religious experience so believable to her contemporaries and so unbelievable to the scientific rationalist impulse of the twentieth century, we have left the real Joan behind and rendered her an icon defining our own concept of human identity” (2012, p. 57). Roman explains, “icons have become ­stand-ins; rather than the depth of human experience that was relevant to the Middle Ages” (2012, p. 57). If we look at the lack of religious devotion to the Templar role in film, it does suggest that Morgan’s notions of the medieval reality are ignored in favor of the preference of a modern audience. This disparity towards Christianity is apparent in both aspects of the Templar knight narrative, as with all three Templar texts the heroes are outsiders from the religious institutions. In Arn: The Knight Templar, Arn is forced to serve as a Templar by the injustice of the church, while distraught Marshall in Ironclad is desperate to leave the service of the Templars. In Kingdom of Heaven the hero, Balian, is an agnostic who is the enemy of the fanatical religious Order of the Knights Templar (who ridicule their faith). Roman explores similar themes in his critique of the films The Seventh Seal (1957), Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972) and Anchoress (1993); he writes, “the Catholic church is portrayed as a totalitarian institution and medieval religiosity as reactionary; the only way for the hero of the film to practise an authentic spirituality is to reject the trappings of the church for greater freedom” (2012, p. 56). All three of the Templar texts portray the Catholic Church in a negative light. Arn experiences a repressive, tyrannical church that harasses him and his lover while also finding little acceptance in the Order of the Knights Templar. It is even more so in Kingdom of Heaven in that Balian’s ­half-brother, the priest, steals from his wife’s grave, and bloodthirsty Templars overshadow Jerusalem.

When discussing his chosen texts, Roman writes, “The films problematize religion for the hero of the film by representing the religious other as caught between institutional conformity and a primal relation to nature that represents freedom” (2012, p. 56). The heroes’ unwillingness to be part of the religious institution is apparent in all three Templar texts: the agnostic hero (Balian), the reluctant Templar (Arn) and the traumatized Templar (Marshall). With the exception of Balian (as he is not a Templar), the Knights Templar led an extraordinarily pious and monastic lifestyle, and the writer’s decision to distance Arn and Marshall from that medieval institution tends to suggest that Morgan’s notion of appeasing the modern audience is evident in these themes. The Templar knights of the good knight aspect are more akin to modern action heroes in terms of their faith than the devoutly Christian knights of medieval literature.

The amount of time the story focuses on religion in the film version of Arn is different from the original novel. Jan Guillou’s The Road to Jerusalem (1998) focuses a lot more on monastic lifestyle; a great deal of the first novel of the trilogy focuses on Arn growing up in the monastery where he would debate Christian philosophy with Father Henri. Arn’s mother, Sigrid, even has a vision from the Holy Spirit of her fully grown son dressed as a Templar. Sigrid’s vision is the introduction of God’s plan for Arn, similar to that of actual canonized saints and Mary, mother of Jesus, as Sigrid was only pregnant with Arn when she received the vision. “She knew the young man and yet did not. He carried a shield but wore no helmet. She didn’t recognize the coat of arms from any of her own kinsmen or her husband’s; the shield was completely white with a large ­blood-red cross, nothing more” (Guillou, 1998, pp. 7–8). The book is written more like a fictional hagiography, while the film is more akin to a ­Roman-Christian epic. Pamela Grace details the differences between the two:

Most of the epics are based on novels whose narratives involve historical figures but whose central may be fictional. The protagonists in the epics are ordinary mortals, not saints: they are not chosen by God for reasons unknown to human beings; they do not have contact with heavenly beings; and they do not work miracles during their lifetime or after their death [2009, p. 36].

As the character Arn is an invention of Guillou and not a saint, the Arn films are not a hagiopic, but the novels do have elements of a hagiography. For example, Sigrid’s vision from the Holy Spirit shows the connection to God, which is not featured in the films, and depicts Arn’s impossible martial feats and tragic punishments as amazing soldiery or coincidences. The novel describes Arn’s brilliance as miracles or God’s guidance and the tragic misfortunes as God’s will. In The Road to Jerusalem, when Arn killed two men as he protected a young woman, Father Henri explained:

When God saw this He grew angry and set you in the path of the sinners in order to punish them as severely as only He can. That cathedral Dean Torkel was thus not entirely wrong when he spoke of how he saw an angel guiding your hand [Guillou, 1998, p. 211].

It is by having Sigrid contacted by the Holy Spirit that Arn’s deeds show him to be more than an ordinary mortal, and perhaps his deeds are miracles. So, in this way, the novel is more akin to hagiography, unlike the film version, which stays shy of those themes, planting itself firmly in what is Grace’s definition of the epic genre. These differences would suggest that the low levels of detail around Arn’s monk lifestyle are due to the running time limitations of film, whereas with the Arn novel, religious piety is a vital staple of the medieval literature good knight.

In Andrew Elliott’s chapter, “Clergy and Saints: Those Who Pray,” he explains that religious figures are represented in one of two ways. He highlights them as “high earthly status and ‘feudal’ leadership, risks becoming two critical extremes of the same function when intended to continue this ­anti-clericalism, giving way to two symbols which the cinema has favoured: the rich priest and the powerful priest, each of which comes replete with his own iconography” (2011, p. 118). Although in the film, the Templars do not engage in monastic practices associated with the order, the Templar film does conform to these anticlerical clichés. On the first type, Elliott writes, “the wealthy priest, whose material wealth is frequently used as a symbol for his power within society, although it is just as often meant to be a slight on the perceived avarice of the medieval Catholic Church” (2011, p. 118). In the Templar text, the wealth and privilege of the Templars are represented in the form of the bad Templar knight character. For example, in Kingdom of Heaven the physical wealth of the Order is not literally depicted. However, the elitist status of the Templars is depicted in the superior behaviors of the villainous Templars towards what they perceive as people of lower status.

Arn: The Knight Templar showcases the difference between the humility of Arn and his Templar brothers, with the attitude toward wealth shown by Arn’s Templar nemesis, Gerard de Ridefort. Gerard shows his pomposity when he arrives at a Templar meeting before a battle with Saladin, marching into the room and presenting the true cross. The true cross is a small piece of wood from Christ’s cross encased in a giant golden cross. The extravagance of the true cross is superseded by the tiny carved wooden cross that Arn wears. Arn does not need a giant golden cross to inspire him but a sentimental piece of wood, unlike the rest of his Templar brothers who are in awe of the golden cross.

The thematic Templar narrative of the knight incorporates archetypes from religious figures such as monks and priests, but unlike the archetype of the knight, which is incorporated in both the Templar knight narrative aspect and can be both good and bad, the Templar knight narrative focuses on the negative traits depicted in the fiction of medieval Christianity. The Templar knight either portrays these negative traits such as in Kingdom of Heaven, or he rejects them and is an outsider from the organization he has supposedly dedicated his life to serving. The Templar narrative of the knight benefits from its malleability, which enables it to absorb other preconceived archetypes such as the knight or the priest. This flexibility has allowed the Templar narrative to evolve in popular culture as a result of the lack of official authority over the Templar phenomenon due to the Order’s extinction in the 14th century. Therefore, this flexibility has enabled the knight narrative to diverge into two Templar knight aspects that both conform to the expected knight archetypes in that his character is shown not just through his actions but by his use of his martial abilities. For both aspects of the knight narrative, the relationship between warrior and monk is somewhat diminished in film as the narrative has been adapted to fit within anticlerical notions. This depiction can be part of both aspects of the knight narrative, the good Templar knight and the bad Templar knight.

Historical Accuracy

After examining how the Templar narrative of the knight is an extension of the archetypes of the chivalrous and villainous knight and priest archetypes, this chapter turns its attention to examining the role that the Templar narrative plays in popular culture, focusing on major film productions Ivanhoe, Kingdom of Heaven, Arn: The Knight Templar and Ironclad. Film texts will often play with history, leave out parts that do not work with the constructed narrative or invent happenings to enable them to tell the story they want to tell. This section will analyze the attractiveness of including the Templar narrative of the knight in fiction and how this further imbeds the Templar narrative in popular culture.

The ethics of historical accuracy in film has been fervently debated by historians and film scholars on whether accuracy underlines a historical film’s legitimacy and quality of the product. For example, A. Kelly argues, “Any attempt to render the distant past in any form other than intellectual understanding (if even that is exempt) is to create a certain fiction. But this crafted fiction does not detract from the value of the film” (2004, p. 9). Martha Driver comments that authenticity is only authentic as long as the illusion is hidden from the audience; she writes, “As film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum commented to me some years ago, ‘It doesn’t matter if the historical details of the film are authentic. They just have to look authentic to the audience’” (2004, p. 20). She adds, “Film provides an imaginative immediacy and reality, a luminous world we physically enter by watching and listening” (2004, p. 21). When the writer William Monahan discusses the historiography of Kingdom of Heaven in the DVD audio commentary, he states, “What you use as a dramatist is what plays. It’s all an eye for the things you can use, incident, colour, ideas … that resonate with you personally. You use what plays, or can be made to play, and you don’t use what doesn’t.” This comment implies that it was the story and visuals and not historical accuracy that was important to the project. Monahan’s statement coincides with Kelly’s above argument: “crafted fiction” does not diminish the quality of the film.

Elliott explores historiography in film, writing, “On one extreme we find the conservative viewpoint of critics such as Hughes, whose underlying argument seems to reject films as inevitably inaccurate, suggesting that their usefulness only demonstrates how mankind leaves his mark on history with each rewriting of it” (2011, p. 11). He then compares this to Ferro’s argument: “even while committing factual errors, historical films may usefully be seen as a kind of document chronicling the way that man understands his own history” (2011, p. 11). Elliott theorizes, “we are forced to accept that there is no real, single truth about the Middle Ages” (2011, p. 34). He concludes, “What emerges from such historical inquiry, therefore, is not a single, absolute version of the Middle Ages, but a concatenation of beliefs and known facts, from which we extrapolate an imaginary version of the period” (2011, p. 34). If historical accuracy is not the focus of the historical film, then analyzing the differences between fiction and reality enables the film to be interpreted at a deeper level. The role of the historical film genre is explained by Driver and Ray citing Kevin J. Harty, who hypothesize that:

The genre itself is like a crystal ball or magical mirror, Harty adds, “in which the present and the future can be studied in light of the past and the past can be reimagined in light of the present and the future” [Driver & Ray, 2004, p. 7].

Chapman, Glancy, and Harper suggest that the reflectionist model suggested above offers “too simplistic an understanding of the relationship between film and its social content” (2007, p. 4). Harty’s notion that the present is depicted in the past coincides with Arthur Lindley’s idea that the present day can be studied in the guise of the historical. In using the film, The Seventh Seal (Bergman, 1957), as an example Lindley explains that:

Not to labour an obvious point for too long, we are looking at a version of the Middle Ages that has been carefully lifted out of historical sequence in order to serve as a mirror and an alienating device for viewing the ­mid-century present and/or the timeless present of parable [Lindley, 1998].

The idea of film acting as a mirror to society is further challenged by Chapman, Glancy, and Harper. They cite Graeme Turner, writing, “Film does not reflect or even record reality; like any other medium of representation it constructs and ‘­re-presents’ its pictures of reality by the way of codes, conventions, myths and ideologies of its culture as well as by way of the specific signifying practices of the medium” (2007, p. 4). This, though, is an argument for all film and not just any particular genre.

Regarding the medieval genre representing contemporary issues coincides with Rick Altman’s theories on the role of genre. He writes, “from Lévi-Strauss and other structural anthropologists, genre critics learnt that narrative can serve as a form of societal ­self-expression, directly addressing the society’s constructive contradictions” (1999, p. 26). Elliott argues that it is not just the medieval film that represents present values but the whole knightly character type. Elliott cites Martha Driver and Sid Ray, writing:

in order to appeal to a contemporary audience, film must reinvent the Middle Ages and create the medieval hero a ­hodge-podge of traits derived from a mixed understanding of what is medieval and of traits we value in the heroes of postmillennial Western culture [2011, p. 54].

The narrative may construct society’s ­self-expression, but it is not as simple as the criticized reflectionist model; Chapman, Glancy, and Harper explain, “The more common metaphor now, rather than reflection, is mediation” (2007, p. 4). They cite from John Belton, writing, “They do, nevertheless, ‘reveal something about the cultural conditions that produced them and attracted audiences to them … they reflect what audiences want to see rather than what is really there’” (2007, p. 4). When dealing with the relationship between the political climate at the time of the case studies release and the Templar narrative in popular culture, this chapter explores what the director is potentially using the constructed fictional historical setting to comment upon. This analysis is done by examining interviews and production information, which avoids the problematic practice of interpreting the texts in line with the political climate of the time.

This next section will look at the Templar texts Ivanhoe, Kingdom of Heaven, Ironclad and Arn: The Knight Templar. The case studies will be analyzed from the perspective outlined above to understand what does including the thematic Templar narrative bring to the text’s narrative and how this repetition of the malleable Templar narrative further evolves representations of the Templar in popular culture. Historiography is essential in examining these texts because, if the history has been reworked to benefit the writer, then this chapter will examine why the change was made and what the Templars’ inclusion brings to the story. The first film addressed is the 1952 release of Ivanhoe (Thorpe), and despite its release over 50 years before the other chosen texts, Thorpe’s version was the last major production of the Sir Walter Scott classic and also chose to play down the Templar’s role within the story. This text will be addressed from the perspective of how the lessening of the Templar’s role impacts the ­19th-century novel’s story. This section will begin with Thorpe’s adaptation of Ivanhoe and how the exclusion of the Templar iconography affects the adaptation of the ­19th-century novel.

The Bad Templar Knight

The original and most prestigious instance of the Templar narrative of the knight appearing in popular culture as a capital consumable was the bad Templar knight, and it came in Sir Walter Scott’s Crusade novels, the first being Ivanhoe in 1820. Phillips explains the popularity of Scott’s Crusade literature, writing, “Scott’s works were translated into numerous languages and in France alone he had sold over two million books by 1840. Ivanhoe alone inspired almost 300 dramas: within a year of its publication, 16 versions of the story were staged across England” (2009, p. 13). Phillips notes the political climate during the early ­19th-century, writing:

… the 19th century saw a dramatic expansion of European political power into the Muslim near east, largely at the expense of the declining Ottoman Empire. France invaded Algeria in 1830 and soon afterwards Spain and Italy, too, embarked upon North African adventures. Some looked to the crusades as a forerunner, especially after France took control of Syria in 1920 [2009, p. 13].

From examining Phillips’s summary of the European political climate in the 19th century, we see how Scott’s Crusade novels became so popular in Western Europe and why King Richard and his man, Sir Ivanhoe, were the heroes of this ­19th-century blockbuster. However, as Phillips suggests, “As a Calvinist, Scott’s view of ‘intolerant zeal’ was restrained, but overall he gave a positive impression of the Crusades” (2009, pp. 12–13). This perspective could explain the origin of the bad Templar narrative in fiction in that the Templars were the outright villains of Ivanhoe because the Templars were a relic of the Catholic Church, who answered only to the Pope.

Although Ivanhoe returned to mainstream fiction once again in 1913 in two silent films, the American production directed by Herbert Brenon and the British Ivanhoe directed by Leedham Bantock, it is Richard Thorpe’s 1952 release of Ivanhoe that this chapter now focuses on due to its success at the box office and the director’s creative choices with the adaptation. In Thorpe’s version of the story, the grand master of the Templars was completely removed from the film and his role in the trial of Rebecca given to Prince John. Also, Richard the Lionheart’s role was reduced to having him and his soldiers arrive at the end of the film after the dual between Ivanhoe and de ­Bois-Guilbert. Before analyzing the film text, the context of the environment that the production arose from needs to be established as Thorpe’s Ivanhoe was many years in the making and rewritten many times.

The most notable development in the project was “Between April 1946 and June 1947 a series of drafts were written by screenwriter Aeneas MacKenzie…. Mackenzie’s script emphasized the destiny of England as an emerging nation” (Stubbs, 2009, p. 405). Stubbs explains Mackenzie’s changes to the story “According to MacKenzie, ‘the touch of a Jew’s finger’ ‘fuses’ Norman and Saxon. The character of Isaac assumes a greater stature than in Scott’s original conception, and it is he who provides Ivanhoe with the ransom for King Richard” (2009, p. 406). His most significant change though would have to be his idea to “revise the love plot between Ivanhoe and Rebecca, Isaac’s daughter… [He] eliminates Ivanhoe’s romance with Rowena by making her his ­half-sister, allowing his relationship with Rebecca to develop in its place” (Stubbs, 2009, p. 406). With regard to MacKenzie’s influences for the story’s new angle, Stubbs states, “It seems very likely that MacKenzie’s particular interest in these Jewish characters was motivated, at least in part, by the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust and the campaign for the creation of the Jewish State” (2009, p. 407). Stubbs’s notion is, “MacKenzie’s depiction of utopian racial harmony in a newly formed English nation, as experienced by a character returning from war, was presumably intended to inspire change in postwar American society” (2009, p. 407).

Unfortunately MacKenzie’s version “appears to have been too controversial for Paramount and in June 1947 they sold it to RKO for $110,000” (Stubbs, 2009, p. 407). Stubbs believes that Paramount’s decision to move away from the project was due to the formation of the HUAC (House Committee on ­Un-American Activities). Stubbs cites from Buhle and Wagner, “The committee informally associated antiracist messages, such as those proposed in the Ivanhoe screenplay, with communist subversion, and regarded Communism and Judaism as intricately bound” (2009, p. 407). Jeffrey Richards informs, “Waldo Salt was next assigned to the project and he, writing in 1948 as the HUAC hearings got underway, turned Rebecca’s trial into a parody of the HUAC hearings. Salt was later named as one of the 19 unfriendly witnesses and blacklisted” (2007, p. 131). Ivanhoe was then passed back to MGM as “Howard Hughes (RKO owner) declared he had no interest in producing it” (2007, p. 131). Ivanhoe had two more writers before filming, Marguerite Roberts and Noel Langley; Roberts, however, was “called before the HUAC, refused to name names and was blacklisted in 1951” (2007, p. 131). Stubbs cites John H. Lenihan writing,

Lenihan argues that changes devised by Salt and reinforced by both Roberts and Langley made Ivanhoe a reflection of the anger and anxieties felt by Hollywood personnel … he notes that the trial of Rebecca for witchcraft is transformed from a case of religious prejudice into “a political ­red-herring orchestrated by the wicked Prince John to cast suspicions on and thereby smear his Saxon enemies, particularly Ivanhoe and King Richard” [2009, p. 408].

Srebnick shares this interpretation of Rebecca’s trial by emphasizing Prince John’s line from her trial, writing, “Prince John declares that she must be destroyed because the ‘scourge of witchcraft [is spreading] across [the] land.’ This sequence in the narrative and John’s words reflect the 1950s witch hunts and the contemporary paranoia about the spread of Communism” (1999, p. 51).

In Thorpe’s film, the Templars role in the story was significantly reduced, and this is most likely done to highlight the film’s criticism of McCarthyism and the HUAC. Thorpe’s production may appear as less significant than the other three case studies in this chapter due to the Templars’ downplaying, but it is how the film underuses the Templar narrative of the knight in this version that is of interest. Sir Walter Scott used the Templars as the outright villains of his novel, which suggests that in deliberately reducing their presence, Thorpe is using the bad Templar aspect in their reduced role to comment on separate issues. Richards explains the significance of the narrative change, devising that Rebecca “is put on trial not, as in the book, by the Grandmaster of the Templars but by Prince John. It is made clear that this is a political trial. John’s advisor, Waldemar FitzUrse, says that he does not believe in sorcery and witchcraft, but adds, ‘But your people will.’ Prince John makes a speech claiming that witchcraft (i.e., Communism in contemporary context) is spreading through the land and must be stamped out” (2007, p. 130). Richards notes regarding the film’s attack on the HUAC, “No one, however, seems to have noticed at the time that that is what it is” (2007, p. 131). Another change to the bad Templar aspect was the playing down of de ­Bois-Guilbert’s Templar iconography; instead of having him dressed in the Templar uniform of the white mantle and red cross, he has blue stripes across his white mantle. Although he still stands out from the Norman knights, the choice to change from the traditional Templar iconography is most likely due to the film’s desire to show England as a state in disarray. Also, excluding the Templar mantle prevents confusion as it resembles the more modern cross of St George on the English flag. When King Richard returns to England, he and his troops are draped in white mantels with the red cross of St George, with the perceived intention of representing that a unified England will be created now that he has returned. The image of Richard’s troops dressed in homage to the English flag would have been confusing had de ­Bois-Guilbert been dressed in his traditional Templar mantle.

Ivanhoe became the first in a cycle of Hollywood medieval epics for which Richards lists the cycle running up to 1967 (2007, p. 125). Scott’s work returned during the cycle in an adaptation of the Talisman, King Richard and the Crusaders (Butler, 1954), but it did not share the same box office success as Ivanhoe, taking only $2,100,000 in America (The Numbers) compared to Ivanhoe’s $13,643,440 (Sackett, 1990). It would take nearly three decades before the Templar villain would return to the big screen in the Spanish horror film, Tombs of the Blind Dead (de Ossorio, 1972), but the Templars would not return to Jerusalem until 2005 in Kingdom of Heaven.

The negative traits of the bad Templar aspect featured in Ivanhoe are also depicted in Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven, which depicts Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem from the perspective of Balian of Ibelin. Ridley Scott paints his Templars in the same light as Sir Walter Scott’s de ­Bois-Guilbert; Haag supports this notion, believing that Ridley Scott’s “­war-crazed Templars are partly descended from the Templar baddie in Ivanhoe” (2009, p. 344). However, de ­Bois-Guilbert is not made to be the scapegoat for the film’s ideology, unlike the irredeemable Templars in Kingdom of Heaven. Whereas Ivanhoe is set in a fictional medieval period, Kingdom of Heaven depicts historical events, but Scott changed these events in order to suit his vision. He made powerful Outremer lords into Templar knights when they were not. Michael Haag reviews Kingdom of Heaven and comments on its historical accuracy; he writes:

Both Guy of Lusignan, the King of Jerusalem, and Rainald of Chatillion, who are presented as unmitigated villains, are also presented as Templars, which in reality they were not. The real Templar in the film, the Grand Master Gerard of Ridefort, is presented in the worst possible terms, exceeding the most hostile accounts given of him in the more biased chronicles of the time [2009, p. 344].

The changes to these historical characters by including them within the Templar trope is a deliberate choice by the production. However, this analysis of Scott’s depiction of the Templars is not focused on historical accuracy. Recreating historical accuracy is an impossible task, and a film needs to compromise accuracy for narrative to understand what the film’s inclusion of the Templar narrative of the knight enables the film to comment on. Writer William Monahan explains, “You use what plays, or can be made to play, and you don’t use what doesn’t. So, we know all about the missing bits” (Kingdom of Heaven Definitive Edition commentary). In Charlotte Edwardes’s article, Ridley Scott’s new Crusades film “panders to Osama Bin Laden”; in The Telegraph online she cites Professor ­Riley-Smith, “who said the plot was ‘complete and utter nonsense.’ He said that it relied on the romanticised view of the Crusades propagated by Sir Walter Scott in his book, The Talisman, published in 1825 and now discredited by academics” (2004). Although Monahan does not mention the Templars directly, this could benefit the flow of the story and the visuals by grouping all the villains in a single uniform. Scott made it clear in an article on the Guardian website, “He [Tiberius] was under pressure from his people, and on the other side there was the radical faction of the Templars and other knights—what we might call the ­right-wing or Christian fundamentalists of their day” (2005). This interview would suggest that by extending the bad Templar aspect to Guy and Raynald, he could represent this faction without having to explain it.

The racist hatred from Kingdom of Heaven’s Templars is reminiscent of de ­Bois-Guilbert’s treatment of the Jewish characters in Ivanhoe. Walter Srebnick explains, “The theme of anti–Semitism emerges in the film as soon as Cedric, in the presence of Norman ‘guests,’ is informed that a Jew and his daughter have asked for lodging for the night. The Normans protest, refusing to share the same quarters with the ‘infidels’” (1999, p. 50). De ­Bois-Guilbert, the leader of these Norman knights, organizes an attack on Isaac while he sleeps in the barn, only to be saved by Ivanhoe and his squire, Wamba. Like the Templars’ attack on the Muslim merchants, this attack appears to be motivated by racial hatred. When the Normans voice their racism to Isaac, it is Wamba “who articulates the film’s ideology of justice and toleration” (Srebnick, 1999, p. 51) with the line, “For every Jew you show me who is not a Christian, I will show you a Christian who is not a Christian” (Thorpe, 1952). There is a similar articulation of the film’s ideology in Kingdom of Heaven; Schlimm notes that when Balian “learns the words of Muslim prayers, he says, ‘Sounds like our prayers,’ reinforcing the popular purist conviction that all religions are not really all that different” (2010, p. 138). In both films, there is a desire not to depict two religions as outsiders, and it is the villains of the films that see them as such, de ­Bois-Guilbert and the Normans in Ivanhoe and Lusignan and the Templars in Kingdom of Heaven. Both of these factions openly talk of their hatred and launch violent attacks due to their warped ideology; de ­Bois-Guilbert’s attack on Isaac is significantly less brutal than Lusignan’s on the merchants, possibly due to different levels in technology available to Scott’s production more than 50 years later.

When Monahan discussed his view on the ideology of the Crusader in the DVD commentary, it is clear that he is influenced by a historical perspective discredited by ­Riley-Smith. Monahan states, “Anyone who thinks the Crusades were all about religion is definitely crazy. It was an excuse … the Holy Land was the only place that a European could go before 1492. It was the only safety valve; it was the only place for dispossessed” (Kingdom of Heaven Definitive Edition). Haydock challenges this perspective, writing:

The older view, most authoritatively represented by Sir Steven Runciman’s ­three-volume A History of the Crusades (1951–54), broadly characterized crusading as a frenzied, greedy dash for plunder fuelled by revenge and religious hatred. For ­Riley-Smith this misunderstanding of the Crusades is an invention of ­nineteenth-century medievalism, exemplified in the works of Sir Walter Scott and Joseph François Michaud [2008, p. 137].

Monahan’s comments demonstrate the perspective of the “greedy dash for plunder,” which is evident in his comparison with the American colonizers: “It was, in many ways, a land of opportunity” (Kingdom of Heaven Definitive Edition). The film also carries forth traits of the bad Templar aspect created with Sir Walter Scott’s novel and depicted in Thorpe’s Ivanhoe.

Kingdom of Heaven was a worldwide box office success, taking $211,652,051 worldwide (Box Office Mojo). The film was not just successful in the West, taking $14,535,907 in the United Kingdom, $16,415,805 in Germany and $9,533,590 in France—countries where this medieval epic has a healthy return. Kingdom of Heaven also had success in its reception in the Middle East and Egyptian box office, taking $2,209,991 in the Middle East and $437,374 in Egypt (Box Office Mojo). Although slightly less than the takings for Robin Hood (2010), Scott’s return to the genre, the film took $1,802,373 in the UAE alone; however, Robin Hood was more successful at the box office worldwide, taking $321,669,741. Despite the greater success of Robin Hood, it is surprising that Kingdom of Heaven took that much money in the Middle East given the amount of controversy surrounding it before the film was even released. Schlimm highlights the strains of the political climate at release, writing: “Given the Iraq War, the ­Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and other post–9/11 realities, many wondered if the timing was right for a movie that featured Christians and Muslims killing one another on an epic scale. Though Hollywood had not made a major film about the Crusades in 70 years, many doubted that this was the time” (2010, pp. 129–130).

Haydock, though, offers a more specific reference to the hysteria surrounding a film depicting the Crusades in a post 9–11 climate by referencing the concerns of a leading Islamic academic, as well as a Western Crusades historian. Haydock describes the two most prominent critiques of the project, writing:

Jonathan ­Riley-Smith, the reigning dean of British Crusade historians, who thought the film a politically correct and dangerous distortion of history that would feed the flames of radical Islam; Khaled Abou ­el-Fadl [sic], professor of Islamic Law at the University of California, who judged its portrayal of Muslims stereotypically and likely to provoke hate crimes against Arabs [2008, p. 136].

­Riley-Smith claimed that the film was “fatally ignorant of the new orthodox among Crusade historians, which takes the religious inspirations of the Crusaders and tries to respect the differences between their worldview and that of post–Enlightened cultures” (Haydock, 2008, p. 137). ­Riley-Smith was concerned for the Crusader’s depiction as ­one-sided monsters, and from exploring the archetype of knighthood in fiction, the tropes described above (i.e., religious hatred and greed) are not tropes of the heroic knight and imply the Crusaders would be the outright villains of the text. Haydock summarizes his concerns as the film “presents a very real and present danger in the propaganda wars surrounding the recent clash of civilizations” (2008, p. 138).

­Riley-Smith was not alone in his concerns about historical events from hundreds of years earlier being propaganda; this view was shared by senior leaders from both the West and Middle East. In his article in Conspiracy Theories in the United States and the Middle East (2014) Brian Johnsrud notes several references to the Crusades made by senior American officials. Johnsrud writes:

President George W. Bush called the war on terror “Crusade” in 2001; Donald Rumsfeld’s classified World Wide Intelligence updates to President Bush in 2003 with biblical verses and images on the title pages were leaked to GQ magazine in 2009; Lt Gen. William G. Boykin spoke to church congregations in 2003 in his military uniform, explaining that the U.S. was engaged in a holy war against Satan in Iraq and Afghanistan [2014, p. 101].

Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein mirrored these ­self-made comparisons from American leaders with the Crusades. Schlimm cites these comparisons by referencing Cline, writing, “Bin Laden, similarly, not only referred to Americans as Crusaders but also cast himself as a second Saladin. Saddam Hussein did the same, which is quite remarkable given that Saladin was a Kurd” (2010, p. 136). The Bush administration was not the first from the West to compare a Middle Eastern campaign to the Crusades. Comparisons to the Third Crusade were made praising the achievement after the capture of Jerusalem in 1917. Jonathan Phillips details the Crusading references in an article for History Today, writing, “The Symbolism of a British commander entering the Holy City was apparent to all and Punch magazine published a cartoon of Richard the Lionheart gazing at Jerusalem saying: ‘At last my dreams come true,’ a reference to his failure to take the city during the Third Crusade” (2009, p. 13). When addressing George W. Bush’s comparison to the Crusades, Phillips highlights the severity of those comparisons, writing, “When President Bush so disastrously used the word ‘crusade’ in his unscripted response to the 9/11 atrocities he simply fulfilled the claims Bin Laden had been making for years” (2009, p. 16). ­Riley-Smith’s concerns that Kingdom of Heaven’s negative portrayal of Crusaders is a dangerous piece of propaganda are underlined by senior American leaders, having decided to cast themselves in these roles.

When asked about these comparisons in Brett’s interview, Scott claimed that he was in preproduction when 9/11 happened. “We were concerned whether or not the film would happen…. Bill came back and suggested I do something in the period of the Crusades when there was an uneasy truce, because then we could discuss the idea of tolerance. That’s it in its simple form” (BBC online, 2014). Lindsey Irvine comes to a different conclusion from her interview with Scott, writing:

Although the parallels toll pretty insistently throughout the film, Scott denies it was a deliberate attempt to address the problems of the contemporary Middle East. “I develop all my own material, and you always have a wish list on your shelf, you know. One of them has always been about this period—although I love period full stop. Any period is fascinating, the more ancient the better” [Irvine, 2005].

Irvine’s interview does contrast with Scott’s other thoughts on the comparisons; when he wrote an article in The Guardian earlier that year. Scott stated:

We set out to tell a terrific story from a dramatic age—not to make a documentary or a piece that aims to moralise or propagandise. But since our subject is the clash of these two civilisations, and we are now living in the post–9/11 world, Kingdom of Heaven will be looked at from that perspective. We did make some choices about the values expressed through the story, beginning with the central situation of two leaders trying to serve their own people and their sense of mission, while exercising a degree of tolerance of the “other” [2005].

These comments would suggest that the comparisons made by Schlimm and Haydock to the current political climate are very apt. However, ­Riley-Smith’s concerns of an anti–Western Crusader theme are not shared by Khaled Abou El Fadl; he believed that the movie would be anti–Islamic. Haydock cites an interview Khaled Abou El Fadl gave in March 2005 to the Herald; he writes, “UCLA professor of Islamic Law Khaled Abou ­el-Fadl [sic] opined more or less the opposite of ­Riley-Smith, ‘I believe this movie teaches people to hate Muslims.’ The incendiary nature of this rhetoric about a movie he too had not seen is comparable to that of ­Riley-Smith” (2008, p. 142). Haydock cites in greater detail the professor’s criticism of the film, writing:

I’m willing to risk my reputation on this—that after this movie is released there will be hate crimes committed directly because of it. People will go to see it on a weekend and decide to teach some turbanhead a lesson […]. There is a single (Muslim) character who is ­human-like—Saladin, he has a conscious and awareness. There’s another character who is a mad, ranting, raving, bloodthirsty lunatic, screaming “jihad, jihad, jihad.” The rest of the Muslim characters are willing to die without any emotion [2008, p. 142].

Khaled Abou El Fadl’s fears of a negative representation are similar to their portrayal in the opening scenes of DeMille’s 1935 film The Crusades, which begins in the aftermath of the fall of Jerusalem. John Aberth describes the ­one-sided depiction in that opening, writing:

One of the first images we see is of Saracens pulling down a giant crucifix on top of the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, while others gleefully cast Christian icons, holy books, and the wood of the True Cross into a raging bonfire. Next we cut to a scene showing captive Christians being led away in chains as slaves, followed by a bevy of Christian women being sold at a Muslim slave auction [2003, p. 87].

DeMille’s depiction of the fall of Jerusalem was the opposite of Scott’s telling; in Kingdom of Heaven Saladin and Balian reach an agreement where all the Christians inside the city can leave unmolested, meaning no Christian woman would have been chained and sold into slavery. Saladin’s treatment of Christian symbols is different as well; in Scott’s film, Saladin enters the Holy Sepulchre and picks up a discarded cross from the floor and places it carefully upon the altar. DeMille’s film depicts a Saladin with far less compassion towards the defeated Christians. Aberth describes Saladin’s introduction and says, “When confronted by Peter the Hermit, Saladin acknowledges that it is he who is behind all the atrocities we have just been witnessing” (2003, p. 88). Aberth cites Saladin’s opening line, writing, “Go, hermit. Carry your thunder across the sea. Tell your Christian kings what you have seen: your woman sold as slaves, your knights trampled under our horses, your gospels cast into the flames, the power of your cross broken, forever!” (2003, p. 88). This villainous portrayal of Saladin and his forces is similar to what Khaled Abou El Fadl feared would be depicted in Scott’s film when he “was responding to an advance copy of the original screenplay sent to him by the New York Times” (2008, 142). However, the theatrical release for Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven did not support Khaled Abou El Fadl’s criticisms and “the version privately screened in late April 2005 for the Council on ­American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Los Angeles was lacking many of the elements ­el-Fadl [sic] had found so offensive and it received the organisation’s unqualified approval” (Haydock, 2008, p. 143). In an interview in The Guardian Scott stated, “I’ve had so many letters from Islamic groups and societies thanking me for a very understanding film about Muslims. So everything [the studio] was afraid of is in reverse–180 degrees in reverse” (Irvine, 2015). Scott’s comment suggests that the film received more positive reviews for its depiction of Islam than negative critiques, such as El Fadl’s concerns.

In analyzing an early draft of the script both from the DVD special features and the website dailyscript.com, the vague examples described by El Fadl do not appear, which suggests that the early script available is not that criticized by El Fadl. However, the specific examples taken from the script’s portrayal of Muslim soldiers are still part of the early draft sourced for this project. According to the online article, “The script reads: ‘As the Muslim army of thousands advances at a run, ready to kill the Christians at a single rush, Balian looks to his left in the shield wall. The Saracen knights fire a ­sky-blackening volley of arrows and charge, screaming “Allah.” This is their chance; they will take Jerusalem at this rush and are not afraid of martyrdom.’” (Waxman, New York Times, 2004). Although not written exactly as described in the article, the early draft does reflect the references described. For example, the script says “The SARACEN ARCHERS fire a volley of arrows and the INFANTRY charges. This is their chance: they will take Jerusalem at this rush and are not afraid of martyrdom.” (dailyscript.com). Although the description is slightly different, with one describing “Saracen knights” firing arrows and the other describing them as “SARACEN ARCHERS,” which suggests a misquote from the script or the available script is a later draft. If this early copy critiqued in this article is not the early draft released on the Kingdom of Heaven Definitive Edition, then it would appear that only the description of the action has slightly changed.

Khaled Abou El Fadl’s criticisms of the film do not materialize in the early draft of the script. It is doubtful that an even earlier version would address Islam in such a negative way, as Scott has said in an interview with Brett before the film’s release “People forget that the crusaders were the bad guys” (BBC online, 2014). From looking at the story notes from the special features of the Kingdom of Heaven Definitive Edition it is clear whom he wants to vilify by story card number 6, which says, “Guy + Knights Take Over Palace…. Templars All the Bad Guys.” Story card number 6 suggests that there was not a huge refocus away from depicting Islam in a negative light and that the early draft of the script available more or less reflects the tone of the draft reviewed by El Fadl.

Scott did not want the villains of the film to be either the Saracens or Christians but a third party, the villainous Knights Templar. This can be seen by his story notes and by the description of Guy’s introduction in the script, which says, “GUY DE LUSIGNAN, a splendid knight in the red cross we will associate with extremists in Jerusalem” (Kingdom of Heaven Definitive Edition). Scott wanted the film to depict the Knights Templar as an extreme faction within the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, who are entirely to blame for starting the war with Saladin. Depicting the Templars as an oppositional faction was simple due to the Templars’ unique white mantle with a red cross, in contrast to the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s forces’ light blue uniform. The first courtroom scene highlights the difference between the two polar opposite factions, which has the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s forces seated on the right and the Templars seated on the left of King Baldwin. When the Templar grand master Gerard de Ridefort (who incidentally is Arn Magnusson’s rival in the Arn films) declares his intentions for war, crying aloud, “There must be war! God wills it!” (Scott, 2005), Guy de Lusignan joins his cry for war and the camera shifts its perspective, placing Guy on the ­right-hand side of the King and thus right of the camera shot. This change in perspective suggests a representation of Guy’s and the Templars’ ­right-wing ideology and seems similar to El Fadl’s criticisms of the film. However, instead of “a mad, ranting, raving, bloodthirsty lunatic, screaming ‘jihad, jihad, jihad,’” as he claims from reading an advance copy of the script, Scott depicts the Templars as mad, ranting, bloodthirsty lunatics, screaming, “God wills it!” as they charge down the hill to slaughter Muslim merchants. The early draft script gives an excellent example of how Scott planned to depict the Templars as bloodthirsty; the script describes this scene as:

The KNIGHTS charge. Reverse it. The CAMELS and people are running. Men grabbing weapons of every kind. The heavy knights smash through the defenders, killing everyone they come near. People trying to surrender are killed. We see the TEMPLARS killing with particular savagery. Leave the fight in the dust, the knights murdering, the camels running, silks and silver spilling…. It’s over almost at once [Monahan, Kingdom of Heaven Definitive Edition].

According to Schlimm, “A USA Today review observed that ‘the medieval holy wars known as the Crusades don’t usually bring to mind merciful Muslim warriors or ­faith-doubting Christians or happy scenes of religious diversity in the Holy Land’” (2010, p. 130). In incorporating the bad Templar aspect Scott could use the Templars as scapegoats, meaning Kingdom of Heaven can visit the hot topic of holy war and achieve favorable reviews. Schlimm cites the New York Times, writing that the “review called the film ‘an ostensibly ­fair-minded, ­even-handed account of one of the least ­fair-minded, ­even-handed chapters in human history’” (2010, p. 130). It is worth noting that historian Hagg’s critique regards the historical accuracy of the film as, “Apart from some ­generalities-there was such a place as Jerusalem and it fell to Saladin—there is nothing that bears much relation to historical fact” (2009, p. 344). Schlimm argues that by making the Templars the outright villains of the film, they feel safe in recognizing Balian as the good knight. In regard to Balian, Schlimm writes, “Balian is, in short, the polar opposite of Guy, Reynold…. Audiences identify with him, cheer for him, and see his cause as their cause. With him, they are able to admire a crusader who occupied Arab lands and killed Muslims but without a tinge of guilt” (2010, p. 138). Balian “is a kind and benevolent man who earns the respect even of Muslims” (Schlimm, 2010, p. 137). In contrast to Balian’s goodness, Scott depicts the Templars as extremists who launch hate crimes against Muslims and plunder innocent merchants for personal gratification.

The bad Templar aspect of the Templar narrative of the knight has been used in Kingdom of Heaven by Scott as shorthand to demonstrate a theme of extremism. Scott grouped the film’s villains with the Templars and dressing them with the iconic red cross, the audience can associate the Order with extremism and a hateful ideology that is rejected by all the film’s heroes, both Christian and Muslim. Scott depicted traits found with the villainous Templar from Sir Walter Scott’s fiction and imbued characters with the iconic Templar cross to group together a faction of ­right-wing fanatics. The use of the Templars in Kingdom of Heaven demonstrates the malleability of the Templar narrative in that it can be molded to work within the desired project outcome. The historical fiction can use the flexibility to draw from the Templar narrative the aspects that work for their story themes and ignore the aspects of the Templar urtext that do not work.

The Good Templar

The British film Ironclad and Swedish collaboration film, Arn: The Knight Templar, portray the Knights Templar in a different light to that of Ivanhoe and Kingdom of Heaven’s Templars; it depicts the Templar knight as a hero. The essence of the good Templar appears in fiction as early as the late 16th century. Edmund Spenser’s epic poem, The Faerie Queene (1596), featured the hero The Redcrosse Knight, a virtuous knight who wears a red cross upon his chest. Elizabeth Heale describes his attire, writing, “The ‘bloudie cross’ on armour and shield suggests that Redcrosse wears the spiritual armour which St Paul tells us God provides for his children” (1999, p. 33). Redcrosse does indeed bear the red cross of the Templars upon his armor, but that cross has also become associated with St George, becoming the patron saint of England during the Reformation. Of course, Redcrosse is later revealed to be St George, but it is not merely the cross that is reminiscent of the infamous Knights Templar (the order having been abolished in 1312), the Redcrosse Arthurian character is mixed with Templar characteristics. Maurice Evans describes Redcrosse as “the hero of faith, and his actions demonstrate its nature and the factors which help or hinder its achievement” (1970, pp. 14–15). Despite being a holy warrior, Redcrosse is susceptible to lust, which is his undoing. Heale explains, “Redcrosse’s human frailty is evident from the episode: his faith wavers, his power to tell the true from the false is uncertain, and his fleshly lusts are easily stirred up” (1999, p. 35). The Templar hero in both Arn: The Knight Templar and Ironclad are privy to the same weakness as Redcrosse. Arn is seduced by a temptress, leading to his banishment. While in Ironclad, the Templar Knight is distracted from his duty by sleeping with a young noblewoman, enabling the enemy to storm the castle. Both the Templar knight and Redcrosse gain their strength from their Christian faith, but they also share the weakness of succumbing to the charms of women, a reoccurring theme within Arthurian literature. Redcrosse is also used as a device to comment upon the political climate at the time, particularly his most famous deed of slaying the dragon and rescuing his lady Una. Heale notes that:

With Redcrosse’s assumption of the name St George, we are reminded, too, of the historical dimension of the English Knight’s long effort, and the national significance of his imminent restoration of Una to her Kingdom, suggesting as they do the restoration of a pure Reformed Church of England after the nation’s long error in or servitude to, Roman Catholicism [1999, p. 42].

The traits introduced with The Redcrosse Knight are apparent within the late 2000s good Templar narrative. They are dressed the same, have similar strengths and weaknesses, address contemporary issues through reference to the past or, in The Faerie Queene’s case, to myth. It seems as if Arthurian chivalry and the Templar mythos have been mixed together, much in the same way that the good Templar protagonist is fashioned as a national hero in Arn: The Knight Templar and Ironclad. Heale claims that Redcrosse comments on the political climate, addressing the Reformation in the text. This section will explore if the Templar narrative aspect of the good Templar in Ironclad and Arn: The Knight Templar also serves this purpose. Critiquing the historical accuracy can be a useful tool for interpreting the story that the filmmaker wishes to tell. As the writer of Kingdom of Heaven, Monahan explains “You use what plays” (Kingdom of Heaven Definitive Edition) and by examining what the film has included or left out will offer indications of the filmmaker’s intentions.

Ironclad was a complicated collaboration, with producer Andrew Curtis saying, “Ironclad was among the largest British indie films shot in 2009. Made without a U.S. or U.K. distributor, its financial structure was ‘more complex than a London Underground map,’ according to producer Andrew Curtis. The fact that the film has 18 exec producers tells its own story” (Dawtrey, 2010). The film’s modest budget was $25 million (IMDb), and according to an article in Variety, “the credit crunch also knocked away some ­pre-sales, and the cast wobbled as the producers juggled their financing options and shaved their budget” (Dawtrey, 2010). The production’s ­multi-funded budget would explain the large number of executive producers and production companies attached to Ironclad. The film’s protagonist is similar to the ­16th-century Redcrosse in that he is a quasi St George, with his Templar garb connoting the cross of St George as he leads the defense of Rochester Castle and ultimately that of England. The film had a short, unsuccessful release at the box office, taking only $175,440 in the UK, (Box Office Mojo) but had more success at the European box office. In Spain Ironclad took $2,550,097, in France it took $931,122 (Box Office Mojo), as well $794,809 in Russia (Box Office Mojo), all considerably more than in the UK.

The events of Ironclad take place during the First Barons’ War against King John in 1215, during the siege of Rochester. The film opens with a montage explaining the wickedness of King John and origins of Magna Carta; the montage ends with the ­voice-over, “The Magna Carta was sealed at Runnymede on the 15th of June in the year of our Lord, 1215. It will be remembered throughout history. What is not remembered is what King John did next” (2011, English). The film then begins its narrative of King John’s campaign to reassert dominance over his subjects, which leads to King John’s siege of Rochester Castle. The siege defense is led by William d’Aubigny (Brian Cox), who was believed to have led the defenses of the historical event. What is interesting is that William d’Aubigny is not the film’s main protagonist, as the actual leader of the defense is sidelined by a fictional Templar knight called Marshall. Of course, there was a major player in the First Barons’ War who was called William Marshall, and perhaps this is where the film took its inspiration for the character. The historical William Marshall and Earl of Pembroke was a lifelong supporter of the Plantagenet family, who once fought alongside Richard the Lionheart and during the barons’ revolt led royal forces against the French prince and rebel barons in the Second Battle of Lincoln 1217, which secured the reign of the infant King Henry III. Dan Jones explains the significance of the victory, writing, “The future of Henry’s Reign was decided at Lincoln. It was the last and perhaps the greatest military engagement of William Marshall’s long and distinguished life” (2012, p. 221). Richard Brooks details the career of Marshall in his book The Knight Who Saved England: William Marshall and the French Invasion, 1217 (2014); he summarizes the excellence of Marshall’s career, writing:

William’s charge at Lincoln elevates him from the status of an international sporting champion, or another ­self-seeking magnate, to that of saviour of his country. If his early career made him a ­super-star in his own time, its dramatic conclusion, with its ­long-term significance for England and the World, should make him a national hero today [2014, p. 22].

If William Marshall was a great sever of the crown, then is it possible that Ironclad’s Marshall is inspired by this historical person? Although the historical William Marshall was in his seventies by the time of the First Barons’ revolt. What further makes a comparison compelling is that Ironclad’s Marshall is a Templar and William Marshall became one. According to Jones “In the days before he died Marshall dealt with many things, not least his children’s futures, and his wish to be invested as a Knight Templar in fulfilment of his crusader vow” (2012, p. 224). The similarity suggests that the makers of Ironclad were so keen to feature the Knights Templar in the story, that they reinvented William Marshall, had him change sides and made him a ­middle-aged Templar knight. The notion that Ironclad’s Marshall is inspired by the historical person William Marshall is shared by a review from Medievalists.net which states, “Thomas is loosely based on medieval knight extraordinaire, William Marshall” (Peter Konieczny, 2013). Unfortunately, Jonathan English has not commented on whether William Marshall was the inspiration for his Templar hero, but in an interview on comingsoon.net, English did state, “A lot of the other characters, the heroes like James Purefoy and Jason Flemyng and Mackenzie Crook, those were fictional characters” (Edward Douglas, 2011). This statement from English, who also wrote the story, means that these comparisons can only be considered speculative, despite the comparison of similarities between the fictional and historical character.

The film even goes as far as to invent that the Templars were involved with Barons’ War, stating that they fought against the king. Charles Dance narrates the opening, saying,:

England, in the year 1215, had been under the reign of King John for 16 years. The most villainous of England’s monarchs, John was renowned for losing wars with France, leveeing punitive taxes and sleeping with the wives of barons. The barons finally rebelled against their king and became locked in a bloody civil war, lasting for over three years and decimating both armies. In time the Knights Templar were drawn into this conflict; with the help of these highly trained warrior monks King John and his royal army were eventually defeated [English, 2011].

Apart from this ­voice-over, there is no mention of the Templars supporting either side in this war, as they remained neutral and provided manor houses to be used for negotiations between the two factions. In an article for The Guardian online, “Ironclad’s historical credentials are made of mulch” (2012), Alex Von Tunzelmann writes:

The real John awarded the Templars special privileges, including exemption from all taxation and extraordinary protection of their property. In 1215, when this movie is set, the Templars let John use their headquarters, the New Temple in London, as a treasury. He stayed there often and stored the crown jewels and his ­top-secret documents there. Ironclad has this entirely wrong. Perhaps you can’t have a medieval movie these days without a badass Templar.

Charles Dance’s character Archbishop Langton, stating that the Templars helped in the creation of Magna Carta, shows a clear statement of the producer’s wish to include the Knights Templar in this story. This begs the question, why did they want the Templars included as a symbol in rebellion against the established order?

At the end of the film, the quasi St George was only able to stop the tyrannical old establishment by teaming up with a European superpower, the French. Of course, the historical William Marshall was the one who won the victory that expelled the French forces from England, which suggests that by twisting the historical events to team the English hero with the French, the film has an underlying theme of a pro–European enterprise. Although as English has never commented upon any nationalist themes within his film, it is more than likely that the Templar hero’s inclusion was true to Tunzelmann’s implication that including a Templar in a medieval film helps with the marketing in the wake of the success of The Da Vinci Code and Kingdom of Heaven. The Knights Templar provides storytellers with a historical property ideal for remolding to fit the story’s theme due to the suppression of a Templar authority in the early 14th century. The Templar popular culture phenomenon has further expanded and evolved due to its malleability, which is demonstrated by the ease in which Ironclad can absorb the Templar narrative within its film, offering a sense of historical authenticity to the viewer.

The final case study of the good Templar is Arn: The Knight Templar and Arn: The Kingdom at the End of the Road. The Arn series of films was, at the time, the most expensive Swedish production ever and according to Variety, “achieved the biggest opening ever for a Swedish pic,” and in its first two days it took “160,310 admissions and a gross of 14,336,235 kroner ($2,240,000) from 207 prints, delivering a $10,821 screen average” (Rehlin, 2007). The financial backing and success of a film depicting a national hero as a white Christian knight do not conform to Sweden’s desire for a multicultural image. Erik Hedling explains the breakdown of funding in thirds; he states that the first third came from “Sweden’s largest morning paper, Svensk Filmindustri…. Another third came from the commercial television channel TV4 … production company Film i Vast, and German film distributor Telepool. The last third came from Danmarks Radio (public Danish television), YLE (public Finnish television), ESP (Europa Sound Production), Norwegian TV 2, the Swedish Film Institute and the production company Dagsljus” (2008, p. 63). Hedling describes this production as a “­Scandinavian-German-British ­co-production,” noting the involvement of smaller ­co-production companies “British Molinare Studios and Arion Communications” (2008, p. 63). Such a collaboration indicates a pro–European film using a traditionally nationalist trope of the knight.

It seems unusual that a ­pro-national medieval epic would have such a considerable investment let alone take $15,599,053 at the Swedish box office (Boxofficemojo.com). A.J Heinö describes the Swedish political climate as, “Comparative global value studies identify Sweden as one of the most individualist societies, while at the same time the Swedish political elite for several decades have been strongly ­anti-nationalist, embracing multicultural ideals instead” (2009, p. 298). Alternatively, Arn: The Knight Templar took significantly less in Denmark, the outright villains of the film; the box office takings were $1,971,834, which was a fraction of the money taken in Sweden.

Danish literary critic Bo Tao Michaëlis states that the author’s aim for the novels was “to show that Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia is a product of the encounter with others and higher cultures, particularly Islam and Judaism” (forfatterweb, 2001). He describes author Guillou as a “leftist” but is critical of the trilogy’s themes, claiming, “the idea of a singular Norse development, the flower of the ‘blond’ Viking culture, is a dangerous and romantic myth that can taste of Nazi theories of a Teutonic master race” (forfatterweb, 2001). This comparison with Nazism and the Order of the Teutonic Knights is almost parallel to Gwladys Fouché’s criticisms of the film adaptations. In The Guardian Online; she writes, “Arn is trying to make a hero out of someone who wasn’t…. Arn is a tolerant and ­multicultural-friendly crusader. He speaks fluent Arabic and quotes the Koran as he would the Bible. His first reflex upon seeing a Saracen is to defend him rather than slaughter him, and he becomes buddies with Saladin” (2008). Hedling explains that author Jan Guillou is “well known in Sweden for his strong pro–Palestinian and generally pro–Arabic sentiments” (2008, p. 62). This would suggest that any comparisons drawn from the story’s theme of forging a multicultural nation and perceived Teutonic Nazism connotations are unintentional by the author. Hedling cites from the 2007 edition’s epilogue, writing, “already by the mid–1990s one could see that the big war—what we now label as the ‘War on Terror’—was approaching…. Everywhere, Arabs and Muslims were depicted as demons. In precisely that way, the first Holy War, the medieval crusade to Palestine was initiated” (2008, p. 62). Guillou’s desire for a positive portrayal of Arabic culture is evident in his hero’s friendship with Saladin and his fluency in Arabic. Guillou expresses his aim to represent the Middle Eastern conflict in that epilogue. Hedling cites him, writing, “on our way towards the third millennium, the Holy War was to start again, as if we had learnt nothing from history. Thus, I have to write the story about how this war appeared when it was first fought” (2008, p. 62). Guillou’s style of portraying the modern world through the past is transferred to the movie adaptation; in an interview for Arn: The Complete Series (2010) DVD Feature 2, when asked, “Don’t you feel honoured when people say they love your work?” He replied, “They understand that the story is about the world today, our conflicts; but taking place 800 years back in time.” With Guillou stating, “the story is about the world today” and his stated desire to address the current conflicts in the Middle East, then his creation of a multicultural national hero reflects his perception of a ­modern-day multicultural Sweden.

At the time of production, nationalism was a ­self-conscious issue in Sweden. Carly Elizabeth Schall cites Löfgren’s article, writing, “The Swedish flag is enthusiastically waved at sporting events, but has come to be seen by many as a racist symbol in other contexts (Löfgren, 2007). Likewise, some have come to see singing the national anthem as a provocation to Sweden’s ­non-ethnically Swedish population” (2014, p. 356). Given the film’s comparisons between the Iraq War and the Crusades, it seems the opposite subject for a country that is “embracing multiculturalist ideals” (Heinö, 2009, p. 298) to have a national Crusader hero. Schall references the Larsmo article from Sweden’s largest newspaper, Dagens Nyheter (2008), writing: “Swedes are a little ambivalent when it comes to nationalism. A study presented on the radio today revealed that only about a third of respondents wanted to celebrate a national day (in some way other than having the day off). Many see it as ‘un–Swedish’ to be a nationalist—a paradox worth considering” (2014, p. 363). Sweden’s National Holiday is a relatively recent creation; Schall states, “Sweden’s National Day is remarkably young, dating back only to 2005” (2014, p. 355). This new holiday was not about promoting an old Swedish order that would discriminate against the new multicultural Sweden; in fact; it was “an attempt to bring the state into the cultural processes of integration” (2014, p. 357). Schall describes the official narrative from the media coverage, writing: “This official meaning crystallized around (1) an affirmation of the need to have a national anchor in a globalizing world, and (2) a promotion of a progressive, diverse and multicultural Sweden” (2014, p. 362). If diversity and multiculturalism are what the Swedish elite wished to promote, then perhaps the Arn series were the ideal films to promote both “a national anchor” and a “diverse and multicultural Sweden.” As a result, Arn is only able to return to defend his homeland because of help from his friend Saladin. Arn’s respect for Islam and his friendship with an Islamic hero would coincide with the two major aims of the Swedish national agenda, which is supported by Guillou’s outspoken pro–Arabic sentiments and his desire to address the Middle Eastern conflict in his work. In an online article, “Templars Occupies Avenue,” for Swedish newspaper ­Göteborgs-Posten, Swedish journalist Jonas Eek drew comparisons from the film to multiculturalism; he asked, “How to change our society? And how we respect the faith of others? Saladin and Arn were opponents on the battlefield, but they could still be met with respect for each other in conversation. How do we manage it today?” (Heyman, 2007). The film’s positive depiction of Islam would be deemed welcome due to a supposed negative public opinion to the religion. Heinö writes, “Surveys on which religion Swedes ‘like the most’ places Islam in the bottom, distanced not only by Christianity but also by very peripheral religions in Sweden such as Judaism and Buddhism” (2009, p. 304). In Arn: The Knight Templar depicting a popular symbol of the Crusades working in friendship with an Islamic hero, the film meets both aims of Sweden’s National Day.

Sweden’s preference of individualism is also promoted by having Arn returning to his homeland to lead the defense against the Sverker clan, individualized by his white with a red cross Templar mantle. In having Arn individual to others in his homeland, this highlights the importance an individual can make, and the Templar uniform is not to conform but to stand out. Heinö writes, “An individualist society is accordingly one which highly values the individual human being’s free choice of identity” (2009, p. 301). In this way, having Arn, a Templar knight who is a friend to Saladin, can represent the celebration of multiculturalism associated with its National Day. Schall says the meanings of “National Day tend toward a definition of multiculturalism that is uniting, rather than dividing, setting the difference in the center of a Swedish national identity” (2014, p. 370). Although Guillou is known for his pro–Arabic sentiments, he “got the idea for the story of the Templar Arn Magnusson in 1995. The purpose of the books was to provide a balanced view of Islam” (Dagens Nyheter, 2007), which was ten years before Sweden’s National Day was first celebrated. Although the themes of Arn do conform to the values of this national holiday, this was not the original intent of Guillou’s depiction for the multicultural Knights Templar hero. However, this use of the good Templar aspect of the narrative of the knight does conform to Sweden’s ­modern-day multicultural identity. In the Arn series, the thematic Templar narrative has been used to create a multicultural hero in Arn. He is the opposite of the prejudiced extremist Templars depicted in Ivanhoe and Kingdom of Heaven.

The good Templar aspect is not entirely a new heroic character, despite only making his appearance on screen in 2007. He shares traits with medieval chivalry and shares the same look and character as his forebear The Redcrosse Knight. However, he is unique in that he is an individual, and as we have seen from the texts described, the Templar hero can stand for a positive message such as the value of inclusivity. The characteristics of the Templar hero are that he can be used as an agent to explore current issues from the safe distance of the past, and the hero represents the positive attributes of those current ideologies. Arn’s friendship with Saladin promotes Sweden’s multicultural ideology, and having Arn lead the defense of his homeland, standing out from the others dressed in his Templar garb, also underlines Sweden’s emphasis on the importance of individualism. Arn is a symbol of Sweden’s inclusive, multicultural nationalism, and by having a Templar hero, Arn can stand out from the rest to represent these ideals. Ironclad uses the lone figure of the Templar, dressed in white with a red cross to portray a quasi St George who fights to defend the rights of the English people. Like Arn, Marshall is able to stand for this theme of inclusion due to his symbolism as the lone hero, standing out from the rest by his Templar/St George outfit. The good Templar aspect of the Templar narrative of the knight is defined as a hero through the deployment of his martial skills, using them to defend himself or others, and stands as a symbol of tolerance and inclusion. Due to his iconic appearance, the good Templar knight stands apart and is easily recognizable from the other knights on screen.

Conclusion

The narrative of the knight is rooted in the warrior monk archetype of the Templar urtext and is the first part of the reoccurring Templar narrative in popular culture. This chapter has defined this narrative from the perspective of its two aspects: the bad Templar and the good Templar. Although the medieval historical genre typically personifies this part of the narrative, the requirement to split the narrative of the knight into two aspects shows the malleability of the Templar narrative. The emergence of the good knight aspect demonstrates how this phenomenon has evolved to create a polar opposite of characteristics despite mirroring Templar iconography exemplified in the case studies Kingdom of Heaven and Arn: The Knight Templar. The first case draws on the villainous Templar established in the ­19th-century works of Sir Walter Scott, depicting the Templar as a prejudiced extremist. However, the latter depicts the Templar protagonist as a paragon of virtue and multiculturalism that incorporates the characteristics of the ­16th-century literary hero, The Redcrosse Knight.

With the fictional Templar stories set in a medieval historical setting, the Templars are depicted with a modicum of historical authenticity in that the depiction revolves around expectations from the Templar phenomenon in popular culture. The knightly prowess of the Templar is exemplified, while their monastic lifestyle is minimized in favor of highlighted acts of chivalric or unkept violence. The use of violence is one of the critical distinguishers between the good knight and the bad knight. This use of violence is exemplified in Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven, where the Templars’ violence is unjustifiable underlined by the amount of blood they spill in their acts compared to the recognition Balian’s deeds receive from Saladin.

The iconic imagery of the Templars enables filmmakers to distinguish the Templars from other factions within the story. Ridley Scott uses the Templars to represent the negative associations of Western colonialism by imbuing his historical antagonists with the distinct Templar iconography. Therefore, they are the characters with all the criticisms and accusations labeled against the Western occupation. The Templars are in contrast to Balian, who has been distanced from those ideals and can stand as the undisputed hero knight of Kingdom of Heaven. In grouping the film’s villains with the Knights Templar and dressing them with the iconic red cross, the audience can associate the Order as representing an extremist and a hateful ideology. This ideology is rejected by all the film’s heroes, both Christian and Muslim.

Ridley Scott draws inspiration from Sir Walter Scott’s villainous Templar de ­Bois-Guilbert, who like Guy, launches an unjustifiable attack on a member of another religion, whom Ivanhoe must protect. Sir Walter Scott’s original version of the bad knight personified a negative incarnation of the Catholic Church. However, in Thorpe’s picture, de ­Bois-Guilbert represents the oppression of the establishment and the perversion of justice represented in postwar America. These examples demonstrate the malleability of the Templar narrative. As the bad Templar knight can be used to represent society’s negative traits and is a ­stand-in for the ugly side of history in current times, due to their iconic imagery and infamy they can be depicted as a nation unto themselves. Kingdom of Heaven and Ivanhoe both use this group to distance and demonstrate the worst parts of contemporary society, protecting the films’ heroes and the filmmakers from being associated with such unfavorable circumstances.

Knights from the good Templar aspect champion inclusion and tolerance, while Templars from the bad Templar aspect promote hatred and prejudice. Their actions distinguish the two aspects. They are defined by their use of martial skills and political influence; one will use the position to oppress the weak, while the good Templar knight uses his fighting prowess defensively and to protect the weak. Ironclad introduces the fictional Templar in the film by using his martial skills to protect an unarmed elderly priest. While the bad Templar knight shows extremist and prejudiced views, the good Templar introduced in Jan Guillou’s 1998 novel The Road to Jerusalem has respect for other cultures and is depicted as a multicultural knight for a multicultural Sweden. The film adaptation of the novel introduces the good Templar knight using his martial skills to protect historic Islamic hero, Saladin. The Templar narrative of the knight must be analyzed using the two aspects as they are polar opposites that run parallel alongside each other but in contrasting directions. One is a symbol for the very worst in men through his oppressive force and represents the unattractiveness of ­single-minded extremism. These values are the opposite of the character of the good Templar knight, who stands in contrast to Sir Walter Scott’s villainous Templar archetype; he still has nationalist connotations but for the benefit of an inclusive, wider society.

The narrative of the knight is the first part of my original concept of the thematic Templar narrative, and it is split into two aspects: highlighting how the Templar urtext has expanded and evolved with contrasting connotations. Presenting a singular Templar narrative would be an arduous task due to the varied manifestations of the infamous warrior monks; the lack of a singular representation extends from a lack of Templar authority following the Order’s extinction in 1312. This malleability of the Templar phenomenon enables storytellers to present the Templar knight as both villain and hero as both become established archetypes, with each aspect serving a function in the story. The popularity and evolution of this narrative have resulted in the extension of the Templar urtext, as new texts include new traits for that character which can be incorporated by future texts that desire to depict the Templar narrative. This notion of malleability has resulted in the thematic Templar narrative reoccurring and evolving to expand further within popular culture. This malleability has expanded the Templar warrior monk archetype to create a series of contrasting Templar tropes. These new aspects of the narrative of the knight influence new texts, which reimagine and reinterpret to expand the Templar phenomenon in popular culture.