I wrote this book for two main reasons. Firstly, because the trial of the Templars was an affair of considerable importance in the middle ages which has been unjustly neglected by historians writing in English, and secondly, because I believe that the event has some relevance to the world of the late twentieth century so many of whose peoples have been, and continue to be, oppressed by regimes which use terror and torture to enforce conformity of thought and action.

I have received ungrudging help from many people in the writing of this book, but I should particularly like to record my thanks to Dr Bernard Hamilton of the University of Nottingham, Professor J. C. Holt of the University of Reading, and above all, to my wife, Elizabeth, the value of whose encouragement, support and criticism cannot be adequately expressed. I should also like to thank Mrs Janet Cory and Mrs Audrey Munro for the typing of the manuscript, Professor Lewis Thorpe, the editor of Nottingham Mediaeval Studies, for kindly granting permission for the reuse of material from my article ‘Propaganda in the Middle Ages: The Charges against the Templars’, which appeared in 1973, and the Syndics and editors at Cambridge University Press for their interest in the work.