A Moorland Hanging [antikvár]

Author^s Note For those readers unfamiliar with my two earlier novels featuring Sir Baldwin Furnshill and Simon Puttock, a quick guide to early fourteenth-century history may be useful. The late 1200s and early 1300s were years of massive change for Europe's population. Conflict over the papacy in Rome had led to the Pope moving his court to Avignon in France; thus the French King, Philip IV, became the most powerful man in Christendom, directly influencing God's vicar on earth. As proof of the French King's new authority one need look no further than the 'Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon' - the Templar Knights. They had been the leading institution in Europe for almost two hundred years, reporting only to the Pope himself. Considering themselves warriors for God, the monks fought for the defence of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, often recklessly throwing their lives away in battle, so strong was their faith in the Order's mission to protect Christ's country from invasion by pagans. These men were knights in their own right, but gave up secular pleasures and personal wealth in order to take the oaths of their monastic order: poverty, chastity and obedience. The Templars flourished with the Crusades, earning vast sums from their ventures in banking and commerce; indeed