Given the popularity of the religious-military orders as a subject for research, and the cluster of problems that surround the trial of the Templars, it is not surprising that the editors of this volume were able to enlist enough scholars to present a series of sessions at international congresses at Kalamazoo and Leeds to mark the trial's seven-hundredth anniversary in 2007. What is both surprising and pleasing is the range and quality of the papers read on those occasions, and their rapid publication in this welcome addition to Ashgate's growing list of essay collections about crusading and the military orders. There are twenty-eight contributions and they all reach a high standard, substantially advancing our understanding of the trial and its background. Malcolm Barber, the leading authority on the trial in the English-speaking world, provides an introduction and the editors a conclusion; between them they provide an excellent overview of the contents, at the cost of some repetition. The majority of the essays relate to the process of the trial itself and the geographical coverage achieved is admirable: the only major omission, as the editors acknowledge, is Germany. The order that emerges from these studies was demoralised, poorly led and drifting, but certainly not riddled with blasphemy, sodomy and idol-worship. The editors argue that but for the catastrophe of the trial it would probably have been absorbed by the national and regional powers which were already establishing tight control over its personnel and property. But this is a tentative suggestion because, as they comment in the volume's final pages, essential editorial work remains to be done not just on the surviving trial records but also on the ‘mass of uncoordinated material surviving at local levels all across Europe’, that illuminates the order's condition and prospects in the decades before 1307. In the volume's last essay John Walker adroitly surveys the bizarre mythology which has sprung up around the trial and the order, but the collection as a whole is encouraging evidence that alongside this pseudo-history the scholarly pursuit of the truth about the Templars and their downfall has never been more rigorous or fruitful. The book has been handsomely produced and includes a large number of helpful maps and illustrations.