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y duke konrad of mazovia a polish ruler invited them to help defend his frontier against the old prussians a pagan baltic people the knights were expected to conquer and christianise them the teutonic knights however did not intend to function merely as hired soldiers they secured papal and imperial privileges allowing them to retain the territories they conquered over several decades they defeated the old prussians suppressed revolts converted the pagans encouraged settlement from german areas forced assimilation of defeated and baptized natives and created a more german version of prussia in the process the state they built and ruled was called the state of the teutonic order their power reached its peak in the fourteenth century they absorbed the livonian order captured gdansk and pomerelia launched campaigns against pagan lithuania and even fought wars with poland the order s most magnificent expression was malbork castle then known by its german name marienburg or mary s castle built in red brick beside the river nogat it was simultaneously a monastery fortress palace and administrative centre in 1309 when crusader states had fallen and there was nothing to do in the east the order s headquarters were transferred to this castle from the holy land from this enormous fortified complex the knights governed their baltic territories in the fifteenth century the decline of this monastic state began conflict with the now combined state of poland lithuania was the major driving force in 1457 malbork passed to the polish king the teutonic order today survives as a catholic religious order and a charitable organization but its days of territorial and military power are strictly in the past a more interesting indirect legacy of the teutonic order is the modern state of germany after the loss of malbork in 1457 the order moved its prussian headquarters to königsberg modern kaliningrad in russia and retained a reduced territory in eastern prussia under polish overlordship then the reformation produced an extraordinary turn in 1525 the grand master albert of brandenburg ansbach converted to lutheranism he dissolved the order s government in prussia secularised its remaining territory and became the hereditary duke of prussia owing allegiance to the king of poland the secularised duchy now belonged to albert s branch of the hohenzollern family in 1618 the duchy of prussia passed to another hohenzollern branch the electors of brandenburg of the holy roman empire the same ruler therefore governed two legally separate territories in a personal union that historians call brandenburg prussia brandenburg lay inside the holy roman empire while prussia lay outside it this distinction created an opportunity as elector of brandenburg the ruler was a prince within the holy roman empire and could not simply promote himself to king there but in prussia outside the empire he could claim a royal title in 1701 elector frederick iii crowned himself king in prussia at königsberg becoming frederick i this brandenburg prussia state ultimately became the kingdom of prussia which became the state that unified germany and remained a powerful force in europe until its defeat in world war ii today s germany the federal republic of germany is the successor state to the kingdom of prussia however none of what was originally prussia is a part of germany now the prussian lands are divided between poland lithuania and russia today the knights who disappeared or not the knights templar unlike the knights hospitaller and teutonic knights were a military order to begin with founded in jerusalem around 1119 they began as a small group of knights dedicated to protecting pilgrims travelling through the newly established kingdom of jerusalem they were given quarters on temple mount the site believed to have been the temple of solomon which gave them their popular name the templars from this modest beginning the order grew into one of the most powerful institutions of the crusader world its knights fought in major battles garrisoned castles and became part of the permanent military strength of the crusader states the templars developed an enormous economic network to support their operations donations from rulers and nobles gave them farms mills vineyards workshops and estates across europe these properties were organised into local commanderies whose surplus financed the war in the east their international presence also drew them into finance their fortified houses offered relatively secure places to deposit valuables they transferred money between countries managed funds for rulers and pilgrims extended credit and sometimes served as royal treasurers a pilgrim could deposit funds with a templar house in europe and obtain money in the east against written documentation reducing the need to carry all his wealth across dangerous routes they were the bankers of their time ultimately however their military and financial might was not enough to keep the crusader states from falling so by the late 13th and early 14th centuries they were this powerful and rich organization with influence across most of christendom but no real purpose there were no crusader states to protect any longer they could have acquired a territorial state to rule like the hospitallers did with rhodes and later malta there was also the possibility of merging the hospitallers and templars although both orders resisted the idea but before any of this could happen king philip iv of france happened he had engaged in expensive wars and was heavily in debt including to the templars likely hoping to alleviating financial hardship by eliminating the creditor and confiscating their riches and also by the desire to eliminate a powerful organization that didn t report to secular authorities he arrested many templars in france including their grand master and then accused them of a range of offenses including heresy blasphemy idolatry homosexual practices and financial corruption the charges were most likely false but he managed to bulldoze the pope into supporting the downfall of the organization too although reluctant to take action against a loyal religious order directly subordinate to the church the pope did order the arrest of templars throughout europe in 1307 and officially dissolved the order in 1312 in france many templars including the grand master were burned at the stake that was the rather surprising and inglorious end to a mighty organization unlike the hospitallers and teutonic knights they didn t go on to create states and rule territories after the fall of the crusader states but their magnificent history and dramatic fall have made them the perfect material for conspiracy theories and speculative fiction a conspiracy theory even made its way into a book on maltese history that i had picked up in malta the book talked about the knights templar while discussing the history of the knights hospitaller who are of course indispensable to the history of malta and without any sense of irony it declared that the freemasons of the nineteenth century were actually the templars who had gone underground in the fourteenth century yes i know not to trust the maltese history learnt from that book history book with conspiracy theory about templars templars also find endless interpretation in speculative fiction they survive as the priory of sion in dan brown s the da vinci code many other fiction books have them surviving underground and continuing in the modern age as the primary plotline the famous game assassin s creed also has the templars as the antagonists ai generated image they didn t build a state they didn t survive even as a harmless religious or charitable organization but they have built their afterlife franchise in the modern world for sure there is perhaps a neat world where monks pray soldiers fight charities heal governments rule and banks handle money the monastic orders went on many side quests though and they have left us a legacy that is sometimes interesting sometimes convoluted and sometimes conspiratorial do with it what you will but if life feels overwhelming sometimes enjoy a dan brown novel in your bed or the latest assassin s creed on your hopefully ergonomic gaming chair we won t judge you share this email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on pinterest opens in new window pinterest share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin like loading share this email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on pinterest opens in new window pinterest share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin like loading travel turkey beyond istanbul july 11 2026 july 11 2026 jaya leave a comment istanbul is to turkey what bali is to indonesia the first and often the only place that comes to mind when the country is mentioned for istanbul this is understandable especially from a western perspective istanbul which was constantinople has been the east that western europe has been concerned with for many centuries now so it was perhaps turkey s fate to be considered synonymous with istanbul if it contained istanbul but istanbul is not turkey istanbul is not even the capital of the modern republic of turkey that distinction goes to ankara almost all of turkey by area is anatolia the asian part of turkey the small european part beyond istanbul is turkish thrace it is only a part of the historical region of thrace much of which lies in bulgaria today that much for geography but what i am really interested in is the history of the country and its society at present with a country like turkey there are many ways to read and write its history there is an istanbul centric way in which a lot of turkish history is written although it is a questionable approach it is not meaningless istanbul was the centre of two major empires that ruled much of modern turkey and beyond and they have a lot of influence on what the country is like today of just under 90 million people who make up the population of turkey today almost 15 16 million do live in istanbul another way of reading and writing turkish history is to follow the story of turks into turkey i read a book like that and it explained a lot about turkey which istanbul centrism doesn t it explains the movement of turkic peoples the seljuks the gradual turkification of anatolia and the world out of which the ottomans eventually emerged a third way is to write about whatever happened in the area that is now turkey this place centric writing is the more common way of writing the history of modern countries and for good reason it helps make sense of the modern political units which affect our lives more than any other kind of organization of life istanbul centric history is also a place centric history but it has a very narrow focus for a country that isn t just istanbul it is a bit like north india centric history of india it s not wrong but it s not complete it excludes too much with istanbul centric history the story of the country starts with the greek settlement of byzantium it doesn t really become sufficiently important until constantine makes the old byzantium the capital of the roman empire with the new name of constantinople in 4th century ad from there it is the history of roman byzantine empire centred on constantinople other areas appear in this story as side characters places lost or won by constantinople ottoman rule is also treated as beginning with the fall of constantinople which is not how the rest of the country experienced it istanbul centric history of ottomans doesn t do justice to the pre 1453 story of the ottomans and the rest of the country or to the ups and downs they had after the fall of constantinople the establishment of turkish republic didn t happen in istanbul it was architected in ankara there is no stone age bronze age and iron age in this history there is no space for frontier kingdoms between persian and hellenistic worlds like commagene in this in relatively more recent times we do not know of arab raids or first steps of islam into the country there is no understanding of how arab and persian worlds shaped the polities and societies in turkey in the middle ages there are no seljuk turks because they didn t reach constantinople although they are extremely important in anatolia s history as the first turkic dynasty and as predecessors of ottomans to get to all this in turkey s case the place centric history beyond istanbul means looking at anatolia we are leaving out turkish thrace for another day and i couldn t find an accessible book on history on anatolia which was a bummer i found a book on the hittites a late bronze age empire in anatolia separately i found a book on the near eastern history traced through cuneiform tablets which also gave insights into some places in anatolia but these still left out most of history i could not find english language books for much else i hope that books in turkish are not that istanbul centric and lack of those in english is just a reflection of larger world s disinterest in them and not that of the turkish people themselves traveling in anatolia however did serve us the appetizers of different periods of the history of those lands even though it could not cook a fully satisfying meal the site of hattusha reachable from ankara is primarily famous for being the capital city of the hittites but nearby sites like alaca höyük show the presence of both pre hittite and post hittite worlds ankara castle itself tells the layered story of the region with many different rulers and peoples leaving their marks there the museum of anatolian civilizations in ankara and the şanlıurfa museum introduce us to the iron age world of the phrygians and urartu among other peoples and periods many of these places also orient the history of turkey more towards the east than exclusively western orientation we tend to find in istanbul centric books their relationship with the persian mesopotamian and egyptian worlds becomes part of the main story not a side note places like mount nemrut reveal the legacy of king antiochus i who claimed both persian and greek heritage cappadocia and şanlıurfa tell the stories of the very important periods in the history of christianity in the region the underground cities of cappadocia bring the rise of islam into the conversation much before the fall of constantinople göbeklitepe pushes the history of monumental building by human civilization so far back in time that it is important not just to turkish history but to the history of human civilization in general konya was the capital of the seljuk turks and also the seat of mevlana rumi and thus tells us of both the political and sufi history of the region a special shout out to a place...