Arn – Swedish knight templar

Arn Magnusson is a fictional Knight Templar who lives in Sweden and ends up on crusade after falling in love with a woman, Cecilia Algotsdotter, who is then imprisoned in a convent. The story features in a trilogy of books by author Jan Guillou and a subsequent movie. Yet there is a question over whether the Templars had much of a presence in Sweden at all.

Jan Gillou has been a campaigning journalist since the 1970s and also a prolific book writer. His Templar trilogy was written in the late 1990s and includes themes on the relationship between Christianity and Islam as well as a commentary on the creation of Sweden as a nation state. Gillou is a socialist by political conviction and his account of the crusades references modern issues.

The movie Arn: The Knight Templar was released in Sweden in 2007 and in English in 2010. It starred Joakim Nätterqvist in the lead role and did moderately well at the box office. I think it deserved to do a lot better and I’d certainly recommend that anybody interested in the Knights Templar give it a watch.

Let me summarise the relevant parts of the book trilogy for you:

• Arn is part of the Swedish Folkung aristocratic dynasty, a family originating from Östergötland in the south of the country
• Arn grows up in a Cistercian monastery. This order of monks were very closely related to the Templars, so much so that the Templars have sometimes been referred to as their military wing. The biggest spiritual influence on the knights was a Cistercian abbot in France called Bernard of Clairvaux who led a very severe and self-punishing existence
• Arn has to become a Templar as penance for having premarital relations. It is true that some knights had committed crimes and sought to redeem themselves in the order by fighting for Christ in the Holy Land
• Arn meets Saladin, the great Saracen leader, but is then instrumental in defeating him at the Battle of Montgisard. Unfortunately, Saladin would later inflict an even worse defeat on the crusaders and Templars at the Battle of Hattin
• Arn making friends with Saladin may seem far fetched but the Templars were later accused of being on way too cordial terms with the Muslim enemy, something used against them at their trials from 1307 onwards

I have one small sartorial quibble about Arn the movie and that is the cross emblazoned on his white mantle. To me, it more closely resembles the later cross used by the Order of Christ in Portugal after 1314 – over 150 years after Arn would have been alive. The Order of Christ was what the Templars became in Portugal after they were dissolved. The Templar cross was simpler.

Here’s a reminder of what a great movie Arn is:

Some Templar historians would question whether there was any significant Templar footprint in Scandinavia – let alone commanderies. While there were individual knights in Sweden who may have been Templars, there’s no evidence of a large or organised Templar presence, such as preceptories or a Grand Priory of Sweden, in the way there were in other parts of Europe.

The Scandinavian kings, including those of Sweden, engaged in their own crusades and military expeditions, particularly against pagan regions east of the Baltic Sea, which might have drawn on Templar manpower.

If you would like to know more about the Knights Templar, then get your hands on a copy of my book: The Knights Templar – History & Mystery. Published by Pen & Sword and available on Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, and WHSmith. Don’t miss out on your copy!