The Templar Knight
Mysteries of the Knights Templar
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Mogadouro – a Templar stronghold in northern Portugal
A visit to the Templar castle in Mogadouro in north east Portugal
Read MoreAugust 2017 – my Templar quest in Portugal – don’t miss it!
Anybody who has been following this blog for any length of time knows that I’m obsessed with the Templar history of Portugal. I’ve been all over Europe and the Middle East to see Templar sites, but I always come back…
Read MoreHow the Second Crusade was diverted to Portugal
This is an astonishing story from the Middle Ages of how a vast crusader army on the way to the Holy Land was convinced to divert to Portugal and help a small Christian kingdom take a city called Al-Usbuna from…
Read MoreThe incredible medieval stories depicted in a railway station
In the magnificent entrance hall of the Sao Bento station in Porto, northern Portugal, is a display in painted tiles of key scenes in medieval history from that country. It’s an amazing riot of historical kitsch that has visitors to…
Read MoreMedieval Porto in northern Portugal
Porto is my mother’s birthplace so hugely significant to me – a place where I developed a love for medieval history. Looming above the eighteenth century city centre is a mass of granite topped by the medieval cathedral. In front…
Read MoreThe spooky crypt in a Portuguese Franciscan church
Igreja de São Francisco – or the church of Saint Francis in English – is a fascinating place. In the first quarter of the 13th century, Franciscans started to build a church and cloister. Over the next two hundred years,…
Read MoreFranciscan friars who begged Muslims for martyrdom
I was in Porto, Portugal a few years back in the church of Saint Francis when I saw a gruesome image of a Saracen beheading a Franciscan friar – and another lying on the ground without his head. Couldn’t resist…
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