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"Knights Templar"

Anyone who takes History A-Level will know that you have to do an Induvidual Study in Year 13, right? Well, we've just started talking about it, but I've had the idea to study the Knights Templar for ages. Ever since I played Broken Sword - The Shadow of the Templars in fact. I, as well as being sad because this interests me, think this is cool and beats the regular Napoleonic Wars and Cuban Missile Crisis that everyone churns out.

I shall be Grand Master.

It's not been marked yet, I'll find out in August sometime what they thought. But mine was doubly good, because I had to research two seperate areas of history, mainly noting the whole of the Prince and drawing up a framework against which to compare Louis, and garnering all the facts I could about the man himself. But there was only one book actually about louis tht contained a spectacular foot note that I can't remember. It was the most random thing about a baron, nudity and goats, and it as just dropped into a sentence randomly... I'll have to look it up :-)

Wow. Cheers, thats a great help. We were recommended to do something we are enthusiastic about, about I really like the Knights Templar, so I think I'll still do them, but take up your advice on the quotes and suchlike. I don't really think the examiners will be too hot on the Templars, because my teacher told me they expect Napoleonic wars and Cold War/Cuban Missile Crisis essays. They're pretty obscure after all, if I set myself a question maybe not to do with the burning of Jacques De Molay and the Holy Grail story. I was thinking about "To what extent did the alleged worship of Baphomet contribute to the decloration of heresy on the Order of the Temple?" or something like that, which gives me links to the Hospitaller rivalry and the greed of the King of France and the Pope.

Did you get full marks?

Stryke I've already done my individual study and there is one thing that I can recommend. Pick the most obscure thing you can find, because it makes life so much easier. You get to set your own question so I did "to what extent was louis XI a Machiavellian Prince?"... there is only one complete book in English on Louis, and the rest was 4 page snippets from pre-renaissance history overviews. I had more quotes by different historians that virtually anybody else in my set and I read less than all of them. Some people were doing the cold war and things like that, and had to read about 8 or 9 full size books.

So I'd suggest going for something foreign and medievalish, the Knights Templar will probably prove too well researched and also it's hard to set a contention on which to write, you have to bring in some argument and have conflicting historians to get into the top mark bracket. Also if you pick something obscure there's no chance that an examiner is going to be able to correct your facts, and as most books on obscure topics are out of print, and only available from libraries with a nice long wait, they won't check up your quotes either. Then you just get marked on the quality of your English and structure. Which isn't too hard to do well on.

And make sure whatever you do, you go to the library at the beginning of the Summer holidays and look for books on their databases, because sometimes you have a two month wait for really good stuff and if you leave it too late you won't get the books in time.

Quite a good thing to do if your school will let you is to do the individual study and nothing else for the first 6 weeks of school. Like all your history lessons on it and then write it after that, because if you leave it all the way till the Summer, or even January, it's just another burden when you'll be wanting to revise other stuff.

Oh, and one last thing, if you're reading through books then copy out all the good quotes with page references, author and book, because if you do it as you go along it's easy, but if you leave it until the end it's a bloody nightmare. The individual study is the most interesting thing I've done at school and I'm now pretty hot on Louis XI, and it was also the easiest thing I've ever done because the only way you can fail it is by not preparing, and you get soo much time to write it, 4 hours I think, that it'll probably be the easiest exam you ever do :-)

Goatboy wrote:
> Beardy.

--

Yup.

I love all these old crusades, and the mysterious artifacts, even though I have no clue as to what they are about - still, History A-Level sounds cool - Its my fav and best subject...............





Medievil: Total War is arriving soon! YAY! (Excuse to play: Studying Medievil European battle tactics!)


:)

Beardy.

Good luck trying to unravel the good old Knights Templar.

Did they posses the Holy Grail ? and the Ark of the Covenent ? Do they still exist ? Do they still have these and other ancient treasures hidden away ?

You will find more questions than answers trying to unravel that lot.

Yep, they rule. But some French tart burnt Jacques de Molay.

Everything is the fault of the French.

Oh i see, they must have the coolest name around though.

No. They were a crusading order of knights. Though some say the Freemasons (guys with secret handshakes) are the remnants of outlawed Templars.

It's bollix though :)