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King Authur The Templars and the Grail: Knights of the Quest by Karen Ralls $22.95 / Quest Books / 2003 Karen Ralls' book takes on two of the most enduring mysteries in the western world-the Knights Templar and the Holy Grail. Ralls, a medieval historian and Celtic scholar, began her work on the subject during her tenure as Deputy Curator of the Rosslyn Chapel Museum exhibition in Scotland while working as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Her aim is to make the academic material concerning the Knights Templar and the Grail accessible and to take a fresh look at some of the theories. To this end, Ralls divides the book into two sections-a factual history of the Templar Order and a section dealing with the mythos of the Templars, their involvement with the Grail legend, and other aspects of the Templar symbolism. Ralls discusses the organization and beliefs of the Templars (including the office of the Grand Master, alchemy and hermeticism, the detailed set of regulations they lived by, and the importance of "Our Lady" to the Templars), and then analyzes their downfall, the break-up of the Order, and its aftermath. The second part of the book is more speculative. Ralls discusses many of the Grail's characteristics, describes a number of excavations that have taken place to re-trace the Templars, and even describes Rosslyn Chapel itself. The Templars and the Grail contains a number of appendices, including a detailed chronology of events and a generous number of stunning photographs of Rosslyn Chapel. In sum, it is a concise and easy-to-read survey of two richly symbolic and enduring aspects of the Middle Ages. —Charles Rammelkamp

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