The Healing Practices of the Knights Templar and Hospitaller

“The Healing Practices of the Knights Templar and Hospitaller by Jon G. Hughes is a well-researched and fascinating look into the healing practices and related medicines of the early Crusaders. What makes this book all the more intriguing is the author’s personal journey of discovery, tracing the footsteps of the Crusaders across southern Europe, North Africa, and the Mediterranean as they made their way to the Holy Land and, hopefully, back again. Jon G. Hughes’s rediscovery of the many medicinal plants and spiritual healings is a journey of enlightenment. It’s also a story of East meets West, in that the warrior-monks adopted many of the Eastern healing practices and carried them back to western Europe. In many cases this knowledge and understanding is still in use some eight hundred years later. I have been waiting for a book of this nature for a very long time.”

“A truly fascinating investigation into medieval medicine, exploring how the European Crusaders learned of cures and remedies for a variety of aliments from the very people who were meant to be their enemies: the inhabitants of the Holy Land. A wonderful read, well researched, and easy to follow.”

“A treasure trove of historic herbal research and lore awaits the reader—a comprehensive herbal, a traditional ‘cure-all’ of medieval ailments and remedies, and a travelogue of the author’s journeys. This book is a useful historical addition to any modern herbalist’s library and for all interested in medieval healing methods; medicine and the monastic and military orders; cross-cultural and interfaith exchanges of unusual cures, botanicals, and specialist herbal lore; the key role of field hospitals on a battlefield; and historic healing recipes ranging from ales, ointments, oils, and much more. Join in the footsteps of the monastic mediciners, Crusader physicians, and the healers of the Crusades and explore this texte vivant, a living text, of herbal lore for our time. Recommended!”

“An illuminating and well-researched insight into the medicinal knowledge of the Crusader knights, providing an excellent overview of the period as well as the author’s detailed account of his journey across parts of southern Europe and North Africa in search of the remnants of the Templars. The book’s largest section, the cures of the time, provides a sometimes gruesome but fascinating window into their practices. An essential book for those interested in the synthesis of medieval, lost Greco-Roman, and Arab-Turkish ideas that preempted the Renaissance in Europe.”