WHEN NOT TO DRESS UP AS A TEMPLAR KNIGHT

When medieval history meets football meets epic fail

One of my most heroic efforts of self-restraint occurred in an aqua-park in Turkey around 2019. It was lunchtime. I was feeding the children some sort of anti-nutritious deep fried muck at the restaurant beside the lazy river, and people-watching my fellow British tourists.

One of them - another dad, very sunburned, shaved head - had a magnificent full-back tattoo. The design caught my eye: it was a Templar Knight brandishing a sword. Below it, in gothic script, was inked the word ENGLAND.

Now. Those of you who know me know I like tattoo culture. Hopefully all of you know I dig the Middle Ages. But here I spotted a problem. I turned to my wife.

‘Shall I go and tell him?’

‘Tell him what?’

‘About the Templars. They weren’t English. Originally, I mean. Hugh de Payns and his fellow knights who founded the Order in the precincts of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem around the year 1119/20 were French. The Order, although it expanded to include commandaries in almost every realm of Western Europe as well as the eastern Mediterranean, always bore the imprimatur of its French origins. And of course the downfall of the Templars,