Malcolm Charles Barber (born 4 March 1943) is a British scholar of medieval history, described as the world's leading living expert on the

Knights Templar , colors = White mantle with a red cross , colors_label = Attire , march = , mascot = Two knights riding a single horse , equipment ...

. He is considered to have written the two most comprehensive books on the subject, ''The Trial of the Templars'' (1978) and ''The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple'' (1994). Sean Martin, ''The Knights Templar'', p. 13 He has been an editor for '' The Journal of Medieval History'' and written many articles on the Templars, the Cathars, various elements of the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were ...

, and the reign of

Philip IV of France Philip IV (April–June 1268 – 29 November 1314), called Philip the Fair (french: Philippe le Bel), was King of France from 1285 to 1314. By virtue of his marriage with Joan I of Navarre, he was also King of Navarre as Philip I from ...

Biography

Born in 1943, Barber attended Walpole Grammar School in

Ealing Ealing () is a district in West London, England, west of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Ealing. Ealing is the administrative centre of the borough and is identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Ealing was his ...

from 1954–1961, followed by the

University of Nottingham , mottoeng = A city is built on wisdom , established = 1798 – teacher training college1881 – University College Nottingham1948 – university status , type = Public , chancellor ...

from 1961–1966, where he received his first-class degree in 1964. His post-grad studies were under Bernard Hamilton in the area of grandmasters of the Templars. Barber attended the

British School at Rome The British School at Rome (BSR) is an interdisciplinary research centre supporting the arts, humanities and architecture. History The British School at Rome (BSR) was established in 1901 and granted a UK Royal Charter in 1912. Its mission is " ...

from 1965–1966, then was appointed assistant lecturer at the University of Reading in 1966. He received his PhD in 1968 from the University of Nottingham. Barber was a Professor of Medieval European History in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

in the UK, until his retirement in September 2004.

Positions

* Director of the Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies at Reading, 1986–1989 * British Academy Research Readership, 1989–1991 * Leverhulme Research Fellowship, 1997–1998 * Senior Fellowship, National Humanities Center, North Carolina, 1998–1999

Journal editor

* (with P. Noble and J. Norton-Smith), ''Reading Medieval Studies'', 1977–1985 * ''Annual Bulletin of the Society for the Study of the Crusade and the Latin East'', 1986–1990 * '' The Journal of Medieval History'', 1996–2002

Works

* ''The Trial of the Templars'', Cambridge University Press. 1st edition, 1978. 2nd edition, 2006 * ''The Two Cities. Medieval Europe 1050-1320''. Routledge. 1st edition, 1992. 2nd edition, 2004 *
The New Knighthood. A History of the Order of the Temple
'. Cambridge University Press, 1994 * ''Crusaders and Heretics, Twelfth to Fourteenth Centuries. Collected Studies''. Aldershot, 1995 * ''The Cathars. Dualist Heretics in Languedoc in the High Middle Ages''. Longman, 2000 *

'. Yale University Press, 2012

Edited

* ''The Military Orders. Fighting for the Faith and Caring for the Sick''. Variorum, 1994 * (with K. Bate), ''The Templars'', Manchester University Press, 2002 * (with M. Ailes), ''The History of the Holy War. Ambroise's Estoire de la Guerre Sainte'', 2 volumes. The Boydell Press, 2003.

Notes

References

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barber, Malcolm 20th-century English historians 1943 births Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Historians of the Knights Templar Alumni of the University of Nottingham Academics of the University of Reading Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America