Malcolm Charles Barber (born 4 March 1943) is a British medievalist. He has been described as the world's leading living expert on the

Knights Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a Military order (religious society), military order of the Catholic Church, Catholic faith, and one of the most important military ord ...

. 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 Catharism ( ; from the , "the pure ones") was a Christian quasi- dualist and pseudo-Gnostic movement which thrived in Southern Europe, particularly in northern Italy and southern France, between the 12th and 14th centuries. Denounced as a he ...

, various elements of the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...

, and the reign of

Philip IV of France Philip IV (April–June 1268 – 29 November 1314), called Philip the Fair (), was King of France from 1285 to 1314. Jure uxoris, By virtue of his marriage with Joan I of Navarre, he was also King of Navarre and Count of Champagne as Philip&n ...

Biography

Born in 1943, Barber attended Walpole Grammar School in

Ealing Ealing () is a district in west London (sub-region), west London, England, west of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Ealing. It is the administrative centre of the borough and is identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Pl ...

from 1954–1961, followed by the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. Nottingham's main campus (University Park Campus, Nottingh ...

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 a British interdisciplinary research centre supporting the arts, humanities and architecture established in Rome. Historical and archaeological study are at the core of its activities. History The British Sc ...

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 research university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as the University Extension College, Reading, an extension college of Christchurch College, Oxford, and became University College, ...

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