The Knights Templar formed to protect pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem after the First Crusade, and within two centuries had become bankers to kings, builders of fortresses across the Holy Land, and the target of a persecution that ended with their leaders burned at the stake. This film traces that arc from the order's founding through its rise as a military and financial power, into the legends that grew up around it: claims of a discovery beneath the Temple of Solomon, links to the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant, and rumors about the bloodline of Jesus Christ. Historians walk through the surviving castles and battle sites, weighing the documented history of the Crusades against the myths that later attached themselves to the order. The film gives real weight to the Templars' actual military campaigns and banking innovations before turning to why their sudden, brutal suppression by Philip IV of France left room for centuries of speculation to fill the gaps.