Much has been written about the Templars and Hospitallers from bizarre myths and fictions to serious studies. However, rarely have the two orders been looked at together by a trained scholar. Burgtorf (medieval history, California State University, Fullerton) has produced an extremely impressive examination of the internal workings of the Templars and Hospitallers from their beginnings through the dissolution of the Templars and the assignment of their property to the Hospitallers. This is the most thorough and well- documented monograph on the main military orders that this reviewer has ever seen. Burgtorf has taken the work of the top scholars in the field and synthesized it. To this is added the results of his meticulous combing of hundreds of primary sources. He determines the structure and hierarchy of the military orders and charts them for comparison, noting variations between them in time and place. Woven into this is the story of the colonization of the Holy Land and the slow retreat of the Europeans over two hundred years. The book includes a list of every known official in the orders, their probable origin and all the times they appeared in medieval documents. This is a brilliant work that will be an invaluable resource for anyone studying the Crusades or the history of the High Middle Ages. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)