The Knights Templar have many references in popular culture, yet most of those references quite inaccurate. The truth is that the Knights Templar were a Catholic military order that existed from the 1100s to the 1300s, to provide warriors in the Crusades. They were quite famous in medieval times; stories and legends have grown about them over the centuries. In modern works, the Templars are generally portrayed in one of three ways: as villains, misguided zealots; or representatives of an evil secret society; or as the keepers of a long-lost treasure.