As such, Templars could be found across a vast swath of the Mediterranean world and beyond: on the battlefields of the Near East and in towns and villages throughout Europe, where they managed extensive estates that funded their military adventures. The word “Templars”—shorthand for “the Poor Knighthood of the Temple” or, less frequently, “the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Jerusalem”—advertised their origins on the Temple Mount in Christianity’s holiest city.
