2020 Austria Copper €10 Knights' Tales (Courage)

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2020 Austria Copper €10 Knights' Tales (Courage)

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Knights’ Tales is a fascinating five-coin series in which we travel back in time to a bygone age that was notorious for being bloody and brutal. But the Middle Ages were also a time of courage. Founded during the Crusades, the Order of the Knights Templar unified the monastic life with the ideals of knighthood. Bound by poverty, chastity and obedience, the Templars lived a life of godliness and were forbidden to partake of worldly temptations, but were also considered an elite military troop. Uncompromisingly brave, they epitomized the knightly concept of "courage," to which the third coin in the swashbuckling five-coin Knights’ Tales series is dedicated. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Holy Land was the principal focal point of most knights. Driven by a combination of economic interest and spirituality, knights would head to the eastern Mediterranean with thoughts of conquest and the fulfillment of their religious vows. However, after the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, the crusaders were constantly on the defensive, leading French knight Hugo von Payns and a small group of like-minded men to found the Order of the Knights Templar in 1118.