Project Gutenberg 2012-02-07 Public domain in the USA. 507 Keightley, Thomas 1789 1872 17021617 Secret Societies of the Middle Ages Produced by Delphine Lettau, Clive Pickton, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net "Secret Societies of the Middle Ages" by Thomas Keightley is a historical account written in the 19th century. The book delves into the origins and characteristics of secret societies that emerged during the Middle Ages, focusing on groups such as the Assassins, the Knights Templar, and the secret tribunals of Westphalia. Keightley's work aims to offer a comprehensive exploration of these societies, revealing their political, social, and religious implications. The opening of the book introduces the concept of secret societies as a response to the retention of knowledge by select individuals in an environment of general ignorance. Keightley discusses how these groups formed as a means of protecting knowledge and facilitating covert gatherings for political discourse and reform. He hints at the socio-political ramifications of such societies, noting that their clandestine nature often invokes suspicion, leading to misrepresentation and persecution by governing powers. The foundation for understanding the subsequent chapters, which detail specific societies and their historical contexts, is firmly established in this introduction. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Reading ease score: 58.1 (10th to 12th grade). Somewhat difficult to read. en Secret societies HS Text Browsing: Culture/Civilization/Society Browsing: History - Medieval/The Middle Ages Category: History - Other Category: History - Medieval/Middle Ages Category: History - Religious 825177 2025-06-15T17:07:16.535749 text/html 833007 2012-02-07T13:01:42 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 1751098 2012-02-07T13:01:44 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 application/zip 2073127 2025-06-15T17:07:31.361652 application/epub+zip 2077407 2025-06-15T17:07:21.431708 application/epub+zip 384140 2025-06-15T17:07:19.454763 application/epub+zip 2404259 2025-06-15T17:07:38.790656 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 2342658 2025-06-15T17:07:29.720652 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 641457 2022-09-17T16:34:02.442637 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 746904 2025-06-15T17:07:15.130732 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 746392 2012-02-07T13:01:42 text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 274585 2012-02-07T13:01:44 text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 application/zip 746563 2012-02-07T13:01:42 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 274395 2012-02-07T13:01:44 text/plain; charset=us-ascii application/zip 20197 2025-06-15T17:07:38.965625 application/rdf+xml 15879 2025-06-15T17:07:20.078715 image/jpeg 3673 2025-06-15T17:07:19.763697 image/jpeg 1832026 2025-06-15T17:07:16.649722 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia