Malcolm Charles Barber is a British scholar of medieval history, described as the world"s leading living expert on the Knights Templar.
Education
Born in 1943, Barber attended Walpole Grammar School in Ealing from 1954–1961, followed by the University of Nottingham from 1961–1966, where he received his Bachelor"s degree in 1964. He attended the British School at Rome from 1965–1966, and received his Doctor of Philosophy in 1968 from the University of Nottingham.
Career
He is considered to have written the two most comprehensive books on the subject, The Trial of the Templars (1978) and The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple (1994). Barber was a Professor of Medieval European History in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, until his retirement in September 2004. Director of the Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies at Reading, 1986–1989
British Academy Research Readership, 1989–1991
Leverhulme Research Fellowship, 1997–1998
Senior Fellowship, National Humanities Center, North Carolina, 1998–1999
Journal editor
(with P Noble and J Norton-Smith), Reading Medieval Studies, 1977–1985
Annual Bulletin of the Society for the Study of the Crusade and the Latin East, 1986–1990
The Journal of Medieval History, 1996–2002.