Yeah my "wiped out" was perhaps an exagerration. The leaders were executed, not every last one. But the Templars as a functioning large-scale organization with the power they had was gone.
Strategerist - I read "Foucault's Pendulum" too and I agree! Every other chapter was excruciatingly dull - Eco really needed to hire an editor for that one.
But it had its moments - just miss out all the chapters to do with S American orixias. Plus there was a slightly cool bit near the end: to paraphrase - why waste your time with occultism, when you can touch Christ's Body in any Church? But Eco didn't exactly make the idea fly.