$8,000 for a book about the Knights Templar?!

Talk about the ultimate splurge. Less than 800 copies have been printed of a new book that contains trial documents against the Knights Templar, preserved for 700 years in the Vatican secret archives:

The Knights Templar, the medieval Christian military order accused of heresy and sexual misconduct, will soon be partly rehabilitated when the Vatican publishes trial documents it had closely guarded for 700 years.

A reproduction of the minutes of trials against the Templars, "'Processus Contra Templarios -- Papal Inquiry into the Trial of the Templars'" is a massive work and much more than a book -- with a 5,900 euros ($8,333) price tag.

"This is a milestone because it is the first time that these documents are being released by the Vatican, which gives a stamp of authority to the entire project," said Professor Barbara Frale, a medievalist at the Vatican's Secret Archives.

"Nothing before this offered scholars original documents of the trials of the Templars," she told Reuters in a telephone interview ahead of the official presentation of the work on October 25. [Reuters]

[Reuters also includes a slightly tongue-in-cheek "Tips for would-be Knights Templar"]

Pope Benedict gets the first copy. Meanwhile, I have to wait around for inter-library loan.