Both Arn and Cecilia understand that they have been kept apart for political reasons and so have no bitterness in their devotion to God and Our Lady. Unflinching in his commitment to his faith and to his lost love, Arn becomes a model knight and a man of honor, who is respected even by his Saracen foes. In the meantime, Arn is sent to the Holy Land where he joins the Knights Templar. Her child is born and taken away from her. As often happened in the medieval period, religion is used as a political weapon, and Cecilia, pregnant with Arn's child, is imprisoned in a monastery run by Sverker nuns, where she is made to do demeaning forms of penance. However, Arn is falsely accused of having first slept with Cecilia's sister, which makes his union with Cecilia appear to be incestuous. In itself, such a secret betrothal and consummation would not have been the end of the world in the Middle Ages. She and Arn meet in secret, pledge themselves to each other, and consummate their love. Unfortunately, due to the feuding in the kingdom, Cecilia is promised to a member of the powerful Sverker clan. After returning to his family, he meets and fall in love with a maiden named Cecilia.

After a miracle saves his life, Arn is brought up in a Cistercian monastery where he receives a fine education as well as the training to be a knight. I saw the film, an abridgment of the much-longer mini-series, both based upon the Crusades trilogy by Jan Guillou. Arn the Knight Templar (2010) is a saga about a young nobleman from medieval Sweden who joins the Knights Templar in penance for a sin he did not commit.

Arn the knight templar