The Monks of War

by Desmond Seward

  Frequently they were reminded by popes and theologians that the Holy War was not an end in itself and that bloodshed was intrinsically evil. From the very beginning there were Western Christians who mistrusted the ideal. An English mystic, the Cistercian abbot Isaac of Etoile, wrote in St Bernard's lifetime:

  . . . this dreadful new military order that someone has rather pleasantly called the order of the fifth gospel was founded for the purpose of forcing infidels to accept the faith at the point of the sword. Its members consider that they have every right to attack anyone not confessing Christ's name, leaving him destitute, whereas if they themselves are killed while thus unjustly attacking the pagans, they are called martyrs for the faith . . . We do not maintain that all they do is wrong, but we do insist that what they are doing can be an occasion of many future evils.22

  However, most contemporaries admired this new vocation, and when Hugues de Payens died in 1136 – in his bed – the Temple had a rival, the Order of the Hospital of St John the Baptist. Gerard had been succeeded as Master in 1120 by Fra' Raymond du Puy, an organizer of genius. The Order's nursing work had already made it rich and popular, more than a thousand pilgrims a year being accommodated in Jerusalem, while its hospitals and guest-houses spread throughout the kingdom. It received grants of land from Godefroi de Bouillon and also acquired property in France, Italy, Spain and England. Raymond was expert in providing an administration for these European possessions, setting up houses whose revenues were spent in forwarding food, wine, clothes and blankets for hospital use; some were specifically charged with providing luxuries, such as white bread, for the sick. The papacy gave the Hospitallers many privileges: Innocent II forbade bishops to interdict Hospitaller chapels; Anastasius IV gave them their own priests; and the English Adrian IV gave them their own churches. In 1126 a constable of the Order is mentioned, suggesting some sort of military organization, but the first firm date for armed activity is 1136, when King Fulk gave them land at the key position of Beit Jibrin, on the road from Gaza to Hebron. This was the first of their huge fortresses, the castle of 'Gibelin'. The Hospitallers owed an enormous debt to St Bernard, who had made it possible for them to take up arms. Christian war had not only become spiritually respectable but a means of self-sanctification. Without the great Cistercian, the brethren of St John would never have evolved into a military order. By 1187 they controlled more than twenty great strongholds in Outremer.23

  The rule developed very slowly. A Christian must love Christ in other Christians, and this command was the basis of the Hospital's nursing vocation. In the rule of the Temple it was laid down that a brother must be expelled from the Order for killing a Christian but only reprimanded for killing a Saracen slave; Christ did not live within Saracens. Nursing made the Hospitallers more humane, while the presence of women within the Order must also have had a softening influence. Fra' Raymond seems to have taken the Augustinian rule as a framework and then experimented with various ideas from the Poor Knights' constitutions.24 The brethren took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience; they were to expect only bread and water for sustenance, and to obey the orders of the sick whom they visited every day. There was provision for surgeons who messed with the knightly brethren, while much attention was given to the maintenance of the hospital. As with the Templars, there were four classes: knights, sergeants, serving brethren and chaplains. Similarly there was provision for confrere knights. A bull of Alexander III of 1178 states that 'according to the custom of Raymond' the brothers could carry arms only when the standard of the cross was displayed – to defend the kingdom or attack a pagan city. The habit was a black mantle with a white cross on the chest, shaped like a bell-tent and very clumsy in battle, and a black skull cap (though outside the house brethren sometimes wore a white turban).25 There were also nursing sisters attached to each hospital. In the twelfth century fighting was only a secondary activity for Hospitallers (not even being mentioned in the Order's statutes until 1182), and militarization was a long and slow process.

  Eventually the structure came to resemble the Templars, and knights ruled the brotherhood. The bailiffs, as the great officers were known, included the Master, elected by the same process as the Master of the Temple, and the only bailiff to hold office for life; the Grand Preceptor (sometimes called Grand Commander) of Jerusalem, the Master's lieutenant; the Treasurer; the Marshal; the Draper or quartermaster general; the Hospitaller; and finally the Turcopolier, who commanded the 'Turcopoles', light native horse.26 Commanderies were small units of knights and sergeants administering adjoining groups of properties. In Syria the commanders were directly responsible to the Master, but elsewhere the system was more complex, European commanderies being grouped into priories, and the priories into provinces corresponding to countries. Like the Templars, supreme power lay with the General Chapter. A smaller assembly, the conventual chapter which was reminiscent of a cabinet, assisted the Master, acting as a secret privy council for affairs of state and as a full public council to hear appeals. A quorum constituted 'the venerable chamber of the treasury'. Each province, priory and commandery had its own chapter.27

  Day-to-day routine was no less monastic than that of the Templars, the Little Office being said. The Psalms of the Little Office of the Dead clearly meant a good deal to warriors who were generally outnumbered, anticipating death as much as facing it. Thus Psalm 26, Dominus illuminatio mea: 'Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life: Of whom shall I be afraid? . . . If armies in camp should stand together against me, my heart shall not fear. If a battle should rise up against me, in this will I be confident.' Or Psalm 17, Diligam te, Domine: 'And thou hast girded me with strength unto battle: and hast subdued under me them that rose up against me. And thou hast made my enemies turn their back upon me; and thou hast destroyed them that hated me. They cried: but there was none to save them . . . And I shall beat them as small as the dust against the wind: I shall bring them to nought, like the dirt in the streets.' They were recited fervently by little squadrons riding out against overwhelming odds, by tiny garrisons besieged in undermanned fortresses.

  2. A Hospitaller in his habit

  Like non-military religious, brethren received the sacraments more frequently than layfolk – it was said that when they had received the Body of the Lord they fought like devils. Yet the Hospitallers' spiritual life was deepened by their devotion to the sick, for wherever they had estates they also had hospitals and guest-houses. Then, as now, accommodation was hard to find and pilgrims had cause to be grateful. Caravans were regularly escorted from the coast up to Jerusalem. Here there was a hospital with beds for 1,000 patients, for Syrian-born Franks as well as visitors were weakened by frequent ptomaine poisoning and plagues of insects, afflicted by sand-fly fever, ophthalmia, desert sores or endemic septicaemia. It has been suggested that the brethren's great hospitals were founded on Byzantine models, but their latest historian believes that the brethren owed more to Arab medicine.28 Certainly they took the place of a field medical corps for, after a battle, besides the wounded there were always casualties suffering from terrible bruises beneath their chain mail, from shock or from heatstroke. This twofold vocation, to nurse and to fight, gave them an important role in the life of Latin Syria and, like the Templars, they were exempt from episcopal control.

  As front-line troops, the brethren required a vast financial outlay. Equipment and supplies had to be purchased, strongholds maintained and revictualled. In consequence, many members of the Order had to live in Europe in order to run the estates given to them by pious benefactors and send the revenues out to Outremer. They were governed by priors and commanders, generally knights – more rarely chaplains or sergeants – who had been sent back from Palestine in middle life.

  The rule of the Temple specifies that a knight who catches leprosy must leave the Order and join the brethren of 'St Ladre'.29 Leprosy, which included all forms of skin disease, was prevalent in Syria. The Hospitallers of St Lazarus were the first military order to emerge
after the Temple and the Hospital. Probably there had been a leper house of St Lazarus at Jerusalem before the conquest, run by Greek or Armenian religious who observed the Basilian rule, the Eastern equivalent of St Benedict's. Early in the twelfth century it was taken over by Frankish Hospitallers following the Augustinian rule.* A tradition that St Lazarus' first Master was that Gerard who was also first Master of St John could mean that he supplied brethren to found a specialized nursing order; the Hospitaller customs state that those who contract leprosy must lose the habit – like Templar lepers, these may well have joined 'St Ladre'. There is also a strange legend that the early Masters were always lepers. They administered a network of 'lazar houses' in both Syria and Europe, organized on a commandery framework similar to that of St John. After the Second Crusade, Louis VII established a house at Boigny, near Orleans, while Roger de Mowbray founded another at Burton Lazars in Leicestershire;30 many leper hospitals in France and England depended on these commanderies, who in turn depended on the great house of the Order at Jerusalem. This had itself been richly endowed, and Raymond III of Tripoli was a confrater of the brotherhood. Probably the habit was black and resembled that of the Hospitallers; its green cross was not adopted until the sixteenth century. The Lazar Knights were never numerous and had only a handful of non-leper brethren for protection, though no doubt in times of crisis unclean knights also took up arms. This always remained primarily a hospitaller order even if it took part in several battles.

  The only other fighting brotherhood in twelfth-century Outremer was the Knights of Our Lady of Montjoie.31 A bull of Alexander III of 1180 recognized them as an order who followed the Cistercian rule and who, besides ransoming captives, took an oath to fight Saracens, a quarter of their revenues being set aside for this purpose. Montjoie was a hill castle outside Jerusalem which took its name from the pilgrims' cries of joy when they saw the Heavenly City from its summit. The actual founder was a Spaniard, Count Rodrigo, a former knight of Santiago, who gave the new brethren lands in Castile and Aragon, while King Baldwin IV entrusted them with several towers at Ascalon. Their habit was white with a red-and-white cross. Rodrigo himself, an unstable character, was the first Master, and the Order did not prosper. It had difficulty in attracting recruits, as most Spaniards preferred to join their great national orders. After 1187 the remnants retired to Aragon, where they became known as the Order of Trufac, their Castilian commanderies being appropriated by the Templars.

  3

  THE BULWARK OF JERUSALEM

  The county of Edessa was the most exposed of the Frankish territories, lying on both sides of the Euphrates, a Mesopotamian march rather than a Syrian state. Despite its rich cornland it had few castles, being scantily furnished with the indispensable Frankish knights. Everything depended on the count. Joscelin I was a brilliant captain of heroic character whose very presence warded off raiders. However, his half-Armenian son, who succeeded him in 1129, was cowardly and irresolute. Joscelin II preferred to live in the pleasant castle of Turbessel on the west bank of the Euphrates rather than in his perilous capital, whose protection he left to a sort of town guard recruited from the Armenian and Syrian merchants. Suddenly, in November 1144, the 'blue-eyed devil' of Aleppo, the terrible atabeg Zengi, laid siege to Edessa and stormed it on the day before Christmas Eve.

  Western Christendom was appalled. Bernard of Clairvaux used his last energies to preach the Second Crusade, and by the autumn of 1147 two armies had reached Anatolia, one led by the Emperor Conrad III, the other by Louis VII of France. In October the Germans were cut to pieces in a Turkish ambush at Dorylaeum and they fled to Nicaea, where the French joined them. Conrad fell ill and returned to Constantinople, but Louis continued through Anatolia, relentlessly harried by the Turkish bowmen. By January, lashed by winter storms and short of food, his men's morale had collapsed. After a particularly murderous attack in which Queen Eleanor was almost captured and Louis nearly killed, the king lost all confidence in his powers of generalship and handed over the command to the Templar Master.

  Everard des Barres was an ideal Poor Knight, half fervent religious, half skilled soldier. He had joined Louis in France with a detachment of 300 Spanish Templars, many of whom had probably joined the Order only for the duration of the crusade, which they were allowed to do on payment of a premium. For the first time Templars wore the red cross on their mantles. The king was impressed both by Everard's diplomatic skill in dealing with the Byzantines, and by his brethren, who alone retained their discipline. The Master restored order, bringing the battered army through to the coast, where Louis took ship with his cavalry, leaving the infantry to struggle on.

  Though thousands had perished, Conrad rejoined his men, and the joint army – French, German and Syrian – assembled at Acre in June 1148. Raymond du Puy was summoned to the council of war, an acknowledgement of his brethren's military importance. A disastrous decision was taken, to attack the emir Unur of Damascus, the one Saracen prince anxious for a Frankish alliance, an error which eventually led to the unification of Moslem Syria. The attempt failed amid mutual recriminations; crusaders considered the barons of Outremer, the poulains, to be half-Turk, while Latin Syrians regarded their northern cousins as dangerous, unwashed fanatics. By 1149 the Second Crusade had petered out, having done irreparable harm to Frankish prestige.

  The survival of Jerusalem was largely thanks to the ability of Baldwin III (1143–62) and his choleric brother, Amalric I (1162–74). Syrian-born, with Armenian blood and married to Byzantine princesses, they were fully alive to their native land's growing danger. Energetic warriors, they hoped to extend their territory. Already Frankish castles had been built on the Gulf of Aqaba across the caravan-route from Baghdad to Cairo. King Baldwin's capture of Ascalon in 1153 was the occasion of a peculiarly unedifying display by the Templar Master, Bernard de Tremelay. The detachment of 'the avenger who is in the service of Christ, the liberator of Christian people' had breached the city wall, whereupon Fra' Bernard, posting guards to prevent other Franks entering, went in with forty hand-picked brethren. They were killed to a man, but the Master's rashness was attributed to greed rather than gallantry.1 On the other hand the king's decision to persevere with the siege was due to Raymond du Puy's persuasion. The Hospitallers were becoming soldiers too.

  Together the brethren could now put nearly 600 knights into the field, half the total muster of the kingdom, while their possessions accumulated steadily. Count Raymond II (1137–52) of Tripoli was a Hospitaller confrater and in 1142 he entrusted his brothers-in-religion with the key position of his county, the enormous fortress of Qalat al-Hosen, which they rebuilt as Krakdes-Chevaliers. Raymond III (1152–87) was also a confrater of the Hospitallers and during his long captivity they acquired the strongholds of Arka, Akkar and many others. With these they were the greatest landowners in the county, though rivalled by the Templars, who had large possessions in the north. In Antioch there was a similar division of territory, while many castles in the kingdom itself were handed over to them. Their constitutional role grew accordingly, both Masters sitting as members of the Haute Cour, the commanders of Antioch and Tripoli doing likewise in their local courts. The three keys of the royal treasury, in which was deposited the crown, were entrusted to the patriarch and to the Masters of the Temple and the Hospital, an apt symbol of their power. The princes continued to endow them with fiefs. Many lords preferred to retire to some luxurious villa on the coast, while the brethren had the money and men to run the Syrian fortresses and besides dealing with such problems as finding husbands for heiresses or furnishing wards with guardians. Donations and recruits poured in from Europe in a steady flow.

  Their chief critics were the local clergy. These military orders were almost a church within a church, whose priests were not only exempt from diocesan visitations but also from any financial obligation. Brethren wrangled with bishops over dues, tithes and jurisdictions and were accused of admitting excommunicated men to their services. When in 1154 the Patriarch of Jer
usalem ordered them to desist, the Hospitallers interrupted his sermons, shouting him down and shooting arrows at his congregation. Templars contented themselves with merely shooting at his church door. In 1155 the patriarch travelled to Rome to ask the pope to place the military brethren under his authority, but Fra' Raymond followed him, obtaining a confirmation of all Hospitaller privileges. Reluctantly the clergy of Outremer accepted the brethren's independence, but their chroniclers always gave them a bad press.

  The brethren were remarkably adaptable, turning their hands to many skills. Some learnt Arabic (great officers kept Saracen secretaries) and the brothers' spy service was unparalleled. They had to fill such institutional vacuums as banking, for only they possessed the necessary vaults, organization and integrity. The Templars became professional financiers; all moneys collected for the Holy Land were conveyed by them from their European preceptories to the temple at Jerusalem, while pilgrims and even Moslem merchants deposited their cash at the local temple. Brethren needed money for arms and equipment, to build fortresses, to hire mercenaries and to buy off enemies, so the funds in their strongrooms could not be allowed to lie idle; the Church's embargo on usury was circumvented by adding the interest to the sum due for repayment, and Arab specialists were employed for dealings in the money markets of Baghdad and Cairo, while an excellent service of bills of exchange was provided. In many ways the military brethren foreshadowed the great Italian banking houses.

  Both Templars and Hospitallers found it cheaper to transport troops in their own ships, and passages were available to pilgrims; at one time the Templars conveyed 6,000 pilgrims each year.2 Their boats were popular, for they maintained a flotilla of escort ships and could be trusted not to sell their passengers into slavery at Moslem ports, as did certain Italian merchants. It was natural to use empty space for merchandise so they exported spices, silk dyes, porcelain and glass, taking full advantage of their exemption from customs dues, and they soon rivalled the Levantine traders who banked with them.