The Real History Behind the Templars

by Sharan Newman

  Armand slowly learned the reality of life in the Latin kingdoms, what was left of them. He began to understand the complexity of the relations among the descendants of Saladin. They were arguing over who had the best claim to the Ayyubid kingdoms; choosing up sides, and fighting each other, just as the Christian lords did. And there were some who were willing to ally themselves with the Christians in order to defeat their brothers and cousins. In 1237, Armand believed it would be possible to divide and conquer the Ayyubids.31

  In November 1239 another force of fresh blood arrived from the West, this time under the command of Thibaud, count of Champagne. The knights he brought with him were eager for battle and plunder and annoyed by the hard-learned caution that the masters of the Temple and Hospital showed. Henry, count of Bar, announced that he hadn’t come all this way to sit around and that he and his men were riding out the next day to “forage.”

  They [the Masters] knew very well that neither their intentions nor their motives were good, that they were inspired by envy, malice, pride and greed. . . . They told them [the knights] clearly that if they rode to war as they intended, they would well be . . . killed or taken prisoner, to the great shame and harm of Christendom. The foragers replied forcefully that they would do nothing of the kind; they had come there to fight unbelievers and did not mean to keep putting off any encounter.32

  Henry and his men sallied forth to the plain near Gaza where they had heard that the local people had sent many of their animals for safekeeping. They decided to camp awhile, have dinner, sleep, and then sneak out in the morning and capture the horses. “Such was their pride and their arrogance that they felt little or no concern about their enemies, into whose land they had thrust so far forward and who were very near them. Then they learned indeed that Our Lord will not be served in that way.”33

  The sultan Al-Adil Abu Bakr II happened to be in Gaza and learned of the slowly approaching raiding party. He summoned all fighting men from the region and they went to meet the invaders. By morning, some of the crusaders were getting nervous and decided to turn back. But Henry of Bar and many others decided to fight.

  They were surrounded and annihilated. Any survivors were taken to Cairo and sold into slavery.34

  Although the Rothelin chronicler, living in Acre, felt that the men got what they deserved, some in Europe saw it differently. Both the Templars and the Hospitallers were criticized for failing to support Henry of Bar.35 There was even a poem, supposedly written by the enslaved count of Monfort and smuggled to the West.

  If the Hospitallers

  Templars and brother knights

  Had shown our men the way,

  Had ridden as they should,

  Then all our chivalry

  Would not in prison lie.36

  Perhaps it was to quell these negative views of the order that a year later Armand, on behalf of the Temple, gave the master and the brothers of St. Lazarus the rents from property they owned in the English quarter of Acre.37

  The settlers from the West had learned a lot about Near Eastern politics in the five generations they had been there. In the 1240s they were keenly aware of the struggle that was going on among the heirs of Saladin in Egypt and Damascus. The Templars supported Damascus; the Hospitallers, Egypt. In 1244, the Templars, under Armand of Périgord, apparently convinced the Christian forces to support Damascus with military aid. The combined armies marched into Gaza and, on October 18, were soundly defeated at the battle of La Forbie (Harbiya).38

  Among the dead were Peter, the archbishop of Tyre, and the bishop of St. George of Ramla. Walter of Châteauneuf, master of the Hospitallers, was captured. He didn’t regain his freedom until 1250.

  Armand of Périgord was also captured at La Forbie. He died in prison; no one knows when.

  WILLIAM OF SONNAC, 1247-1250

  William of Sonnac was the preceptor of Aquitaine when he was chosen as the new Grand Master. Before that he had been the commander of the Templar house at Auzon.39Since no one was certain if Grand Master Armand was dead, William may have felt that he was always just an acting Grand Master. If so, it was one hard act.

  William accompanied King Louis IX on his expedition to Egypt, where the Grand Master was forced into a battle in the town of Mansourah, in which Robert, the brother of the king, was killed. Everyone agreed that the attack was a mistake, with most of the blame going to Robert. Jean de Joinville, seneschal of Champagne, says, “The Templars, as their Grand Master told me later, lost on this occasion some two hundred and eighty men-at-arms, and all mounted.”40 There seems such a weight of despair in that simple statement. In all the years of the Templars, the total number of knights in the East never averaged more than three hundred. Even assuming that many of the dead were sergeants, the Templars had still lost more than a quarter of their fighting men.

  William, who had already lost the use of one eye in an earlier encounter, was blinded and killed in battle in Egypt on February 11, 1250.

  RENAUD OF VICHIERS, 1250-1256

  When William of Sonnac was killed, Renaud of Vichiers was marshal of the order. Not only was there no time for a proper election, there also weren’t enough Templars left alive to hold one. Renaud took over until their return from Egypt to Acre where enough men could be collected.

  When King Louis of France and many of his noblemen were held for ransom, Renaud took it upon himself to allow Jean de Joinville to take money from the chests that the Templars were holding for various depositors, in order to free the king.41

  When the king and the remnants of the army returned to Acre, “the king, on account of the consideration the Temple had shown him, helped make him Master of the Temple.”42 There may not have been much protest from the remaining Templars. Renaud had done well under terrible circumstances.

  Louis seemed to think that made the score even between them. He certainly showed Renaud no further favors. In 1251 Renaud sent his marshal, Hughes de Jouy, to negotiate an agreement with the sultan of Damascus to share a rich farming region between the two lands. When Hughes came back to Acre to have King Louis IX ratify the treaty, Louis was furious that it had been done without his authority. He had the Templars parade barefoot through the camp to his tent. Renaud was forced to hand the treaty back to the sultan’s representative and say loudly that he regretted acting without the king’s permission. Hughes was banished from the kingdom of Jerusalem.43

  Renaud died January 20, 1256.44Louis lasted long enough to lead another ruinous crusade. Renaud is mostly forgotten. Louis was made a saint. I think there should be a recount.

  THOMAS BÉRARD, 1256-1273

  When Thomas Bérard became Grand Master, he was faced with a terrifying new threat to all the peoples of the Near East and also the lesser but more immediate troubles of the incessant squabbling among the inhabitants of the various sections of Acre.

  Most of the quarreling was among the merchants of the Italian city-states Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. They all had financial stakes in Acre and were fierce competitors for trade throughout the eastern Mediterranean.

  “In 1258, during the civil disturbance known as the War of St. Sabas, the master of the temple, Thomas Bérard, took refuge in the tower of St. Lazarus when his own stronghold was subjected to crossfire between the Pisans, Genoese and Venetians.”45

  This seems to have been a normal day at the office for Thomas.

  But he also had to continue the effort to regain land lost over the past eighty years. In 1260, the Templars and the Ibelin lords attacked a large encampment of Turks near Tiberias. They were routed and many Templars were killed or captured. Among the prisoners were future Grand Masters William of Beaujeu and Thibaud Gaudin. The marshal of the Templars, Stephen of Saissy, survived and, perhaps because of this, Bérard believed that he had showed either cowardice or treachery. He stripped Stephen of his habit and sent him back home.46Considering the shortage of manpower, Stephen must have been a pretty poor example of a Templar.

  But these were all small matters compared to t
he long-dreaded arrival of the Mongols in the Near East. Under Genghis Khan, they had already conquered much of China and were now moving into the ancient Persian Empire. Tales of their cruelty flew like crows through the towns in their path. However, since they were considered “pagans” there was hope among the leaders of the Church that they could be brought into the Christian community and would join forces to liberate Jerusalem again. Franciscan missionaries were sent east as the Mongols drew near.

  From his vantage point Thomas saw that this was a forlorn hope. He wrote many times to the West, trying to make them see the seriousness of the situation. One letter, sent in 1261 to the Templar treasurer in London, has survived:

  Although in our usual way we have previously informed you on many occasions of the terrible and awesome arrival of the Tartars [Mongols] . . . they are now here in front of our walls, knocking at our gates and now is not the time to hide their skirmishes under a bushel bur rather openly to reveal their stupendous and amazing exploits that have shaken Christendom externally with the weapons of great pain and fear.47

  The letter continues with a recitation of all the lands the Mongols had taken; how the people of Antioch begged to be allowed to pay tribute rather than be destroyed; how the city of Aleppo was flattened. Then Thomas comes to the essential reason for his letter:

  Because of the poverty and weakness of the Christians we do not see the possibility of holding on to the other lands and places unless the Lord show his mercy. . . . May you be in no doubt that unless help comes quickly to us from your countries, whatever our ability to resist the attack and onslaught of such a great horde, there is no doubt that the whole of Christendom this side of the sea will be subject to Tartar rule. Added to this, you should know that because of the important and countless expenses incurred in fortifying our said castles and the city of Acre to improve matters, our house is suffering and has suffered such huge runs on our money that it is recognized that we are in a dangerous financial situation.48

  Thomas was serious about the dire financial situation. He would have been willing to take out loans from the Italians but they had all left the city. He was ready to pawn the crosses and incense burners and anything else in the house.

  While waiting for help, Thomas did everything he could to find cash. In 1261 he negotiated with the archbishop of Nicosia for the payment to tithes owed to the order from land in Cyprus.49

  He sold Templar land in Lucca to the Franciscans.50When the heirs of Saint Francis have more money than the Templars, you know the world is upside down.

  Thomas Bérard died on March 25, 1273.51 After him the sky fell in on the last of the crusader states.

  WILLIAM OF BEAUJEU, 1273-1291

  The election of William of Beaujeu [or Clermont] as Grand Master was announced by Hugh Revel, the Grand Master of the Hospitallers, in a letter to the count of Flanders. “The good men of the Temple have chosen, as master and governor of the Temple, Brother Guillaume de Beaujeu. . . . The messengers of the Temple have left for France, taking the purse [empty, no doubt] and the news.”52 Master Hugh continues to say that things are bad in the Holy Land and “the funds that the lord king of France requested of the lord pope for the sustenance of the land are now as lost.”53

  It was not an auspicious beginning.

  William was born, probably in France, about 1230.54He was connected to the family of Beaujeu-Forez, which was distantly related to the royal family of France. William joined the Templars as a young man and was in the East by the time he was thirty when he was captured by the Turks at a battle near the town of Tiberius.55Even before that, in 1254, he may have been preceptor of a commandery in Lombardy.56In 1272, he is listed as the master of the Knights Templar in Sicily.57He was there when he was elected.

  Knowing how bad the situation was in Acre, William spent two years “visiting all the houses of the Temple in the kingdoms of France and England and Spain” rather than going to the city at once.58His secretary reports proudly that “he amassed a great treasure and then came to Acre.”59

  But would it be enough?

  As with many of the other Grand Masters, William came from a family with strong crusading traditions. A relative, Humbert of Beaujeu, had died with Saint Louis at Damietta in Egypt.60While William was trying to preserve the last of the Latin cities in the East, his brother Louis, constable of France, died on crusade in Spain with King Philip III.61

  Despite the outside threats, the Templars still found themselves getting caught up in local politics. Because the lord of Jubail had become a lay brother of the Temple, William took his side in a feud with the bishop and prince of Tortosa. William sent thirty Templars to help the lord of Jubail. As a consequence, “the prince had the house of the Temple in Tripoli knocked down, and cut down the Templars’ woods.”62

  After all the fear of a Mongol invasion, the end of the Latin kingdoms came from Egypt, just as many of the later kings and crusaders had feared.

  William of Beaujeu died at the siege of Acre in 1291, run through with a spear as he rode into battle.63

  THIBAUD GAUDIN, 1291-1292/93

  The next-to-last Grand Master of the Temple had spent many years in the East. He had been captured by the Turks and, after his release, was commander of the ever-diminishing land of Jerusalem.64During the siege of Acre, Thibaud and a few of the Templars escaped from the city in ships and went to the Templar castle of Sidon farther up the coast. The sultan sent “one of his emirs, Sanjar al Shuja’i, who besieged the castle on the sea with siege engines.”65 Thibaud “saw his position assaulted and thought he ought not to begin his term of office by abandoning the castle.”66

  But guess what? “He took counsel with the brethren and with their consent he went off to Cyprus, promising them that he should send them relief.”67I suspect that the anonymous Templar of Tyre went with him or we wouldn’t know anything of this. When Thibaud got to Cyprus, he didn’t seem all that energetic about getting help for the men left behind. Finally, other Templars who had made it to the island sent word back to Sidon that no help was coming.68

  The castle of Sidon was abandoned to the Mamluk sultan, who had it razed.

  Thibaud Gaudin remained in Cyprus and sent back to Europe for more men to replace those who had fallen at Acre. Amazingly, they came.69

  It’s hard to say if, having abandoned two Templar bases, Thibaud could have inspired his men with fighting fervor. But we are not to know, for he died April 16, probably in 1292.70

  Now the whole mess was in the hands of Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master. His fate deserves a chapter of its own, but first we must return to other views of the thirteenth-century crusades.

  1Malcolm Barber, The New Knighthood (Cambridge University Press, 1994) p. 119.

  2Helen Nicholson tr., The Chronicle of the Third Crusade (Ashgate, Aldershot, 1997) p. 165.

  3Peter W. Edbury tr., The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade [Eracles] (Ashgate, Aldershot, 1998) p. 83.

  4Ibid., p. 112.

  5Ibid.

  6Ibid.

  7Hans Mayer, The Crusades, tr. John Gillingham (Oxford University Press, 1972) p. 146.

  8Edbury, p. 113.

  9Ibid., pp. 121-22.

  10Rudolf Heistand ed., Papsturkunden für Templer und Johanniter (Göttingen, 1972-84) p. 402.

  11Barber, p. 122.

  12Heistand, p. 407. (From Celestine III, who had already given a confirmation to Robert, but it never hurts to be sure.)

  13Barber, 122-23.

  14Ibid., p.125.

  15Ibid.

  16Ibid., p. 123.

  17Ibid., p. 126

  18Ibid., pp. 121-22.

  19Heistand, p. 278.

  20For more on William, please see chapter 23, The Crusades of Louis IX.

  21Oliver of Paderborn, The Conquest of Damietta, tr. John J. Gavigan (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1948) p. 30, note 16.

  22Ibid., p. 68.

  23“Histoire des Archeveques Latin de l’Île de Chypre,” in Archives de l�
��Orient Latin Tome II (Paris, 1884) p. 214.

  24Barber, p. 128.

  25James M. Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade 1213-1221 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986) p. 126.

  26Quoted in Barber, p. 130.

  27Lionel Allshorn, Stupor Mundi: The Life and Times of Frederick II, Emperor of the Romans, King of Sicily and Jerusalem, 1194-1250 (Martin Secker, 1912) p. 95.

  28Barber, p. 135.

  29Ibid., p. 136.

  30Ibid., pp. 137-38.

  31Ibid.

  32The Rothelin Continuation of the History of William of Tyre, in Crusader Syria in the Thirteenth Century, tr. Janet Shirley (Ashgate, Aldershot, 1999) p. 46.

  33Ibid., p. 48.

  34Ibid., p. 50.

  35Barber, p. 139.

  36Rothelin, p. 53.

  37“Fragment d’un Cartulaire de l’Ordre de Saint Lazare, en Terre-Sainte,” Archives de l’Orient Latin Tome II (Paris, 1884) pp. 156-57, charter no. 39.