Secrets of the Knights Templar

by S. J. Hodge

  THE GUARDIANS

  Two early donations given to the Templars were a farmhouse and castle in Carcassonne, in the Languedoc region of France.

  Within a short time of the Council of Troyes, the Knights Templar were viewed generally as being exceptionally dependable and doing a job that many thought was too difficult to undertake. They quickly established a reputation for being brave and honest and deserving of the support of good Christians everywhere.

  Even before their trip to the West, the Templars had started to receive donations from Europe to assist them in their onerous task in the Holy Land. The first donors were mainly French nobles who either had connections with the First Crusade or who believed that, by being generous to such a cause, their souls would be saved. Donations began coming in more frequently after the Council of Troyes and these varied from small items such as a sword or a saddle, or larger gifts, such as tracts of land, an annual gratuity or a horse.

  When Hugh de Payns returned to Jerusalem after the Council of Troyes, he left some Templars in Europe with the specific task of fundraising and attracting new recruits. One of these men, Hugh Rigaud, avidly canvassed for donations around France and Spain from 1128 to 1136. He and another Templar, Raymond Bernard, were extremely successful at this task, attracting numerous generous donations which included land, vineyards, gold, armour and servants, as well as some more unusual items, such as rounds of cheese, a pair of old breeches and a well-worn cloak. Although they were not guarding the Holy Land, these men remained a vital part of the Templar Order, as they travelled across Europe, enlisting new members and encouraging their fellow Christians to generously support their cause. It was an essential task, both at the beginning when the Order had nothing, and later when they had a great deal of property that needed maintaining and enterprises that needed advancing. Some of the donations they attracted were quite astonishing. One of the earliest was a church on the Côte d’Azur, given to them in the early 1120s, although perhaps because of the cost of its upkeep, the Templars gave it back in 1124. In 1128, a married couple from Toulouse, Peter and Borella Bernard, gave themselves and everything they owned to the Order, with a promise that their children would be given the opportunity to become Knights Templar when they grew up. In 1132, an exceptionally powerful family from the Languedoc region, the Trencavels, gave the Templars a small farmhouse in Carcassonne and the services of a man, Pons of Gascon, as well as his entire family. The following year, Bernard de Canet and Aymeric de Barbaira gave the castle of Douzens in the Carcassonne region to the Templars. Aymeric and his brother William Xabert also pledged themselves to the Order. In 1129, a married couple gave the Templars a house, a farm and further land in the suburb of Troyes-Preize to the south-east of Paris. Other substantial endowments and privileges were granted from nobles, kings and princes in various countries across western Europe. For instance, in 1120, the wealthy and powerful Count Fulk d’Anjou had visited the Knights Templar in Jerusalem and given them an annual revenue of 30 pounds of silver, which was an extremely substantial sum in those days. In an effort to elicit Templar support for their battles against the Moors, the rulers of Aragon, Navarre and Castile were particularly generous. Although fighting the Moors in Spain was never part of the Templars’ brief, the Spanish gifts were so generous that they considered it, although without making any promises. In March 1128, Raymond Bernard was given the castle of Soure and surrounding lands by Queen Teresa of Portugal, the daughter of Alfonso of Castile. She openly gave this in exchange for a promise from the Templars that they would help the Spanish and Portuguese to win back territory from the Moors.

  Pope Honorius II, who endorsed the acceptance of the Templars at the Council of Troyes.

  Early expansion

  During these first years, as fast as gifts were being bestowed upon them, new recruits mainly from France, Spain, England, Italy and Germany were volunteering to join the Templars. The endorsement of the Order by the Council of Troyes and the consequent confirmation of this by Pope Honorius II had initiated their sudden rise in prestige and appeal. The original nine men who had started the Order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Jesus Christ and the Temple of Solomon were men of good birth who had abandoned their lands and their families in order to defend the most sacred places of the Bible, and this romantic concept added to the status of joining their ranks. Some joined for just a temporary period, such as Raymond Berenguer IV, the Count of Barcelona, and a group of his vassals, who served for a year. According to Orderic Vitalis, a chronicler of 11th- and 12th-century Normandy and England, Fulk d’Anjou travelled to the Holy Land in 1119 or 1120 and also joined the Templars for a year. He returned to Europe towards the end of 1121, but continued to subsidize the Knights Templar annually, generously maintaining two knights in the Holy Land for a year each. By joining the Order for just a short period, these men of noble birth could experience the discipline of being part of a monastic brotherhood, feel they had helped the Christian cause and still return to their old lives afterwards and retain their own wealth.

  In spite of their harsh regime that to a great extent mirrored Bernard of Clairvaux’s Cistercian Order, official Church recognition and royal connections made the Knights Templar particularly respectable and esteemed by the nobility, monarchs and ordinary people alike. From the start, they retained close connections with the King of Jerusalem – far closer than they did with the Patriarch – and this set a precedent. Throughout their existence, Templars encouraged and extended a similar closeness with other kings and nobles across Europe. This particularly helped their cause as many who donated did so in order to ingratiate themselves with monarchs or other powerful leaders.

  The marriage of Queen Mélisende of Jerusalem (1109–60) and Fulk V of Anjou (1092–1143), who insisted on ruling in his own right alongside his wife.

  Fulk d’Anjou

  In 1127, the mission undertaken by Hugh de Payns to the West was partly a diplomatic assignment on behalf of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem. Along with their immediate issues of establishing the Order with the Pope and raising money, Hugh was directed to persuade Fulk, the Count of Anjou, to accept a proposition. Baldwin had no sons, so had named his eldest daughter Melisende as his successor to rule Jerusalem after him. Baldwin wanted Fulk to return to Jerusalem and marry her. In agreeing to his proposition, Fulk would be Melisende’s consort when she ruled Jerusalem.

  Fulk V of Anjou was born in Angers in western France between 1089 and 1092, the son of Fulk IV of Anjou and Bertrade de Montfort (who later bigamously married King Philip I of France, which was why he could not go on the First Crusade). On his father’s death in 1109, Fulk became the Count and the following year he married Erembourg, the Countess of Maine. They had two sons and two daughters, but Erembourg died in 1126 when their youngest child was 13. In April 1128, Fulk entertained Hugh de Payns at Le Mans. The idea of marrying the beautiful, half-Armenian Mélisende was not abhorrent to him, but he did not want to be consort to a queen; he wanted to rule alongside her as king in his own right. Baldwin did not need long to consider Fulk’s demands. Jerusalem needed a strong ruler and Fulk was wealthy, intelligent and brave. He would help Melisende in the difficult task of ruling Jerusalem. In February 1129, Fulk gave Anjou to his 16-year-old son Geoffrey and left France for Jerusalem with Hugh de Payns. In Jerusalem that June, he married Melisende. Meanwhile, Baldwin had married his second daughter, Alice, to the new count of Antioch, Bohemond II, and his third daughter, Hodierna, to the Count of Tripoli. The youngest daughter, Yveta, chose to take holy vows, and Mélisende had the convent of Bethany built for her sister. As Abbess of Bethany, Yveta wielded great power in the Church and at the Court of Jerusalem. By the time Fulk died in a hunting accident in 1143, he and Mélisende had two sons: Baldwin, who would carry on the line in Jerusalem, and Almaric. Baldwin II had died in 1131, the year before his second grandson was born, leaving the Holy Land in the hands of his offspring.

  Geoffrey d’Anjou

  The powerful royal line of Plantagenet ki
ngs who ruled England from 1154 to 1485 descended from Fulk and Erembourg’s elder son, Geoffrey d’Anjou. Although Geoffrey and his predecessors were known as the Angevins (from Anjou), when he became founder of the line, his heraldic device of a sprig of yellow broom known in Latin as planta genista became the family emblem and name. Geoffrey and the Angevins were French but Geoffrey’s wife, Matilda, was Henry I of England’s daughter, and so granddaughter of William the Conqueror. In 1154, Geoffrey and Matilda’s son, William the Conqueror’s great-grandson, took the throne as Henry II, and began the rule of the Plantagenet dynasty.

  The Templar Rule

  In the early days of the Knights Templar before the Council of Troyes, they pledged their vows of ‘poverty, chastity and obedience’. For this, they gave up worldly goods, wore simple tunics and ate what food they were given or could afford with their small allowance from the king and Patriarch of Jerusalem. They did not womanize, or fraternize unnecessarily with anyone outside their community, and they strictly adhered to the wishes of their Grand Master (of whom Hugh de Payns was the first), who took his lead mainly from King Baldwin II and to a slightly lesser degree, Warmund the Patriarch.

  However, once they were accepted as an authentic monastic order at the Council of Troyes, Bernard of Clairvaux worked out a number of suitable regulations by which they should live, known as the Rule. Basing this on his own Cistercian Rule, with some additions and slight changes to accommodate the fighting element of the Order, Bernard drew up 73 clauses for the Templar Rule. It decreed that, on joining the Order, every Templar gave up all worldly goods and renounced his will. They were required to be prepared to fight in defence of Christians and sacred Christian sites, and to be prepared to die for this cause if necessary. In relinquishing their wills and worldly goods, they could either give it all to their heirs and descendants, or to the Order (which many did). Married men could only join the Templars as sergeants and their property was then bequeathed to the Order rather than to their wives upon death. Knights were to wear white habits as a symbol of their mental purity and physical chastity, but for the many other Templars who joined as squires, chaplains, sergeants, farmers, servants or temporary members, brown or black habits were regulation. No fur or other finery was permitted to be worn by any of them, not even to decorate their horses’ bridles. There was one concession; because of the heat in the Holy Land, and later in their dwellings in other Mediterranean countries, they were allowed to wear light linen shirts from Easter to All Saints’ Day on 1 November. The Rule, while strict, also gave them some strange concessions. If they were washing their hair, for instance, when the bell rang to call them to prayer, they were allowed to be late. They were to remain frugal in all things. Although at first their poverty precluded this, as the Order grew, each knight was permitted to have three horses and one squire to take care of them. The Rule often seemed a little illogical, but every order originated from a considered reason and careful thought. For instance, no Templar was allowed any form of lock to secure anything personal, to prevent any secretiveness; they were not allowed to sleep in total darkness – some form of light always had to be illuminated so there could be absolutely no clandestine behaviour at any time. Falconry and hunting, two of the secular knights’ main pastimes, were also prohibited.

  The Rule was not just about discipline; it was also a guide, giving instructions on a wide range of considerations, such as how to admit and treat novices to the confraternity, what kind of conversation was suitable (or unsuitable) between them, with too much discourse being discouraged. Templar brothers were required to cut their hair, keeping it short with the usual monk’s tonsure, but they were not allowed to shave their beards – which was unusual. Conventional religious orders were forbidden to have facial hair, so the insistence on beards singled them out. While this was different, many of the clauses in their Rule were the same as for other religious brotherhoods, such as eating in silence, not losing one’s temper, attending regular daily religious services, and eating meat only on three days of the week. Templars were requested to limit their speaking and conversation and to behave ‘decently and humbly, without laughter’. The Rule was so controlling that they were even told how to cut cheese and under what circumstances they would be allowed to leave a meal table early (only in the event of a nosebleed). They went to bed at midnight and rose again at 4 a.m. Although they were forbidden any private possessions, collectively the Order was allowed land, property and servants. The care of their horses was of fundamental importance and the Rule gave strict instructions about this. All members of the Order were responsible for the horses – and the weapons, and although they had servants and squires to do this, knights had to oversee the tending of their horses and the cleaning of their equipment at least twice every day. Horses and other animals kept by the Templars were also allocated according to the Rule. Knights had strong, powerful warhorses; turcopoles (locally recruited mounted archers) had lighter, faster horses; men at arms and other working Templars who were not knights had access to palfreys (well-bred riding horses), mules, donkeys, camels and packhorses.

  From The Story of Godfrey of Bouillon, 1499, showing the Knights Templar before Jerusalem.

  Overall, discipline was enforced by the Grand Master, or once there were many different chapters in various countries, the second in command, who was known as the Master, was in charge. The Rule set out appropriate punishments for all kinds of misdemeanours, from penances to expulsion, but also other, somewhat crueller penalties were enforced for certain offences. These included beatings, being put in irons or being made to eat off the floor. Rules of discipline differed for knights and other members of the Order. For instance, if a knight lost his weapons in battle, he had to remain and fight on, while in similar circumstances, a sergeant or servant was allowed to retreat. The Rule was written in Latin, but as most Templars, particularly early on in their history, could not read Latin, it was soon translated into French. This in itself showed up ambiguities and discrepancies in the Rule and gradually, new clauses were added. Eventually, the number of clauses increased to several hundred.

  Detail of a 19th-century painting of a Templar ordination ceremony, by François-Marius Granet. From early on in the Order’s existence, it seems that the initiation rites were excessively ceremonious to denote the Templars’ high status.

  In Praise of the New Knighthood

  After Pope Honorius II died in 1130, a conflict arose between the supporters of the new Pope, Innocent II (r. 1130–43), and his enemies who declared his election to be illegitimate. At the forefront of his defence was Bernard of Clairvaux who was highly instrumental in gaining greater support for Innocent and assisted in eventually securing his position. In gratitude, at the Council of Pisa in 1135, Pope Innocent II ratified the Rule of the Templar Order. Yet despite the Templars’ growing consequence, there were many who still opposed them. Critics, who included theologians, wrote impassioned essays against the idea of military monks, declaring that it was irreconcilable for men of religion to fight. According to Christian beliefs, monks should be prepared to die rather than take up arms, even in self-defence.

  To defend the Templars against these critics, Bernard, who understood the dangers of the situation in the Holy Land and recognized that fighting but honest and trustworthy men were needed there, wrote a long document entitled ‘In Praise of the New Knighthood’ (Liber ad milites Templi: De laude novae militiae). It took him two years to pen the open letter that justified the existence of a group of monks whose only real purpose was to fight and kill, contrary to other, traditionally gentle monastic endeavours. In his usual articulate and persuasive manner, Bernard passionately compared the devout and godly Templars with secular knights who, he declared, fought only for greed, vanity and self-aggrandizement. He declared that this new knighthood humbly served God and he outlined the virtues of a holy war, explaining that a religious order of knights was necessary to take up both spiritual and physical swords in the Holy Land. He proclaimed that if any
of the Templars were to die in battle for Christ, their deaths would be especially glorious, while ordinary knights who fought for secular causes were in danger of damnation:

  The knight of Christ, I say, may strike with confidence and die yet more confidently, for he serves Christ when he strikes, and serves himself when he falls. Neither does he bear the sword in vain, for he is God’s minister, for the punishment of evil-doers and for the praise of the good. If he kills an evil-doer, he is not a man killer, but, if I may so put it, a killer of evil. He is evidently the avenger of Christ towards evil-doers and he is rightly considered a defender of Christians. Should he be killed himself, we know that he has not perished, but has come safely into port. When he inflicts death it is to Christ’s profit, and when he suffers death, it is for his own gain … I do not mean to say that the pagans are to be slaughtered when there is any other way to prevent them from harassing and persecuting the faithful.

  BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, ‘IN PRAISE OF THE NEW KNIGHTHOOD’, c.1135

  With this essay, Bernard may have succeeded in his purpose, but he also irritated several people. Many were angered that so saintly a monk should be openly encouraging fighting and killing. After his death, another Cistercian, Walter Map (c.1140–1208/10), wrote equally vehemently against him and the Templars. Although not as influential by any means as Bernard of Clairvaux, Walter Map planted one particularly negative thought about the Templars being proud or arrogant and greedy – and this stuck. It was a small thing at the time, and Map’s words were not published, but this perception of the Templars adhered to them for the rest of their existence.