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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 265 a.: Military-monkish Orders. The Origin of the Templars, 1119. - A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age

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Collection: Primary Sources
Subject Area: History

265 a.: Military-monkish Orders. The Origin of the Templars, 1119. - Oliver J. Thatcher, A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age [1905]

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A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age, ed. Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar Holmes McNeal (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1905).

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265 a.

Military-monkish Orders. The Origin of the Templars, 1119.

The Middle Age had two ideals, the monk and the soldier. The monk was the spiritual, the soldier the military hero. The military-monkish orders, whose members were both monks and soldiers, represent a fusion of these two ideals. Several other orders were formed in imitation of the Templars, such as the Hospitallers, soon after 1119; the German order, 1190; the Sword Brothers, 1202; the order of Bethlehem; the order of Calatrava, 1158; the order of Alcantara, 1156; and the Cavalleria de St. Iago de la Spada, 1161. The fact that all these orders arose on the borderland between Christians and Mohammedans, that is, in Palestine and in Spain, would indicate their close connection with the spirit of the crusades.

In the same year [1118-19] certain nobles of knightly rank, devout, religious, and God-fearing, devoting themselves to the service of Christ, made their vows to the patriarch [of Jerusalem] and declared that they wished to live forever in chastity, obedience, and poverty, according to the rule of regular canons. Chief of these were Hugo de Payens and Geoffrey of St. Omer. Since they had neither a church nor a house, the king of Jerusalem gave them a temporary residence in the palace which stands on the west side of the temple. The canons of the temple granted them, on certain conditions, the open space around the aforesaid palace for the erection of their necessary buildings, and the king, the nobles, the patriarch, and the bishops, each from his own possessions, gave them lands for their support. The patriarch and bishops ordered that for the forgiveness of their sins their first vow should be to protect the roads and especially the pilgrims against robbers and marauders. For the first nine years after their order was founded they wore the ordinary dress of a layman, making use of such clothing as the people, for the salvation of their souls, gave them. But in their ninth year a council was held at Troyes [1128] in France at which were present the archbishops of Rheims and Sens with their suffragans, the cardinal bishop of Albano, papal legate, and the abbots of Citeaux, Clairvaux, and Pontigny, and many others. At this council a rule was established for them, and, at the direction of the pope, Honorius III, and of the patriarch of Jerusalem, Stephen, white robes were appointed for their dress. Up to their ninth year they had only nine members, but then their number began to increase and their possessions to multiply. Afterward, in the time of Eugene III, in order that their appearance might be more striking, they all, knights as well as the other members of a lower grade, who were called serving men, began to sew crosses of red cloth on their robes. Their order grew with great rapidity, and now [about 1180] they have 300 knights in their house, clothed in white mantles, besides the serving men, whose number is almost infinite. They are said to have immense possessions both here [in Palestine] and beyond the sea [in Europe]. There is not a province in the whole Christian world which has not given property to this order, so that they may be said to have possessions equal to those of kings. Since they dwelt in a palace at the side of the temple they were called “Brothers of the army of the temple.” For a long time they were steadfast in their purpose and were true to their vows, but then they forgot their humility, which is the guardian of all virtues, and rebelled against the patriarch of Jerusalem who had assisted in the establishment of their order and had given them their first lands, and refused him the obedience which their predecessors had shown him. They also made themselves very obnoxious to the churches by seizing their tithes and first-fruits and plundering their possessions.