The Templars at War

Zvonimir Grbasic

• Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN: 9781473898424
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, better known as the Knights Templar or simply the Templars, are the most famous of the Crusading knightly orders. Formed in 1119 to protect Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, this curious hybrid of military unit and monastic brotherhood were the staunchest defenders of the Crusader States of Outremer for nearly two centuries. Knights joining the Templars renounced their worldly possessions and vowed to follow a strict code, which included the command to fight the infidel enemy bravely regardless of the odds. They provided Christian armies with a lethal cutting edge in open battle, launching fanatical charges to break the enemy formations, as well as garrisoning a network of forts as a stubborn bulwark against reconquest. Zvonimir Grbasic outlines their history, narrating many of their greatest victories and defeats in detail (such as Montgisard and the Horns of Hattin), describes their organization and hierarchy, training and daily life. These elite warriors, both the knights and the lowlier ranks, are illustrated with the author's beautiful original paintings and drawings.

Chapter One

The Beginning

Count Hugh I of Champagne,1 one of the most powerful people in medieval Western Europe, ruler of a rich dukedom, richer even than the French king, a known believer, honest penitent and church benefactor, connected two monks, Hugues de Payens and Bernard of Clairvaux, who held a prominent place in the foundation of the first and only exclusively fighting order of monks. The count enabled de Payens to arrive in the Holy Land and was instrumental in providing Bernard with the opportunity of becoming abbot of a Cistercian monastery.

However, we should keep things in order. At the end of the eleventh century, the aforementioned Benedictine Abbey of Cluny was rich and powerful. The money from care for pilgrims in hospices along the way to the shrine of Saint Jacob in Santiago de Compostela, as well as the rent from numerous properties, created a nice nest egg. The church of the Abbey of Cluny was the largest and most beautiful in Europe, while the order’s leaders spent more and more time dealing with self-imposed worldly problems and less in alignment with the rule of St Benedict2 as they had vowed to do.

Robert, the Benedictine Abbot of the Abbey of Molesme, dissatisfied with the serious disruptions of the simple and strict monastery life, founded a new order of reformed Benedictines, the Cistercians, in 1098. The name of the order came from the Abbey of Cîteaux, situated some 15 miles south of Dijon, where the order was founded. The Cistercians discarded the long prayers and litanies of their Benedictine colleagues, links with nobility, acceptance of children in the order in exchange for contributions from noblemen, gave up on servants and worked their properties themselves. In a nutshell, they truly lived according to the Rule of St Benedict. In order to prove the purity of their beliefs, they discarded the black uniform and took up a white monk’s habit. The Cistercian vision of monastery life was not particularly popular among the nobility as noblemen intending to take up the habit did not relish accepting ascetic life full of daily work obligations so, at first, only very few noblemen’s children decided to join this truly strict order.

Robert, a courageous and honest monk who only thought of faith and not of material goods, shared the fate of two other great contemporaries who passed through Molesme with him. Bruno, who had, at Cluny, taught Otho de Lagery, later Pope Urban II, the originator of the crusades, left Molesme, gathered a group of hermits in the mountains of Chartreuse and founded the Carthusians, an even stricter order. Stephen Harding, of Anglo-Saxon English descent, fled before the Norman conquerors to Scotland and then to Rome, where he took up the habit and finally settled in France, in Molesme. At the time of Abbot Harding, Cîteaux saw the flowering of the Cistercian order.

In 1113 Bernard3 and around thirty of his followers, kin and friends, all from top families, joined the Abbey of Cîteaux. Although his social position allowed him access to the Benedictine order of Cluny, which would have provided him with the future of a high-ranking church official, Bernard chose the harder way, thus proving the purity of his faith and his renouncing of worldly goods. This was even more unusual given that he lived at a time when many were completely indifferent to their fate after death and the church was plagued by corruption and debauchery. According to Bernard’s biographer, the monk was a youth whose face was radiant with beauty, of slight build, soft pink skin, lovely red hair and beard, convincing, eloquent and a passionate orator. He stood out because of his fiery and somewhat wild nature, quick mind and dedication to learning, so after only three years of a monk’s life he was appointed as abbot in the new Cistercian abbey, some 40 miles east of Troyes, in a forest-covered valley that had previously served as a shelter for social outcasts.

Bernard and twelve of his monks cleared up the forest ground and built a church. They named their abbey Clairvaux (‘the Valley of Light’) and indeed, spiritual light spread throughout Europe from the abbey over the coming years. In the words of David Knowles, the Benedictine historian, ‘For forty years, Cîteaux-Clairvaux was the spiritual centre of Europe while, at the same time, former St Bernard monks included a Pope, the Archbishop of York, as well as plenty of cardinals and bishops.’ The Pope was Eugenius III (1145‒1153), whose edict Quantum praedecessores called on the French King Louis VII to start a crusade.

Cistercians had been given the land by Count Hugh of Champagne. Some ten years earlier, in 1104, the count started on his first pilgrimage to the Holy Land, from which he returned after four years only to start a new pilgrimage in 1114, searching for redemption and spiritual peace. He was now accompanied by Hugues, possibly a cousin born in Payens, around 10km from the count’s see in Troyes. Hugues was at least 44 years old at the time of the count’s second pilgrimage. It is not known whether he had accompanied the count the first time as well but, according to a document from the year 1113, it is known that, between the two pilgrimages, he married and had at least one son: Thibaud, later abbot at the Abbey de la Colombella at Sens.

After the count started for his homeland for the second time, Payens remained in Jerusalem. He also had seven more knights from his entourage, all of them de Payens relatives either by blood or by marriage. We have written proof of the names Geoffroi Bisot, Payen de Montdidier, Archambaud de St Amand and Roland. They were also accompanied by Godfrey de Saint-Omer, probably a participant in the First Crusade, mentioned as one of the best knights in the Holy Land in general. For some reason, these nine knights came up with a story for King Baldwin II and Jerusalem’s Patriarch Daimbert. Their motivation certainly lay in faith and the desire to ensure absolution, which a monk’s habit offered with certainty, but more mundane reasons could have been behind their revolutionary ideas as well. Long years spent in the Holy Land without any real source of income probably brought the knights to the edge of existence. Only some of the hundreds of crusading knights were granted properties in newly-conquered lands for their efforts. Most still had to rely on income from properties far to the west, so it was almost impossible to get money for bare necessities, which was the reason why most warriors returned to their countries immediately after the end of the fighting.

Perhaps poverty4 and the inability to create a sustainable knightly existence in the Holy Land, together with the possibility that they lacked the funds to return to Europe, forced the knights to come up with a new source of income that would not lower their status and would allow them to remain warriors in the service of the Kingdom of Heaven. They were further hampered by the fact that at least some of them, like Payens and Saint-Omer, were no longer at the height of their power but were rather closer to old age than physical fitness as warriors. It is possible that they claimed support from Count Hugh, which helped to gain careful attention from the king and the patriarch of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Although Count Hugh’s role has not been historically proven, it is quite possible that he himself took part in the conception of the revolutionary idea. This is supported by the fact that Count Hugh joined the Templar order during his third pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1125. With the intention of staying overseas, he discarded his unfaithful wife and son ‒ he believed the latter not to be his ‒ and left any inheritance to his nephew Thibaud. It is possible that, years earlier, in his first two pilgrimages, he had prepared the scenario for him to remain permanently in the Holy Land.

Payens, a God-fearing and decisive knight, and his comrades-in-arms faced the worldly and spiritual leaders of the Kingdom of Jerusalem with a request previously unheard-of in the Christian world. They intended to become monks but, at the same time, to serve their heavenly master-at-arms, as they had done their whole lives, thus dedicating their warrior skills to the armed protection of pilgrims on the way from the sea to the Holy City.

Until then, miles Christi (soldiers of Christ) were only monks who, following the Rule of St Benedict, fought for Christ by prayer and mass, and the very fact that they were monks provided them with absolution and the way to Heaven. Worldly warriors could get absolution either by founding and gifting monasteries or by becoming monks themselves. Only Pope Gregory VII (1073‒1085) described fighting for Christ as an armed fight of Christian knights in which true miles Christi, worldly warriors with weapons in their hands, were at least close to monks. King Baldwin II accepted the idea. Medieval chronicler Michael of Syria even claimed that it had in fact been the king’s desire, and that the knights merely wanted to leave worldly life behind and become simple monks. It would not have been strange if it had been the king’s wish since the Kingdom of Jerusalem suffered from a chronic lack of experienced warriors, so allowing a dozen knights to leave their weapons and concentrate on meditation was far from being in the king’s best interests. Be that as it may, at Christmas 1119, in the Church of the Saint Sepulchre, the Patriarch of Jerusalem accepted the nine knights’ vows of poverty, purity, obedience and submission to the Rule of St Augustine,5 which were in fashion in the monks’ communities of the twelfth century. They called themselves the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ, their primary duty being to protect pilgrims on the way from the sea coast to Jerusalem and further to the River Jordan to the place of Christ’s baptism; truly a hard task for so few warriors because the way from the Mediterranean ports of Jaffa and Caesarea led through desolate, hilly areas ruled by lions and Bedouin marauders. Most pilgrims were unarmed and thus made easy prey for robbers and beasts; nothing had changed there since the times of the Romans.

Bernard of Clairvaux.

Knight Templar escorting pilgrims. Jaffa, a poor harbour of little depth but the port closest to Jerusalem was the initial point on the approximately 100km-long ancient Jaffa to Jerusalem road. A man riding a mule took eight to ten hours to accomplish the route. One major stop on the way to Jerusalem was Ramla, on the intersection of the Via Maris (Cairo-Damascus) with the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem. The first Templars had no uniform or insignia but used their civilian garments. Certainly they did not wear mail shirt armour because it was impossible to ride the whole day completely armed. A helmet, quilted gambeson and shield were quite sufficient defence against attack by local brigands, but a real necessity was using a scarf cover against heat for the helmet and securing enough water for the rider and the horse.

The king put the new monks into a part of the palace built on the site of the Temple of Solomon: Templum Salomonis. The housing was added to their name, so they became the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, then Knights of the Temple of Solomon, Knights of the Temple, the Templars and Temple. In order to make their lives easier, the patriarch freed them from contributions and the wearing of robes, so they could serve in their own worldly clothes. Immediately the following year, a powerful French nobleman, Fulk, Count of Anjou,6 on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, proclaimed himself to be an associate member of the order, gave the Templars a regular income and promised to maintain two Templar knights in the Holy Land every year. The poor brothers also received contributions from other powerful French noblemen. On joining the order, Hugh of Champagne certainly also brought financial aid and gifts of properties in the homeland.

Although a contemporary chronicler wrote that the number of knight-monks was still nine, this is impossible unless one of the founders had died in the meantime since they were joined by at least Count Hugh and then by two more knights who later served as messengers for Bernard. Another source, Patriarch of Antioch, Michael of Syria, claimed that there were around thirty knights. King Baldwin II showed great trust in the Templar commander de Payens, appointing him in 1127 as one of his two emissaries to Europe. Why him? Had the Order already proven itself by their actions? Did the famous Count Hugh joining the Order and living near the king play a role, or was the deciding factor the support of Fulk of Anjou for the Templars? The third option may be the closest to the truth, since one of the tasks set for the king’s emissaries was to talk Count Fulk into marrying the king’s daughter Melisende in order to provide a male heir for the throne of Jerusalem. Their other goal was to talk the kings of France and England and the Count of Flanders to start a crusade and thus help Jerusalem in taking over Damascus.

On his arrival in Europe, Payens first spent some time in his homeland of Champagne, and then started for Anjou to see the Templar benefactor Fulk, who agreed to the royal marriage in 1128. Before that, Fulk’s son Geoffrey married Matilda, the heiress to the English throne, so the English King Henry I also had reason to help Fulk’s protégé Payens. Henry donated a significant amount of money, sufficient for Payens to travel through Normandy, Scotland, England and Flanders. Everywhere he went the elderly Templar attracted attention and gained favour. In 1128, the Templars got their first fortress in the Pyrenean Peninsula, the Soure, near Coimbra in Portugal, given to them by Queen Teresa of Castile. Her son Alfonso, confrater7 of the order, confirmed the gift the following year. Count Ramon Berenguer III8 of Barcelona took the vows of the brother of the Templar house in Barcelona in 1139 and presented the Templars with the fortress of Grañena de Cevera, near the border with Muslims. In both cases, the order did not put any garrisons in their fortresses, thus refusing the possibility of starting any fighting outside the Holy Land. In two years, Payens gathered significant amounts of gold and silver, gifts of property, horses and armour, and attracted new future monks. He had the greatest success in his own country of France, so, on return, he appointed Payen de Montdidier as manager of the newly-founded Templar province of France and England.

Payens also had another mission, the most important one for the future of the order: to achieve the church’s approval for the existence of the order, as acknowledgement by only the Patriarch of Jerusalem held relatively little weight. Payens appeared before the church council gathered in Troyes on 13 January 1129. The event was described in Articles 3 to 8 of the Rule. Church officials were hosted by Count Thibaud, nephew to the now-Templar monk Count Hugh. Chaired by the Papal Legate Matthew, Bishop of Albano, the gathering included the archbishops of Rheims and Sans, bishops of Soissons, Paris, Troyes, Orléans, Auxerre, Meaux, Châlons, Laon, Beauvais, abbeys of Vézelay, Pontigny, Trois-Fontaines, Saint-Denis de Reims, Saint-Étienne de Dijon, as well as Harding from Molesme and Bernard from Clairvaux. The notes were taken by Jean Michel, self-proclaimed in Article 5 of the Rule. Together with Payens, the Templars were represented by Roland, Geoffroi Bisot, Payen de Montdidier, Archambaud de Saint-Amand and Godefroy de Saint-Omer, who managed to talk Father Guillaume, chaplain of Saint-Omer, into giving the Templars the churches of Slype and Leffinge in Belgium. Payens could not be sure of the success of his idea, since prominent church thinkers doubted the morality of monks serving in arms. However, Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the biggest opponent of the crusades, had died and his teachings were pushed away by the new teachings of Bernard of Clairvaux.

Bernard exchanged letters with his benefactor Count Hugh, and thus knew that a knightly monks’ order had been founded in Jerusalem. Although he had wanted Count Hugh to spend his monastic life in Clairvaux, Bernard did not hold Hugh’s choice against him and congratulated him on the taking of the vows. At the time, Bernard’s uncle, André de Montbard, also joined the knight-monks and maintained correspondence with Bernard. Payens had also written to Bernard prior to coming to Europe, asking him to support the idea of the Templars and to write the Rule that the monks woul...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Prologue
• Chapter 1 The Beginning
• Chapter 2 La Règle du Temple
• Chapter 3 Organization of the Order
• Chapter 4 Knights, Sergeants and Pages
• Chapter 5 Horses
• Chapter 6 In the Field
• Chapter 7 Fraternal Knightly Orders in the Holy Land
• Chapter 8 Enemies
• Chapter 9 From the War Path
• Chapter 10 Epilogue
• Notes
• Bibliography