The Knights Templar E-Book

Patrick Masters

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 466

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Formed in the twelfth century, the Knights Templar guarded pilgrims on the road in the Holy Land, but soon amassed enormous wealth and became a major military force in the Crusades. By the fourteenth century, the order was abolished. Accused of heresy, its members were arrested and tortured, their Grand Master executed. For centuries the Templars' legacy lived on in the guise of myth and legend, and today they are the subject of media depictions ranging from villainous knights and noble guardians of the Holy Grail, to secretive occultists and shadowy conspirators. Discover their history and the truth behind the myths and their legacy in Hollywood. Did the Templars really guard the Holy Grail? Are they ancestors of the Freemasons? And why do they continue to captivate us over 900 years later?

Leseprobe

For my wife and daughters

First published 2025

The History Press

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www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Patrick Masters, 2025

The right of Patrick Masters to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

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ISBN 978 1 80399 317 1

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Maps

Introduction: The Holy Land Before the Templars

PART 1: THE CRUSADER STATES OF OUTREMER

1   The Crusaders and the Origin of the Templars

2   The Launch of the Second Crusade

3   The Siege of Damascus

4   A Kingdom in Crisis

5   The Vizier of Cairo

PART 2: THE AYYUBID DYNASTY

6   The Rise of Salāh al-Dīn

7   The Beginning of the End

8   The Battle of Hattin

9   The Launch of the Third Crusade

10 The Clash of Champions

11 The End of the Third Crusade

PART 3: THE FALL OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

12 The Fifth Crusade and the Capture of Damietta

13 Negotiation and Temporary Success

14 The Final Crusade to Egypt

15 Outremer Destroyed

16 The Last Grand Master

PART 4: TEMPLAR MYTHS AND HOLLYWOOD

17 The Grail and the Templars

18 Templar Occult and the Freemasons

19 Hollywood Templars and Jedi Knights

Conclusion: The Legacy of the Knights Templar

Notes

Bibliography

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to Chris Course for providing me with the maps to use in the book and patiently making the minor changes I requested. I would also like to thank Professor Geraghty for his mentorship and encouragement to continue my research into the Knights Templar. I am grateful to Sarah, who was supportive with flexible working to enable me to research and draft the book.

I would also like to thank my family: first, my parents, Brian and Nicky, sister Felicity and Grandad Doug, who have supported me throughout all my research projects. I would like to offer a special thank you to my wife, Charlotte, and my daughters, who continue to be my inspiration; without their support, the book would not have been possible.

MAPS

INTRODUCTION

THE HOLY LAND BEFORE THE TEMPLARS

The infamous Order of the Knights Templar was established early in the twelfth century but still captures the popular imagination 900 years later. The Knights Templar were formed to patrol the roads of the Holy Land but became a premier military force of the Crusades. The Templars’ abolishment in 1312 has fuelled the continuing presence of myths and false claims, such as links to the occult, the Freemasons and secret treasure. In the modern era, they have been depicted in fiction with contradicting roles, such as guardians of the Holy Grail, undead monsters and knights, both heroic and villainous. The Templars became most known by their association with the nineteenth-century novels of Sir Walter Scott and their part in a centuries-old conspiracy in Dan Brown’s 2003 bestseller The Da Vinci Code.

This book examines the 900-year story of the Knights Templar, examining the Order’s origin, detailing the Templars as an organisation, their increasing influence in the Crusader states and their role in the Crusades. The Knights Templar fought alongside figures such as Richard the Lionheart and St Louis IX and were involved in some of the Crusaders’ most significant victories, such as the Battle of Montgisard, and their most devastating defeats, such as the Battle of Hattin. The Templars held a vast amount of land in Europe before their sudden arrest by King Philip IV in 1307.

To examine the legacy of these warrior monks, this book will look beyond the myths that followed the Templars’ demise and explore how they came to be and how these myths influenced artistic imagination and further embedded them within popular culture through literature, film and even computer games.

For the history of the Knights Templar, this book uses primary sources from both Christian and Muslim chroniclers of the period to attempt to provide a balanced perspective on the Templars. To supplement the primary accounts, this book draws upon the work of other historians’ accounts of the Crusades, which may give this narrative a subtle Western bias. However, this is the story of the Templars and, therefore, their victories and losses will be described as such, but it is without the intention of partiality.

By providing a detailed history of the Templars, this book aims to ascertain the truth behind the myths and perceptions by comparing the fantastical associations with the historical reality. The book will tell the entire 900-year story of the Knights Templar, from the history to the myths that followed and how these are perceived in the modern era through fiction.

In examining the history of the Templars, it is vital to provide the context of not only the First Crusade, which preceded their creation, but also to establish the political make-up of the Holy Land prior to the First Crusade and the radical transformation left in its wake.

BYZANTINE DECLINE AND ISLAMIC DOMINANCE

Throughout almost all of the eleventh century, there were no Latin states in the Holy Land because they were created following the titanic shift in Western and Eastern politics at the end of the eleventh century. This saw European Christians invade the Holy Land as an armed pilgrimage and led to countless deaths and genocidal slaughter.

The war between Christians and Muslims over control of the Holy Land began centuries before the First Crusade. The Byzantines held Jerusalem before the Muslim conquest of the city in AD 638.

Damascus was the first Byzantine city to be lost after the Arabic forces laid siege to it in 634. Despite putting up fierce resistance, the city fell, and the Christian inhabitants were given three days of safe passage, but after the third day passed the escaping Christians were hunted down and killed. Knowing the fate of those at Damascus, Jerusalem resisted, with its defences led by the elderly Greek Orthodox patriarch, Sophronius, and they held out for two years before surrendering due to starvation.

The Christians at Jerusalem did not share the horrific fate of the Damascenes and they were allowed to remain within the city unharmed and their property intact as long as they paid Jizya, a tax for non-Muslims.1 Jerusalem remained under Muslim control for 400 years before the arrival of the First Crusaders, who did not allow the Muslim citizens the same clemency.

By the end of the eleventh century, the Byzantines had been pushed back to Constantinople, having lost their territories in the Holy Land, Syria and almost all of Asia Minor. Following the Muslim conquest of the Holy Land, the Muslim territory would stretch from the Indus River and the borders of China across North Africa and into Spain and southern France.2 The empire would become fragmented and split into independent states.

In 661, following the death of Ali (the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law), power was seized by the Umayyad dynasty, who moved the Muslim capital from Arabia to Damascus. The rise of the Umayyad dynasty saw the emergence of the Shia branch of Islam, which believed that only a descendant of Ali and his wife Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad, could rule as caliph.

In 750, the Umayyads’ rule came to a violent end and another Arab dynasty seized control, the Abbasids. The Abbasids moved the centre of Sunni Islam to Baghdad as the new capital, which would remain the centre of the religious denomination for 500 years.3

Although Spain had been independent from the empire since the eighth century, there was further division when, in 969, a Shi’ite faction known as the Fatimids, who claimed descent from Muhammad’s daughter, took control of north Africa and established a rival caliphate that rejected Sunni Baghdad’s authority. The Fatimids soon captured Jerusalem and Damascus, bringing several coastal territories into the Shi’ite caliphate. Eventually, the rival caliph’s influence would dwindle and become a figurehead, while the actual power was wielded by the lieutenants, the sultan in Baghdad and the vizier in Cairo.4

Despite the continual decline of Byzantine power in Asia Minor and the Holy Land, the tenth century saw the Byzantines recapture lost territory. In 934, Byzantine general John Curcuas captured the city of Melitene, which the Arabs had held since 638. The shocking loss and further Byzantine victories caused an outbreak of violence against Christians, such as the sacking of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday in 937, when the church was looted and set alight. This caused sections of the building to collapse, including the Anastasis that was thought to enclose the Tomb of Christ.5

Throughout much of the tenth century, the Byzantines retook a large number of territories, such as Crete and Cyprus, before capturing the lost coastal territories of Antioch and Latakia and much of northern Syria, eventually retaking Damascus. By the eleventh century, the reinvigorated Byzantines were on the back foot as a new force appeared in the Holy Land, the Seljuq Turks, and their dominance would be one of the catalysts for the First Crusade.

In 1040, the Turks arrived. Nomadic tribesmen from Central Asia and a clan known as the Seljuq adopted Sunni Islam as their religion and pledged allegiance to the Abbasid caliph. The Seljuqs would gain dominance, as by 1045 the warlord Tughril had been appointed Sultan of Baghdad, which not only gave control of Sunni Islam to the Seljuqs, but they soon dominated the region, taking back Damascus and the coastal territories, driving the Fatimids back and retaking Jerusalem.

Following the gains from the Byzantines, a splinter group established an independent sultanate in Asia Minor.6 The power of the Seljuk Empire would be split when the Seljuk Sultan Malik-Shah died in 1092; his sons fought over their inheritance, and Malik-Shah’s brother Tutush seized Syria for himself. After Tutush died in 1095, his sons fought over the succession and took control of Aleppo and Damascus separately.

The state of the Holy Land at the dawn of the First Crusade was not a unified Islamic power, and Sunni Islam was in disarray, while the Fatimids were contending with the appointment of a new vizier following the sudden death of the Fatimid Caliph in 1094 and his vizier a year later. Crusades historian Thomas Ashbridge notes that despite the challenges facing the Muslim states in the Holy Land, there is no evidence that the Latin Christians were aware of this, but the timing was extremely advantageous.7

The catalyst for the launch of the First Crusade was not the loss of Jerusalem, as the Christians had lost control of the city in the seventh century, nor was it due to the suffering of Christians, even though there were cases of violence as mentioned previously. The Christians had been second-class citizens since the seventh century, but they were free to practise their religion as long as they paid the Jizya.

Christians and Muslims had been at war in the Holy Land for hundreds of years, and although there had been outbreaks of violence and intolerance at the end of the eleventh century, there was little indication of the seismic events that would follow.

THE LAUNCH OF THE FIRST CRUSADE

On 27 November 1095, in a field outside Clermont, Pope Urban II delivered a sermon that would change European society and see a mass exodus of Europeans pouring into Asia Minor. The sermon delivered by Urban was the result of months of development as, in March of that year, he received ambassadors from the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I, who sought aid from the European Christians to help repel the Seljuk Turks. Urban may have been moved by Constantinople’s plight, but since becoming pope in 1088 he had worked tirelessly to rebuild the influence of the papacy, so the appeal from Alexius I offered a chance to extend his authority and direct the warring European nobles towards a new goal.

After visiting several monasteries to gather support, in November, Urban held a Great Council at Clermont in France, attended by twelve archbishops, eighty bishops and ninety abbots. After nine days of discussion, Urban delivered the infamous sermon at Clermont to hundreds of spectators.8

Urban spoke of the need to aid the Byzantines and warned that the Turks would invade Europe if nothing were done. Although Fulcher of Chartres’ chronicle was written after the First Crusade, it gives an account of the specifics of Urban’s speech. In the sermon, Urban called on those assembled to carry out genocide against the Muslims and liberate the local Christians, which would quickly descend into acts of violence and mass slaughter against non-Christians. Those taking part in the armed pilgrimage were promised the remission of their sins, with Urban proclaiming:

Those going thither there will be remission of sins if they come to the end of this fettered life while either marching by land or crossing by sea, or in fighting the pagans. This I grant to all who go, through the power vested in me by God.9

Although the Byzantine Emperor had called for aid in pushing back against the Seljuk Turks, retaking Jerusalem soon became the primary goal.

Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy was the first to take the cross, followed by many others, who took a small piece of cloth torn from garments and shaped it into a cross that was fixed to their shoulder. The act of taking the cross is how Urban’s armed pilgrimage came to be known as a crusade. Originally, the First Crusade was known as a journey or pilgrimage. It wasn’t until the end of the twelfth century that the term crucesignatus (‘one signed with the cross’) was used to describe a crusader, with the wars eventually being known by the French term croisade, which meant ‘the way of the cross’.10

Count Raymond of Toulouse was the next significant figure to take the cross, followed by prominent senior nobles from France, western Germany and Italy. Adhemar of Le Puy was appointed the Papal Legate to act as Pope Urban’s representative. However, given the gradual waves of participants, there was no fixed leader for the Crusade. The number of First Crusaders is estimated to have involved between 60,000 and 100,000 European Christians who undertook the journey, of which 7,000 to 10,000 were knights and between 35,000 and 50,000 infantry.11

The other senior leaders of the First Crusade included Bohemond of Taranto and his nephew, the young Tancred of Hauteville. Duke Godfrey of Bouillon and his brother, Baldwin of Boulogne, led a contingent of troops from Lorraine, Lotharingia and Germany. The other prominent leaders were Duke Robert of Normandy, the eldest son of William the Conqueror, Count Stephen of Blois and Count Robert II of Flanders.

However, the First Crusade was not a purely military venture, it was also spiritual, and it involved tens of thousands of non-combatants who took the cross after Urban’s call was echoed across Europe by the bishops in attendance. Urban’s call to retake Jerusalem was so popular that unofficial preachers took up the cause and preached for the Crusade.

The most infamous of these was Peter the Hermit. Peter is described as an austere wanderer with a repellent appearance, but to the poorest, he was regarded as a living saint. Peter soon raised a rabble numbering around 15,000, which was the first wave to reach Asia Minor and became known as the People’s Crusade.12 The rabble was poorly armed and lacked the funds needed to finance the long journey, which demonstrates how Urban’s message captivated those from across the classes of medieval society.

However, the first wave also consisted of fighting men and knights such as Walter Sansavoir. The armies of the First Crusade departed periodically and made their way to Constantinople in their separate hosts.

While en route to Constantinople, the Crusaders carried out atrocities against the Jewish communities in Germany, the most horrific taking place in Worms and Mainz. The acts of antisemitism in relation to the First Crusade began in December 1095 with antisemitic riots in Rouen, and in 1096 the violence spread to the Rhineland at Speyer, Trier, Metz, Regensburg and Cologne.13 An account of the atrocities was written after 1140 by Solomon Bar Simson, a member of the Mainz Jewish community.

In Speyer, the Crusaders killed several members of the Jewish community who refused to convert to Christianity. The Crusaders set upon the Worms Jewish community in their homes, sparing none found within and looting and plundering what they could. Some were temporarily saved by the Bishop of Worms, who sheltered those he could, but ultimately he could not prevent the horde from killing those hiding inside. The account also details how some of the Jews sheltering there killed themselves for fear of the Crusaders’ brutality.14

The leader of this mass murder was Count Emicho of Leiningen, who Solomon Bar Simson describes as ‘the oppressor of all the Jews’ and adds, ‘may his bones be ground to dust between iron millstones’.15 However, it must be mentioned that Godfrey of Bouillon extorted 500 pieces of silver from the Jews of Cologne and Mainz for protection, which he failed to honour.16

Terrified of Emicho’s hordes, the Jewish community of Mainz paid a considerable sum of money to the archbishop to shelter them from the murderous Crusaders. Sadly, he could not protect them; Emicho’s army massacred those sheltered and, as at Worms, entire families committed suicide to escape the Crusaders.17

Crusades historian Hans Mayer proposes that the atrocities carried out by Count Emicho and others were to procure means of finance for their journey to the Holy Land, although such was his reputation for brutality that Emicho’s forces were destroyed at the Hungarian border by the King of Hungary’s army.18 The atrocities committed against the Jewish communities showed the violent nature awoken by Urban’s call and they would be inflicted on the inhabitants of Muslim-controlled cities and, most infamously, at Jerusalem.

After travelling to Constantinople, the first wave of Crusaders, known as the People’s Crusade, reached Asia Minor near Nicaea around 7 August 1096. Here, they committed terrible atrocities against the local populace until they were defeated in battle by a Turkish army in October 1097. Here, Walter Sansavoir met his end, and with the army destroyed, the Turks fell upon the helpless non-combatants at the camp, killing or enslaving them all. The People’s Crusade ended in complete annihilation, but Peter the Hermit was in Constantinople when the massacre occurred and joined the second wave, led by the senior nobles of Europe.19

TO JERUSALEM

The second wave also ventured to the Holy Land via Constantinople, however, the leaders were pressured to swear an oath to Emperor Alexius that all territories captured that the Byzantines had lost to the Turks would be restored to Byzantine control. In February 1097, Godfrey of Bouillon and his army crossed the Gulf of Nicomedia and were joined on the coast of Asia Minor by the other Crusader armies throughout spring and into the summer.

At first, the Crusaders and Byzantine coalition held firm as the city of Nicaea, the capital city of the Seljuk Sultan Kilij Arslan, was captured after a short siege on 18 June. After the ease with which Kilij Arslan had destroyed the People’s Crusade, the sultan underestimated the second wave and was defeated by the Crusaders in a pitched battle before Nicaea on 21 May.

Nicaea was returned to Byzantine control, and the Crusaders were forbidden from entering for fear of looting. Although the emperor gave the leaders generous gifts, despite their oath, they were underwhelmed and wished to receive more spoils.20 Even so, the Crusaders’ mood following the victory at Nicaea was positive, with Stephen of Blois writing to his wife, Adelaide, ‘I tell you, my love, that five weeks after leaving the oft-mentioned Nicaea we will reach Jerusalem if Antioch does not hold us up.’21

The naïve optimism of Stephen of Blois would not last, and the Crusaders had to endure a brutal march through Anatolia to Antioch during the height of the summer with little food or water. On the long march, the Crusaders were attacked by Kilij Arslan, whose forces ambushed them at the Battle of Dorylaeum on 1 July 1097. The Crusader army decisively defeated the sultan and took much plunder to aid with their harsh journey.

This victory for the Crusaders would not be repeated during the Second Crusade, but it opened the way for them to reach Antioch. They arrived before the walled city in October, which stalled the momentum and gains seen since crossing the Gulf of Nicomedia. The sheer size of the walls meant that the Crusaders could not storm them, and scale of the city made it impossible for them to surround it and starve the inhabitants into submission.

The siege of Antioch lasted almost a year, and along with the constant fighting between the Crusaders and the defenders, the Crusaders were pushed to almost starvation. Fulcher of Chartres described how the starving Crusaders were forced to eat the beanstalks, herbs and thistles they found.22

In 1098, an army led by Kerbogha of Mosul was marching on Antioch to destroy the Crusaders before its great walls. At this dire news, Bohemond of Taranto revealed he had reached an agreement with Firouz, a captain of the Antioch guard, to help them climb the walls, but in return Bohemond wanted control of Antioch. The leaders of the Crusade were forced to forsake their vows and promise Bohemond the city. On 3 June, Firouz left rope ladders for a small force of Crusaders to climb and capture the city and slaughter the Turks within.

Although they had captured the city, they found themselves trapped with no food as Kerbogha’s army reached Antioch. Faced with starvation or the sword, the Crusaders attempted a desperate attack on 28 June 1098 at the Battle of Antioch, and they achieved a resounding victory. This unlikely event occurred due to a lack of unity in Kerbogha’s army, which included a coalition of forces from Syria. This led to a disorganised army and needed a unifying leader, but according to the Muslim chronicler Ibn al-Athīr, Kerbogha was not the leader needed, and he had ‘treated the Muslims with such contempt and scorn’.23

The Crusaders saw their victory as a miracle, which coincided with the supposed discovery of the Holy Lance after capturing Antioch. Reputed to be the spear that pierced Christ at the Crucifixion, the alleged lance was found under the Basilica of St Peter by Peter Bartholomew. Historian Thomas Ashbridge proposes that religious devotion played a factor in the victory – a less-devout army might have broken under dire circumstances, but the Crusader army held out with steadfast resolve.24

The Crusaders reached the walls of Jerusalem on 7 June 1099, which was now under the control of the Fatimids, who retook the city from the Seljuks in July 1098. Although the Crusaders were within reach of their goal, they were in a highly vulnerable position. In their haste, they had not taken control of the port of Jaffa and were cut off from any support as they were hundreds of miles from Antioch. The Crusader army had massively dwindled due to disease, starvation and warfare, now numbering around 1,200 knights and 15,000 able-bodied men.

The Fatimid governor, Iftikhar ad-Daulah, was well prepared for the Crusaders’ arrival. He had brought additional troops and reinforced Jerusalem’s defensive walls. He also brought the Muslims from the surrounding villages inside the city and poisoned the wells before expelling the Christians from the city to ensure they could not aid the Crusaders. The governor had prepared Jerusalem well to hold out against the Crusaders while awaiting the arrival of an army from Egypt to finally destroy the Europeans.25

After a week camped outside the city, on 13 June, the Crusaders launched their first attack on the huge walls of Jerusalem via ladders. Although the direct assault failed, the Crusaders’ spirits were lifted on 17 June by the arrival of a fleet of ships from Genoa, who landed at Jaffa unopposed and brought supplies and craftsmen to the siege camp.26 Camped outside the city, the Crusaders were supplied with food but lacked water, so this had to be brought into the camp from miles away.27 The Crusaders could not remain outside the city and needed to capture Jerusalem before a relief army arrived.

On 15 July, Godfrey of Bouillon captured the northern battlements, and the defence collapsed, forcing the Muslim garrison to flee for their lives. After three years of tremendous struggle, the Crusaders had captured Jerusalem, but at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.

After achieving their Holy goal, the Crusaders began to sack the city and unleashed a bloody ferocity upon the inhabitants. No one was spared, and the Crusaders slaughtered through the streets to Solomon’s Temple. Here, Fulcher of Chartres gives a chilling account, writing, ‘Nearly ten thousand were beheaded in this Temple. If you had been there your feet would have been stained to the ankles in the blood of the slain. What shall I say? None of them were left alive. Neither women or children were spared.’28

Pope Urban could not have envisioned the monster he would create following his sermon in 1095, yet four years later, the armed pilgrimage, against overwhelming odds and by causing immeasurable human suffering, liberated the Holy Land for Christianity. What followed was the creation of the Latin Crusader states, known collectively as Outremer, in the newly conquered land; controlling these would require an enormous amount of manpower.

This led to the formation of the Order of the Knights Templar. It is in the context of the suffering and genocide caused by the First Crusade that the Templars must be discussed, as they were created to protect the gains that had been won by mass slaughter.

The remainder of this book examines the history of the Knights Templar and their prominent role in the Crusades. Part 1 examines the Templars’ origin, the organisation and their involvement with politics at the height of the Crusader states. Part 2 visits the rise of Saladin and the Templars’ role in the disasters that befell the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Part 3 analyses the loss of the Crusader states and the shadowy nature that led to the demise of the Templars. The final section explores various articles of popular fiction such as Hollywood films, literature, and even Star Wars, to determine how the Templar myths such as the Holy Grail, their role in the Freemasons and the occult have flourished for centuries after the Order’s abolishment.

PART 1

THE CRUSADER STATES OF OUTREMER

1

THE CRUSADERS AND THE ORIGIN OF THE TEMPLARS

OUTREMER IS BORN

On 15 July 1099, the city of Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders. Two days after the massacre of the city’s population, the leaders of the First Crusade met to elect a new King of Jerusalem.

There would be three claimants to the rule of Jerusalem before the end of the next year: Godfrey, Baldwin and Daimbert. Initially, and after days of deliberation, the crown was offered to French Duke Godfrey of Bouillon, who accepted the honour but refused the title of king, preferring to be Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri (the Defender of the Holy Sepulchre).

However, Godfrey was dead within a year, succumbing to an illness akin to typhoid in July 1100.1 His successor would be his younger brother, Baldwin of Boulogne, who was currently the count in the newly acquired territory of Edessa. He would not be so shy about the title king, becoming King Baldwin I. Unfortunately, a coronation would have to wait – Jerusalem’s new king would not be crowned until Christmas Day, as another claimed rulership of the holy city.

The Patriarch of Jerusalem, Daimbert of Pisa, had his own vision for the new Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem as an ecclesiastical state with the Patriarch (himself) as head of state. Daimbert’s ambition would fail though, because he was absent from Godfrey during his final moments, besieging the port of Haifa with Tancred of Hauteville, who became Prince of Galilee after Jerusalem’s conquest. He had failed to seize the initiative.

Daimbert’s absence enabled Baldwin’s supporters to occupy the Tower of David, the city’s key fortification, then send messengers to Baldwin at Edessa. By September, the news had reached Baldwin, who was in his thirties, and although he was an ambitious man, he was reportedly grieved at the death of his brother but celebrated the news of his inheritance.2

In October, Baldwin set out south for Jerusalem with a force numbering almost 1,000, consisting of 700 infantry and 200 knights.3 The future king sent a trusted knight on ahead to liaise with his allies in the Tower of David and arrange for Baldwin’s arrival in early November to be met with crowds of cheering Christians. There could be no doubt who was to be Jerusalem’s next ruler.

Baldwin granted the County of Edessa to his cousin, Baldwin of Bourcq, and was crowned as the first King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem on 25 December 1100 by none other than Daimbert himself. With his dream of Jerusalem as an ecclesiastical state unfulfilled, Daimbert most likely chose to serve in order to keep his position as the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

With Baldwin I’s coronation, the threat of civil war was averted. Tancred left the region shortly after in early 1101 to rule Antioch as regent during his uncle Bohemond’s imprisonment (he was captured while on an expedition against the Danishmend Turks). Daimbert would lose his position that year as Patriarch after he was caught embezzling funds sent for use in defending the new Crusader lands.

Jerusalem became the capital city of the newly created Kingdom of Jerusalem. This territory resembled the extent of modern-day Israel and Palestine, including across from the eastern shore of the River Jordan, stretching down from southern Lebanon to south-western Syria. At the border to the north of the kingdom was Beirut and Gaza sat to the south, with the royal-controlled cities of Jerusalem, Acre and Tyre somewhat spread out as the spine of the kingdom. The cities and castles were mostly populated by the new immigrants from Europe, while the population of the surrounding countryside was made up of the native Syrians who were both Christian and Muslim.4

The Kingdom of Jerusalem was administered with the feudalistic model used in Europe. The kingdom was fragmented into lordships that varied in size from the smaller territory lordship of Ibelin in the east of Jerusalem to the larger lordships, such as Sidon, in the north. The lords of these territories were the king’s vassals and, as tenants-in-chief, were obligated to provide military service. However, the lords had control over the administration of their lands and jurisdiction over their vassals, who were known as rear-vassals.5

To the north of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were several newly created Crusader feudal states. They consisted of two Latin Christian territories formed in 1098, prior to the capture of Jerusalem – the Principality of Antioch and the County of Edessa. The Principality of Antioch was a coastal territory around the north-eastern edge of the Mediterranean. The principality was established after the city fell to the First Crusaders, with Bohemond, the Norman Prince of Taranto, becoming the first Prince of Antioch. The County of Edessa was east of Antioch. Unlike the other Crusader states, it was landlocked, with half of its territory east of the Euphrates, making the county isolated and vulnerable.

The territory became part of the Crusader states when the future King of Jerusalem, Baldwin of Boulogne, married Arda of Armenia (future first Queen of Jerusalem) and became the heir to her father, Lord Thoros of Edessa. How Baldwin ascended to the lordship is open to debate, with claims that he had a hand in his father-in-law’s murder when the unpopular lord was thrown from the battlements by a ferocious mob.6 Either way, Baldwin succeeded his father-in-law as ruler of Edessa in March 1098 and established the Crusader state with the city of Edessa as the new count’s seat.

The County of Tripoli was the smallest of the Crusader states, formed after years of campaigning from 1102 by the First Crusader Raymond of Toulouse, who died in 1105. In 1109, the city of Tripoli fell and Raymond’s son, Bertrand of Toulouse, became the first count of the newly conquered territory. The tiny state was located on the edge of the Mediterranean, sandwiched between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Principality of Antioch.

DANGER ON THE ROADS

With their crusading vows fulfilled, most of the First Crusaders returned home to Europe, leaving behind the new European states carved out in the Holy Land. Although the Crusaders had successfully captured these new Christian states, it would still require significant manpower to hold on to them successfully. With a lack of fighting men immigrating from Europe, the towns and cities were fortified with the remaining Christian forces, leaving the lands outside the settlements vulnerable and impossible to control. Furthermore, the roads outside these Christian strongholds were hazardous and deadly for many pilgrims and travellers, who were vulnerable to bandits and murderers.

Saewulf of Canterbury describes the dangers and horrors seen on the roads of Outremer during his pilgrimage in 1102. On the mountain road journey to Jerusalem, Saewulf claimed, ‘the Saracens, who are continually plotting an ambush against Christians, were hiding in the caves of the hills and among rocky caverns’. Saewulf recorded the grizzly details of the unfortunate travellers whose bodies were abandoned on the road:

Anyone who has taken that road can see how many human bodies there are in the road and next to the road, and there are countless corpses which have been torn up by wild beasts. It might be questioned why so many Christian corpses should lie there unburied, but it is in fact no surprise. There is little soil there, and the rocks are not easy to move. Even if the soil were there, who would be stupid enough to leave his brethren and be alone digging a grave! Anybody who did this would dig a grave not for his fellow Christian but for himself!7

Daniel, a Russian abbot, described the dangers of travelling the Holy Land on a pilgrimage. When near the town of Basham in Galilee, he wrote, ‘This place is terrible and difficult of access for here live fierce pagan Saracens who attack travellers at the fords on these rivers.’8

The most shocking attack on pilgrims came in 1119, during Easter, when armed Fatimids from Ascalon attacked a huge party of 700 Christian men and women. The Christians had planned to venture from Jerusalem to the baptismal site of Jesus Christ on the River Jordan, when they were set upon, and 300 pilgrims were killed, with sixty captured to be sold into slavery.9

The massacre at Easter was the third in a triumvirate of disasters to befall the Christian states at the end of the decade. The first came in the death of King Baldwin I, who died in 1118 while campaigning against the Fatimids in north-eastern Egypt. Jerusalem’s first king had died from an infection in an old wound that had never truly healed. The king’s body was taken to Jerusalem to be buried next to his brother, Godfrey.

Baldwin I died without an heir, and although he had a younger brother, Eustace of Boulogne, bringing Eustace from Europe would take time and potentially leave the kingdom vulnerable to attack. The second prominent candidate was Baldwin’s cousin, Baldwin of Bourcq, who had succeeded Baldwin I as Count of Edessa. He accepted the offer and declared Jocelyn of Courtenay (who supported the choice of Baldwin as king) to succeed him as Count of Edessa.

The second disaster was that the Principality of Antioch suffered a heavy defeat in a battle that stripped the Crusader state of its military strength.

THE FIELD OF BLOOD

The first Prince of Antioch and leader of the First Crusade, Bohemond I, died in 1111. He was succeeded by his infant son, Bohemond II, with his uncle Tancred, the Prince of Galilee and veteran of the First Crusade, acting as Regent of Antioch. Tancred died in a typhoid epidemic in 1112, having named his cousin Roger of Salerno as successor to the regency of the principality.

The Principality of Antioch was in a constant state of war with nearby Aleppo and initially the principality gained the upper hand following Roger’s victory over General Bursuq ibn Bursuq at the Battle of Sarmin in 1115. For the battle, Roger’s troops allied with Count Baldwin’s forces from Edessa and the future King Baldwin II carried out a surprise attack on the Bursuq army, which was camped near Sarmin. Although the Frankish losses were light, the number of Turkish casualties was estimated at 3,000.

The Frankish victory would give the region a short period of stability. Unfortunately, this ended in June 1119 when Roger and the entire Antioch army was massacred at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis (Latin for the ‘Field of Blood’).

Four years after the victory at Battle of Sarmin, the principality was invaded by the Atabeg Llghazi, who took control of Aleppo in 1117; an attack launched after Roger captured the city of Azaz in 1118. However, the capture of Azaz left Aleppo vulnerable, and Llghazi invaded the principality in 1119 with a large army of at least 10,000.10

Perhaps Roger was overconfident after his victory in 1115. He chose not to wait for reinforcements from the now King Baldwin II and instead left the relative safety of the fortress at Artah to pursue the invading army. Roger rode out with a force of 700 knights and 3,000 infantry troops.11

However, on 27 June, the Frankish troops woke to find that Llghazi’s larger army had surrounded their camp. In the battle that followed, despite Roger trying to mount a desperate defence, the outnumbered Franks were slaughtered, Roger himself was killed and the few who were taken prisoner were later executed.

Despite the loss of Antioch’s army, Llghazi hesitated and would later retreat from the forces of King Baldwin II (who had taken over as regent) at the Battle of Hab in August. There would be a greater misfortune for the principality when Prince Bohemond II, who had reached his early twenties, was killed in 1130 while raiding Cilicia. Bohemond II had been married to Baldwin II’s daughter, Alice, and his sudden death left their infant daughter Constance as the rightful heir to the principality.

NINE FRENCH KNIGHTS

The creation of the Templars resulted from the significant setbacks Outremer faced after the veterans of the First Crusade returned to Europe and created a serious lack of manpower. The Frankish leaders were short on soldiers to protect the Crusader states’ vulnerable borders. But, as the Easter massacre showed, neither could they provide troops to protect the travellers on roads inside their territories. It was out of this need to guard the roads of Outremer that a revolutionary form of knighthood was born. This comprised knights who would live as monks and dedicate themselves to protecting civilians travelling the dangerous roads of these new Christian territories in the Holy Land.

A group of nine French knights had come to Jerusalem intending to live a monastic lifestyle to atone for their sins. William of Tyre gave an account of the Templars’ origin in his chronicle Historia rerum partibus transmarinis gestarum (A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea) in the late twelfth century. Tyre wrote that in the year 1119:

Some noblemen of knightly rank, devoted to God, pious and God fearing, placed themselves in the hands of the lord patriarch for the service of Christ, professing the wish to live perpetually in the manner of regular canons in chastity, and obedience, without personal belongings. The leading and most eminent of these men were the venerable Hugh de Payns [Hugues de Paynes] and Godfrey de Saint Omer. As they had neither church nor fixed abode, the king gave them a temporary home in his palace which was on the south side of the Temple of the Lord, […] Their main duty, imposed on them by the patriarch and the other bishops for the remission of their sins, was that they should maintain the safety of the roads and the highways to the best of their ability, for the benefit of pilgrims in particular, against attacks of bandits and marauders.12

King Baldwin proposed this revolutionary monastic lifestyle to Hugues and his companions in this radical format.

The new order of knights was formed on Christmas Day 1119, with Hugues de Paynes and the other knights taking their vows in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The order was called the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ. They were officially recognised in January 1120 when the nine Knights of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ were introduced to an assembly of Frankish leaders in Nablus. Due to their vows of poverty, they had relinquished all they owned and had to rely on donations.

Hugues was the first grand master of the Templars and came from Payns, a town in the county of Champagne in France. Before taking his vows in Jerusalem, he served as a knight in the company of Hugh, Count of Champagne. The second most prominent member of the Templar founders was Godfrey de Saint Omer, a Flemish knight. Although he was not the grand master, his mention in William of Tyre’s account of the origin suggests his prominence in the order’s founding.

Although in 1120 the order attracted the interest of Fulk V, Count of Anjou, on his visit to the Holy Land and he gifted them an annual revenue, they still were considerably poor and had no distinct uniform but wore donated clothes.13 The original seal of the order exemplified this vow of poverty as it depicted two knights riding a single horse.

It was this poverty that led to the order’s change of name when Baldwin II gave them quarters in his palace in Jerusalem. This was the al-Aqsa Mosque, located in the south-east of the city, close to the Tanners Gate. Bernard of Clairvaux describes the headquarters, writing, ‘The façade of the temple is decorated, but with arms not jewels, and in lieu of ancient crowns of gold are hung shields. In place of candelabras, censors, and ewers are bridles, saddles, and lances.’14 The section that the order was using as its headquarters was supposed to have been built upon the foundations of the Temple of Solomon, which led to the order becoming known as the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon – eventually the Knights Templar.

THE COUNCIL OF TROYES AND THE LATIN RULE

The Knights Templar did not see significant growth or investment until the end of the decade, when Hugues had the opportunity to travel to Europe to raise the order’s profile and attract donations and recruits.

The survival of the Crusader states was always of the utmost importance, so first Baldwin II needed to secure the future of his lineage. As he had no sons but four daughters, the Kingdom of Jerusalem would adopt cognatic succession, which meant that all blood relatives could inherit, in contrast to the more conventional agnatic succession when only male heirs had a claim.15 The king was to be succeeded by his eldest daughter Melisende, and in 1127, Baldwin II sent an embassy to France to offer Melisende’s hand to Count Fulk of Anjou. Hugues and Godfrey were part of the party as this was an opportunity to promote the Templars to Europe’s most prominent noblemen.

The king’s objectives were successful. The Templars were given many donations and Fulk married Melisende in 1129, a union that would give birth to the future King of Jerusalem, Baldwin III. Fulk and Melisende would be co-rulers until Baldwin came of age.

The senior Templars’ promotional tour of Europe proved fruitful. This new type of knighthood found validation among the European nobility and they were gifted land, money, horses and equipment. Hugues de Paynes visited the court of Henry I of England in 1128, where he was granted gifts of money. It was then that Hugues established the first Templar house in London on Chancery Lane, before travelling to Scotland to receive yet more generous donations.16

Hugues’ and Godfrey’s most significant gain came from the Council of Troyes in January 1129. The council convened to grant official monastic recognition to the Knights Templar and was hosted by Count Hugh of Champagne, whom Hugues de Paynes had served as a knight. Also in attendance was the Papal Legate, Cardinal Bishop Matthew, two archbishops and several abbots. Among them was Bernard of Clairvaux, who promoted the Templars by writing the influential piece In Praise of the New Knighthood and would one day be a prominent preacher of the Second Crusade.

At the council, Hugues de Paynes told the religious leaders the story of the Templars’ origin and their mission in the Holy Land, asking for the assembly to grant them an official habit for their dual life as monk-knight, as well as a Rule so that they could live as other monks did in their day-to-day life. This Rule would become known as the Primitive Rule – as the Rule would later be greatly expanded.

The Primitive Rule required the Templars to attend masses, eat communal meals and wear simple clothing, and contact with women would be forbidden. Originally, it is possible there were women members of the Templars, but the Rule put an end to that. Bernard felt that women members were a threat to the men’s ‘flower of chastity’ and it was ‘dangerous to add more sisters to the order because the ancient enemy has expelled many men from the straight path of paradise on account of their consorting with women’.17

The Rule outlined how the Templars would dress, explaining that Templar brothers were to wear a white habit, similar to the Cistercian monks (the red cross would come later), symbolising their purity. In addition, their sergeants and servants were required to wear a black or brown cloak and it was only the knights themselves who could don the white cloak.18 Shoelaces and pointed shoes were forbidden because it was believed that they were associated with paganism. However, a brother was entitled to wear a linen shirt from Easter to All Saints in the intense heat of the Holy Land, should a brother request it.19

The Rule offers great insight into how the Templar knights lived their lives while carrying out their duties. Templar knights were provided with three horses each and a squire to assist them, but they were forbidden from having gold, silver or anything ornate on their bridles, stirrups or spurs. There was an exception, though – if such items were given in charity and any gold was tarnished so that the brother took no pride in such ornate equipment, it would be permitted.20 The ownership of horses and armour remained under the house commander’s control. He could reissue the horse and equipment to any serving brother, and the brother being so relieved was expected to avoid being angry as the Rule explained that this would be going against God.21

The everyday life of the Templar knights was highly controlled. For example, they were forbidden from keeping a lockable purse or bag, although this did not apply to the senior members, such as house commanders or masters. Templar brothers were not allowed to receive any letters sent to them, even if it was from their own family. It was down to the master or house commander to decide if the brother should have the letter read to him.22

The Rule gave strict rules for mealtimes: brothers were to eat together but must do so in silence while the Bible was read aloud. At the end of the meal, the brother must give thanks to God, but it must be given in silence. Even though the brothers lived as monks, they also carried out martial duties, and therefore the Templar brothers could eat red meat three times a week to sustain them for the physical toll their knightly duties took, whereas normally a monk was permitted only fish and eggs.23

The Templar brothers were also expected to retire to their sleeping quarters in silence. After Compline (end-of-day prayers), the brothers were expected to go to bed without speaking unless there was an emergency or serious problem that needed to be dealt with before the morning; even then, there must be no idle chat or laughter.24

Hugues de Paynes returned to the Holy Land in 1131 with donations, manpower and a Latin Rule for the Templar members to live by. The revolutionary Templar knighthood was now firmly established in both the Holy Land and Europe.

IN PRAISE OF THE NEW KNIGHTHOOD

To further promote the Knights Templar in Europe, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote a letter to Hugues de Paynes in 1135 as a model for current members, to attract potential members and as a means to justify the new type of order of warrior monks within a Christian context.25 In it, Bernard promotes the Templars as a new type of knighthood, exemplifying the morality of those knights taking up arms for the Templar cause and the piety of the life of a Templar.

He begins by exclaiming that the Templars are a new type of knightly order that was previously unknown, a knighthood that fights in ‘two wars, one against adversaries of flesh and blood, and another against a spiritual army of wickedness in the heavens’.26 He then points to the ethics of knightly combat, arguing that knights who kill their enemies are sinners. Speaking to the knightly class, Bernard proposes that ‘as worldly knights, you must have feared that the death of an enemy in the flesh should cause the death of your soul’, but even killing with justification in self-defence ‘is not good, since the death of the body is a lesser evil than death of the soul’ as ‘the soul that sins will die’.27

The letter poses the question to the knightly class: what can guilty knights do about their eternal soul after so much violence? The answer he gives is for them to join the Templars because, as a Templar, ‘either to bring about death, or to die for Christ, you have not sin but an abundant right to glory’. Bernard argues that fighting for the Templars sidesteps the sinful dilemma of killing in warfare – if a knight serving Christ ‘kills wicked men, he is not a murderer under these circumstances. I say that he is murderer of wickedness and a champion of Christ.’28

Bernard then praises the pious lifestyle of the Templar brothers, with the letter echoing the conduct laid out in the Rule. He writes, ‘When they are not on duty, they eat their bread with care, repair either their armour or their torn vestments, or put order to the disordered,’ and highlights the recreational activities that are abhorrent to the Templar brothers, which include gaming, gambling, jousting, jesters and falconry.29 Bernard’s examples of Templar daily activities and those they do not participate in gives insight into the hard work that was the daily life of a Templar knight.

Hugues de Paynes, the first grand master and founder of the Knights Templar, died in 1136. The end of his leadership would also see the end to Hugues’ vision of a pious knighthood that protected Christian pilgrims, and soon the order would be escorting Crusader armies across the Holy Land, although the Templars still protected pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem, as the Commander of Jerusalem dedicated ten knights to this duty.30

The order greatly expanded under the leadership of Grand Master Robert of Craon. To increase the Templars’ influence and their physical and financial strength, he sought closer ties with the papacy, and in 1139 Pope Innocent showed his support for the Templars with the bull, Omne datum optimum. This declaration meant that priests could join the Templars as Templar chaplains. The chaplain could hear their brothers’ confessions and absolve sins.

Omne datum optimum put the Templar order under the direct control of the papacy, meaning that they were no longer under the influence of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, before whom the order had previously taken their vows. The declaration gave the Knights Templar the total autonomy needed to control their international lands and houses.

The Templars’ gradual refocusing away from policing the roads to military campaigns is evident in the later expansion to the Primitive Rule, the Hierarchical Statutes, written in 1165.31 These detailed the hierarchal ranks with the order as well as its military protocols.

The grand master was the most senior figure. The seneschal was the second in command; he carried the order’s battle standard. Third in command was the marshal, who commanded the Templars’ military. The Commander of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was the order’s treasurer. Then there was the draper, a senior official in charge of clothing and linen to ensure that expectations for dress were upheld. This was an important position in the order, according to the Rule, ‘After the Master and the Marshal, the Draper is superior to all the other brothers’.32

Below these offices were the regional commanders: Commander of the City of Jerusalem, Commander of the Land of Antioch and Commander of the Land of Tripoli. Then there were the regional masters, who managed the endeavours of these areas, followed by the Commanders of the Houses, who manage the order’s farms, houses and castles in the territories overseen by the regional masters.33

The long list of ranks demonstrates the growth of the order from Hugues de Paynes’ vision of pilgrim protectors to depict a transnational military power. This would soon take centre stage in the Crusader campaigns and become a vital martial presence in the Holy Land. The Crusader territories would soon need the Templars’ greater military strength because in 1144, Edessa, the first Crusader state, had fallen to the Seljuk atabeg, Zengi.

2

THE LAUNCH OF THE SECOND CRUSADE

THE RULE OF THE REGENCY

In August 1131, Jerusalem’s King Baldwin II - the man who was instrumental to the founding of the Templars – died. Twelfth Century historian Ibn al-Qalānisi described the late king as ‘an old man, rich in experiences and inured to every trial and hardship of life’. He was critical of Baldwin’s successor, however, writing, ‘He was succeeded by a man who lacked his good sense and gift for kingship.’1

Nevertheless, the late king’s wishes for his succession were to be followed and his son-in-law, Fulk V of Anjou, and his eldest daughter, Melisende, were to succeed until their son, also Baldwin, came of age. However, on his deathbed, Baldwin II declared that his 2-year-old grandson was also named in the succession,2