First Hospital at Jerusalem--Church of Santa Maria de
Latina--Hospital of St. John--The Hospitallers--Origin of the
Templars--Their original Poverty--They acquire Consideration--St.
Bernard--His Character of the Templars--The Order approved of and
confirmed by the Council of Troyes--Proofs of the Esteem in which
they were held.
In consequence of the resort of pilgrims and traders from the West to
Jerusalem it had been found necessary to build there, with the consent
of the Saracens, _hospitia_, or places of entertainment for them during
their abode in the holy city. For they could not, consistently with the
religious animosity which prevailed between them and the Moslems, seek
the hospitality of these last, and the Christians of the Greek church
who dwelt in the Holy City, besides that they had no very friendly
feeling towards their Catholic brethren, were loth to admit them into
their houses, on account of the imprudent language and indecorous acts
in which they were too frequently in the habit of indulging, and which
were so likely to compromise their hosts with their Saracen lords.
Accordingly the monk Bernard, who visited Jerusalem in the year 870,
found there, in the valley of Jehoshaphat, near the church of the Holy
Virgin, a hospital consisting of twelve mansions, for western pilgrims,
which was in the possession of some gardens, vineyards, and corn-fields.
It had also a good collection of books, the gift of Charlemagne. There
was a market held in front of it, which was much resorted to, and every
dealer paid two pieces of gold to the overseer for permission to have a
stand there.
In the 11th century, when the ardour of pilgrimage was inflamed anew,
there was a hospital within the walls of Jerusalem for the use of the
Latin pilgrims, which had been erected by Italian traders, chiefly of
Amalfi. Near this hospital, and within a stone's cast of the church of
the Holy Sepulchre, they erected, with the permission of the Egyptian
khalif, a church dedicated to the Holy Virgin, which was usually called
Sta. Maria de Latina. In this hospital abode an abbot and a good number
of monks, who were of the Latin church, and followed the rule of St.
Benedict. They devoted themselves to the reception and entertainment of
pilgrims, and gave alms to those who were poor, or had been rifled by
robbers, to enable them to pay the tax required by the Moslems for
permission to visit the holy places. When the number of the pilgrims
became so great that the hospital was incapable of receiving them all,
the monks raised another _hospitium_ close by their church, with a
chapel dedicated to a canonized patriarch of Alexandria, named St. John
Eleemon, or the Compassionate. This new hospital had no income of its
own; the monks and the pilgrims whom they received derived their support
from the bounty of the abbot of the convent of the Holy Virgin, or from
the alms of pious Christians.
At the time when the army of the crusaders appeared before the walls of
Jerusalem the Hospital of St. John was presided over by Gerard, a native
of Provence, a man of great uprightness and of exemplary piety. His
benevolence was of a truly Christian character, and far transcended that
of his age in general; for during the period of the siege he relieved
all who applied to him for succour, and not merely did the schismatic
Greek share his bounty, even the unbelieving Moslem was not repelled
when he implored his aid. When the city was taken, numbers of the
wounded pilgrims were received, and their wounds tended in the hospital
of St. John, and the pious Duke Godfrey, on visiting them some days
afterwards, heard nothing but the praises of the good Gerard and his
monks.
Emboldened by the universal favour which they enjoyed, Gerard and his
companions expressed their wish to separate themselves from the
monastery of Sta. Maria de Latina, and pursue their works of charity
alone and independently. Their desire met no opposition: they drew up a
rule for themselves, to which they made a vow of obedience in presence
of the patriarch, and assumed as their dress a black mantle with a white
cross on the breast. The humility of these Hospitallers was extreme.
They styled the poor and the sick their lords and themselves their
servants; to them they were liberal and compassionate, to themselves
rigid and austere. The finest flour went to compose the food which they
gave to the sick and poor; what remained after they were satisfied,
mingled with clay, was the repast of the monks.
As long as the brotherhood were poor they continued in obedience to the
abbot of Sta. Maria de Latina, and also paid tithes to the patriarch.
But a tide of wealth soon began to flow in upon them. Duke Godfrey,
enamoured of their virtue, bestowed on them his lordship of Montboire,
in Brabant, with all its appurtenances; and his brother and successor,
Baldwin, gave them a share of all the booty taken from the infidels.
These examples were followed by other Christian princes; so that within
the space of a very few years the Hospital of St. John was in possession
of numerous manors both in the East and in Europe, which were placed
under the management of members of their society. The Hospitallers now
coveted a total remission of all the burdens to which they were subject,
and they found no difficulty in obtaining all that they desired. Pope
Paschal II., in the year 1113, confirmed their rule, gave them
permission, on the death of Gerard, to elect their own head, without the
interference of any temporal or spiritual power whatever, freed them
from the obligation of paying tithes to the patriarch, and confirmed all
the donations made or to be made to them. The brotherhood of the
Hospital was now greatly advanced in consideration, and reckoned among
its members many gallant knights, who laid aside their arms, and devoted
themselves to the humble office of ministering to the sick and needy.
The worthy Gerard died in the same year with King Baldwin I. (1118), and
Raymond Dupuy, a knight of Dauphine, who had become a brother of the
order, was unanimously elected to succeed him in his office. Raymond,
who was a man of great vigour and capacity, drew up a series of rules
for the direction of the society, adapted to its present state of
consequence and extent. From these rules it appears that the order of
St. John admitted both the clergy and the laity among its members, and
that both were alike bound to yield the most implicit obedience to the
commands of their superior. Whether Raymond had any ulterior views is
uncertain, but in the regulations which he made we cannot discern any
traces of the spirit which afterwards animated the order of St. John.
Just, however, as Raymond had completed his regulations there sprang up
a new society, with different maxims, whose example that of St. John
found itself afterwards obliged to adopt and follow. The Holy Land was
at that time in a very disturbed and unquiet state; the Egyptian power
pressed it on the south, the Turkish on the north and east; the Arab
tribes indulged in their usual predatory habits, and infested it with
hostile incursions; the Mussulman inhabitants were still numerous; the
Syrian Christians were ill affected towards the Latins, from whom they
frequently experienced the grossest ill-treatment; the Latins were few
and scattered. Hence the pilgrim was exposed to numerous dangers; peril
beset him on his way from the port at which he landed to the Holy City,
and new perils awaited him when he visited the banks of the Jordan, or
went to pluck his branch of consecrated palm in the gardens of Jericho.
Many a pilgrim had lost his life on these occasions.
Viewing these evils, nine valiant and pious knights resolved to form
themselves into an association which should unite the characters of the
monk and the knight, by devoting themselves to a life of chastity and
piety at the tomb of the Saviour, and by employing their swords in the
protection of the pilgrims on their visits to the holy places. They
selected as their patroness the sweet Mother of God (_La doce Mere de
Dieu_), and their resolution, according so perfectly with the spirit of
the Crusades, which combined piety and valour, gained at once the warm
approbation of the king and the patriarch. In the presence of the latter
they took the three ordinary vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience,
and a fourth of fighting incessantly in the cause of pilgrims and the
Holy Land against the heathen. They bound themselves to live according
to the rule of the canons of St. Augustine, and elected as their first
master Hugh de Payens. The king, Baldwin II., assigned them a portion of
his palace for their abode, and he and his barons contributed to their
support. As the palace stood close by the church and convent of the
Temple, the abbot and canons gave them a street leading from it to the
palace, for keeping their magazines and equipments in, and hence they
styled themselves the Soldiery of the Temple (_Militia Templi_), and
Templars. They attracted such immediate consideration, owing in great
part, no doubt, to the novelty of their plan, that the very year after
their establishment (1120), Fulk, Count of Anjou, who was come on
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, joined their society as a married brother, and
on his return home annually remitted them thirty pounds of silver in
furtherance of their pious objects, and the example of the Count of
Anjou was followed by several other princes and nobles of the West.
The English historian, Brompton, who wrote in the 12th century, asserts
that the founders of the order of the Temple had originally been members
of that of St. John. We know not what degree of credit this may be
entitled to[70], but it is certain that there had been as yet nothing of
a military character in this last, and that its assumption of such a
character was an imitation of the society of the Temple; for, urged by
the praise which they saw lavished on the Templars for their meritorious
conduct, the Hospitallers resolved to add the task of protecting to that
of tending and relieving pilgrims, and such of their members as were
knights resumed their arms, joyful to employ them once more in the cause
of God. The amplitude of their revenues enabled them to take a number of
knights and footmen into their pay--a practice in which they had
probably been preceded by the Templars, who thus employed the money
which was remitted to them from Europe. But during the lifetime of
Raymond Dupuy the order of the Hospital did not become completely a
military one; he always bore the simple title of director
(_procurator_) of the Hospital, and it was not till some time afterwards
that the head of the society was, like that of the Templars, styled
master, and led its troops to battle. At all times the tendence of the
poor and the sick formed a part of the duties of the brethren of the
Hospital, and this was always a marked distinction between them and the
rival order of the Temple, whose only task was that of fighting against
the infidels.
[Footnote 70: The other writers of that century agree in the account
given above. Brompton's authority has been preferred by some modern
writers, who probably wished to pay their court to the order of Malta.]
[Illustration]
During the first nine years which elapsed after the institution of their
order the knights of the Temple lived in poverty, religiously devoting
all the money which was sent to them from Europe to the advantage of the
Holy Land, and the service of pilgrims. They had no peculiar habit,
their raiment was such as the charity of the faithful bestowed upon
them; and though knights, and engaged in constant warfare against the
infidels, their poverty and moderation were such that Hugh des Payens
and his companion, Godfrey, of St. Omer, had but one war-horse between
them--a circumstance which they afterwards, in their brilliant period,
commemorated by their seal, which represented two knights mounted on the
one horse, a device chosen with a view to inculcating humility on the
brethren, now beginning to wax haughty and insolent.
A chief cause of the extraordinary success of the first Crusaders had
been the want of union among their enemies. The Saracens and Turks
mutually hated each other, and would not combine for a common object,
and the Turks were, moreover, at enmity among themselves, and one prince
frequently allied himself with the Christians against another. But they
were now beginning to perceive the necessity of union, and were becoming
every day more formidable to their Christian neighbours. King Baldwin
II., who had been a prisoner in their hands, made every effort when he
had obtained his freedom to strengthen his kingdom, and, among other
means for this purpose, he resolved to gain for the Templars, whose
valour, humility, and single-mindedness were the theme of general
applause, additional consideration, by obtaining from the Holy Father
the confirmation of their order. With this view he despatched, in the
year 1127, two of their members, named Andreas and Gundemar, to Rome,
with this request to the Pope, to whom they were also to make a strong
representation of the perilous state of the Holy Land. The king,
moreover, furnished them with a letter of recommendation to St. Bernard,
Abbot of Clairvaux, whose influence was then all-powerful in the
Christian world, and who was nephew of the envoy Andreas. Shortly
afterwards Hugh de Payens himself arrived in Europe with five others of
the brethren.
Nothing could be more advantageous to the new order than the favour and
countenance of the illustrious Abbot of Clairvaux, who had been for some
time past an admirer of its objects and deeds. Three years before this
time he had written a letter to the Count of Champagne, who had entered
the order of the Templars, praising the act as one of eminent merit in
the sight of God. He now, on occasion of the visit of the Master[71],
wrote, at his request, an eloquent work, exhorting the brethren of the
new order to persevere in their toilsome but highly laudable task of
fighting against the tyranny of the heathens, and commending their piety
to the attention of all the faithful, setting in strong opposition to
the luxury of the knights of his time the modesty and simplicity of
these holy warriors. He extolled the unlimited obedience of the Templars
to their Master, both at home and in the field. "They go and come," says
he, "at a sign from their Master; they wear the clothing which he gives
them, and ask neither food nor clothing from any one else; they live
cheerfully and temperately together, without wives and children, and,
that nothing may be wanting for evangelical perfection, without
property, in one house, endeavouring to preserve the unity of the spirit
in the bond of peace, so that one heart and one soul would appear to
dwell in them all. They never sit idle, or go about gaping alter news.
When they are resting from warfare against the infidels, a thing which
rarely occurs, not to eat the bread of idleness, they employ themselves
in repairing their clothes and arms, or do something which the command
of the Master or the common need enjoins. There is with them no respect
of persons; the best, not the noblest, are the most highly regarded;
they endeavour to anticipate one another in respect and to lighten each
other's burdens. No unseemly word or light mocking, no murmur or
immoderate laughter, is let to pass unreproved, if any one should allow
himself to indulge in such. They avoid games of chess and tables; they
are adverse to the chase, and equally so to hawking, in which others so
much delight. They hate all jugglers and mountebanks, all wanton songs
and plays, as vanities and follies of this world. They cut their hair in
obedience to these words of the apostle, 'it is not seemly in a man to
have long hair;' no one ever sees them dressed out; they are seldom ever
washed; they are mostly to be seen with disordered hair, and covered
with dust, brown from their corslets and the heat of the sun. When they
go forth to war they arm themselves within with faith, without with
iron, but never adorn themselves with gold, wishing to excite fear in
the enemy, and not the desire of booty. They delight in horses which are
strong and swift, not in such as are handsomely marked and richly
caparisoned, wishing to inspire terror rather than admiration. They go
not impetuously and headlong into battle, but with care and foresight,
peacefully, as the true children of Israel. But as soon as the fight has
begun, then they rush without delay on the foes, esteeming them but as
sheep; and know no fear, even though they should be few, relying on the
aid of the Lord of Sabaoth. Hence one of them has often put a thousand,
and two of them ten thousand, to flight. Thus they are, in union
strange, at the same time gentler than lambs and grimmer than lions, so
that one may doubt whether to call them monks or knights. But both names
suit them, for theirs is the mildness of the monk and the valour of the
knight. What remains to be said but that this is the Lord's doing, and
it is wonderful in our eyes? Such are they whom God has chosen out of
the bravest in Israel, that, watchful and true, they may guard the holy
sepulchre, armed with swords, and well skilled in war."
[Footnote 71: Wilken I. 28, gives 1135 as the year in which this piece
was written.]
Though in these expressions of St. Bernard there may be perceived some
marks of rhetorical exaggeration, they prove incontestibly the high
character and sincere virtue of the founders of the society of the
Templars, and that it was organized and regulated with none but worthy
objects in view. They also offer, if such were required, an additional
proof that the crusade was no emanation of chivalry; for those to whom
St. Bernard throughout sets the Templars in opposition were the chivalry
of the age.
This epistle of the Abbot of Clairvaux had been circulated, and every
other just and honest mean employed to conciliate the public favour for
the Templars, when, on the 31st January, 1128, the Master, Hugh de
Payens, appeared before the council of Troyes, consisting of the
Archbishops of Rheims and Sens, ten bishops, and a number of abbots,
among whom was St. Bernard himself, and presided over by the Cardinal of
Albano, the papal legate. The Master having given an account of the
principles and exploits of the Templars, the assembled fathers approved
of the new order, and gave them a new rule, containing their own
previous regulations, with several additions drawn from that of the
Benedictines, and chiefly relating to spiritual matters. The validity of
this rule was made to depend on the approbation of it by the Holy Father
and by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, neither of whom hesitated to confirm
it. By the direction of the Pope Honorius, the synod appointed a white
mantle to be the distinguishing dress of the brethren of the Temple,
that of those of the Hospital being black. This mantle was plain,
without any cross, and such it remained till the pontificate of Pope
Eugenius III., who, in 1146, appointed the Templars to wear a _red_
cross on the breast, as a symbol of the martyrdom to which they stood
constantly exposed: the cross worn on their black mantles, by the
knights of St. John, was, as we have seen[72], _white_. The order now
assumed, or were assigned, a peculiar banner, formed of cloth, striped
black and white, called in old French, _Bauseant_[73], which word became
the battle-cry of the knights of the Temple, and often struck terror
into the hearts of the infidels. It bore on it the ruddy cross of the
order, and the pious and humble inscription, _Non nobis, Domine, non
nobis, sed nomini tuo, da gloriam_, (Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but
to thy name give the glory!)
[Footnote 72: _See_ p. 187. Sir W. Scott describes his Templar in
Ivanhoe, as wearing a white mantle with a _black_ cross of eight points.
The original cross of the Hospitallers, we may observe, had not eight
points. That of the order of Malta was of this form.]
[Footnote 73: _Bauseant_, or _Bausant_, was, in old French, a piebald
horse, or a horse marked white and black. Ducange, Roquefort. The word
is still preserved with its original meaning in the Scotch dialect, in
the form _Bawsent_:
"His honest, sonsie, baws'nt face
Aye gat him friends in ilka place,"
says Burns, describing the "ploughman's collie," in his tale of the "Twa
Dogs;" and in the Glossary, Dr. Currie explains _Baws'nt_ as meaning
"having a white stripe down the face." As, however, some notion of
handsomeness or attractiveness of appearance seems to be involved in the
epithet, _Bauseant_, or _Beauseant_, may possibly be merely an older
form of the present French word, _Bienseant_.]
Several knights now assumed the habit of the order, and in a progress
which Hugh de Payens, accompanied by some of the brethren, made through
France and England, he acquired for it universal favour. He did not
neglect the charge, committed to him by the king of Jerusalem, of
invoking aid for the Holy Land, now so hard bested, and his exhortations
were not without effect. Fulk, Count of Anjou, now rejoined his Master
and brethren; but as he had gotten an invitation to repair to Jerusalem,
and espouse the only daughter of the King, he set out before them to the
East.
Hugh de Payens would admit no knight into the order who did not
terminate all his feuds and enmities, and amend his life. Thus, when a
knight, named Hugh d'Amboise, who had oppressed the people of
Marmoutier, and had refused obedience to the judicial sentence of the
Count of Anjou, was desirous to enter the order, he refused to admit him
to take the vows till he had given perfect satisfaction to those whom he
had injured.
Honour and respect awaited the Templars wherever they appeared, and
persons of all ranks were eager to do what might be grateful to them.
When the Templar who came with the seal of Godfrey of St. Omer, as his
credential to the governor of that place, to demand his goods which
Godfrey had given the order, he met with a most favourable reception,
not only from the governor, but from the bishop; and on their applying,
as was necessary in this case, to the Count of Flanders and Alsatia,
that prince was so far from throwing any impediments in the way, that,
in a very short space of time, the buildings which had belonged to
Godfrey were converted into a church and a temple-house. Many Flemish
gentlemen followed the example of Godfrey, and bestowed a part of their
property on the Templars. King Henry I. of England, who met and
conversed with Hugh de Payens in Normandy, was so pleased with his
account of the new order, that he presented him with many rich gifts,
and gave him strong recommendations to the principal of the English
barons. The Emperor Lothaire bestowed in 1130 on the order a large part
of his patrimony of Supplinburg. The old Count Raymond Berenger, of
Barcelona and Provence, weary of the world and of the toils of
government, became a Templar, and took up his abode in the temple-house
at Barcelona; and, as he could not go personally to combat the infidels
in the Holy Land, he continually sent rich gifts to the brethren at
Jerusalem, and he complied rigorously with all the other duties of the
order. In 1133 Alfonso, king of Arragon and Navarre, a valiant and
warlike monarch, who had been victor in nine and twenty battles against
the Moors, finding himself old and without children, made a will, by
which he appointed the knights of the Temple and of the Hospital,
together with the canons of the Holy Sepulchre, to be his joint-heirs,
deeming, perhaps, that the most gallant defenders of the Holy Land would
best prosecute his favourite object of breaking the power of the
infidels. The aged monarch fell the following year in the battle of
Fraga, against the Moors; and, negligent of his disposition of the
realm, the nobles of Arragon and Navarre met and chose sovereigns out of
his family. The orders were not strong enough to assert their rights;
and this instance, therefore, only serves to show the high degree of
consideration to which they had so early attained.
[Illustration: Seal of the Templars.]