The Founding of the Knights Templar

The Knights Templar were founded around 1119, in the wake of the First Crusade and the establishment of the Crusader States in the Levant. The Order was founded by a small group of French knights who pledged to protect the pilgrims who traveled to the Holy Land, and the Order grew rapidly to become one of the most powerful military religious orders in the medieval world. The Templars played a major role in the defense of the Crusader States and in the development of early European banking, and their dramatic suppression in the early fourteenth century has made them one of the most famous and most controversial institutions of the medieval Church.

The standard English-language treatment is Malcolm Barber, “The New Knighthood” (1994). The Latin Rule of the Templars and the French and English translations (ed. J. M. Upton-Ward, 1992) are the primary sources. The founding bull Omne datum optimum of Innocent II (1139) is the founding document of the Order’s independence.

The Context of the Founding

The context of the founding of the Knights Templar is rooted in the First Crusade (1096–1099) and the establishment of the Crusader States in the Levant. The First Crusade was launched by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095, and it culminated in the capture of Jerusalem in July 1099. The Crusader States — the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Tripoli — were established in the following years, and they became the political, military, and religious outposts of Latin Christendom in the Holy Land.

The Crusader States were beset by constant military threats from the surrounding Muslim states, and they were dependent on a steady flow of pilgrims and reinforcements from Europe to maintain their military and demographic strength. The pilgrims who traveled to the Holy Land were vulnerable to attack by Muslim raiders and bandits, and they were in need of protection and assistance. The military religious orders — the Templars, the Hospitallers, and the Teutonic Knights — emerged in response to this need, and they played a major role in the defense of the pilgrims and the Crusader States.

The Founders of the Order

The Knights Templar were founded by a small group of French knights, led by Hugues de Payens (c. 1070–1136), a knight from the Champagne region of France. The traditional account of the founding, recorded in the medieval chronicles, relates that Hugues de Payens and a small group of knights presented themselves to King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and offered to serve as a military force for the protection of pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. The king accepted their offer and housed them in a wing of the royal palace on Mount Moriah — the traditional site of the Temple of Solomon — and from this location the Order derived its name.

The founding group of the Order was small — perhaps only a handful of knights, with Hugues de Payens as the first Grand Master — and the Order was initially poorly funded and poorly equipped. The knights lived in poverty and humility, and they devoted themselves to the protection of the pilgrims and the defense of the Holy Land. The Order was formally recognized at the Council of Troyes in 1129, which issued a rule for the new Order and approved its mission.

The Council of Troyes

The Council of Troyes was convened by Pope Honorius II in January 1129, and it was attended by archbishops and bishops from France and other parts of Europe, as well as by representatives of the new Order. The Council issued a rule for the Order that was based on the Cistercian rule of St. Benedict, modified to accommodate the military life of the knights. The rule was attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who was a major supporter of the Order and who wrote a famous letter of support, De laude novae militae (In Praise of the New Knighthood), that defended the Crusading ideal and the military religious orders.

The rule of the Templars prescribed a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the observance of the Divine Office at fixed hours, the performance of military service in defense of the faith, and the observance of a strict discipline in the Order. The rule also prescribed the organization of the Order into knights, sergeants, and chaplains, and the governance of the Order by the Grand Master and the Chapter General. The rule was designed to ensure the discipline and the effectiveness of the Order in the defense of the Holy Land, and it became the model for the rules of the other military religious orders.

The Early Years of the Order

The early years of the Order were difficult, and the Order struggled to attract recruits and resources in its early decades. The Order was small and poor, and it was vulnerable to the attacks of the Muslim forces in the Holy Land. The Order gradually grew in size and wealth in the twelfth century, and it received donations of land, money, and relics from the faithful in Europe. The Order established a network of commanderies in France, England, Spain, and other parts of Europe, and it became a major landowner and a major financial institution.

The Order was promoted by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who was a major supporter of the Order and who defended the Order in his writings. Bernard wrote the De laude novae militae in the late 1120s, in which he defended the military religious orders and praised the Templars for their dedication to the defense of the faith. Bernard’s support was influential in attracting recruits and resources to the Order, and it contributed to the rapid growth of the Order in the twelfth century.

The Growth of the Order

The Order grew rapidly in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and it became one of the most powerful institutions in the medieval world. The Order recruited knights from the aristocracy of Europe, and it received donations of land, money, and relics from the faithful. The Order established a network of commanderies — local houses of the Order — across Europe, and it developed a sophisticated administrative apparatus to manage its estates, its finances, and its military forces. The Order developed a distinctive uniform — a white mantle with a red cross — and a code of conduct that emphasized discipline, courage, and brotherhood.

The Order was particularly powerful in France, where it received major donations from the French kings and aristocracy. The Order was also powerful in England, where it received donations from the English kings and where the Temple in London — the Steelyard — was the headquarters of the Order in England. The Order was also powerful in the Iberian Peninsula, where it participated in the Reconquista, and in the Crusader States, where it was the backbone of the military defense.

The Significance of the Founding

The founding of the Knights Templar in 1119 was a major event in the history of the Crusades and in the history of the medieval world. The Templars were the first military religious order, and they provided a model for the other military religious orders — the Hospitallers, the Teutonic Knights, the Order of Santiago, the Order of Calatrava, and many others — that were founded in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The military religious orders were a major innovation in the history of the medieval Church, and they played a major role in the defense of Christendom and in the transmission of military technology and tactics across Europe.

The founding of the Templars also had a major impact on the development of European banking and finance. The Templars developed a sophisticated system of international banking, and they provided financial services to pilgrims, kings, and the Crusader States. The Templars were among the earliest bankers in the medieval world, and their banking system anticipated the modern banking system in several ways. The Templars also played a major role in the development of financial techniques — letters of credit, deposits, loans, foreign exchange — that were essential to the long-distance trade of the medieval world.

The founding of the Templars is a major subject of historical and legendary interest. The medieval accounts of the founding are romanticized and idealized, and the modern popular imagination has constructed a mythology around the Templars that includes claims about hidden treasure, secret rituals, and the survival of the Order in various forms. The mythology of the Templars is a subject of ongoing debate in the modern era, and it is a major subject of popular and academic interest.

Sources

Principal sources used in this article:

Malcolm Barber, The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple (Cambridge, 1994).

Further reading:

Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant (Palgrave, 2012).

For a recent single-volume synthesis with full scholarly apparatus, see the relevant chapter of Barbara H. Rosenwein, A Short History of the Middle Ages (University of Toronto Press, 2014).