CHAPTER I.
"Yet ’midst her towering fanes in ruin laid,
The pilgrim saint his murmuring vespers paid;
’Twas his to mount the tufted rocks, and rove
The chequer’d twilight of the olive-grove:
’Twas his to bend beneath the sacred gloom,
And wear with many a kiss Messiah's tomb."
THE extraordinary and romantic institution of the Knights
Templars, those military friars who so strangely blended the
character of the monk with that of the soldier, took its origin in
the following manner:--
On the miraculous discovery of the Holy sepulchre by the
Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, about 298 years after
the death of Christ, and the consequent erection, by command of the
first christian emperor, of the magnificent church of the
Resurrection, or, as it is now called, the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, over the sacred monument, the tide of pilgrimage set in
towards Jerusalem, and went on increasing in strength as
Christianity gradually spread throughout Europe. On the surrender
of the Holy City to the victorious Arabians, (A.D. 637,) the
privileges and the security of the christian population were
provided for in the following guarantee, given under the hand and
seal of the Caliph Omar to Sophronius the Patriarch.
"From OMAR EBNO ’L ALCHITAB to the inhabitants of ÆLIA."
"They shall be protected and secured both in their lives and
fortunes, and their churches shall neither be pulled down nor made
use of by any but themselves." *
Under the government of the Arabians, the pilgrimages
continued steadily to increase; the old and the young, women and
children, flocked in crowds to Jerusalem, and in the year 1064 the
Holy Sepulchre was visited by an enthusiastic band of seven
thousand pilgrims, headed by the Archbishop of Mentz and the
Bishops of Utrecht, Bamberg, and Ratisbon. † The year following,
however, Jerusalem was conquered by the wild Turcomans. Three
thousand of the citizens were indiscriminately massacred, and the
hereditary command over the Holy City and territory was confided to
the Emir Ortok, the chief of a savage pastoral tribe.
Under the iron yoke of these fierce Northern strangers, the
Christians were fearfully oppressed; they were driven from their
churches; divine worship was ridiculed and interrupted; and the
patriarch of the Holy City was dragged by the hair of his bead over
the sacred pavement of the church of the Resurrection, and cast
into a dungeon, to extort a ransom from the sympathy of his flock.
The pilgrims who, through innumerable perils, had reached the gates
of the Holy City, were plundered, imprisoned, and frequently
massacred; an aureus, or piece of gold, was exacted as the price of
admission to the holy sepulchre, and many, unable to pay the tax,
were driven by the swords of the Turcomans from the very threshold
of the object of all their hopes, the bourne of their long
pilgrimage, and were compelled to retrace their weary steps in
sorrow and anguish to their distant homes. * The melancholy
intelligence of the profanation of the holy places, and of the
oppression and cruelty of the Turcomans, aroused the religious
chivalry of Christendom; "a nerve was touched of exquisite feeling,
and the sensation vibrated to the heart of Europe."
Then arose the wild enthusiasm of the crusades; men of all
ranks, and even monks and priests, animated by the exhortations of
the pope and the preachings of Peter the Hermit, flew to arms, and
enthusiastically undertook "the pious and glorious enterprize" of
rescuing the holy sepulchre of Christ from the foul abominations of
the heathen.
When intelligence of the capture of Jerusalem by the
Crusaders (A.D. 1099) had been conveyed to Europe, the zeal of
pilgrimage blazed forth with increased fierceness; it had gathered
intensity from the interval of its suppression by the wild
Turcomans, and promiscuous crowds of both sexes, old men and
children, virgins and matrons, thinking the road then open and the
journey practicable, successively pressed forwards towards the Holy
City, with the passionate desire of contemplating the original
monuments of the Redemption. * The infidels had indeed been driven
out of Jerusalem, but not out of Palestine. The lofty mountains
bordering the sea-coast were infested by bold and warlike bands of
fugitive Mussulmen, who maintained themselves in various
impregnable castles and strongholds, from whence they issued forth
upon the high-roads, cut off the communication between Jerusalem
and the sea-ports, and revenged themselves for the loss of their
habitations and property by the indiscriminate pillage of all
travellers. The Bedouin horsemen, moreover, making rapid incursions
from beyond the Jordan, frequently kept up a desultory and
irregular warfare in the plains; and the pilgrims, consequently,
whether they approached the Holy City by land or by sea, were alike
exposed to almost daily hostility, to plunder, and to death.
To alleviate the dangers and distresses to which these pious
enthusiasts were exposed, to guard the honour of the saintly
virgins and matrons, † and to protect the gray hairs of the
venerable palmer, nine noble knights formed a holy brotherhood in
arms, and entered into a solemn compact to aid one another in
clearing the highways of infidels, and of robbers, and in
protecting the pilgrims through the passes and defiles of the
mountains to the Holy City. Warmed with the religious and military
fervour of the day, and animated by the sacredness of the cause to
which they had devoted their swords, they called themselves the
Poor Fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ. They renounced the world and
its pleasures, and in the holy church of the Resurrection, in the
presence of the patriarch of Jerusalem, they embraced vows of
perpetual chastity, obedience, and poverty, after the manner of
monks. * Uniting in themselves the two most popular qualities of
the age, devotion and valour, and exercising them in the most
popular of all enterprises, the protection of the pilgrims and of
the road to the holy sepulchre, they speedily acquired a vast
reputation and a splendid renown.
At first, we are told, they had no church and no particular
place of abode, but in the year of our Lord 1118, (nineteen years
after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders,) they had
rendered such good and acceptable service to the Christians, that
Baldwin the Second, king of Jerusalem, granted them a place of
habitation within the sacred inclosure of the Temple on Mount
Moriah, amid those holy and magnificent structures, partly erected
by the christian Emperor Justinian, and partly built by the Caliph
Omar, which were then exhibited by the monks and priests of
Jerusalem, whose restless zeal led them to practise on the
credulity of the pilgrims, and to multiply relics and all objects
likely to be sacred in their eyes, as the Temple of Solomon, whence
the Poor Fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ came thenceforth to be
known by the name of "the Knighthood of the Temple of Solomon." †
A few remarks in elucidation of the name Templars, or Knights
of the Temple, may not be altogether unacceptable.
By the Mussulmen, the site of the great Jewish temple on
Mount Moriah has always been regarded with peculiar veneration.
Mahomet, in the first year of the publication of the Koran,
directed his followers, when at prayer, to turn their faces towards
it, and pilgrimages have constantly been made to the holy spot by
devout Moslems. On the conquest of Jerusalem by the Arabians, it
was the first care of the Caliph Omar to rebuild "the Temple of the
Lord." Assisted by the principal chieftains of his army, the
Commander of the Faithful undertook the pious office of clearing
the ground with his own hands, and of tracing out the foundations
of the magnificent mosque which now crowns with its dark and
swelling dome the elevated summit of Mount Moriah. *
This great house of prayer, the most holy Mussulman Temple in
the world after that of Mecca, is erected over the spot where
"Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem on Mount
Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place
that David had prepared in the threshing-floor of Oman the
Jebusite." It remains to this day in a state of perfect
preservation, and is one of the finest specimens of Saracenic
architecture in existence. It is entered by four spacious doorways,
each door facing one of the cardinal points; the Bab el D'jannat,
or gate of the garden, on the north; the Bab el Kebla, or gate of
prayer, on the south; the Bab ib’n el Daoud, or the gate of the son
of David, on the east; and the Bab el Garbi, on the west. By the
Arabian geographers it is called Beit Allah, the house of God, also
Beit Almokaddas, or Beit Almacdes, the holy house. From it
Jerusalem derives its Arabic name, el Kods, the holy, el Schereef,
the noble, and el Mobarek, the blessed; while the governors of the
city, instead of the customary high-sounding titles of sovereignty
and dominion, take the simple title of Hami, or protectors.
On the conquest of Jerusalem by the crusaders, the crescent
was torn down from the summit of this famous Mussulman Temple, and
was replaced by an immense golden cross, and the edifice was then
consecrated to the services of the christian religion, but retained
its simple appellation of "The Temple of the Lord." William,
Archbishop of Tyre and Chancellor of the Kingdom of Jerusalem,
gives an interesting account of this famous edifice as it existed
in his time, during the Latin dominion. He speaks of the splendid
mosaic work, of the Arabic characters setting forth the name of the
founder, and the cost of the undertaking, and of the famous rock
under the centre of the dome, which is to this day shown by the
Moslems as the spot whereon the destroying angel stood, " with his
drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem." * This rock
he informs us was left exposed and uncovered for the space of
fifteen years after the conquest of the holy city by the crusaders,
but was, after that period, cased with a handsome altar of white
marble, upon which the priests daily said mass.
To the south of this holy Mussulman temple, on the extreme
edge of the summit of Mount Moriah, and resting against the modern
walls of the town of Jerusalem, stands the venerable christian
church of the Virgin, erected by the Emperor Justinian, whose
stupendous foundations, remaining to this day, fully justify the
astonishing description given of the building by Procopius. That
writer informs us that in order to get a level surface for the
erection of the edifice, it was necessary, on the east and south
sides of the hill, to raise up a wall of masonry from the valley
below, and to construct a vast foundation, partly composed of solid
stone and partly of arches and pillars. The stones were of such
magnitude, that each block required to be transported in a truck
drawn by forty of the emperor's strongest oxen; and to admit of the
passage of these trucks it was necessary to widen the roads leading
to Jerusalem. The forests of Lebanon yielded their choicest cedars
for the timbers of the roof, and a quarry of variegated marble,
seasonably discovered in the adjoining mountains, furnished the
edifice with superb marble columns. * The interior of this
interesting structure, which still remains at Jerusalem, after a
lapse of more than thirteen centuries, in an excellent state of
preservation, is adorned with six rows of columns, from whence
spring arches supporting the cedar beams and timbers of the roof;
and at the end of the building is a round tower, surmounted by a
dome. The vast stones, the walls of masonry, and the subterranean
colonnade raised to support the south-east angle of the platform
whereon the church is erected, are truly wonderful, and may still
be seen by penetrating through a small door, and descending several
flights of steps at the south-east corner of the inclosure.
Adjoining the sacred edifice, the emperor erected hospitals, or
houses of refuge, for travellers, sick people, and mendicants of
all nations; the foundations whereof, composed of handsome Roman
masonry, are still visible on either side of the southern end of
the building.
On the conquest of Jerusalem by the Moslems, this venerable
church was converted into a mosque, and was called D’jamé al Acsa;
it was enclosed, together with the great Mussulman Temple of the
Lord erected by the Caliph Omar, within a large area by a high
stone wall, which runs around the edge of the summit of Mount
Moriah, and guards from the profane tread of the unbeliever the
whole of that sacred ground whereon once stood the gorgeous temple
of the wisest of kings. *
When the Holy City was taken by the crusaders, the D’jamé al
Acsa, with the various buildings constructed around it, became the
property of the kings of Jerusalem; and is denominated by William
of Tyre "the palace," or "royal house to the south of the Temple of
the Lord, vulgarly called the Temple of Solomon." † It was this
edifice or temple on Mount Moriah which was appropriated to the use
of the poor fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ, as they had no church
and no particular place of abode, and from it they derived their
name of Knights Templars. *
James of Vitry, Bishop of Acre, who gives an interesting
account of the holy places, thus speaks of the Temple of the
Knights Templars. "There is, moreover, at Jerusalem another temple
of immense spaciousness and extent, from which the brethren of the
knighthood of the Temple derive their name of Templars, which is
called the Temple of Solomon, perhaps to distinguish it from the
one above described, which is specially called the Temple of the
Lord. " † He moreover informs us in his oriental history, that "in
the Temple of the Lord there is an abbot and canons regular; and be
it known that the one is the Temple of the Lord, and the other the
Temple of the Chivalry. These are clerks, the others are knights."
‡
The canons of the Temple of the Lord conceded to the poor
fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ the large court extending between
that building and the Temple of Solomon; the king, the patriarch,
and the prelates of Jerusalem, and the barons of the Latin kingdom,
assigned them various gifts and revenues for their maintenance and
support, § and the order being now settled in a regular place of
abode, the knights soon began to entertain more extended views, and
to seek a larger theatre for the exercise of their holy profession.
Their first aim and object had been, as before mentioned,
simply to protect the poor pilgrims, on their journey backwards and
forwards, from the sea-coast to Jerusalem; * but as the hostile
tribes of Mussulmen, which everywhere surrounded the Latin kingdom,
were gradually recovering from the stupifying terror into which
they had been plunged by the successful and exterminating warfare
of the first crusaders, and were assuming an aggressive and
threatening attitude, it was determined that the holy warriors of
the Temple should, in addition to the protection of pilgrims, make
the defence of the christian kingdom of Jerusalem, of the eastern
church, and of all the holy places, a part of their particular
profession.
The two most distinguished members of the fraternity were
Hugh de Payens and Geoffrey de St. Aldemar, or St. Omer, two
valiant soldiers of the cross, who had fought with great credit and
renown at the siege of Jerusalem. Hugh de Payens was chosen by the
knights to be the superior of the new religious and military
society, by the title of "The Master of the Temple;" and he has,
consequently, generally been called the founder of the order.
The name and reputation of the Knights Templars speedily
spread throughout Europe, and various illustrious pilgrims from the
far west aspired to become members of the holy fraternity. Among
these was Falk, Count of Anjou, who joined the society as a married
brother, (A.D. 1120,) and annually remitted the order thirty pounds
of silver. Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, foreseeing that great
advantages would accrue to the Latin kingdom by the increase of the
power and numbers of these holy warriors, exerted himself to extend
the order throughout all Christendom, so that he might, by means of
so politic an institution, keep alive the holy enthusiasm of the
west, and draw a constant succour from the bold and warlike races
of Europe for the support of his christian throne and kingdom.
St. Bernard, the holy abbot of Clairvaux, had been a great
admirer of the Templars. He wrote a letter to the Count of
Champagne, on his entering the order, (A.D. 1123,) praising the act
as one of eminent merit in the sight of God; and it was determined
to enlist the all-powerful influence of this great ecclesiastic in
favour of the fraternity. "By a vow of poverty and penance, by
closing his eyes against the visible world, by the refusal of all
ecclesiastical dignities, the Abbot of Clairvaux became the oracle
of Europe, and the founder of one hundred and sixty convents.
Princes and pontiffs trembled at the freedom of his apostolical
censures: France, England, and Milan, consulted and obeyed his
judgment in a schism of the church: the debt was repaid by the
gratitude of Innocent the Second; and his successor, Eugenics the
Third, was the friend and disciple of the holy St. Bernard." *
To this learned and devout prelate two knights templars were
despatched with the following letter:
"Baldwin, by the grace of the Lord JESUS CHRIST, King of
Jerusalem, and Prince of Antioch, to the venerable Father Bernard,
Abbot of Clairvaux, health and regard.
"The Brothers of the Temple, whom the Lord hath deigned to
raise up, and whom by an especial Providence he preserves for the
defence of this kingdom, desiring to obtain from the Holy See the
confirmation of their institution, and a rule for their particular
guidance, we have determined to send to you the two knights, Andrew
and Gondemar, men as much distinguished by their military exploits
as by the splendour of their birth, to obtain from the Pope the
approbation of their order, and to dispose his holiness to send
succour and subsidies against the enemies of the faith, reunited in
their design to destroy us, and to invade our christian
territories.
"Well knowing the weight of your mediation with God and his
vicar upon earth, as well as with the princes and powers of Europe,
we have thought fit to confide to yon these two important matters,
whose successful issue cannot be otherwise than most agreeable to
ourselves. The statutes we ask of you should be so ordered and
arranged as to be reconcilable with the tumult of the camp and the
profession of arms; they must, in fact, be of such a nature as to
obtain favour and popularity with the christian princes.
"Do you then so manage, that we may, through you, have the
happiness of seeing this important affair brought to a successful
issue, and address for us to heaven the incense of your prayers." *
Soon after the above letter had been despatched to St.
Bernard, Hugh de Payens himself proceeded to Rome, accompanied by
Geoffrey de St. Aldemar, and four other brothers of the order, viz.
Brother Payen de Montdidier, Brother Gorall, Brother Geoffrey
Bisol, and Brother Archambauld de St. Amand. They were received
with great honour and distinction by Pope Honorius, who warmly
approved of the objects and designs of the holy fraternity. St.
Bernard had, in the mean time, taken the affair greatly to heart;
he negotiated with the Pope, the legate, and the bishops of France,
and obtained the convocation of a great ecclesiastical council at
Troyes, (A.D. 11280 which Hugh de Payens and his brethren were
invited to attend. This council consisted of several archbishops,
bishops, and abbots, among which last was St. Bernard himself. The
rules to which the Templars had subjected themselves were there
described by the master, and to the holy Abbot of Clairvaux was
confided the task of revising and correcting these rules, and of
framing a code of statutes fit and proper for the governance of the
great religious and military fraternity of the Temple.
Footnotes
2:* Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. Eutychius.
2:† Ingulphus, the secretary of William the Conqueror, one of
the number, states that he sallied forth from Normandy with thirty
companions, all stout and well-appointed horsemen, and that they
returned twenty miserable palmers, with the staff in their hand and
the wallet at their back.--Baronius ad ann. 1064, No. 43, 56.
3:* Will. Tyr., lib. i. cap. 10, ed. 1564.
4:* Omnibus mundi partibus divites et pauperes, juvenes et
virgines, senes cum junioribus, loca sancta visitaturi Hierosolymam
pergerent.--Jac. de Vitriaco. Hist. Hierosol. cap. lxv.
4:† "To kiss the holy monuments," says William of Tyre, "came
sacred and chaste widows, forgetful of feminine fear, and the
multiplicity of dangers that beset their path."--Lib. xviii. cap.
5.
5:* Quidam autem Deo amabiles et devoti milites, charitate
ferventes, mundo renuatiantes, et Christi se servitio mancipantes
in manu Patriarchæ Hierosolymitani professione et voto solemni sere
astrinxerunt, ut a prædictis latronibus, et viris sanguinum,
defenderent peregrinos, et stratas publicas custodirent, more
canonicorum regularium in obedientia et castitate et sine proprio
militaturi summo regi. Jac. de Vitr. Hist. Hierosol. apud Gesta Dei
per Francos, cap. lxv. p. 1083.--Will. Tyr. lib. xii. cap. 7. There
were three kinds of poverty. The first and strictest (altissima)
admitted not of the possession of any description of property
whatever. The second (media) forbade the possession of individual
property, but sanctioned any amount of wealth when shared by a
fraternity in common. The lowest was where a separate property in
some few things was allowed, such as food and clothing, whilst
everything else was shared in common. The second kind of poverty
(media) was adopted by the Templars.
5:† Pantaleon, lib. iii. p. 82.
6:* D’Herbelot Bib. Orient. p. 270, 687, ed. 1697. William of
Tyre, who lived at Jerusalem shortly after the conquest of the city
by the Crusaders, tells us that the Caliph Omar required the
Patriarch Sophronius to point out to him the site of the temple
destroyed by Titus, which being done, the caliph immediately
commenced the erection of a fresh temple thereon, "Quo postea infra
modicum tempus juxta conceptum mentis suæ feliciter consummato,
quale hodie Hierosolymis esse dinoscitur, multis et infinites
ditavit possessionibus."--Will. Tyr. lib. i. cap. 2.
7:* Erant porro in eodem Templi ædificio, intus et extra ex
opere musaico, Arabici idiomatis literarum vetustissima monimenta,
quibus et auctor et imperarum quantitas et quo tempore opus
inceptum quodque consummatum fuerit evidenter declaratur. . . . In
hujus superioris areæ medio Templum ædificatum est, forma quidem
octogonum et laterum totidem, tectum habens sphericum plumbo
artificiose copertum. . . . Intus vero in medio Templi, infra
interiorem columnarum ordinem rupes est, &c.--Will. Tyr. lib.
i. cap 2, lib. viii. cap. 3. In hoc loco, supra rupem quæ adhuc in
eodem Templo consistit, dicitur stetisse et apparaisse David
exterminator Angelus. . . . Templum Dominicum in tanta veneratione
habent Saraceni, ut nullus eorum ipsum audeat aliquibus sordibus
maculare; sed a remotis et longinquis regionibus, a temporibus
Salomonis usque ad tempora præsentia, veniunt adorare.--Jac. de
Vitr. Hist. Hierosol. cap. lxii. p 1080.
8:* Procopius de ædificiis Justiniani, lib. 5.
9:* Phocas believes the whole space around these buildings to
be the area of the ancient temple. Ἑν τῶ ἀρχαίω δαπεδω τοῦ
περιώνῦμου ναου έκείνοὺ Σὸλομῶντος θεωρουμενοσ . . . Ἔξωθεν δὲ του
ναου ἐστι περιαύλιον μεγα λιθόστωτον τὸ παλαιὸν, ὼς οῖμαι, του
μεγαλου ναου δάπεδον.--Phocæ descript. Terr. Sanc. cap. xiv. Colon.
1653.
9:† Quibus quoniam neque ecclesia erat, neque certum habebant
domicilium, Rex in Palatio suo, quod secus Templum Domini ad
australem habet partem, eis concessit habitaculum.--Will. Tyr. lib.
xii. cap. 7. And in another place, speaking of the Temple of the
Lord, he says, Ab Austro vero domum habet Regiam, quæ vulgari
appellatione Templum Salomonis dicitur.--Ib. lib, viii. cap. 3.
10:* Qui quoniam juxta Templum Domini, ut prædiximus, in
Palatio regio mansionem habent, fratres militiæ Templi
dicuntur.--Will. Tyr. lib. xii. cap. 7.
10:† Est præterea Hierosolymis Templum aliud immensæ
quantitatis et amplitudinis, a quo fratres militiæ Templi,
Templarii nominantur, quod Templum Salomonis nuncupatur, forsitan
ad distinctionem alterius quod specialiter Templum Domini
appellatur.--Jac. de Vitr. cap. 62.
10:‡ In Templo Domini abbas est et canonici regulares, et
sciendum est quod aliud est Templum Domini, aliud Templum militiæ.
Isti clerici, illi milites.--Hist. Orient. Jac de Vitr. apud
Thesaur. Nov. Anecd. Martene, tom. iii. col. 277.
10:§ Will. Tyr. lib. xii. cap. 7.
11:* Prima autem eorum professio quodque eis a domino
Patriarcha et reliquis episcopis in remissionem peccatorum
injunctum est, ut vias et itinera, ad salutem peregrinorum contra
latronum et incursantium insidias, pro viribus conservarent.--Will.
Tyr. lib. xii. cap. 7.
12:* Gibbon.
13:* Reg. Constit. et Privileg. Ordinis Cisterc. p. 447.
