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Mediaeval Knights Templars
Chapter 1.
The origin of the Knights
Templars is to be found as one of the results of that extraordinary religious
movement from West to East culminating in the Crusades, a series of expeditions
which failed absolutely in what was intended as the immediate object, but which
yet had such momentous results for the whole of Europe as to change the course
of history from the 12th century onwards.
It was not, perhaps, strange
that the places where the Lord lived and suffered should be held as of supreme
interest by the multitude of his followers. But this feeling, fostered by the
rulers of the Church, deepened into superstition, and all sorts of virtues were
supposed to be inspired by the fact of living or dying in the places hallowed by
the memory of Christ's life on earth, and pilgrims flocked in
crowds to the holy places. Such a journey in those times was at best an arduous
undertaking, but it could be made in comparative safety until Jerusalem was
captured by the Caliph Omar and his Moslems in 636.
After this the journey was
one of much peril and hardship, numbers of
pilgrims
left their bones to bleach in the Holy Land, and those who returned in safety
made Christian Europe resound with the stories of the cruelties they had endured
at the hands of the Infidels. The influx of
Christians
to Palestine was largely increased by the belief in the latter part the 10th
Century, that the world would come to an end in the year 1000,
a belief so prevalent that it was common to begin public documents with
the words "the world being about to end." The holy places were filled
with pilgrims, who came that they might then be ready to be drawn up into Heaven
when the last day dawned. As the
millennial year passed without the destruction of
the
world, this second salvation was attributed to Christ, and pilgrims still
flocked to the sacred shrines that they might ascribe glory and praise to their
Lord. To provide accommodation for these pilgrims--which they could obtain
neither with their Mohammedan conquerors, whose feeling towards the Christians
was that of burning hatred varied by periods of contemptuous
tolerance, nor with the Greek inhabitants of the
country, whose sentiment towards their Latin brethren was as unfriendly as
unfortunately has too often existed between those ostensibly of
the
same faith--hospitals, houses of rest and refreshment were
established in those places most frequented. The Monk Bernard, towards the end
of the 9th Century found one such hospital in the Valley of
Jehoshaphat,
a large establishment with twelve houses for pilgrims, and gardens, vineyards,
and cornfields. In the 11th Century a hospital for the use of
Latin
pilgrims within the walls of Jerusalem had been erected by Italian traders,
chiefly of Amialfi. Near this hospital, and within a
stone-throw of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, they erected a church dedicated
to the Holy Virgin, which was usually called Sta Maria de Latina. In the
hospital was an abbot with a company of monks, who followed the rule of St.
Benedict, and who devoted themselves to the reception of pilgrims, and
assistance to those who were poor or who had been robbed or injured by the
Infidel possessors of the holy places. When the number of the pilgrims increased
so that the hospital was incapable of receiving
them all, the monks raised another hospital close by their Church, with a chapel
dedicated to a Patriarch of Alexandria, known by his charities as Johannes
Eleemosynarius, or John the Almsgiver, and who had been canonised as St.John of
Jerusalem.
When the Crusaders captured Jerusalem, in 1099, the hospital of St.John
was presided over by Pierre Gerard, a native of Provence, who with his monks,
had in so faithful and truly Christian spirit dispensed their aid and charity
during the horrors of the siege as to win the earnest praise of Luke Godfrey,
who bestowed on them one of his manors in Brabant for their support. This
example was followed by the other Christian leaders, and Gerard and his
followers grew in such favour and wealth that they desired to separate
themselves from the Monastery of St.Mary. This was done, they drew
up a rule for themselves, made the vow of obedience in presence of
the
patriarch, and assumed for their dress a black mantle with a white cross on the
breast. At their beginning the Hospitallers confined themselves to acts of
charity and tending the sick, but they subsequently assumed the sword and fought
with the other warriors of the cross until their final expulsion on the capture of Acre in 1291. They then settled in the island of
Rhodes,
where they maintained their rule against the Turks until 1522, when they made
Malta their home, and held this until the island was seized by the French under
Bonaparte in 1798. They were consequently known as the Knights of Rhodes and of
Malta.