TEMPLARS. The Knights Templars, or Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (pauperes commilitones Christi templique Salomonici), formed one of the three great military orders, founded in the I2th century. Unlike the Hospital lers and the Teutonic Knights it was a military order from its very origin. Its founders were a Burgundian knight named Hugues de Payns and Godeffroi de St. Omer, a knight from northern France, who in 1119 undertook the pious task of protecting the pilgrims who, after the first crusade, flocked to Jerusalem and the other sacred spots in the Holy Land. They were quickly joined by six other knights and soon afterwards organized themselves as a religious community, taking an oath to the patriarch of Jeru salem to guard the public roads, to forsake worldly chivalry, "of which human favour and not Jesus Christ was the cause," and, living in chastity, obedience and poverty, according to the rule of St. Benedict, "to fight with a pure mind for the supreme and true King." To this nascent order of warrior monks Baldwin II., king of Jerusalem, handed over a part of his royal palace lying next to the former mosque of al-Aksa, the so-called "Temple of Solomon," whence they took their name. They had at first no distinctive habit, wearing any old clothes that might be given to them. Nor was their community exclusive. Their primitive rule seems to have enjoined them especially to seek out excommunicated knights, and to admit them, after absolution by the bishop, to their order, and they thus served a useful purpose in at once discip lining and converting the unruly rabble of "rogues and impious men, robbers and committers of sacrilege, murderers, perjurers and adulterers"' who streamed to the Holy Land in hope of 'Bernard of Clairvaux, De laude novae militiae, cap. v. (in Migne, Patrol. lat. 182, p. 928), plunder and salvation. It was this rule which led later to the most important privilege of the order, the immunity from sentences of excommunication pronounced by bishops and parish priests.
This practice might have brought them at once under the sus picion of the Church, and it soon became expedient to obtain the highest sanction for the new order and its rules. In the autumn of 1127 accordingly Hugues de Payns, with certain companions, appeared in Europe, where he was fortunate enough to secure the enthusiastic support of the all-powerful abbot of Clairvaux. Grateful pilgrims had already begun to enrich the order; the De laude novae militiae, a glowing panegyric of this new and holy conception of knighthood, addressed by Bernard to Hugues de Payns by name, insured the success of his mission. In 1128 the
council of Troyes discussed and sanctioned the rule of the order.
Rule of the Temple.—No ms. of the original French Rule of the Temple (Regle du Temple) exists; but in essentials the later copies preserve the matter and spirit of the primitive Rule, and they prove that to the end the order was, in principle at least, submitted to the same strict discipline as at the beginning. Of a secret Rule, in spite of the most diligent research, no trace has ever been found. It is now generally held that none ever existed. The legend of its existence, so fatal to the order, is probably traceable to the fact that the complete Rule was jealously guarded by the chief office-bearers of the order.
The Regle du Temple in its final form as we now possess it contains the rules for the constitution and administration of the order; the duties and privileges of the various classes of its personnel ; the monastic rules, regulations as to costume and as to religious services; rules for the holding of chapters, and a summary of offences and their punishment; the procedure at the election of a grand master and at receptions into the order; a definition of the relations of the order to the pope, and to other religious orders.
At the head of the order was the master of the Temple at Jerusalem (in Cyprus after the fall of the Latin Kingdom), known as the grand master. His authority was very great—except in cer tain reserved cases his word was law—but he was not absolute. Thus in matters of special importance—alienation of the estates of the order, attack on a fortress, declaration of war, conclusion of an armistice, reception of a new brother—he had to consult the chapter, and was bound by the vote of the majority; nor could he modify or abrogate a decree of the council of the order without their consent. He had to obtain the consent of the chapter also to the nomination of the grand commanders of the provinces of the order ; the lesser offices were absolutely in his gift. He was elected by a complicated process, a chapter summoned ad hoc electing a "commander of the election" and one other brother who, after vigil and prayer, co-opted two more, these four choos ing another two, and so on till the number of the twelve apostles had been reached. A chaplain, representing Jesus Christ, was then added to complete the electoral college. (See Curzon, Regle du Temple, p. xxxv.).