The Templars

by Michael Haag

  The southern part of the Temple Mount had therefore become the combined administrative, military and religious headquarters of the Templars, with a vast stable underneath. The Grand Master had his chambers there and was attended by his entourage which included a chaplain, two knights, a clerk, a sergeant, a Muslim scribe to act as an interpreter, as well as servants and a cook. The Seneschal, the Marshal, the Commander of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Draper were also here along with their attendants. In addition there were about three hundred Templar knights and a thousand sergeants in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as well as the native Syrian light cavalry, called Turcopoles, who were employed by the order, and numerous auxiliaries, including grooms, blacksmiths, armourers and stonemasons, and many of these would have been quartered on the Temple Mount.

  The Temple Mount was a busy place. Yet at its heart it was as silent as any monastery, for the Templars followed the canonical hours like any Cistercian or Benedictine monk, rising at four for Matins and retiring to bed after Compline, attending regular services and prayers in between, eating their meals in silence while listening to readings from the Bible, and otherwise caring for their horses.

  The so-called Stables of Solomon were in fact a substructure of vaults and arches built by Herod to extend the platform of the Mount, and later reconstruction work was undertaken by the Umayyads and the Templars. The Templars indeed used this as a stables, but Theoderich’s claim that ten thousand horses could be stabled beneath the Mount is an exaggeration; other travellers estimated the capacity at about two thousand horses, and allowing space for squires, grooms and perhaps even pilgrims sleeping there, the number of horses stabled at any one time was more like five hundred.

  These warrior monks were a powerful force in the Holy Land, whose defence since the Second Crusade fell increasingly on their shoulders. Contrary to popular belief the Templars were not fanatics forever in search of battle with the infidel. Generally they were pragmatic and conservative in their approach to politics and warfare, if anything more so than the counts and kings of Outremer who were driven by personal and dynastic ambitions in the here and now. In becoming a Knight Templar each man surrendered his will to the order, as in the words of one recruit: ‘I, renouncing secular life and its pomp, relinquishing everything, give myself to the Lord God and to the knighthood of the Temple of Solomon of Jersualem, that, as long as I shall live, in accordance with my strength, I shall serve there a complete pauper for God.’

  Self-will was replaced with service to the order and its aims, and the Templars were playing a long game, dedicated to defending the Holy Land for all time. In any case conflict in the Middle Ages tended to be more about sieges of cities and castles than battle in the open field, which was unpredictable and risky even under the most favourable circumstances. And in Outremer patience had its rewards as it was usually only a matter of time before the uneasy Muslim coalitions against the Christians fell apart. And so it was with confidence that the Templars looked out from their headquarters atop the Temple Mount upon Jerusalem and the future that lay beyond.

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  Tunnels and Chambers Beneath the Dome of the Rock

  In his account of the Temple Mount, the twelfth-century pilgrim Theoderich mentioned some strange underground features. After ascending the Mount pilgrims arrived at the lower court of the Templum Domini, the Temple of the Lord, formerly the Dome of the Rock, which was built on the site of Solomon’s Temple. ‘One mounts from the lower court to the upper one by twenty-two steps’, wrote Theoderich, ‘and from the upper court one enters the Temple. In front of these same steps in the lower court there are twenty-five steps or more, leading down into a great pool, from which it is said there is a subterranean connection with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, through which the holy fire which is miraculously lighted in that church on Easter Even is said to be brought underground to the Temple of the Lord.’

  The first mention of an aperture in the rock was made in AD 333 by a traveller known as the Bordeaux Pilgrim, but the first documented reference to the cave beneath the rock was made by Ibn al-Faqih in 903: ‘Under the rock is a cavern in which the people pray. This cavern is capable of containing 62 persons.’ A Persian, Nasir-i Khusraw, who visited the Dome of the Rock in 1047, described the large cavern under the rock ‘where they burn tapers’, which was perhaps the tradition that led Theoderich to make the connection with the miraculous Easter fire at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Ali of Herat, who visited the Temple Mount in 1173 when Jerusalem was under Christian rule, gave this description: ‘Underneath the rock is the Cave of the Souls. They say that Allah will bring together the souls of all True Believers to this spot. You descend to this cave by some fourteen steps. The Cave of the Souls is of the height of a man. Its length extends 11 paces from east to west and 13 paces from north to south.’

  Muslims say that the souls of the dead can be heard here as they await the Day of Judgement. And according to both Muslim tradition and the Talmud of the Jews the rock lies at the centre of the world. Beneath it is the abyss where Muslims say the waters of Paradise flow, but the Talmud says the waters of the Flood rage.

  In some Jewish traditions it is also regarded as the place where the Ark of the Covenant stood–and where, when Solomon’s Temple was destroyed in 587 BC, the Ark was concealed and remains hidden.

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  Amalric’s Egyptian Campaigns

  The Fatimid garrison at Ascalon had controlled the route into the Nile Delta and to Cairo, the same line of attack taken by the Arabs when they invaded Egypt in 640, after their conquest of Syria and Palestine. When King Baldwin III captured Ascalon with Templar help in 1153 it opened the door to Egypt for the Franks. But the opportunity was only seized after Baldwin died in 1162 and was succeeded by his twenty-five-year-old brother Amalric, who on three occasions, in 1164, 1167 and 1168, entered Egypt to prevent it falling to Nur al-Din.

  The Fatimid regime in Cairo had grown weak and unstable, with two viziers vying with one another for control over the enfeebled caliphs. Each of the viziers reached outside Egypt for support, drawing Amalric in Jerusalem and Nur al-Din in Damascus into their quarrel. For the Franks the prize was potentially enormous: by installing a friendly government in Cairo the Kingdom of Jerusalem would not only gain access to the vast resources of Egypt but would also protect its southern flank. But the prize was no less great for Nur al-Din: not only would his acquisition of Egypt give him control over the trade route from Damascus that terminated in Cairo, but he would entirely surround the Christian states.

  Each side had grounds for hope. Alaric understood that for the Fatimids, who were both Shia and Arab, their greatest enemy was not his Christian kingdom but Nur al-Din, who was a Sunni and a Seljuk Turk. But though two centuries of Fatimid rule meant that Shia influences were strong in Egypt, Nur al-Din knew that the mass of Egyptians remained Sunni, and he counted on the shared Muslim bond between Cairo and Damascus. For five years this contest was waged between Amalric and Shirkuh, the Kurdish general commanding Nur al-Din’s army. If either rival won Egypt to its side, the gain could be decisive.

  Amalric had large contingents of Templars in his army when he twice, in 1164 and 1167, forced Shirkuh to withdraw from Egypt and then withdrew himself. A leading Templar also took part in the mission which negotiated the treaty of alliance between Amalric and Shawar, the Fatimid vizier, prior to the Franks’ military intervention in 1167. But by then the fundamental weakness of the Fatimid regime was obvious to both Nur al-Din and Amalric, and it was only a matter of time before one of them would strike the coup de grâce. Amalric struck first, marching into Egypt in 1168 with the intention of outright annexation–without the support of Templar forces. The Fatimids withdrew within the walls of Cairo and burnt its suburbs to the ground, and they sent for help to Nur al-Din. This time it was Amalric who was forced to withdraw, and Nur al-Din’s Kurdish general Shirkuh entered Cairo, decapitated Shawar and installed himself as vizier. His rule was not long; in March 1169 Shirk
uh died and was succeeded as vizier by his nephew Salah al-Din, better known in the West as Saladin.

  Templar Relations with the Kingdom of Jerusalem

  The capture of Egypt by Nur al-Din’s forces was a strategic calamity for the Franks. Why the Templars refused to participate in Amalric’s 1168 invasion has been a matter of speculation and debate. Again the earliest principal source for these events is William of Tyre, who was commissioned by Amalric to write his history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and might have been expected to fiercely condemn the Templars. Yet William himself disapproved of the campaign and said that the Templars objected on moral grounds; ‘it seemed against their conscience’ to break the treaty which they had helped negotiate with Shawar in 1167.

  What William did not mention, though it was true, was that the Templars were financially connected with the Muslims and with the Italian merchants, who carried on a greater trade with Egypt than with all the Crusader ports combined. William confined his criticism to the suggestion that the Templars may have been jealous of the Hospitallers, who had taken the lead in urging Amalric to undertake the expedition and had already claimed Pelusium on the edge of the Egyptian Delta for themselves. The perpetual rivalry between the two orders was a problem; it was seldom that they could be induced to campaign together, and each followed its own line regardless of the official policy of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

  For all the strategic importance of Egypt, there were other strategic considerations that the Templars would reasonably have taken into account. In 1164 when the bulk of Templar forces had been with Amalric on campaign in Egypt, Nur al-Din had taken advantage by striking in the north, inflicting heavy losses against the army of the prince of Antioch, which included the deaths of sixty Templar knights and numerous more sergeants and Turcopoles, precisely in the area where the Templars bore responsibility for manning strategically sited castles that were part of the ultimate defence of Outremer. The experience may have impressed upon the Templars the need to husband their resources and concentrate them where they were most needed.

  Certainly there were strong differences over military strategy between Amalric and the Templars, with William of Tyre describing a dramatic incident that occurred in 1166. Learning that a Templar garrison was under siege beyond the Jordan, Amalric rode out to relieve them with a large force. But when he reached the river he was told that what William describes as an ‘impregnable cave’ had already fallen to Nur al-Din’s general Shirkuh. The Templars may have thought that their garrison was out on a limb too far. But outraged and confounded by the news, Amalric hanged twelve of the Templars who had surrendered to Shirkuh. Add to this the story of the Assassins’ envoy killed by the Templars in 1173, an event, according to William of Tyre, that brought the kingdom to the edge of ‘irrevocable ruin’ as it cost Jerusalem an ally against encircling Sunni power, and there is a pattern of Templar wilfulness in military, political and religious matters. The Hospitallers could be no less independent of secular authority, but their image was softened by the alms and care they lavished on pilgrims, whereas the image of the Templars rested more exclusively on their military prowess, and then there was their involvement in financial activities. The independence of the orders was liable to provoke resentment, and in the case of the Templars it led increasingly to criticism that the order was primarily concerned with protecting and advancing its own interests.

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  Excellent Soldiers and Humble Monks

  An unknown pilgrim visiting Jerusalem sometime after the middle of the twelfth century described the Templars as follows:

  The Templars are most excellent soldiers. They wear white mantles with a red cross, and when they go to the wars a standard of two colours called balzaus is borne before them. They go in silence. Their first attack is the most terrible. In going they are the first, in returning the last. They await the orders of their Master. When they think fit to make war and the trumpet has sounded, they sing in chorus the Psalm of David, ‘Not unto us, O Lord’, kneeling on the blood and necks of the enemy, unless they have forced the troops of the enemy to retire altogether, or utterly broken them to pieces. Should any of them for any reason turn his back to the enemy, or come forth alive [from a defeat], or bear arms against the Christians, he is severely punished; the white mantle with the red cross, which is the sign of his knighthood, is taken away with ignominy, he is cast from the society of brethren, and eats his food on the floor without a napkin for the space of one year. If the dogs molest him, he does not dare to drive them away. But at the end of the year, if the Master and brethren think his penance to have been sufficient, they restore him the belt of his former knighthood. These Templars live under a strict religious rule, obeying humbly, having no private property, eating sparingly, dressing meanly, and dwelling in tents.

  From Anonymous Pilgrims, translated by A. Stewart, London 1894.

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  The Rise of Saladin

  In 1171 as the Fatimid caliph al-Adid lay dying, prayers rose from the mosques of Cairo, but not for the last of Egypt’s Shia rulers, instead for Nur al-Din’s puppet, the Sunni caliph in Baghdad. Notional Abbasid rule was reimposed on Egypt; in reality al-Adid was the last Arab ruler in the Middle East, and the once imperial Arabs were now governed by Turks and Kurds. Saladin continued in the office of vizier, supposedly ruling Egypt on behalf of Nur al-Din, but in effect ruling Egypt for himself. To consolidate his position, Saladin began constructing the Citadel of Cairo and extended the city walls. When Nur al-Din died in 1174 Saladin declared himself sultan in Egypt and rushed to seize Damascus. The Christians were now reaping the consequences of their failure to take Egypt; for the first time they were surrounded by a united Muslim power. Moreover the able Amalric had died in 1174 and was succeeded by his young son Baldwin IV, who suffered from leprosy.

  By the end of 1177 Saladin was ready to strike, and in November he crossed the frontier from Egypt. The Templars summoned all their available knights to defend Gaza, but Saladin bypassed them for Ascalon. Raising what men at arms he could, Baldwin rushed to block him, and together with the True Cross and the commander of his army, Raynald of Chatillon, he managed to get inside the walls of Ascalon before Saladin arrived. But instead of attacking, Saladin left a small force to besiege Ascalon and marched towards an undefended Jersualem with 30,000 men, though the figure is probably exaggerated. Sending a message to the Templars, Baldwin told them to abandon Gaza and join him. When they came near, Baldwin broke out of Ascalon and chased after Saladin, marching north along the coast and then inland. On 25 November Saladin’s army was crossing a ravine at Montgisard near Ramleh close by the Jaffa-Jerusalem road when Baldwin and the Templars fell upon them, taking them by surprise. The king himself was in the vanguard, and Raynald of Chatillon and Balian of Ibelin helped on the victory, and some saw Saint George himself, whose church was nearby at Lydda, fighting by their side.

  The Christian force comprised 450 knights, 80 of them Templars, and a few thousand infantry, and they lost about 1100 men. But they inflicted on Saladin’s forces an overwhelming defeat, killing 90 per cent of his army, Saladin himself only narrowly managing to escape back to Egypt where to cling to power he spread the lie that the Christians had lost the battle.

  The battle of Montgisard had been a great victory and it saved the Kingdom of Jerusalem for the moment, but it did not alter the fundamental situation. Against the vast resources of Egypt on which Saladin could draw, the Franks were short of men and it was dangerous to risk their army on offensive operations. Had Baldwin the forces to pursue the enemy to Cairo or to make a sudden attack on Damascus, he might have destroyed Saladin with a crushing blow. Instead he decided to reinforce his defences along the Syrian frontier, and at the insistence of the Templars he built the castle of Chastellet to control a ford across the upper Jordan where Jacob of the Old Testament was said to have wrestled with the angel (Genesis 32:24). But lacking neither resources nor resolution, Saladin kept up the pressure on the Damascus front, laid siege
to Chastellet in June 1179 and again in August 1179, succeeded in mining the castle walls, then executed its 700 defenders and razed it to the ground.

  Faced with an extreme drought that was threatening harvests throughout Syria and Outremer, in May 1180 Baldwin and Saladin agreed a two-year truce. For Saladin this was convenient as it allowed him to pursue his siege of Aleppo, which was in the hands of Nur al-Din’s son. For Baldwin it bought time. And for Christian and Muslim traders the truce meant that they could pass freely through each other’s territory. But the treaty was broken the following year by Raynald of Chatillon, a bold and able soldier who was lord of Oultrejourdain, which lay astride Saladin’s line of communication between Cairo and Damascus. From his castle of Kerak he could see the rich Muslim caravans travelling to Medina and Mecca, and falling upon one of these, he made off with all its goods. Saladin complained to Baldwin and demanded compensation, but Raynald refused to make restitution. In 1182 Raynald took matters further when he launched a fleet of ships into the Gulf of Aqaba and down the Red Sea where they raided Egyptian and Arabian ports, including those of Mecca and Medina, until they were driven back by a naval force under the command of Saladin’s brother.

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  Chivalry and Reality

  The concept of chivalry (the word derives from chevalier, the French for knight) arose in Western Europe in the century leading up to the First Crusade. A moral, religious and social code, chivalry emphasised the virtues of courage, service and honour. Combined with piety and faith, it found expression in the Crusades. Godfrey of Bouillon, the leader of the First Crusade, was widely seen as an exemplar of knightly virtues, and the chroniclers celebrated Baldwin, his brother and successor, for the chivalry he showed after capturing the wife of a Muslim prince and upon discovering she was pregnant immediately sending her back to her husband with every mark of respect.