15Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium tr. Frederick Tupper and Marbury Bladen Ogle (London: Chatto & Windus, 1924) p. 49.
CHAPTER SIX
Hugh de Payns Takes the Templars on the Road
By 1127, the Knights of the Temple were established in the Holy Land. Even in their early state, they had so impressed Fulk of Anjou that, in 1124, he had given them thirty thousand livres from the rents of his lands.1 Other lords had also donated property, especially in Hugh de Payns’ home county of Champagne.
But the number of men who had decided to devote their lives to the order was still far too few. So it was decided that Hugh, along with fellow knights Godfrey of St. Omer, Payns of Montdidier, and Robert of Craon, would undertake a journey of recruitment.2 It is interesting that the men chosen were from various parts of France. Godfrey was from Picardy in the north and Robert was a Burgundian.
The group probably made a stop at Rome, although there is no record of it or of a meeting with the pope, Honorius II. They then went on to Troyes, the seat of the counts of Champagne. Although Hugh of Champagne was still alive, he did not accompany the party. His nephew, Thibaud, was now count. Thibaud welcomed the knights and here Hugh may have seen his family for the first time in over ten years and made further arrangements for the disposal his own land.
Next, in early 1128, the men went to Anjou, where their old friend Fulk renewed his donation to the order. He also made a new donation that was split among the Templars, the bishop of Chartres, the abbey of the Trinity at Vendome, and the abbey of Fontevrault.3 At this point, Fulk probably received the offer from King Baldwin to marry his eldest daughter, Melisande. On Ascension Day (May 28) of 1128 Fulk decided to take the cross (and the kingdom). Hugh was present for this ceremony, as was Gautier de Bure, the constable of Jerusalem, who had been sent expressly to bring the marriage proposal.4
The party went on to the county of Poitou, northwest of Anjou, where various lords gave generously to the new order. It would be nice to think that at this time Hugh may have seen the young Eleanor of Aquitaine, who would one day make the pilgrimage to the Holy Land, on the Second Crusade, as the wife of Louis VII of France. But there is no evidence that she or her father, the count of Poitou, met with the Templars.
Hugh then visited King Henry I of England at his court in Normandy, before going on to England and Scotland. Henry apparently gave the Templars “gold and silver” and annually added “many subsidies in arms and other equipment.”5
The chronicles of Waverley Abbey in England tell of Hugh’s trip “with two knights of the Temple and two clerics.” The knights went all over England and as far north as Scotland, “and many took the cross that year and those following and took the route for the Holy places.”6
At the next stop, Hugh felt confident of a good reception. Thierry, count of Flanders, was well disposed to the Templars. He also encouraged his barons to be generous. On September 13, 1128, Thierry held a solemn assembly before the bishop of Thérouanne at which he confirmed the donations made to the Templars by his predecessor, William Clito. Present to witness it were Hugh, Godfrey of St. Omer, Payns of Montdidier, “and many other brothers.”7 It’s never made clear, but I believe that these “other brothers” were some of the new recruits that the Templars so desperately needed. A public gathering such as this would be a perfect place for a rousing speech. A young man carried away by the moment would find it hard to renounce a vow taken before so many people.
Finally the party returned to Troyes sometime around January 1129. There they received a house, a grange, land and fields near the suburb of Preize from a Raoul Crassus (the fat) and his wife, Hélène. This donation almost certainly became the commandery of Troyes.8 Witnessing it were Hugh, Godfrey, and Payns along with Templars named Ralph and John. It seems that the trip had been worth it.
Only one thing more was needed to make sure the Order of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon was securely established. And Hugh was about to get it.
1Orderic Vitalis, The Eccesiastical History of Oderic Vitalis vol. VI, ed. and tr. Margery Chibnall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978) pp. 310-11.
2Thierry LeRoy, Hugues de Payns. (Troyes: Maison du Boulanger, 1999) pp. 72-76.
3Ibid., p. 195.
4Ibid., p. 76.
5Robert of Torigni, Gesta Normannorum Ducam Vol. II, Book VII, pp. 32-34, ed. and tr. Elisabeth M. C. Van Houts (Oxford: Oxford Medieval Texts; 1995) p. 257. I say apparently because there isn’t any record of Henry’s generosity, except Robert’s account.
6Quoted in LeRoy, p. 76.
7Marquis d’Albon, Charter no. 16.
8Ibid., Charter no. 22.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Council of Troyes
At the end of 1128, Hugh de Payns made his way back from the tour of northern France, England, and Flanders to his birth-place in Champagne. Here he would at last receive official recognition of the Templars as a monastic order.
A church council convened at the town of Troyes on January 13, 1129.1 The pope, Honorius II, did not attend. Instead he sent his legate, Matthew, cardinal-bishop of Albano, who had been a priest in Paris. There were two archbishops, Renaud of Reims and Henry of Sens. There were also a number of abbots, four from the Cistercian order, among them Bernard of Clairvaux.2 There were also ten bishops and two “masters,” that is, scholars, Alberic of Reims and Fulger.3
Abbot Bernard supported the Templars but he doesn’t seem to have been eager to attend the council. He asked to be excused on the grounds of ill health.4 But there was no way he could get out of it. Even in 1128, Bernard had a reputation for wisdom and piety. His support was all important. And after the council, that support would coutinue.
The council heard Hugh tell the story of how he began the order and its mission. He asked the clerics for an official habit to mark the Templars as knight-monks and also a Rule to live by like that of other monks. The clerics deliberated and gave the Templars permission to wear a white habit, as the Cistercians did. They also provided a monastic Rule in Latin, based on that of other monastic orders.5
However, the clerics were not really prepared to make a monastic Rule for men whose main function was not to pray but to fight. Wisely, they asked the advice of men who understood the active life. Along with the clerics, Thibaud, count of Champagne and nephew and heir of Hugh of Champagne, and William, count of Nevers, were present. The secretary of the council, Matthew, explains the presence of these “illiterates” by saying that they were lovers of the Truth who carefully went over the Templar Rule and threw out anything that didn’t seem reasonable. “It was for this that they were at the council.”6
The Latin Rule made provisions for the needs of the knights. Unlike other monks, who ate fish and eggs, Templars were allowed red meat three times a week.7If they were too tired, they needn’t get up in the middle of the night for prayers.8 The Rule also allowed the knights to have horses and servants to maintain them.
The clerics did take the opportunity to come out strongly against current fashion. They forbade the knights to wear immoderately long hair and beards, shoes with long curling points, lacy frills, or excessively long tunics.9Obviously the average knight on the road was a bit of a dandy.
The noble pursuits of hunting and hawking were also forbidden, with the exception of lion hunting, “because he [the lion] is always searching for someone to devour and his strength is against all so all strength is against him.”10 This shows that not all the danger in a pilgrimage was from human attackers. However, the council may have been thinking of a biblical analogy here, of the lion falling upon the flock of faithful pilgrims.
Other sections of the Rule concern behavior at meals, caring for brothers who become ill, and other common customs of monastic life; for instance, all property was kept in common and prayers were said seven times a day. Since the knights were not expected to understand Latin, they were told to simply repeat the Lord’s Prayer at the correct times.
One subject that the council was extremely fir
m about concerned association with women. Knowing the reputation of knights for sexual conquests, two sections of the Rule make it clear that they were not even to kiss their own mothers or sisters. “We believe it dangerous for any man of religion to pay too much attention to the faces of women; therefore no brother may take the liberty of kissing a widow, nor a virgin nor his mother, nor his sister, nor his friend, nor any other woman.”11 This was taken for granted in most monastic houses, where the monks spent most of their time well out of sight of any female temptation. But it’s clear that the council worried that after a hard day of fighting Saracens , it might be difficult for a Knight of the Temple to remember that, while he could still pillage, rape was no longer an option.
While the Latin Rule soon proved to need a lot of editing and additions, for the present Hugh de Payns was satisfied with the results of the council. He returned to Jerusalem by 1131, with fresh recruits, donations, and a formal Rule for the Knights Templar to live by. They were now an accepted part of the religious life in the West as well as the East.
1Older accounts give this date as 1128 but this was caused by confusion surrounding the fact that many people in the twelfth century started the New Year in spring, not the middle of winter.
2Charles-Joseph Hefele and Dom H. Leclercq, Histoire de Conciles d’après les Documents Originaux Vol. V (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1912) p. 670.
3 Laurent Dailliez, Règle et Status de l’Ordre du Temple, 2nd ed (Paris: Éditions Dervy, 1972). Reprint of the Latin Rule from 1721, pp. 325-26. The bishops were from Chartres, Soissons, Paris, Troyes, Orleans, Chalons, Laon, and Beauvais, all roughly from the north and east of France. William of Nevers’s son, Raynald, died a prisoner of the Turks during the Second Crusade. William ended his days as a Carthusian monk.
4 Bernard of Clairvaux, Opera Omnia Vol. 1 (Paris, 1839) letter 21, col. 164-65. “Savientis siquidem acutae febris exusta ardoribus, et exhausta sudoribus.” That is, he had a fever that wore him out.
5 Dailliez, pp. 327-59.
6 Ibid., p. 326.
7 Ibid., p. 332, capitula 10.
8 Ibid., pp. 335-36, capitula 18.
9 Ibid., p. 340, capitula 29. “De rostris & laqueis manifestum est & Gentiles: & cum abominabile, hoc omnibus agnoscatur, prohibimus . . . capillorum superflitaten & vestium immoderatan longitudinem barbere non permittimus.”
10 Ibid., p. 348. “Quia ipse circuit, quaerens quem devoret, & manus ejus contra omnes, omniumque manus contra eum.”
11 Ibid., p. 359, capitula 72. “Periculosum esse credimus omni Religioni vultum mulierum nimis attendere, & ideo nec vicuam, nec virginem, nec matrem, nec sororum, nec amitam, nec ullam aliam foeminam aliquis Frater osculi praesumet.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Go Forth and Multiply
One can trace the recruiting journey of Hugh and his companions by records of the gifts donated to them. Both great lords and minor ones lined up to make donations to the Templars. This was not only because they believed in the cause but, as is still true, the support of important people brought in gifts from the rank and file, who wished to associate themselves in charity with their local rulers.1
After the Council of Troyes, Hugh de Payns returned to Jerusalem, but other Templars continued to crisscross Europe seeking support for the new order.
In the south, Hugh Rigaud, another Templar, was busy canvassing for the order. As early as 1128, he was in Toulouse, where Peter Bernard and his wife, Borella, gave themselves and everything they owned to the Templars, with the provision that, if they had children who wanted to join the order, they would be allowed to.2 Rigaud spent the next several years getting donations for the Temple, ranging from lands, tithes, and vineyards to “a shirt and pants” from a townswoman “and, after her death, her best cloak.”3 Hugh Rigaud can be found accepting donation charters in southern France and northern Spain through the 1130s.
However, unlike other monastic groups, the Templars had no system in place for receiving and maintaining the donations.4 Remember, these mostly didn’t come in the form of money, but goods. It’s all very well to receive grants of fields, houses, vines, horses, old clothes, and even serfs, but these weren’t things that could be put in an online auction for quick cash. Many of the gifts couldn’t be used until the donor had died. Others consisted of a certain part of a harvest each year or so many cheeses.
The nature of the gifts to the order meant that the Templars needed to establish way stations of some sort to receive goods and transfer them from Europe to the Crusader States. Great monastic houses like Cluny and Citeaux would establish priories, which were dependent houses, staffed with only a few monks. But the Templars were desperate for more men of fighting age to join in the battle, so new recruits were encouraged to leave for Jerusalem as soon as possible. That didn’t leave anyone to direct the collection and processing of supplies.
The fact that the earliest Templars weren’t all that well organized is evident by the various titles that Hugh Rigaud is given in the charters. Sometimes he is a brother of the society,5 sometimes he is mentioned only by name, and sometimes by the title “procurator,”6which seems a good description of his work, although it’s not listed in the Rule as an administrative position.
The Templars may have eventually established houses on the model of those already run by the Hospitallers, who had been receiving gifts in the West since just after the First Crusade (around 1100), particularly in Spain and the south of France as well as Italy.7
Eventually, the order organized itself in territories that were grouped according to the languages of the brothers. These were mostly French, Spanish, and English, with some Italians and Germans. The Templars never established themselves in Scandinavia but there were some commanderies in Hungary and Croatia.
OCCITANIA
For the purpose of this book, I’m defining Occitania as the southern part of France from the Atlantic Ocean on the west, along the Pyrenees Mountains in the south, roughly to Marseille in the east. I’m not interested in precision; the people who lived there in the twelfth and thirteenth century were used to flowing borders. The region was divided among various counties and lordships in the west and a loose attachment to the Holy Roman Empire in the east. The language, called Occitan or Provençal, was closer to that of northern Spain than to France.
The earliest recorded gift to the Templars is from Marseille. There is no indication of how the donor, William of Marseille, even knew about the order, but he gave them a church on the Côte d’Azur in the early 1120s. It shows how strongly the Templars believed in not living the soft life on the beach that they gave it back in 1124.8Actually, it’s likely that the gift was more expensive to maintain than it was worth.
It wasn’t until after Hugh de Payns had secured papal approval for the order that the donations in Occitania started rolling in. This was due in large part to the promotional activity of Templar brothers Hugh Rigaud and Raymond Bernard. After the Council of Troyes they spent several years traveling through the region drumming up support. While Hugh worked north of the Pyrenees, Raymond concentrated on Spain and Portugal.9
Between about 1130 and 1136 Hugh Rigaud seemed to be everywhere in the south. Either on his own or with other brothers of the Temple, he received donations, bought land, and established commanderies .10 The amount of organization this implies makes me think that Hugh must have been a court official in his previous life.
Hugh Rigaud was present in 1132 when one of the most powerful families in the region, the Trencavels, gave the Templars the services of a person, Pons the Gascon, along with his family.11 Pons had a house and other property near the town of Carcassonne, which the Trencavels promised never to harass.12
Members of this family were strong supporters of the Templars in those early years and their prestige in the area meant that others were encouraged to donate, as well. In 1133, the families of Bernard de Canet and Aymeric of Barbaira gave the Templars the castle of Douzens, which was to become a major commandery in Occitania.13 Mor
e importantly, Aymeric and his brother William Xabert gave themselves to the Templars. They did not agree to serve right away but at some future date, and if they weren’t able to, the Templars would get one hundred sous.14
These families continued to give land to the Templars for at least twenty years and perhaps longer.15
Hugh de Rigaud vanishes from the records in 1136, presumably because he died. His successor was Arnold of Bedocio. Arnold came from Catalonia and so there was no problem with language when he came to Occitania. Arnold lived at the commandery at Douzens but continued the work of acquiring more property in the area. He received the donation of Hugh de Bourbouton that would become the other great commandery in Occitania, Richerendes.16
As in other regions, most of the Templars living at the commanderies came from the region. Young men were sent east as soon as they could be ready and older or infirm recruits stayed behind to provide the fighting men with provisions.
CROATIA AND HUNGARY
Templar commanderies first began appearing in Croatia a few years after the Second Crusade (1148-1150). At the same time, the first Hospitallers were also established there.17It’s not at all clear what prompted this, although it’s possible that the master of the Templars in France, Everard de Barres, who accompanied the army of Louis VII, saw the need to protect pilgrims taking the route through Croatia on their way to the Holy Land and the lords there agreed.18
By 1169, the pope had given the Templars the old Benedictine monastery of Vrana. The only catch to this gift was that the Templars had to house any papal legates who happened to be passing through along with their sometimes large entourages. The bishop of Zagreb, Prodanus, also gave the Templars property in and around Zagreb which had no strings attached since the bishop already had a place to sleep there.19
The Real History Behind the Templars Page 5
