60. The Military Orders. (Chapter 7. The Crusades.) (History of the Christian Church) (Schaff, Philip)

Literature. The sources are the Rules of the orders and the scattered notices of contemporary chroniclers. No attempt is made to give an exhaustive list of the literature. P. H. Helyot: Histoire des ordres monastiques, religieux et militaires, 8 vols. Paris, 1719. Perrot. Coll. Hist. des ordres de chivalrie, etc., 4 vols. Paris, 1819. Supplementary vol. by Fayolle, 1846. Bielenfeld: Gesch. und Verfassung aller geistlichen und weltlichen Ritterorden, 2 vols. Weimar, 1841. F. C. Woodhouse: The Military Religious Orders of the Middle Ages, London, 1879. G. Uhlhorn: Die christliche Liebesthaetigkeit im Mittelalter, Stuttgart, 1884. Hurter: Life of Innocent III., vol. IV. 313 sqq. The general Histories of the Crusades. Stubbs: Const. Hist. of England.

For the Knights of St. John: Abbe Vertot: Hist. des chevaliers hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jerusalem, etc., 4 vols. Paris, 1726, and since. Taafe: History of the Knights of Malta, 4 vols. London, 1852. L. B. Larking: The Knights Hospitallers in England, London, 1857. A. Winterfeld: Gesch. des Ordens St. Johannis vom Spital zu Jerusalem, Berlin, 1859. H. Von Ortenburg: Der Ritterorden des hl. Johannis zu Jerusalem, 2 vols. Regensb. 1866. Genl. Porter: Hist. of the Knights of Malta of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, London, 1883. Von Finck: Uebersicht ueber die Gesch. des ritterlichen Ordens St. Johannis, Berlin, 1890. G. Hoennicke: Studien zur Gesch. des Hospitalordens, 1099-1162, 1897. *J. D. Le Roulx: De prima origine Hospitaliorum Hierosol., Paris, 1885; Cartulaire general de l'Ordre des Hospitaliers St. Jean de Jerusalem, 3 vols., Paris, 1894; Les Hospitaliers en Terre Sainte et Chypre, 1100-1310, Paris, 1904, pp. 440. J. Von Pflugk-Harttung: Die Anfaenge des Johanniterordens in Deutschland, Berlin, 1899, and Der Johanniter und der Deutsche Orden im Kampfe Ludwigs des Baiern mit der Kirche, Leipzig, 1900. Knoepfler: Johanniter in Weltzer-Welte, VI. 1719-1803. For other Lit. see Le Roulx: Les Hospitaliers, pp. v-xiii.

For the Knights Templars: The literature is very abundant. Bernard Of Clairvaux: De laude novae militiae, ad milites templi, Migne, 182, pp. 921-940. Dupuy: Hist. des Templiers, Paris, 1650. F. Wilcke: Gesch. des Tempelherren Ordens, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1827, 2d ed. Halle, 1860. *C. H. Maillard De Chambure: REgle et Statuts secrets des Templiers, Paris, 1840 (from three old French MSS.). W. Havemann: Gesch. des Ausgangs des Tempelherren Ordens, Stuttgart, 1846. Michelet: ProcEs des Templiers, 2 vols. Paris, 1841-1851. Boutaric: Clement V. Philippe le Bel et les Templiers, Paris, 1874, and Documents inedites de Philippe le Bel, Paris, 1861. *Henri de Curzon: La REgle du Temple, Paris, 1886. *H. Prutz: Geheimlehre und Geheimstatuten des Tempelherren Ordens, Berlin, 1879, Entwicklung und Untergang des Tempelherrenordens, Berlin, 1888. K. Schottmueller: D. Untergang des Templer-Ordens, 2 vols. Berlin, 1887. W. Cunningham: Growth of English Industry, London, 1890. J. Gmelin: Schuld oder Unschuld des Templerordens, Stuttgart, 1893. *Doellinger: Der Untergang des Tempelordens in his Akadem. Vortraege, Munich, 1891, III. 245-274, the last public address the author delivered before the Academy of Sciences of Munich. A. Grange: Fall of the Knights Templars, Dublin Review, 1895, pp. 329 sqq. G. Schnuerer: D. urspruengliche Templerregel, Freib. 1903. Mansi, XXI. 359-372, also gives the Rule of the Templars as set forth at the Synod of Troyes, 1128. J. A. Froude: The Knights Templars in Short Essays. Hefele-Knoepfler, VI. *Funk: Templer in Wetzer-Welte, XI. pp. 1311-1345. H. C. Lea: Hist. of the Inquisition, III. and Absolution Formula of the Templars, Amer. Soc. of Ch. Hist. Papers, V. 37-58.

For the Teutonic Knights: Strehlke: Tabulae ordinis teutonicae. Hennes: Codex diplomaticus ordinis S. Mariae Theutonicorum, 2 vols. Mainz, 1845-1861. E. Hennig: Die Statuten des deutschen Ordens, Wuerzburg, 1866. M. Perlbach: Die Statuten des Deutschordens, Halle, 1890. Joh. Voigt: Geschichte des Deutschen Ritter-Ordens, 2 vols. Berlin, 1857-1859. H. Prutz: Die Besitzungen des deutschen Ordens im heiligen Lande, Leipzig, 1877. C. Herrlich: Die Balley Brandenburg, etc., Berlin, 1886. C. Lempens: Geschichte d. Deutschen Ordens u. sr. Ordenslaender Preussen u. Livland, 1904. Ranke: Univ. Hist., VIII. 455-480. Uhlhorn: Deutschorden, in Herzog, IV.

And by the Holy Sepulchre

I've pledged my knightly sword

To Christ, His blessed church, and her,

The mother of our Lord.

A product of the Crusades and their most important adjunct were the three great Military Orders, the Knights of St. John, the Knight Templars, and the Teutonic Knights. They combined monastic vows with the profession of arms. Their members were fighting monks and armed almoners. They constituted a standing army of Crusaders and were the vigilant guardians of Latin institutions in Palestine for nearly two centuries. The Templars and the Knights of St. John did valiant service on many a battle-field in Palestine and Asia Minor. In 1187 they shared in the disastrous defeat of the Christian forces at Tiberias. From that time their strength was concentrated at Acre. After the fall of Acre, 1291, the three orders retired to Europe, holding the Turks in check for two centuries longer in the South and extending civilization to the provinces on the Baltic in the North. They combined the element of romance, corresponding to the chivalric spirit of the age, with the element of philanthropy corresponding to its religious spirit.

These orders speedily attained to great popularity, wealth, and power. Kings did them honor. Pope after pope extended their authority and privileges. Their grand masters were recognized as among the chief personages of Christendom. But with wealth and popularity came pride and decay. The strength of the Knights of St. John and the Templars was also reduced by their rivalry which became the scandal of Europe, and broke out into open feuds and pitched battles as before Acre, 1241 to 1243 and in 1259. After the fall of Acre, which was ascribed in large part to their jealousy, Nicholas IV. sought to combine them. The Knights of St. John were predominantly a French order, the Teutonic Knights exclusively a German order. The Templars were oecumenical in their constituency.

I. The order of the Knights of St. John, or the Hospitallers, derived its name from the church of St. John the Baptist in Jerusalem. It seems to have grown out of a hospital in the city erected for the care of sick and destitute pilgrims. As early as the time of Charlemagne a hospital existed there. Before the year 1000 a cloister seems to have been founded by the Normans close by the church of the Holy Sepulchre known as St. Maria de Latina, with accommodations for the sick. About 1065 or 1070 a hospital was built by a merchant from Amalfi, Maurus. At the time of the capture of Jerusalem, Gerard stood at the head of one of these institutions. Gerard seems to have come from Southern France. He prescribed for his brotherhood a mantle of black with a white cross. Godfrey of Bouillon liberally endowed it and Baldwin further enriched it with one-tenth of the booty taken at the siege of Joppa. Gerard died in 1120 and was succeeded by Raymund du Puy, who gave the order great fame and presided over it for forty years.

The order increased with astonishing rapidity in numbers, influence, and wealth. Gifts were received from all parts of Europe, the givers being remembered in prayers offered up in Jerusalem. Raymund systematized the rules of the brotherhood and gave it a compact organization and in 1113 it gained papal sanction through Pascal II. At that time there were affiliated houses at St. Giles, Asti, Pisa, Otranto, and Tarentum. In 1122 Calixtus II. made the important announcement that those giving protection to pilgrims were entitled to the same reward as the pilgrims themselves and all who gave to the Hospital in the earthly Jerusalem, should receive the joys of the heavenly. Bull followed bull, granting the order privileges. Innocent III. exempted the members from excommunication at the hand of bishops and made the order amenable solely to the pope. Anastasius IV., 1154, gave them the right to build churches, chapels, and graveyards in any locality.

The military feature of the organization was developed after the philanthropic feature of nursing and caring for unfortunate pilgrims and it quickly became the dominant feature. Raymund du Puy makes a clear distinction in the order between cleric and lay brethren. Innocent II., 1130, speaks of its members as priests, knights, and lay brethren, the last taking no vows. In its perfected organization the order was divided into three classes, knights, chaplains, and serving brethren. The knights and chaplains were bound by the threefold pledge of charity, poverty, and obedience. The military brothers or knights formed the majority of the order and from them the officials were elected. The hospital work was not abandoned. In 1160 John of Wizburg states from personal observation that more than two thousand sick were cared for in the hospital of Jerusalem, and that in a single day forty deaths occurred. After the transfer of the order to Rhodes, the knights continued to carry on hospital work.

After Clement IV., 1267, the title of the chief official was Grand master of the Hospital of Jerusalem and Guardian of the Poor of Jesus Christ. The distinctive dress of the order was, after 1259, a red mantle with a white Maltese cross worn on the left breast that God through this emblem might give faith and obedience and protect us and all our Christian benefactors from the power of the devil. Its motto was pro fide, for the faith. The whole body was divided about 1320 into seven langues or provinces, Provence, France, Auvergne, Italy, Germany, Aragon, England. Castile was added in 1464. Affiliated houses in Europe and the East sent two-thirds of their income to Jerusalem. One of the interesting rules of the order was that the knights always went two and two and carried their own light with them.

After the fall of Acre, the Hospitallers established themselves on the island of Cyprus and in 1310 removed to the island of Rhodes, where massive walls and foundations continue to attest the labor expended upon their fortifications and other buildings. From Rhodes, as a base, they did honorable service.

Under the grand master La Valette, the Knights bravely defended Malta against the fleet of Suleymon the Magnificent until Europe felt the thrill of relief caused by the memorable defeat of the Turkish fleet by Don John at Lepanto, 1571. From that time the order continued to decay.

II. The Knight Templars before the fall of Acre had, if possible, a more splendid fame than the Knights of St. John; but the order had a singularly tragic ending in 1312, and was dissolved under moral charges of the most serious nature. From the beginning they were a military body. The order owes its origin to Hugo de Payens (or Payns) and Godfrey St. Omer, who entered Jerusalem riding on one horse, 1119. They were joined by six others who united with them in making a vow to the patriarch of Jerusalem to defend by force of arms pilgrims on their way from the coast to Jerusalem.

Baldwin II. gave the brotherhood quarters in his palace on Mount Moriah, near the site of Solomon's temple, whence the name Templars is derived. Hugo appeared at the council of Troyes in 1128, and made such persuasive appeals at the courts of France, England, and Germany, that three hundred knights joined the order. St. Bernard wrote a famous tract in praise of the new soldiery. He says: Never is an idle word, or useless deed, or immoderate laughter or murmur, if it be but in a whisper, among the Templars allowed to go unpunished. They take no pleasure in the absurd pastime of hawking. Draughts and dice they abhor. Ribald songs and stage plays they eschew as insane follies. They cut their hair close; they are begrimed with dirt and swarthy from the weight of their armor and the heat of the sun. They never dress gayly, and wash seldom. They strive to secure swift and strong horses, but not garnished with ornaments or decked with trappings, thinking of battle and victory, not of pomp and show. Such has God chosen to vigilantly guard the Holy Sepulchre.

The order spread with great rapidity. Matthew Paris, no doubt, greatly exaggerates when he gives the number of their houses in the middle of the thirteenth century as nine thousand. Their annual revenues have been estimated as high as 54,000,000 francs. The order was divided into provinces, five of them in the east Jerusalem, Tripolis, Antioch, Cyprus, and the Morea; and eleven in the west France, Aquitaine, Provence, Aragon, Portugal, Lombardy, Hungary, England, Upper and Lower Germany, Sicily, and perhaps a twelfth, Bohemia. Popes, beginning with Honorius II., heaped favors upon them. They were relieved from paying taxes of all sorts. They might hold services twice a year in churches where the interdict was in force. Their goods were placed under the special protection of the Holy See. In 1163 Alexander III. granted them permission to have their own priests.

Like the Hospitallers, the Templars took the triple vow and, in addition, the vow of military service and were divided into three classes: the knights who were of noble birth, the men at arms or serving brethren (fratres servientes, armigeri), and chaplains who were directly amenable to the pope. The dress of the knights was a white mantle with a red cross, of the serving brethren a dark habit with a red cross. The knights cropped their hair short and allowed their beards to grow. They were limited to three horses, except the grand master who was allowed four, and were forbidden to hunt except the lion, the symbol of the devil, who goes about seeking whom he may devour. The order had for its motto not to us, not to us, but to Your name, O Lord, give the glory. The members in cloister observed the regular conventual hours for prayer, and ate at a common table. If money was found in the effects of a deceased brother, his body was denied all prayer and funeral services and placed in unconsecrated ground like a slave. They were bidden to flee from the kisses of women and never to kiss a widow, virgin, mother, sister, or any other female. On account of their poverty, two ate from the same dish, but each had his own portion of wine to himself.

The head of the order was called Grand Master, was granted the rank of a prince, and included in the invitations to the oecumenical councils, as, for example, the Fourth Lateran and the second council of Lyons. The Master of the Temple in England was a baron with seat in Parliament.

The Templars took part in all the Crusades except the first and the crusade of Frederick II., from which they held aloof on account of the papal prohibition. Their discipline was conspicuous on the disastrous march of the French from Laodicea to Attalia and their valor at the battle of Hattim, before Gaza and on many other fields. The order degenerated with riches and success. To drink like a Templar, bibere templariter, became proverbial for fast living. Their seal, representing the two founders entering Jerusalem in poverty on one horse, early came to misrepresent their real possessions.

A famous passage in the history of Richard of England set forth the reputation the Templars had for pride. When Fulke of Neuilly was preaching the Third Crusade, he told Richard he had three daughters and called upon him to provide for them in marriage. The king exclaimed, Liar, I have no daughters. Nay, you have three evil daughters, Pride, Lust, and Luxury, was the priest's reply. Turning to his courtiers, Richard retorted, He bids me marry my three daughters. Well, so be it. To the Templars, I give my first-born, Pride, to the Cistercians my second-born, Lust, and to the prelates the third, Luxury.

The order survived the fall of Acre less than twenty years. After finding a brief refuge in Cyprus the knights concentrated their strength in France, where the once famous organization was suppressed by the violent measures of Philip the Fair and Clement V. The story of the suppression belongs to the next period.

III. The order of the Teutonic Knights never gained the prominence in Palestine of the two older orders. During the first century of its existence, its members devoted themselves to the maintenance and care of hospitals on the field of battle. They seldom appeared until the historic mission of the order opened in the provinces of what is now northeastern Germany which were reduced to subjection and to a degree of civilization by its arms and humanizing efforts.

The order dates from 1190, when a hospital was erected in a tent under the walls of Acre by pilgrims from Bremen and Luebeck. Frederick of Swabia commended it, and Clement III. sanctioned it, 1191. It was made a military order in 1198 by a bull of Innocent III. and in 1221 Honorious III. conferred upon it the privileges enjoyed by the Hospitallers and Templars. The order was made up almost exclusively of German elements. The members took the triple vow. Their dress was a white mantle with a black cross. Women were affiliated with some of the hospitals, as at Bremen. The first possession of the order in Europe was a convent at Palermo, the gift of Henry VI., 1197. Its first hospital in Germany was St. Kunigunde, at Halle. Subsequently its hospitals extended from Bremen and Luebeck to Nuernberg and further south. Its territory was divided into bailiwicks, balleyen, of which there were twelve in Germany. The chief officer, called Grand Master, had the dignity of a prince of the empire.

Under Hermann von Salza (1210-1239), the fourth grand master, the order grew with great rapidity. Von Salza was a trusted adviser of Frederick II., and received the privilege of using the black eagle in the order's banner. Following the invitation of the monk Christian and of Konrad of Morovia, 1226, to come to their relief against the Prussians, he diverted the attention and activity of the order from the Orient to this new sphere. The order had the promise of Culmland and half of its conquests for its assistance.

After the fall of Acre, the headquarters were transferred to Venice and in 1309 to Marienburg on the Vistula, where a splendid castle was erected. Henceforth the knights were occupied with the wild territories along the Baltic and southwards, whose populations were still in a semi-barbaric state. In the hour when the Templars were being suppressed, this order was enjoying its greatest prosperity. In 1237 it absorbed the Brothers of the Sword.

At one time the possessions of the Teutonic knights included fifty cities such as Culm, Marienburg, Thorn, and Koenigsberg, and lands with a population of two million. Its missionary labors are recorded in another chapter. With the rise of Poland began the shrinkage of the order, and in the battle of Tannenberg, 1410, its power was greatly shaken. In 1466 it gave up large blocks of territory to Poland, including Marienburg, and the grand master swore fealty to the Polish king. The order continued to hold Prussia and Sameland as fiefs. But the discipline had become loose, as was indicated by the popular saying, Dressing and undressing, eating and drinking, and going to bed are the work the German knights do. In 1511 the margrave, Albrecht of Brandenburg, was made grand master and refused to be a vassal of Poland. Following the counsel of Luther, he laid down the mantle and cross of the order, married 1523, and laid the foundation of the greatness of the duchy of Prussia, which he made hereditary in his family, the Hohenzollern. The black eagle passed to the Prussian coat of arms.