Rise of the Knights Templar

An In Nomine Resource
By Emily Dresner

The First Crusade

"The Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman, nor an Empire. Discuss."
-- Mike Myers

As Laurence ascended to the position that Uriel once held, he found himself
inheriting a Western Europe of the Viking and Icelandic sagas, a land split by strife
and bloodshed caused by marauding bands of barbarians and warlords. European
Christendom had been long neglected by the Archangel of Purity in his crusade to
destroy the creatures of myth, and the people suffered under the hand of the Dark
Ages.

Laurence, through his soldiers and angels, tried to influence the local warlords to
change their ways and bring the Word of Christ to the populace. In the early days, it
was through chivalry, a valiant attempt by the young Archangel to instill a Christian
ideal of the warrior into the unruly nobility. He imagined creating a glorious shining
knighthood from the barbarian warlords, a brotherhood that was to become an
almost religious calling, entwined with vigils, weapon blessings, and vows of
chastity that were Laurence's hallmarks.

"A knight must be merciful without wickedness, affable without treachery,

compassionate towards the suffering, and open handed. He must be ready to help
the needy and to confound robbers and murderers, a just judge without favor or
hate. He must prefer death to dishonor. He must protect the Holy Church for she
cannot defend herself."
-- Chrtien de Troyes, Lancelot (Vulgate Cycle)

Eventually the notion of chivalry became popular among the young nobility. The old
sagas were replaced by the romances of King Arthur, the berserker was replaced by
Don Quixote, and the Catholic Church slowly civilized the hordes of the Roman
Empire. Unfortunately, this was slow, and Laurence desired a more expedient
method of civilizing Europe to compete with Gabriel's flourishing Moslem lands to
the East. The only way to accomplish that, Laurence surmised was with a good,
solid, galvanizing crusade to bring all the people under one banner and one quest. It
certainly worked for his people. The concept of reclaiming the Holy Land from
Gabriel's rogue untamed religion also appealed to Dominic on a base level, and with
that he threw in some quiet, discreet political support in Heaven for this decision.

Laurence's original vision, through his Soldier, Pope Urban II, was one of a beautiful
spiritual pilgrimage to the Holy City to unify the Christian peoples of Western Europe
under the banner of Rome. He hoped to bring together the peoples who had been
long neglected, left behind in the ravages of Uriel's Crusade, and unite them with
Gabriel's enlightened Islamic society to demonstrate the true soul of Christianity.

Pope Gregory VII, strongly pulling together the Church, had set the papacy on a
course to become the leader and judge of Western Christendom in a new
enlightened era of optimism. In 1095, Pope Urban II, changing a precept handed
down from Laurence's angels to suit his own vision of himself as the Pope-Emperor,
called upon the faithful to recover Jerusalem in a pilgrimage to strengthen the faith
and bind them into one unifying force under the banner of Rome. Inspired by a new
vision of Christ's humanity, prevalent among the enlightened and educated of the
day, the faithful set forth to free the Holy City from the infidel.

The noblemen knights, their ranks sown with bloodthirsty feudalistic warlords who
wished nothing more then to bring home the spoils of war, saw the crusade as a
method in which to win new lands, manors, and treasure beyond their wildest
imaginations. They marched off to the Holy City, singing the ancient hymn, Vexilla
regis prodeunt:

"Behold the royal ensigns fly,

The Cross's shining mystery;
Where Life itself gave up its breath
And Christ by dying conquered death"

The march was marked with massacres. Infused

with the belief of being the "Chosen of God" by
the Pope, the crusaders believed they could
murder recklessly and their souls would be safe in
Heaven. As they moved toward the Holy City,
through Turkey, they fell on Moslem cities,
viciously killing the residents, uncaring if their
targets were women and children. They impaled
those who resisted their attempts to take the
cities, and beheaded their foes. There were even reports of cannibalism, where,
prompted by demonic cruelty, the crusaders boiled women in pots and burned
children on stakes over open flame. Demons giggled in glee.

In 1099, the crusaders besieged Jerusalem. In the name of God, and to Laurence's
horror, the barbarians of Europe fell upon the Moslems, and put 70,000 men, women
and children to the sword. In places, men waded in blood up to their ankles.
Weeping, the devout conquerors went barefoot to pray at the Holy Sepulcher before
rushing back to battle. Tethers to Death and Nightmares formed and dissipated as
the demons goaded the crusaders onto higher and higher acts of depravity.

Neither Moslems nor their patron Archangel, Gabriel, accepted this travesty nor the
loss of Jerusalem to such invaders. The Turkish Saracens, in retaliation, attacked the
travelers and pilgrims who wished to visit the now Christianized Holy City. The fight
for the liberation of Palestine had begun, and the traditional peace between the
Moslem and Christian communities would never be the same.

Laurence despaired at his first major failure as an Archangel. The Malakite had
underestimated the humans of medieval Europe. It was a hard lesson in both
Celestial and human politics for the young Archangel. He needed a new tool to fight
the horror of his own making. Defeated, he turned to his other ally, Archangel
Michael, for help. From their talks was born the concept of the first warrior-monks.
Beginning of the Templars
"Certain noblemen of knightly rank, devoted to God, professed a wish to live in
chastity, obedience and without property in perpetuity, binding themselves in the
hands of the lord patriarch to the service of Christ in the manner of secular canons.
Among these, the first and most important were the venerable men, Hughes de
Payens and Godefroi de Saint-Omer . . ."
-- William, Archbishop of Tyre

In Heaven, Michael was helping Laurence to recover from the crushing

embarrassment of the First Crusade. Laurence, Michael knew, needed something
other than inspired humans slaughtering other humans in a quest to purify the Holy
Land in the name of Christ. He needed a symbol of shining knighthood to which the
true Christian nobleman could aspire, a purity the young Malakite Archangel
embodied passed down to the mortals. Instead of influencing a Pope to call down a
bloody Crusade to unite Europe all at once, an act which had resulted in disastrous
results to Heaven, Michael encouraged Laurence to think in manageable sizes, small
groups, and work up towards great Wars through inspiring Christian ideals. Michael
even acquiesced to giving Laurence a little human help in his aims.

In 1118, nine religious knights in Palestine were brought together under the strong
leadership of a remarkable, charismatic man, a Soldier of Michael named Hughes de
Payans. They called themselves the Order of the Poor Knights of the Temple of
Solomon, named for the location of their housing. They were dedicated to the
selfless protection of travelers on the road between Jaffa and Jerusalem from the
deadly Saracens. The Order slowly formed into a volunteer police force in the East,
dedicated to the protection of the helpless pilgrim on its quest.

The knights took solemn oaths of chastity, obedience, and honor, transforming
themselves from the murderous barbarians into a new brand of hero, holding high
Archangel Laurence's own brand of ethics. They emerged from the horrors and
devastation of the First Crusade as a band of shining knights who would inspire the
population back home in Western Europe. The Templars were formed.

Simultaneous with the rise of the Knights Templar was the copycat order, the
Knights of St. John, better known as the Order of the Hospitallers. This order was
influenced by a Mercurian of Michael to be healers of the sick and wounded after
the battle. They grew in parallel with the Templars, emerging from the same
devastation, but their ultimate aim was at a tangent, to heal instead of do battle. In
the East, they flourished, and soon spread across Europe as well.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

"Indeed, the knights of Christ fight the battles of their lord in safety, by no means
fearing to have sinned in slaying the foe, nor fearing the peril of their own deaths,
seeing that either dealing out death or dying, when for Christ's sake, contains
nothing criminal but rather merits glorious reward. On this account, then: for Christ!
hence Christ is attained. He who, forsooth! freely takes the death of his foe as an
act of vengeance, the more willingly finds consolation in his status as a soldier of
Christ. The soldier of Christ kills safely; he dies the more safely. He serves his own
interests in dying, and Christ's interests in killing!"
-- St. Bernard
When the Order was founded, it was a "poor order," whose primary function was the
protection of pilgrims. A transformation took place when the new Order was given a
shove in the right direction by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a powerful Saint of Dominic
and nephew of one of the founding members of the Order. Dominic had no interest
in seeing the young Archangel Laurence falter in his purpose once again,
considering he backed him the first time, and Bernard was ordered to throw his
weight behind the newly formed Knights.

The command from Heaven was carried out easily, as St. Bernard took a strong
liking to Hughes and his purpose. In Hughes, Bernard recognized a means in which
to channel the feudal nobility's destructive energy. Bernard saw that Hughes would
convert them from the warlike barbarians, easily swayed by a well-placed demonic
suggestion, to the shining knighthood of the legends the Archangel Laurence
envisioned. He recognized a method in which the nobility could truly fight the battle
of the Lord and nurse their destinies to become soldiers of God, while still holding
fast to their warlike tendencies. The military Christianity that Laurence embodied was
finally finding an outlet in which to express itself.

The Knights Templar

In 1139, backed by St. Bernard, Pope Innocent II granted
the Order the privilege to build their own churches, and
made them beholden to only the Pope himself. They
became the holy knights of the Pope, the true Defenders of
the Faith in the most literal sense. Given the ability to
expand, the Order grew at an amazing rate. As heroes of
the First Crusade, and defenders of the innocent, they
captured the public's imagination and drew many young
men to their service.

As warriors in the Service to the Sword, the Grand Masters

formed the Order from a small group of Knights into a vast
following of warrior-monks, held in check by the chains of
vows, often mirroring Laurence's Malakim in Heaven. The
Knights lived under vows of chastity, poverty, and
obedience, similar to and influenced by the rules of the
Cistercian monks of St. Bernard. They were forbidden to
touch women, even their sisters and mothers. They were
instantly obedient to any of the commands of their
superiors, and they built their own codes of laws and
systems of punishments, all the way up to and including the death penalty, should
the crime be suitable. They lived a life of a mendicant, participating in daily religious
services that emphasized the books of Joshua and Judas Maccabees, intertwined
with military duty, and they often carried out their duties in complete silence.

Above all, the Knights were marked for their bravery, as the Templars were forbidden
to flee from battle unless they were outnumbered three to one, a softer refracted
mirror image of Michael's angels in Heaven. This edict made them fierce fighters,
loyal unto the death to their Order, and they believed the greatest honor that could
be bestowed upon them was to die on the battlefield. Many of them did die in just
that manner, out in the East, fighting the Turkish Saracens who raided Christian
towns and fortresses they defended. The Knights were willing to die on the field
rather then retreat to safety, and the tales of their prowess spread through Europe.
The initiation rites of the Order were held in secret. Once a young applicant was
found to be of sound mind, free of disease, unmarried, unattached, and of proper
birth, they were free to join the Order itself. They committed themselves to being
"Servant and Slave" to God and the Virgin Mary, and finished their vows with Psalm
133. While the secrecy made the vows all the more holy to those who chose to take
them, it would later serve to undo the order as a whole.

The Growth of the Order

Once the Knights reported to no one but the Pope, the growth of the Order was
nothing short of explosive. Donations flooded into Templar coffers, and not just the
usual donations of a few pennies or trinkets. The Templars were bequeathed huge
tithes of land, jewels, and treasure brought back from the East, with the belief that
giving to the Templars, as Soldiers of God, would reserve a place in Heaven for
those who donated. Laurence watched his Order grow. He saw that his knights were
beginning to have the imagined effect upon the human populace where his Crusade
failed.

The Templars strove to meet Laurence's ideals, and became more than just the
defenders of pilgrims and those that held the Holy Land. They were held up as those
who defended Christendom as a whole, and the young flocked to serve. The
numbers swelled, and by the Second Crusade in 1180, the Knights held a chain of
fortresses and castles that lead from Spain all the way to the Holy Land in the East.

The First Bankers

The Knights were in a unique position of holding land and gold all across Western
Europe. They took vows of poverty, so the knights had little interest in spending the
money they accumulated. As they were trusted to transport pilgrims from one end of
the empire to the other, they became trusted also to transport the pilgrim's cash.
Since the money system of the time was still based on gold, a traveler, interested in
going to the Holy Land, could place their money into the hands of the Templars on
one side of Europe in return for the first bank notes. In the East, their bank notes
would be exchanged for hard cash. From this, the first banks were formed, and
Marc, the Archangel of Trade, felt his Word grow among the population of Europe.

In time, they became widely trusted with large amounts of capital. The Templars
became the bankers of the papacy itself. They were entrusted with the taxation of
the held lands in the East, since no one would dare refuse payment to the Knights,
and doing so would be to refuse God himself.

The Order grew and there evolved a split in the duties and the needs of the Order.
Safe in Western Europe, the Templars became less militant and more interested in
being farmers, financiers, bankers, and glorified travel agents. In the East, on the
front lines with the Saracens, they were known as battle-hardened veterans who
held the lands for the Pope and for God. They served different Archangels, in
different ways, and were no longer under the pure jurisdiction of Laurence.

The Templars began to reach the height of their power. They were spread from
France, through Spain and Italy, across Central Europe, all the way to Palestine.
They held vast tracts of land, dozens of fortresses, enormous coffers of money and
stores of holy relics. They influenced nobility and the church alike. The Templars
inspired poems of King Arthur and Camelot, and tales of great quests. They had
made their mark on history, and entrenched themselves as the protector of the
Christian faith. With so much prestige, it couldn't last forever. It was only a matter of
time before they fell.

Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint of Judgment

Corporeal Forces -- 1 Strength -- 2 Agility -- 2

Ethereal Forces -- 3 Intelligence -- 7 Precision -- 5
Celestial Forces -- 3 Will -- 6 Perception -- 6
Status: 4
Charisma: +2
Skills: Knowledge/4 (Religion), Emote/4, Savoir-Faire/4
Songs: Healing (Corporeal)/4
Attunements: Incarnate Law

At the time of the First Crusade, Bernard, the charismatic abbot of the Cistercian
Abbey of Clairvaux in Burgundy, was amongst the most powerful men in Europe. He
had enormous political leverage on the Pope and the King of France. His eloquence
had convinced scores of young men to leave their homes and to follow him into the
Cistercian order, which sought to reform old form of the Benedictine religious life.

Bernard was destined to preach the Second Crusade in 1146, a pronouncement that
was so enthusiastically accepted he was nearly torn to pieces by his audience.
Recruits flocked to the armies in such numbers that Bernard wrote to the Pope,
mentioning that the countryside seemed deserted.

Bernard was a man of great intelligence, who gave the external piety of Western
Europe a new dimension. He heartily mistrusted intellectualism and rationalism in
religion, and encouraged faith.

Hughes de Payans, Soldier of War

Corporeal Forces -- 2 Strength -- 5 Agility -- 3

Ethereal Forces -- 2 Intelligence -- 4 Precision -- 4
Celestial Forces -- 2 Will -- 3 Perception -- 5
Status: 3
Charisma: +2
Skills: Fighting/3, Emote/2, Dodge/3, Large Weapon/3, Tactics/3

Hughes de Payans was originally from Champagne, and on traveling to the Holy
Land during the Crusades, was a cadet in the service to the Count of Troyes.

Hughes was a remarkable man, a master of organizational skills, and charismatic

enough to drive the Templars to success. He was instrumental in the founding of the
Knights as first a volunteer police force, and then later, an order of warrior-monks.
At one time, soon after the First Crusade, the Templars were on the verge of
extinction, but through Hughes's contact with Bernard, and later the endorsement of
nobility and the Papacy, allowed it to prosper and thrive. He returned to Europe
when the order needed assistance, and convinced St. Bernard of Clairvaux to
support him.

Hughes became the first in a line of many Grand Masters of the Knights Templar.
Adventure Seed: Guarding the Pilgrims
The year is 1184, and the Crusaders have fought long and hard to liberate the Holy
City, Jerusalem, and now it is held by the Franks. After hearing tales of miracles,
pilgrims from all over Europe are traveling to the East to worship and find
enlightenment. The problem is, they are being attacked by marauding groups of
raiders along the coast.

A group of angels has been ordered to provide escort to group of travelers headed
toward the Holy City. They will meet them as they disembark the boat at Jaffa. One
of the members is an old Catholic Priest, and his wish is to see the Foundation Rock
under the Dome of the Rock. But why is this man so important? This ornery,
stubborn, frustrating old man has a great destiny to be deeply moved by this
spiritual experience, return to Europe and establish a chain of monasteries which will
evolve over time into institutes of great learning.

[Editor's Note: This is the first of a two-part series. Look for the rest next week.
What happens? Remember the axiom, "What goes up . . ."?]

Article publication date: January 15, 1999

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