The History of the Knights Templars, the Temple Church, and the Temple

Saladin, on the other hand, sent triumphant letters to the caliph. “God and his angels,” says he, “have mercifully succoured Islam. The infidels have been sent to feed the fires of hell! The cross is fallen into our hands, around which they fluttered like the moth round a light; under whose shadow they assembled, in which they boldly trusted as in a wall; the cross, the centre and leader of their pride, their superstition, and their tyranny.”…200

After the conquest of between thirty and forty cities and castles, many of which belonged to the order of the Temple, Saladin laid siege to the holy city. On the 20th of September the Mussulman army encamped on the west of the town, and extended itself from the tower of David to the gate of St. Stephen. The Temple could no longer furnish its brave warriors for the defence of the holy sanctuary of the Christians; two miserable knights, with a few serving brethren, alone remained in its now silent halls and deserted courts.

After a siege of fourteen days, a breach was effected in the walls, and ten banners of the prophet waved in triumph on the ramparts. In the morning a barefoot procession of the queen, the women, and the monks and priests, was made to the holy sepulchre, to implore the Son of God to save his tomb and his inheritance from impious violation. The females, as a mark of humility and distress, cut off their hair and cast it to the winds; and the ladies of Jerusalem made their daughters do penance by standing up to their necks in tubs of cold water placed upon Mount Calvary. But it availed nought; “for our Lord Jesus Christ,” says a Syrian Frank, “would not listen to any prayer that they made; for the filth, the luxury, and the adultery which prevailed in the city, did not suffer prayer or supplication to ascend before God.”201

On the surrender of the city (October 2, A. D. 1187) the Moslems rushed to the Temple in thousands. “The Imauns and the doctors and expounders of the wicked errors of Mahomet,” says Abbot Coggleshale, who was then in Jerusalem suffering from a wound which he had received during the siege, “first ascended to the Temple of the Lord, called by the infidels Beit Allah, (the house of God,) in which, as a place of prayer and religion, they place their great hope of salvation. With horrible bellowings they proclaimed the law of Mahomet, and vociferated, with polluted lips, Allah Acbar– Allah Acbar, (God is victorious.) They defiled all the places that are contained within the Temple; i. e. the place of the presentation, where the mother and glorious virgin Mary delivered the Son of God into the hands of the just Simeon; and the place of the confession, looking towards the porch of Solomon, where the Lord judged the woman taken in adultery. They placed guards that no Christian might enter within the seven atria of the Temple; and as a disgrace to the Christians, with vast clamour, with laughter and mockery, they hurled down the golden cross from the pinnacle of the building, and dragged it with ropes throughout the city, amid the exulting shouts of the infidels and the tears and lamentations of the followers of Christ.”202

When every Christian had been removed from the precincts of the Temple, Saladin proceeded with vast pomp to say his prayers in the Beit Allah, the holy house of God, or “Temple of the Lord,” erected by the Caliph Omar.203 He was preceded by five camels laden with rose-water, which he had procured from Damascus,204 and he entered the sacred courts to the sound of martial music, and with his banners streaming in the wind. The Beit Allah, “the Temple of the Lord,” was then again consecrated to the service of one God and his prophet Mahomet; the walls and pavements were washed and purified with rose-water; and a pulpit, the labour of Noureddin, was erected in the sanctuary.205 The following account of these transactions was forwarded to Henry the Second, king of England.

“To the beloved Lord Henry, by the grace of God, the illustrious king of the English, duke of Normandy and Guienne, and count of Anjou, Brother Terric, formerly Grand Preceptor of the house of the Temple at Jerusalem, sendeth greeting, – salvation through him who saveth kings.

“Know that Jerusalem, with the citadel of David, hath been surrendered to Saladin. The Syrian Christians, however, have the custody of the holy sepulchre up to the fourth day after Michaelmas, and Saladin himself hath permitted ten of the brethren of the Hospital to remain in the house of the hospital for the space of one year, to take care of the sick… Jerusalem, alas, hath fallen; Saladin hath caused the cross to be thrown down from the summit of the Temple of the Lord, and for two days to be publicly kicked and dragged in the dirt through the city. He then caused the Temple of the Lord to be washed within and without, upwards and downwards, with rose-water, and the law of Mahomet to be proclaimed throughout the four quarters of the Temple with wonderful clamour…”206

Bohadin, Saladin’s secretary, mentions as a remarkable and happy circumstance, that the holy city was surrendered to the sultan of most pious memory, and that God restored to the faithful their sanctuary on the twenty-seventh of the month Regeb, on the night of which very day their most glorious prophet Mahomet performed his wonderful nocturnal journey from the Temple, through the seven heavens, to the throne of God. He also describes the sacred congregation of the Mussulmen gathered together in the Temple and the solemn prayer offered up to God; the shouting and the sounds of applause, and the voices lifted up to heaven, causing the holy buildings to resound with thanks and praises to the most bountiful Lord God. He glories in the casting down of the golden cross, and exults in the very splendid triumph of Islam.207

Saladin restored the sacred area of the Temple to its original condition under the first Mussulman conquerors of Jerusalem. The ancient christian church of the Virgin (otherwise the mosque Al Acsa, otherwise the Temple of Solomon) was washed with rose-water, and was once again dedicated to the religious services of the Moslems. On the western side of this venerable edifice the Templars had erected, according to the Arabian writers, an immense building in which they lodged, together with granaries of corn and various offices, which enclosed and concealed a great portion of the edifice. Most of these were pulled down by the sultan to make a clear and open area for the resort of the Mussulmen to prayer. Some new erections placed between the columns in the interior of the structure were taken away, and the floor was covered with the richest carpets. “Lamps innumerable,” says Ibn Alatsyr, “were suspended from the ceiling; verses of the Koran were again inscribed on the walls; the call to prayer was again heard; the bells were silenced; the exiled faith returned to its ancient sanctuary; the devout Mussulmen again bent the knee in adoration of the one only God, and the voice of the imaun was again heard from the pulpit, reminding the true believers of the resurrection and the last judgment.”208

The Friday after the surrender of the city, the army of Saladin and crowds of true believers, who had flocked to Jerusalem from all parts of the East, assembled in the Temple of the Lord to assist in the religious services of the Mussulman sabbath. Omad, Saladin’s secretary, who was present, gives the following interesting account of the ceremony, and of the sermon that was preached. “On Friday morning at daybreak,” says he, “every body was asking whom the sultan had appointed to preach. The Temple was full; the congregation was impatient; all eyes were fixed on the pulpit; the ears were on the stretch; our hearts beat fast, and tears trickled down our faces. On all sides were to be heard rapturous exclamations of ‘What a glorious sight! What a congregation! Happy are those who have lived to see the resurrection of Islam.’ At length the sultan ordered the judge (doctor of the law) Mohieddin Aboulmehali-Mohammed to fulfil the sacred function of imaun. I immediately lent him the black vestment which I had received as a present from the caliph. He then mounted into the pulpit and spoke. All were hushed. His expressions were graceful and easy; and his discourse eloquent and much admired. He spake of the virtue and the sanctity of Jerusalem, of the purification of the Temple; he alluded to the silence of the bells, and to the flight of the infidel priests. In his prayer he named the caliph and the sultan, and terminated his discourse with that chapter of the Koran in which God orders justice and good works. He then descended from the pulpit, and prayed in the Mihrah. Immediately afterwards a sermon was preached before the congregation.”209

This sermon was delivered by Mohammed Ben Zeky. “Praise be to God,” saith the preacher, “who by the power of his might hath raised up Islamism on the ruins of Polytheism; who governs all things according to his will; who overthroweth the devices of the infidels, and causeth the truth to triumph… I praise God, who hath succoured his elect; who hath rendered them victorious and crowned them with glory, who hath purified his holy house from the filthiness of idolatry… I bear witness that there is no God but that one great God who standeth alone and hath no partner; sole, supreme, eternal; who begetteth not and is not begotten, and hath no equal. I bear witness that Mahomet is his servant, his envoy, and his prophet, who hath dissipated doubts, confounded polytheism, and put down LIES, &c…

“O men, declare ye the blessings of God, who hath restored to you this holy city, after it has been left in the power of the infidels for a hundred years… This holy house of the Lord hath been built, and its foundations have been established, for the glory of God… This sacred spot is the dwelling place of the prophets, the kebla, (place of prayer,) towards which you turn at the commencement of your religious duties, the birth-place of the saints, the scene of the revelation. It is thrice holy, for the angels of God spread their wings over it. This is that blessed land of which God hath spoken in his sacred book. In this house of prayer, Mahomet prayed with the angels who approach God. It is to this spot that all fingers are turned after the two holy places… This conquest, O men, hath opened unto you the gates of heaven; the angels rejoice, and the eyes of the prophets glisten with joy…”210

Omad informs us that the marble altar and chapel which had been erected over the sacred rock in the Temple of the Lord, or mosque of Omar, was removed by Saladin, together with the stalls for the priests, the marble statues, and all the abominations which had been placed in the venerated building by the Christians. The Mussulmen discovered with horror that some pieces of the holy stone or rock had been cut off by the Franks, and sent to Europe. Saladin caused it to be immediately surrounded by a grate of iron. He washed it with rose-water and Malek-Afdal covered it with magnificent carpets.211

After the conquest of the holy city, and the loss of the Temple at Jerusalem, the Knights Templars established the chief house of their order at Antioch, to which place they retired with Queen Sibylla, the barons of the kingdom, and the patriarch Heraclius.212

The following account of the condition of the few remaining christian possessions immediately after the conquest of Jerusalem, was conveyed by the before-mentioned Brother Terric, Grand Preceptor of the Temple, and Treasurer General of the order, to Henry the Second, king of England.

“The brothers of the hospital of Belvoir as yet bravely resist the Saracens; they have captured two convoys, and have valiantly possessed themselves of the munitions of war and provisions which were being conveyed by the Saracens from the fortress of La Feue. As yet, also, Carach, in the neighbourhood of Mount Royal, Mount Royal itself, the Temple of Saphet, the hospital of Carach, Margat, and Castellum Blancum, and the territory of Tripoli, and the territory of Antioch, resist Saladin… From the feast of Saint Martin up to that of the circumcision of the Lord, Saladin hath besieged Tyre incessantly, by night and by day, throwing into it immense stones from thirteen military engines. On the vigils of St. Silvester, the Lord Conrad, the Marquis of Montferrat, distributed knights and foot soldiers along the wall of the city, and having armed seventeen galleys and ten small vessels, with the assistance of the house of the Hospital and the brethren of the Temple, he engaged the galleys of Saladin, and vanquishing them he captured eleven, and took prisoners the great admiral of Alexandria and eight other admirals, a multitude of the infidels being slain. The rest of the Mussulman galleys, escaping the hands of the Christians, fled to the army of Saladin, and being run aground by his command, were set on fire and burnt to ashes. Saladin himself, overwhelmed with grief, having cut off the ears and the tail of his horse, rode that same horse through his whole army in the sight of all. Farewell!”213

A. D. 1188.

Tyre was valiantly defended against all the efforts of Saladin until the winter had set in, and then the disappointed sultan, despairing of taking the place, burnt his military engines and retired to Damascus. In the mean time, negotiations had been set on foot for the release from captivity of Guy king of Jerusalem, and Gerard de Riderfort, the Grand Master of the Temple. No less than eleven of the most important of the cities and castles remaining to the Christians in Palestine, including Ascalon, Gaza, Jaffa, and Naplous, were yielded up to Saladin by way of ransom for these illustrious personages; and at the commencement of the year 1188, the Grand Master of the Temple again appeared in arms at the head of the remaining forces of the order.214

The torpid sensibility of Christendom had at this time been aroused by the intelligence of the fall of Jerusalem, and of the profanation of the holy places by the conquering infidels. Three hundred knights and a considerable naval force were immediately despatched from Sicily, and all the Templars of the West capable of bearing arms hurried from their preceptories to the sea-ports of the Mediterranean, and embarked for Palestine in the ships of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. The king of England forwarded a large sum of money to the order for the defence of the city of Tyre; but as the siege had been raised before its arrival, and as Conrad, the valiant defender of the place, claimed a title to the throne of Jerusalem in opposition to Guy de Lusignan, the Grand Master of the Temple refused to deliver the money into Conrad’s hands, in consequence whereof the latter wrote letters filled with bitter complaints to King Henry and the archbishop of Canterbury.215

A. D. 1189.

In the spring of the year 1189, the Grand Master of the Temple marched out of Tyre at the head of the newly-arrived brethren of the order, and, in conjunction with a large army of crusaders, laid siege to Acre. The “victorious defender of the faith, tamer of the followers of the cross,” hastened to its relief, and pitched his tents on the mountains of Carouba.

On the 4th of October, the newly-arrived warriors from Europe, eager to signalize their prowess against the infidels, marched out to attack Saladin’s camp. The Grand Master of the Temple, at the head of his knights and the forces of the order, and a large body of European chivalry who had ranged themselves under the banner of the Templars, formed a reserve. The Moslem array was broken by the impetuous charge of the soldiers of the cross, who penetrated to the imperial tent, and then abandoned themselves to pillage. The infidels rallied, they were led on by Saladin in person; and the christian army would have been annihilated but for the Templars. Firm and immovable, they presented, for the space of an hour, an unbroken front to the advancing Moslems, and gave time for the discomfited and panic-stricken crusaders to recover from their terror and confusion; but ere they had been rallied, and had returned to the charge, the Grand Master of the Temple was slain; he fell pierced with arrows at the head of his knights; the seneschal of the order shared the same fate, and more than half the Templars were numbered with the dead.216

Walter.

A. D. 1190.

To Gerard de Riderfort succeeded the Knight Templar, Brother Walter.217 Never did the flame of enthusiasm burn with fiercer or more destructive power than at this famous siege of Acre. Nine pitched battles were fought, with various fortune, in the neighbourhood of Mount Carmel, and during the first year of the siege a hundred thousand Christians are computed to have perished. The tents of the dead, however, were replenished by new comers from Europe; the fleets of Saladin succoured the town, the christian ships brought continual aid to the besiegers, and the contest seemed interminable.218 Saladin’s exertions in the cause of the prophet were incessant. The Arab authors compare him to a mother wandering with desperation in search of her lost child, to a lioness who has lost its young. “I saw him,” says his secretary Bohadin, “in the fields of Acre afflicted with a most cruel disease, with boils from the middle of his body to his knees, so that he could not sit down, but only recline on his side when he entered into his tent, yet he went about to the stations nearest to the enemy, arranged his troops for battle, and rode about from dawn till eve, now to the right wing, then to the left, and then to the centre, patiently enduring the severity of his pain.”… “O God,” says his enthusiastic biographer, “thou knowest that he put forth and lavishly expended all his energies and strength towards the protection and the triumph of thy religion; do thou therefore, O Lord, have mercy upon him.”219

At this famous siege died the Patriarch Heraclius.220

CHAPTER VII

Richard Cœur de Lion joins the Templars before Acre – The city surrenders, and the Templars establish the chief house of their order within it – Cœur de Lion takes up his abode with them – He sells to them the island of Cyprus – The Templars form the van of his army – Their foraging expeditions and great exploits – Cœur de Lion quits the Holy Land in the disguise of a Knight Templar – The Templars build the Pilgrim’s Castle in Palestine – The state of the order in England – King John resides in the Temple at London – The barons come to him at that place, and demand Magna Charta – The exploits of the Templars in Egypt – The letters of the Grand Master to the Master of the Temple at London – The Templars reconquer Jerusalem.

“Therefore, friends, As far as to the sepulchre of Christ (Whose soldier now under whose blessed cross We are impressed and engag’d to fight,) Forthwith a power of English shall we levy, Whose arms were moulded in their mother’s womb, To chase these pagans, in those holy fields, Over whose acres walked those blessed feet, Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nail’d, For our advantage, on the bitter cross.”

Walter. A. D. 1191. Robert de Sablé. A. D. 1191.

In the mean time a third crusade had been preached in Europe. William, archbishop of Tyre, had proceeded to the courts of France and England, and had represented in glowing colours the miserable condition of Palestine, and the horrors and abominations which had been committed by the infidels in the holy city of Jerusalem. The English and French monarchs laid aside their private animosities, and agreed to fight under the same banner against the infidels, and towards the close of the month of May, in the second year of the siege of Acre, the royal fleets of Philip Augustus and Richard Cœur de Lion floated in triumph in the bay of Acre. At the period of the arrival of king Richard the Templars had again lost their Grand Master, and Brother Robert de Sablé, or Sabloil, a valiant knight of the order, who had commanded a division of the English fleet on the voyage out, was placed at the head of the fraternity.221 The proudest of the nobility, and the most valiant of the chivalry of Europe, on their arrival in Palestine, manifested an eager desire to fight under the banner of the Temple. Many secular knights were permitted by the Grand Master to take their station by the side of the military friars, and even to wear the red cross on their breasts whilst fighting in the ranks.

The Templars performed prodigies of valour; “The name of their reputation, and the fame of their sanctity,” says James of Vitry, bishop of Acre, “like a chamber of perfume sending forth a sweet odour, was diffused throughout the entire world, and all the congregation of the saints will recount their battles and glorious triumph over the enemies of Christ, knights indeed from all parts of the earth, dukes, and princes, after their example, casting off the shackles of the world, and renouncing the pomps and vanities of this life and all the lusts of the flesh for Christ’s sake, hastened to join them, and to participate in their holy profession and religion.”222

On the morning of the twelfth of July, six weeks after the arrival of the British fleet, the kings of England and France, the christian chieftains, and the Turkish emirs with their green banners, assembled in the tent of the Grand Master of the Temple, to treat of the surrender of Acre, and on the following day the gates were thrown open to the exulting warriors of the cross. The Templars took possession of three localities within the city by the side of the sea, where they established their famous Temple, which became from thenceforth the chief house of the order. Richard Cœur de Lion, we are told, took up his abode with the Templars, whilst Philip resided in the citadel.223

When the fiery monarch of England tore down the banner of the duke of Austria from its staff and threw it into the ditch, it was the Templars who, interposing between the indignant Germans and the haughty Britons, preserved the peace of the christian army.224

During his voyage from Messina to Acre, King Richard had revenged himself on Isaac Comnenus, the ruler of the island of Cyprus, for the insult offered to the beautiful Berengaria, princess of Navarre, his betrothed bride. The sovereign of England had disembarked his troops, stormed the town of Limisso, and conquered the whole island; and shortly after his arrival at Acre, he sold it to the Templars for three hundred thousand livres d’or.225

During the famous march of Richard Cœur de Lion from Acre to Ascalon, the Templars generally led the van of the christian army, and the Hospitallers brought up the rear.226 Saladin, at the head of an immense force, exerted all his energies to oppose their progress, and the march to Jaffa formed a perpetual battle of eleven days. On some occasions Cœur de Lion himself, at the head of a chosen body of knights, led the van, and the Templars were formed into a rear-guard.227 They sustained immense loss, particularly in horses, which last calamity, we are told, rendered them nearly desperate.228

The Moslem as well as the christian writers speak with admiration of the feats of heroism performed. “On the sixth day,” says Bohadin, “the sultan rose at dawn as usual, and heard from his brother that the enemy were in motion. They had slept that night in suitable places about Cæsarea, and were now dressing and taking their food. A second messenger announced that they had begun their march; our brazen drum was sounded, all were alert, the sultan came out, and I accompanied him: he surrounded them with chosen troops, and gave the signal for attack.”… “Their foot soldiers were covered with thick-strung pieces of cloth, fastened together with rings so as to resemble coats of mail. I saw with my own eyes several who had not one nor two but ten darts sticking in their backs! and yet marched on with a calm and cheerful step, without any trepidation!”229

Every exertion was made to sustain the courage and enthusiasm of the christian warriors. When the army halted for the night, and the soldiers were about to take their rest, a loud voice was heard from the midst of the camp, exclaiming, “Assist the Holy Sepulchre,” which words were repeated by the leaders of the host, and were echoed and re-echoed along their extended lines.230 The Templars and the Hospitallers, who were well acquainted with the country, employed themselves by night in marauding and foraging expeditions. They frequently started off at midnight, swept the country with their turcopoles or light cavalry, and returned to the camp at morning’s dawn with rich prizes of oxen, sheep, and provisions.231