Two knights, Hugues de Payens and Geoffroi…

Two knights, Hugues de Payens and Geoffroi de Saint-Omer, had in late 1118 or early 1120 established the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, or Knights Templar, as a religious community to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land; six or seven other join them in their mission.

Baldwin II, king of Jerusalem, had given them quarters in a wing of the royal palace in the area of the former Jewish Temple, and from this they derive their name.

By the pontificate of Honorius II, the Knights Templar had not yet received any official sanction from the papacy.

To rectify this situation, some members of the order appeared before the Council of Troyes in 1129, where the Council expressed its approval of the order and commissioned the influential Cistercian monk and mystic Bernard of Clairvaux to draw up the order’s rules, which he hopes will serve as a model of Christian chivalry, and which now include the notion of fighting the enemies of God under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

The order and the rules are subsequently approved by Pope Honorius.

Their habit is a white cloak with a red cross, the Templars, divided into knights, chaplains, sergeants, and craftsmen, organized under a grand master and general council, are responsible only to the pope, not secular rulers.

Although both Templars and Hospitallers take monastic vows, their principal function is soldiering.

In a papal bull issued by Pope Paschal II, Raymond de Puy, who had succeeded Gerard in 1120 as head of the Hospitallers, substitutes the Augustinian rule for the Benedictine and begins building the power of the organization.

It will soon acquire wealth and lands and combine the task of tending the sick with waging war on Islam.

Along with the Templars, the Hospitallers will rapidly become the most formidable military order in the Holy Land.