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c. 1113-1120sReputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

The Templars and Hospitallers Become Warrior-Monks

Two charitable and religious orders arm themselves and become the Crusader States' most elite permanent fighting force

On the timeline · around c. 1113-1120s · The First Crusade and the Crusader StatesThe First Crusade and the Crusader StatesThe Templars and Hospitallers Become Warrior-Monks1105111011151120112511301135

Quick facts

Knights Templar founded
c. 1119, papal recognition 1129
Knights Hospitaller founded
c. 1080 as a hospital; military order from 1120
Templar founder
Hugh of Payns
Templar headquarters
The former Aqsa Mosque, Temple Mount, Jerusalem

What happened

Around 1119, the French knight Hugh of Payns and a handful of companions swore to protect Christian pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem and formed a brotherhood bound by monastic vows of poverty alongside their martial calling. In 1120 King Baldwin II of Jerusalem gave them his palace on the Temple Mount, the former Aqsa Mosque, known as the Temple of Solomon, which gave the order its name: the Knights Templar. A separate and older institution, the Hospital of St. John in Jerusalem, had been founded around 1080 by merchants from Amalfi to care for sick and poor pilgrims; it gained official papal recognition as a religious order in 1113 under its first master, the Blessed Gerard, and was reorganized into a fighting order after 1120 under Raymond du Puy. Both orders combined monastic discipline with professional soldiering, answered to no local lord or bishop, and became the best-trained and most consistently available troops in the Crusader States, given key castles and mountain passes to defend.

Why it matters

The military orders gave the perpetually undermanned Crusader States a standing professional force that did not depend on the feuding baronage, but their independence from royal command meant kings could not always rely on them to follow a unified strategy, a weakness that resurfaced at critical moments such as Hattin.

How we know

The founding of the Templars is described in later chronicles referencing the Council of Troyes in 1129, which gave the order its formal rule, while the Hospitallers' evolution from a charitable hospital to a military order is documented through papal recognition records summarized by the World History Encyclopedia.

Sources

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Part of a timelineThe Crusades27 events · Two centuries of holy war for Jerusalem, fought and remembered very differently by Christians and MuslimsView all →
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