Godfrey Of Bouillon and his First Templars?

 

© (2007)

 

 

  The famous Templar Seal

  © http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Templar_seals

 

 

 

    When Godfrey of Bouillon, leader of an army of the First Crusade, liberated the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, he needed to create a fighting force of men at arms to protect this newly one site. This fighting force, I believe, later became known as the Knights Templar. I believe Godfrey  played a central role in the vision of these early Templars and that he achieved his aims via the knights he brought with him on Crusade. As Murray has recently pointed out it was the ties that Godfrey had with his knights and others, whom he went on Crusade with, that were ‘important in the Crusade and the early years of the kingdom’  It is precisely out of these early years in Jerusalem that the Knights Templar appeared.

   My theory does not concur with current academic opinion on the origins of the Knights Templar. Therefore can I demonstrate any continuity with the activities of Godfrey and the later Knights Templar? Can I support the suggestion that Godfrey may have founded the earliest Knights Templar?     

               

‘In this same year,[1118] certain noble men of knightly rank, religious men, devoted to God and fearing him, bound themselves to Christ's service in the hands of the Lord Patriarch. They promised to live in perpetuity as regular canons, without possessions, under vows of chastity and obedience. Their foremost leaders were the venerable Hugh of Payens and Geoffrey of St. Omer. Since they had no church nor any fixed abode, the king, gave them for a time a dwelling place in the south wing of the palace, near the Lord's Temple. The canons of the Lord's Temple gave them, under certain conditions, a square near the palace which the canons possessed‘

   This account concurs with that of Jacques de Vitry. And in fact, the date of around 1119 seems to be accepted by most scholars. Malcolm Barber even suggests that a particularly horrifying attack on a group of pilgrims at Easter 1119 may have been the impetus behind the founding of such an Order - an Order which later stated that its aims included protecting visiting pilgrims.

   However it is possible that the idea for the Knights Templars came much earlier than 1119. It would be logical as one would not expect the Order to announce itself on the public scene with no planning or forethought. Evidence for this can be seen in the close relationship of the first Master of the Temple, Hughes de Payens and his secular overlord, Hugh , Count of Champagne.   One historian has suggested that the foundation of the Templar Order was decided uponin around 1113 and  that the assertion is based on the testimony of Bishop Ivo of Chartres in a letter to the Count of Champagne, where he pleads with the Count not to enrol in the militia Christi. This was because he was still married. As the Bishop had already heard about the Count wishing to join the Order, Bulst-Thiele concluded that this was ‘probably the Order of the Temple without a name’.

   The Count was one of the greatest landowners and one of the most powerful lords of the twelfth century (in France). Barber thinks that Hughes de Payens ‘took the cross’ after the death of his wife in the company of Hugh of Champagne. Hughes was born in a town on land owned by the Count and all the sites associated with the early Knights Templars in France were on land owned by this Count. The Counts role, therefore, in Templar history is elusive and could suggest an earlier date for the Templars creation.

    It seems reasonable to suppose that the Knights Templars can further be traced back to the time of the First Crusade, with decisions being taken at this time, but with the foundation actually taking place in 1118.

   In the Primitive Rule of the early Knights Templars it is stated that each knight will be expected to:

‘… renounce your own wills …. Serving the sovereign king with horses and arms, for the salvation of your souls… strive everywhere with pure desire to hear matins and entire service according to canonical law and the customs of the regular masters of the Holy City of Jerusalem’

Upton-Ward elaborates, telling us that the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre referred to here, had been given a rule and habit by Godfrey of Bouillon when he founded the community for the guarding of Christ’s Tomb.

   It is interesting to see the Primitive Rule associated with Godfrey of Bouillon. Godfrey was one of the great leaders of the First Crusade. He is said to have been descended from Charlamagne, and to his army,  this meant more than anything else, and distinguished their leader from the other princes on Crusade. To be born of royal blood signified a great deal at a time when kings could be seen as divine.

   It was Godfrey of Bouillon who was the first to enter the Holy City of Jerusalem when the Crusaders defeated their Saracen enemies. Two days later after the Conquest the princes and their chief lieutenants met in council to discuss the future administration of the city. The most pressing matter was: Who would be King of Jerusalem?

Runciman reports:

 ‘the leaders of the Crusade met at the Templum Domini & (they were) ordered that each

man in the army would choose & ask God whosoever he wished … to govern the city. We have no information

about the precise composition of the electoral college, although it is generally accepted that it was drawn from

the Princes and leading clerics…’ 

   Historians have stressed that the make up of the soldiery which led the First Crusade was the ‘decisive’ factor in determining the early Jerusalem nobility.  Jean Richard has suggested that the knights of the first two monarchs originated largely from the Duchy of Lotharingia & Boulogne. Prawer also made a similar point. He said that the ‘majority of knights were of the House of Bouillon’

  As it is reported above,  the army was asked to vote and  it follows that the vast majority of soldiery and knights on Crusade that came from the Bouillon - Boulogne camp determined who would be the first king of Jerusalem. They voted for Godfrey of Bouillon. As is well known, Godfrey refused the title of King , accepting the title ‘Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre’.

   On several occasions Albert of Aachen (the official biographer of Godfrey of Bouillon) refers to a group known as the domus Godefridi, clientale Godefridi or domus ducis. One commentator has observed that ‘this term may have referred to Godfreys immediate retinue’.  The group constituted members who were the ‘key personnel’ through which Godfrey ruled.  Prawer calls this group an ‘anonymous group of knights’ although on several occasions Albert of Aachen does name them. Looking at documents of the time it is clear that Godfrey had a group of trusted advisors: Baldwin of Boulogne, Cono of Montaigu, Rainald of Toul, Peter of Dampiere, Warner of Grez, Godfrey of Esche and Baldwin of Bourcq. Murray concluded:  

‘ The most significant ties within the core group seem to have been derived from kinship... Each member was related in some way to Godfrey and Baldwin... a fact repeatedly reflected in the descriptions... by... Albert of Aachen’  

   Many others of the domus godefridi seem to have originated in Lotharingia including : Baldric the Seneschal, Gerard of Avesnes, Milo of Clermont, Ralph of Mousson, Stabelo the Chamberlain, Gunter and Wicher, Ralph of Montipincon, Robert of Apulia, Geldeman Carpinal, Peter Longbardus, Adelolf, Lambert, Ratbold, Robert Bishop of Lydia, Arnulf of Chocques and a priest, Robert from Lotharingia.   Others include Herbrann the Castellan who is the same as the Crusader Heribrand of Bouillon. Giselbert of Clermont may also be identified,  who was a member of the comitas formed by Baldwin of Boulogne. Giselbert may also be Giselbert of Couvin who entered the service of the Bouillon/Boulogne brothers.

   Once Godfrey had been elected it must have been obvious to him that the newly created Latin kingdom was weak and vulnerable. Helen Nicholson observed:

 ‘Immediately after the capture of Jerusalem, the Crusaders, considering their vow fulfilled, returned in a body to their homes. The defence of this precarious conquest, surrounded as it was by Muslim neighbours, remained’(5)

 

   According to Fulcher of Chartres there was only a few hundred knights left in 1100 able to directly defend the new kingdom. Would Godfrey have waited twenty years before creating a body of fighting men to defend the Holy Sepulchre from renewed attacks?

   Contemporary chronicles discussing the formation of the Templars are sparse. This sparseness  led Barber anregarding the difference between the origins of the Templars and their demise. As they said  

‘there is a great contrast between the obscurity of Templar origins and the massive publicity given to their shocking demise’  

   Why the sparseness in accounts of their origins? It would seem to be because the new Order was not sufficiently known about to have been documented. But actions were surely being carried out. We may also ask why the earliest accounts (two of which are cited below) do not ascribe the foundation of the Order to Hughes de Payens. These are dated to after the Rule had been given to the Templars at the famous Council of Troyes in around 1128. Surely the chroniclers cited below would have known the names of the founders by their date?

   A further piece of perhaps circumstantial evidence for a much earlier foundation, which goes back to the time of Godfrey of Bouillon and the First Crusade is given in the chronicle below. It states that Pope Urban confirmed these ‘men’s way of life and intention at a council of many bishops’ - but Pope Urban died just a few days after Godfrey entered Jerusalem in 1099. Why is Anselm, Bishop of Havelburg relating the foundation of the Templars to around the time of Pope Urban?

  This earlier charter of Anselm, earlier than that of William of Tyre, and dated to around 1145 describes:

 

‘a certain new religious institution began in Jerusalem, the city of God. Laymen have congregated there, religious men, and they cut themselves off from superfluity and costly clothes, prepared to defend the glorious Sepulchre of the Lord against the incursions of the Saracens … Pope Urban first confirmed these men's way of life and intention at a council of many bishops whom he had called together to the council, laying down that whoever placed himself in this society hoping for eternal life, and persevered in it faithfully, should have remission of all sins. He confirmed that they are not to be of less merit than either monks or canons call themselves the knights of the Temple. Having left their own property they live a common life, and fight under [a vow of] obedience to one master‘.

 

   However, an even earlier account does actually tie the founding of the Templars more directly to the reign of Godfrey of Bouillon in Jerusalem. Simon of St. Bertin, writing in his ‘Annals’ in 1135 - 1137, said:

 ‘While he [Godfrey] was reigning magnificently, some [of the crusaders] had decided not to return to the shadows of the world after suffering such dangers for God's sake. On the advice of the princes of God's army they vowed themselves to God's Temple under this rule: they would renounce the world, give up personal goods, free themselves to pursue purity, and lead a communal life wearing a poor habit, only using arms to defend the land against the attacks of the insurgent pagans when necessity demanded’

 

   In fact this entry was made by Simon in his diary under the year 1099. It is part of the entry that deals with the aftermath of  the capture of Jerusalem and the crowning of Godfrey of Bouillon as King of Jerusalem.  Here Simon suggests that it was some of the actual Crusaders, on the advice of the Princes of Gods Army (i.e. the leaders of the Crusade) who vowed themselves to Gods Temple under a rule.       

   This seems unequivocal.  One of the earliest chroniclers of the Knights Templars tells us they were formed  in 1099, immediately after the capture of Jerusalem and that they were formed after the advice of the leaders of the Crusade, most likely Godfrey of Bouillon.

   There is another chronicle of the formation of the Templars which does not ascribe any importance to the character of Hughes de Payens. The account given by  Bernard the Treasurer is dated to 1187. Bernard was a monk of Corbie, and his account had  been copied from an earlier account, tentatively identified as that of Ernoul. Ernoul was a servant of Balian d’Ibelin in 1187and although Ernoul was not a living witness of the events he described, he does seem to have relied on a much earlier source for his chronology. This is detected from internal evidence of his account, where he does not refer to events of the Temple known to have occurred after about 1120.     

      It is Bernard who emphasis’s the Templars and their connection with the Holy Sepulchre. This of course includes the facts that the Templars’ liturgy was that of the Holy Sepulchre, that the ‘French rule’ (dating to 1140) stated that it was ‘l’ordinaire del Sepulchre’, and the peculiar way that Templars built their churches, which were sometimes polygonal, probably inspired by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

   Bernard the Treasurers account is as follows:  

‘...I want to tell you about the Templars and how they came about. . ….. When the Christians had conquered Jerusalem, many knights dedicated themselves to the temple of the Sepulchre; and later on many from all lands dedicated themselves to it. Good knights had dedicated themselves to it, so they consulted together among themselves and said, ‘We have left our lands and our loved ones …We do not perform any deed of arms … although this country has need of that…..with our prior’s permission we shall make one of us our master, who may lead us in battle when necessary’.

   At that time Baldwin [II] was king. So they came to him and said: ‘Lord, advise us for God's sake. We have decided to make one of us a master who may lead us in battle to help the country’. ..The king came to them and gave them land and castles and towns. Through his advice the king succeeded in persuading the prior of the Sepulchre to release them from obedience to him, and they left him, except that still they carry a part of the badge of the Sepulchre. The sign of the Sepulchre is a cross with two scarlet arms …. And those of the Temple carry a cross which is completely scarlet.‘

   Here the early Templars are said to have been a breakaway group from knights at the Holy Sepulchre.   Was Godfrey of Bouillon responsible for setting up an order after he conquered the Holy Land and reclaimed the Holy Sepulchre from the Muslim control? Did this Order carry out the exact same functions as the later Knights Templar?

   There does appear to be a ‘real’ order set up by Godfrey in the Holy Land. This is the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.  Godfrey ‘gathered’ around him twelve knights and these knights were to protect the religious chapter of Canons who were serving at the Sepulchre of Christ when Godfrey and his army arrived. Most commentators are prepared to accept that Godfrey set up an Order of the Holy Sepulchre. All agree that there was a religious order of Canons of the Holy Sepulchre under the Rule of Saint Augustine who were to be protected by the new knights formed by Godfrey of Bouillon. The Canons are never at any time said to be military. It is interesting to note here, however, that these Canons do appear to have been involved in one way or another with the military orders, and also with individuals trying to protect pilgrims and the Holy Sepulchre. In fact, Walter Map identifies a knight called Payens from a village of the same name who had managed to obtain a hall from these Canons of the Temple of the Lord so that he could recruit more men from among visiting knights. Surely this must be Hughes de Payens he is referring to? These Canons at the Temple and the Holy Sepulchre are said to have worked together.   

    It makes sense that it was Godfrey who created an ‘Order of the Holy Sepulchre’ for this is what the Crusades were all about. Wasn’t the whole point to rescue Christ's Tomb from Muslim hands? These Knights therefore protected the Christian presence at the Sepulchre for 20 years, and then in 1122 Pope Callistus issued a Bull. This made them into a ‘lay religious community’ who were to guard the Sepulchre and the city of Jerusalem.

   Recent research has suggested that the origins of the Temple can be found in the associations the knights of Godfrey of Bouillon formed with the canons of the Holy Sepulchre, and that in 1120 they had received permission to form a separate group. Some researchers have made a direct link between Godfrey of Bouillon, his clerics and canons and the Holy Sepulchre. Further, these ‘milites’ (i.e. men that fought on horses) were associated with the Holy Sepulchre. It seems these Knights may have been known as ‘milites christi’ or ‘milites sancti sepulchri’. It is posited that’s some ‘westerners’ (members of Godfrey’s domus godefridi?) broke away from the Holy Sepulchre to form a military order. Bernard the Treasurer has no hesitation in identifying these persons as the earliest Templars. Bernard even refers to these Knights as wearing the Red Cross insignia - that of the Holy Sepulchre.

   It is my contention that Godfrey of Bouillon, once he had liberated the Holy Sepulchre, installed his knights as well as canons into the Holy Sepulchre  as a military presence. Twenty years later out of this group came the Knights Templar. Interestingly one of the ‘domus godefridi’ was Guy of Milly. He was documented from 1108 up until 1126. He was an important baron of the royal domain and he had 3 sons. One of them, Philip of Nablus was later a Grand Master of the Templars.

   At the Council of Troyes when the Knights Templar received their Rule, among those present were original members of Godfrey de Bouillons ‘domus godefridi’. They included Andrew of Baudemont, Hugh of Montaigu, and Master Fulchre .  I suggest that the canons and Knights instituted by Godfrey later became the Knights Templar. Knowledge was probably held within the nobility and family members. When Bernard of Clairvaux championed the sanction and rule of the Templars  he already had family members from Champagne & Burgundy and the territories of Godfrey’s birthplace in the ranks of the Templars. (Andrew of Montbard, uncle of Saint Bernard, is alleged to have been one of the founding members of the Knights Templars). What is more members of the aforementioned domus godefridi were also present at the Council of Troyes. And as we have seen, in the Primitive Rule, it is suggested that their Rule was based on those given by Godfrey de Bouillon.

   Is it possible that the known historical founders of the Templars became allied to these early Templars by family associations and knowledge handed down? They may have appeared as the founders, but in actual fact were just carrying on plans from twenty years before, begun by Godfrey of Bouillon. 

 

                      

 

 

From a fresco depicting the Nine Worthies,

 

 

 

1)  William of Tyre, Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum, XII, 7, Patrologia Latina 201, 526-27, Translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 70-73. At http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/tyre-templars.html

       2) Bulst-Thiele, ML. Sacrae Domus Militiae Templi Hierosolymitani Magistri. 1974

       3) Barber, M ‘The Origins of the Order of the Temple’, Studia Monastica, XII (1970), pp 219-40

          ⁴⁾ Upton-Ward, JM. (1992) The Rule of the Templars. The Boydell Press. United Kingdom. Pp21-22.

       5) Runicman, S (1951) A History of the Crusades: Volume 1, The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

6) Cited in: Murray, A. (2000) The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Dynastic History 1099-1125.Prosopographical Research. Linacre College. Oxford. p79

7)  Murray, A. (2000) The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Dynastic History 1099-1125.Prosopographical Research. Linacre College. Oxford. p79

8)  Murray, A. (2000) The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Dynastic History 1099-125.Prosopographical Research. Linacre College. Oxford.

⁹⁾    http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/sources/templars1.htm. 

10) Barber, M & Bate, K. (2002) The Templars: Selected Sources Manchester University Press. p1

¹¹⁾   Anselm, Bishop of Havelburg, ‘Dialogus’ to Pope Eugenius III. From: Anselm, bishop of Havelburg, ‘Dialogi’, in Patrologiae Cursus Completus, ed. J. P. Migne, (Paris, 1834-64), 188, col. 1156. Cited by Helen Nicholson at http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/sources/templars1.htm. 

12) From: Simon de St. Bertin, ‘Gesta abbatum Sancti Bertini Sithensium’, ed. O. Holder-Egger, in Monumenta Germanica Historica Scriptores [henceforth MGHS], vol. 13, p. 649. Cited by Helen Nicholson at http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/sources/templars1.htm. 

¹³⁾  Anthony Luttrell, 'The Earliest Templars', in Autour de la Première Croisade, ed. Michel Balard (Paris, 1996); Photocopied article obtained courtesy of Malcolm Barber (Reading University)

¹⁴⁾ Anthony Luttrell, 'The Earliest Templars', in Autour de la Première Croisade, ed. Michel Balard (Paris, 1996); Photocopied article obtained courtesy of Malcolm Barber (Reading University)

15)   From: Chronique d'Ernoul et de Bernard le trésorier, ed. L. de Mas Latrie (Paris, 1871), pp. 7-8. Cited by Helen Nicholson at http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/sources/templars1.htm 

 

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