ABSTRACT
In the first half of the twelfth century two institutions emerged to protect and to care for western pilgrims visiting the Holy Land. These functions soon coupled with the settlers’ need to increase their limited military resources and, when combined with the idea of religiously-directed violence (highlighted by the First Crusade), there evolved orders of warriormonks known to us as the Templars and the Hospitallers. This new concept proved highly popular and over time other military orders would be founded in Iberia and, later, in the Baltic region. The orders played a prominent role in the defence and extension of the borders of Christianity in both the West and the Levant; through their numerous landholdings they had a high profile across western Europe as well. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote of the Knights Templar c. 1130, ‘I do not know if it is more appropriate to call them monks or knights; perhaps it is better to recognize them as being both, for they lack neither monastic weakness nor military fortitude’ (see Document 7 i). The Templars and Hospitallers came to form the core of the settlers’ army during the twelfth century; they were trained fighters and had sworn to defend the Holy Land against the infidel, but, as Bernard had noted, they were also members of a religious order. They took the monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and lived in communities, yet moved in the outside world to fulfil their duty against the enemies of Christ. The notion of the warriormonk was a striking innovation, and one that fitted perfectly the needs and aspirations of the medieval knight, the Church and the frontier societies of Latin Christendom.
