The Knights Templar were a secretive brotherhood born out of the Crusading Movement. By AD 1118 the group had coalesced in Jerusalem, and established links with the Holy Sepulchre and its monastic custodians. Jerusalem's third Crusader ruler, King Baldwin II, granted these knights new quarters in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which had hitherto served as his own palace. As this building occupied part of Temple Mount, the site of Solomon's Temple, the brothers became known (in full) as the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon.
Setting themselves apart from other knights and nobles, the Templars renounced all worldly comforts and took severe monastic vows. They undertook to live communally as warrior-monks, pledging their swords to the defense of the pilgrims who hazarded the journey to the sacred places. The task of the first Templars was to drive away the bandits and marauders of the roads. They were also committed to fighting the 'infidel' and generally to defend the Holy Land. The Templars, in due course, were endorsed by the sainted Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, the charismatic leader of the Cistercian Order, who was among the most influential figures in the West. Bernard's support soon resulted in the brotherhood's incorporation at the heart of the Church. They were officially constituted at the Council of Troyes in 1128, when their Rule was ratified, regulating the brothers' way of life and setting out their duties. It was an extraordinary moment- the establishment of an organ of the Catholic Church committed to violence and bloodshed. The Count of Champagne, meanwhile gave the Order of the Temple an aristocratic seal of approval by joining it- swearing allegiance in the process to the first Grand Master, Hugues de Payens, who had embarked for the East as the Count's own vassal.
The knights of the First Crusade had previously recaptured the Holy Land for Christendom, from the Seljuk Turks and the Fatimids of Egypt. They created a Latin Christian enclave consisting of the territories of Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli and Jerusalem. Ringed by enemies, however, the Latin States remained in peril. In that age of faith, Jerusalem was of significance to all Christians. Europe's aristocracy made generous donations of land and wealth to the Templars, believing that this would aid Jerusalem's defence and their own spiritual salvation. Pious nobles also flocked to join, meanwhile. Soon the Templars evolved into a formidable army of knights in white- the vanguard of a virtually ongoing Crusade. They gained ecclesiastical privilege enabling them to establish effective independence from any earthly authority besides the pope himself. They also gained the right to have their own priests, build their own churches (often round in plan) and bury their own dead.
Many secular lords also became associates of the Templars. One such was Fulk, Count of Anjou. The Templars had a part in negotiating the marriage between Fulk and Melisende, the eldest daughter of Baldwin II, which resulted in Fulk's succession in Jerusalem (though Melisende insisted on her co-sovereignty. At this time the kingdom was menaced by Zenghi the vicious ruler of Aleppo. The Templars supported Fulk in his campaigns against Zenghi's forces. They also supported an unlikely alliance between Christian Jerusalem and Muslim Damascus, against the common enemy. During this time another face of the Templars was revealed by the Arab diplomat Usama ibn Munqudh. Usama went so far as to call the Templars his friends. He described how they defended him from an uncouth Frank when he visited Temple Mount to pray in the small mosque which the Templars had set aside of him. (Later Usama switched sides from Damascus to Aleppo and supported Zenghi's campaigns against the Franks, so his friendship with the Templars obviously had its limitations).
The Templars had started to be be granted great castles to aid the defence of the Latin East, and later began to build their own. Some of the first, such as Baghras, were situated in the Principality of Antioch, in the Amanus Mountains. In these early days the Templars were seen as heroic saviours by the Armenian inhabitants of the region, who had hitherto been subject to Seljuk raids from Aleppo. The Order was never established in the County of Edessa, though, to the east . Zenghi took Edessa by storm at Christmas 1144- the first major loss for the Crusaders.
The Templars came of age as a fighting force during the ill-fated Second Crusade (1147-9), helping to hold together the army of Louis VII of France during a difficult crossing of Asia Minor, and lending money to the king when he encountered financial difficulties. They also became a bulwark of the Iberian Reconquista, especially in Aragon and Portugal where they also gained numerous castles and widespread estates. It happened, indeed, that one of the Second Crusades's few successes was achieved not in the east but in Portugal, where the Crusaders, en-route, assisted in the capture of Lizbon from the Muslim Moors.
The Kingdom of Jerusalem survived despite the failure of the Second Crusade, which disintegrated after an abortive siege of Damascus. The decision to attack Damascus instead of Aleppo was controversial from the start as Damascus had hitherto been a valued ally for the Franks against Aleppo (now under Zenghi's son Nur ed-Din). The Second Crusade's tactic was not only treacherous but counter-productive. Within the decade Damascus was added to Nur ed-Din's domain. Nur Ed-Din united Syria under his rule, and behind the banner of Jihad- the Islamic holy war against the Franks in the Holy Land. Nur Ed-Din would launch sustained assaults on the Principality of Antioch and the County of Tripoli, and prove a formidable opponent for the Templars. His campaigns in the north took him as far as the coast where he swam in the Mediterranean to show his mastery of the region.
The Templars, while continuing as a military force, became powerful courtiers in the Crusader States- too powerful in the opinion of the hostile chronicler William, Archbishop of Tyre. They fought valiantly if recklessly at King Baldwin III's capture of Ascalon, the last Levantine port in Muslim hands, which had previously been a dangerous thorn in the kingdom's other side. The Templars had previously been granted the lordship of Gaza as a counter to the peril of Ascalon. Control of this region was essential for the Christians, as it hindered the joining up of the two Islamic blocks of Egypt and Syria.
Baldwin III was succeeded by his brother Amalric, with whom the Templars' relations were more strained. Amalric launched a series of misguided military interventions into Egypt. The Templars under the Grand Master Bertrand de Blanquefort refused to take part in the last of these, in 1168, and their rivals the Hopsitallers stepped into the vacuum. The King's campaigns were not successes. Nur Ed-Din managed to send armies to Egypt. One of his officers would eventually seize power in that country, then return to take control of Syria too. That man was Saladin, the Crusaders' nemesis.
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