In Praise Of The New Knighthood
In Praise of the New Knighthood To understand the nature of the treatise therefore it is necessary to examine the circumstances of its composition. According to the Prologue, Bernard had been asked three times to offer in writing moral support to the Templars, support which would be far more valuable than any material aid he could give. The 'dear
Hugh' who made the requests is Hugh of Payns who, together with Godfrey of Saint Omer, and a group of knights at that time living in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, seems to have asked the patriarch in the course of the year 1119, if they could serve the charitable function of giving succour and protection to pilgrims travelling from the port of Jaffa to Jerusalem and to the holy places in its vicinity. It was probably on the occasion of the reforming council of Nablus of January 1120, that they took vows before the patriarch to dedicate themselves to this work to the exclusion of all else. King Baldwin II, Patriarch Warmund of Picquigny, and the canons of the Temple of the Lord, who occupied the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, provided clothing and equipment, together with accommodation in the Temple area.
When, sometime in the 1120s, the king moved his base from the al-Aqsa mosque—which the crusaders called the Temple of Solomon—to the Tower of David on the west side of the city, the way was clear for Hugh and his followers to take over the southern part of the Templar platform, which thereafter became their headquarters.2
At this stage, the anomaly of a warrior-monk was not at all evident to a society in which prominent ecclesiastics increasingly assigned members of that society to their own defined ordo. It seems likely that the knights had originally conceived of their role as a kind of lay fraternity, perhaps associated with the Hospitallers who had been providing food and shelter for visiting pilgrims since well before the arrival of the first crusaders and who had already been given official recognition by the Church in 1113.
Indeed, it has been speculated that the 'proto-Templars' had actually lived in the Hospital adjacent to the Holy Sepulchre and that
See M. Barber, The New Knighthood. A History of the Order of the Temple (Cambridge, 1994) pp. 3-11.
Introduction
they had been dependent upon the canons, a situation which might explain the augustinian elements in their first Rule of 1129.3 Directing the energies of Hugh and his knights towards actual physical protection of travellers therefore neatly complemented the Hospitaller function in an environment in which inadequate Christian forces were already stretched too far to fulfil all the duties required of them. Professing monastic vows did not make them monks; it simply underlined their commitment to a pious cause, while laying up potential credit towards their own personal salvation.
The acquisition of a written latin Rule of seventy-two clauses from the fathers at the Council ofTroyes in January 1129, fundamentally altered this informal arrangement. 'So I exhort you', says the Prologue of the Rule, 'who up until now have embraced a secular knighthood in favour of humans only, and in which Christ was not the cause, to hasten to associate yourself in perpetuity with the order of those whom God has chosen from the mass of perdition and has assembled for the defence of the Holy
Church'.4 This Rule was based in part on an oral presentation Hugh of Payns made before the council. He had travelled to the West in 1127 on a double mission: to help recruit soldiers for a new campaign against Damascus; and to present the case for recognition. Bernard of Clairvaux, to whom Hugh was related, attended the council and this may have been one of the occasions when Hugh attempted to persuade him to write a treatise in support of the nascent Order. He may have felt in need of the help of his increasingly prestigious relative; a letter of a person calling himself 'Hugh the Sinner', which probably dates from about this time, suggests that doubts had been cast upon the validity of this new profession. The writer of the letter is not known, although the mediocre quality of the Latin and the inaccuracy of the biblical citations make it more likely to be the work of a pious layman such as Hugh of Payns himself than that of a high-powered intel-
See A. Luttrell, 'The Earliest Templars', in Autour de la Prìmiìre Croisade, ed. M. Balard (Paris, 1996) pp. 193-202.
La Régie du Temple, ed. H. de Curzon, Société de l'Histoire de France (Paris, 1886) p. 12.
In Praise of the New Knighthood lectual such as Hugh of Saint Victor, both of whom have been cited as possible authors.5 In any event the letter makes clear that some (unnamed) persons had challenged the validity of the Templars' occupation and that that challenge had been sufficiently forceful to cause the early Templars themselves to have their own doubts. 'Hugh the Sinner' assures the brothers that everybody has a proper function for each receives his recompense according to his work'. He explains that he is telling them this because he knows that their minds have been troubled by persons who are so foolish as to suggest that lives consecrated to the defence of Christians menaced by the enemies of faith and peace might, in some way, be directed towards an illicit or sinful goal. Such accusations he calls tares sown by the devil, who 'is always trying and working cruelly to bring about the corruption of good work'.6
Neither the letter of 'Hugh the Sinner' nor Saint Bernard's In Praise of the New Knighthood can be securely dated, nor is it known whether either or both were written before or after the promulgation of the Rule in January 1129. As In Praise of the New Knighthood is addressed to Hugh of Payns scholars have usually assumed that it was written before his death, which cannot have been later than 24 May 1137, but which may have been as early as 1134.7 It seems unlikely to have preceded the letter of 'Hugh the Sinner', which would surely have been redundant in the light of a major treatise by the leading Cistercian of his day.
The letter itself was probably written in the West to the small group of Templars still in the East. If it really is the work of Hugh of Payns, then it is most likely that he wrote it during his exten-
See J. Leclercq, 'Un document sur les débuts des Templiers', Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, 52 (1957) 81-91, which includes the latin text, and C. Sclafert, 'Lettre inédite de Hugues de Saint-Victor aux Chevaliers du
Temple', Revue d'ascétique et de mystique, 34 (1958) 276-299. The most recent discussion is by D. Selwood, 'Quidam autem dubitaverunt. The Saint and the Sinner, the Temple and a Possible Chronology', in Autour de la Première Croisade (above, n.3) pp. 223-4, who favours Hugh of Payns as the author.
Leclercq, 'Un document', 86-87.
See Barber, p. 342, n.123.
Introduction sive absence in France, England, and Scotland between 1127 and 1129. There is little internal evidence for dating In Praise of the New Knighthood, although Saint Bernard's major preoccupation with the sins of secular knights accords closely with the contrast drawn in the Prologue to the Rule between the profession of the Templars which is 'worthy, holy and sublime' and those who 'do not strive to protect the poor in the churches, which was their duty, but rather rob, despoil, and kill'.8 Bernard's presence at Troyes makes it inconceivable that he did not have considerable influence upon the Rule, even if it is now thought unlikely that he actually drafted it.9 Unfortunately, it is not possible to be certain which document came first, despite the similarities. A likely chronology might be: the letter of'Hugh the Sinner' (1128), the latin Rule (1129), In Praise of the New Knighthood (1130).10
Nevertheless, the problems of dating and chronology remain.
Bernard begins by making a distinction between two kinds of warfare: the spiritual, characteristic of monks and fought against
Règle, p. 12.
Recent scholarship has tended to emphasise the augustinian aspects of the Rule. See Luttrell, p.201, and M.-L. Bulst-Thiele, 'The Influence of St Bernard of Clairvaux on the Formation of the Knights Templar', in The Second Crusade and the Cistercians, ed. M. Gervers (New York, 1992) pp. 59-60.
10 For speculations about this chronology, see D. Carlson, 'The Practical Theology of St Bernard and the date of the De Lande novae militiae', in Erudition at God's Service, ed. J. R Sommerfeldt, Studies in Medieval Cistercian History, 11
(Kalamazoo, 1997) pp. 142-145, who thinks that 'In Praise of the New Knighthood' was written after the Council of Troyes, but before November 1130, when
Innocent II issued his prohibition on tournaments at the Council of Clermont.
He argues that if it had been written after the tournament ban, Saint Bernard would have mentioned this.
Selwood, 'Quidam autem dubitaverunt', pp. 226-269, also attempts to date the treatise on the basis of what it does not contain rather than what it does. He argues that it shows no knowledge of what occurred at Troyes, nor of the quite rapid expansion of the 1130s, and therefore it predates the council. For him, Troyes marks the culmination of these events, for the Templars would have had no need of the exhortations contained in the letter of 'Hugh the Sinner', or in St Bernard's treatise, after they had received this official recognition. This is a plausible theory, but in the end it is a speculation resting upon a speculation.
P.-Y. Emery thinks that it must be dated nearer to the mid-1130s on the basis that the content of the treatise implies that the Templars already had a certain renown: Bernard of Clairvaux, Oeuvres completes, vol. 31. Eloge de la Nouvelle
In Praise of the New Knighthood the invisible forces of evil; and the physical, undertaken by knights against terrestrial and material enemies. Neither are remarkable, he says, as both are common. The Templars, however, are involved in a form of battle 'hitherto unknown' in that they fight in both ways, a role which gives them a double armour and means they need fear neither life nor death. Drawing both on the monastic interpreters of the First Crusade, who wrote in the years immediately following the fall of Jerusalem in 1099, and on the powerful self-image of the first crusaders, he presents these men as holy martyrs.11 Directly opposed to them is the 'worldly warrior' who, in contrast to the double protection of the Templar, runs a double risk: if he dies himself he suffers physical death; while if he kills another he dies a spiritual death. The key is motivation, or in augustinian terms, right intention. Pride, revenge, or even self-defence, are unjustifiable reasons for killing; only when the motive is pure can fighting not be considered evil.
While ultimately these arguments as rooted in Saint Augustine's definition of just war—that is, one fought on proper authority, with right intention, and for a just cause12—nevertheless their immediate context can be found in the calling of the First
Crusade by Pope Urban II in 1095, and in the success of those Chevalerie. Vie de Saint Malachie, introd., trans., notes et index par E-Y. Emery
(Paris, 1990) p. 21. See, too, the discussions in F. Cardini, IPoveri Cavalieri del Cristo. Bernardo di Clairvaux e la Fondazione dell'Ordine Templare (Rimini,
1992) pp.89, 100, 120, and J. Fleckenstein, 'Die Rechtfertigung der geistlichen Ritterorden nach der Schrift "De laude novae militiae" Bernhards von
Clairvaux', in Die geistlichen Ritterorden Europas, ed. J. Fleckenstein and M.
Hellmann (Sigmaringen, 1980) pp.9-11. It should also be noted how incred ibly busy Saint Bernard was during the decade 1125 to 1135, a period which saw the flourishing of his literary activity, beginning with De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae, the Apologia to William of Saint Thierry, and his early letters and sermons, continuing with De gratia et libero arbitrio and De dilgendo
Deo, and culminating in the Semones super Cantica Canticorum, as well as his frequent public activities. It is not surprising that he found it necessary to make excuses for his tardiness in actually writing De Laude, which must be viewed as one of his lesser literary works.
For the context, see H.E.J. Cowdrey, 'Martyrdom and the First Crusade', in Crusade and Settlement, ed. P. W Edbury (Cardiff, 1985) pp. 46-56.
12 See F. H. Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1975) pp.
16-39.
Introduction
who responded in capturing the city of Jerusalem in 1099.13
Urban's ideas had, in turn, their genesis among the reformers assembled at the papal court in the second half of the eleventh century, particularly those around Gregory VII (1073-1085), the most militant of the reform popes of the period. The most important of these reformers was Anselm, bishop of Lucca, who between 1083 and 1086 formulated a coherent and authoritative guide to the circumstances in which it was permissible for a Christian to wage war.14 Within a decade, three french monastic writers—Guibert of Nogent, Robert the Monk, and Baudric of Bourgeuil—had—apparently unknown to each other—presented the victory of the First Crusade as a manifest sign of God's approval and portrayed its participants as christian soldiers who could obtain salvation through legitimate warfare. Although none of them had been participants, they moulded the ideas and feelings of those who had been into a structured presentation of ethical knighthood. In the past, salvation had been almost exclusively reserved for monks, but by God's miracle, a different path to heaven was now offered to the secular knight, even though before the crusade he might have been motivated entirely by savagery and greed.15 In the view of Colin Morris, the turn of the century was a crucial period of new thinking about knighthood, one in which clerical writers, quite consciously innovating, made
13 The extent to which Saint Bernard was picking up these papal themes in the first part of the treatise can be seen by comparing the sources for the popes speech (both the chronicles and the letters) with 'In Praise of the New Knighthood'. For the chronicle sources, see D. C. Munro, 'The Speech of Pope
Urban II at Clctmom', American Historical Review, 11 (1906)231-242. See, too, J. Richard, The Crusades, c.1071c.1291, tr. J. Birrell (Cambridge,
1999) pp. 19-27, in particular his explanation of the appeal of Urban's words to the warrior classes.
See J. Leclercq, 'St Bernard's Attitude toward War', in Studies in Medieval Cistercian History, 2, ed. J.R. Sommerfeldt (Kalamazoo, 1976) pp. 8-10, 31.
15 See J. Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (Philadelphia,
1986) pp. 135-152, with copious quotation from these three writers; C. J.
Holdsworth, 'Ideas and Reality: Some Attempts to Control and Defuse War in the Twelfth Century', in Studies in Church History, 20 (1983), 59-78; and R. W. Kaeuper, Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1999) pp. 73-75.
In Praise of the New Knighthood a real attempt to define knighthood as a legitimate order.16
Indeed, as Jonathan Riley-Smith sees it, monastic literature of first decade after 1099 presented the First Crusade almost in terms of a vast, mobile monastery, whose members practised common ownership, chastity, and frugality—an image which strikingly prefigures the Order of the Temple.17 These works, written for a monastic audience by Benedictines with no direct experience of actual warfare, had resonances among the warrior class as well, for ever since the conversion of the germanic tribes they had fought their wars imbued with the conviction that God was on their side. The performance of religious rites in conjunction with their warlike lifestyle came quite naturally to them and indeed the Church's provision of appropriate 'mechanisms of atonement' became an integral part of this lifestyle.18 Thus the establishment of an institutional form of monastic knighthood developed logically from contemporary clerical interpretations of the crusade, as well as fitting neatly into the value system of the knightly classes, and it is not surprising to find Saint
Bernard drawing on the same themes in his efforts to justify this new order.
Thereafter, Bernard builds on these arguments by concentrating upon the evils of those contemporary warriors whose activities did not accord with the standards of an ethical knighthood. Here some historians have thought that the treatise was intended to reach a wider audience than simply the small number of men who had already committed themselves to the Temple.19
Certainly his message seems to be aimed at secular knights, whose activities he tries to shame by presenting them as essentially
C. Morris,'Equestris ordo\ Chivalry as aVocation in the Twelfth Century', in Studies in Church History, 15 (1978) pp. 87-88.
Riley-Smith, First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading, p. 150.
See M. Strickland, War and Chivalry, The Conduct and Perception of War in England and Normandy, 1066-1217 (Cambridge, 1996) pp. 55-57, 92.
Carlson, 'Practical Theology', p. 137, and Emery, p.19. J. Leclercq, Monks and Love in Twelfth-Century France (Oxford, 1979) p. 21, sees the treatise more as an expression of Saint Bernard's own ideal of knighthood' than as a way 'to propagate interest in a nascent institution'.
Introduction
effeminate. Members of the 'worldly knighthood, or rather knavery' ride out in long, flowing robes quite unsuitable for combat, their vainglorious appearance emphasised by the coloured trappings on their armour and horses. These he describes as 'the trinkets of a woman, just as he sees their long flowing hair as 'effeminate locks'. This image of the long-haired knight—vain, lascivious, and frivolous—was well-established. Contemporary artistic representation of women with long and unkempt hair was usually meant to represent wantonness,20 a characteristic frequently attributed to secular knights by ecclesiastical writers. According to Serlo, bishop of Seez, who, at Carentan in Normandy at Easter
1105, castigated Henry I and his men for wearing long hair, it was shameful for men to be seen in this way, for long hair was enjoined on penitents as an outward sign of their inner sinfulness.
Such hair was suitable only for women; it was quite inappropriate for those who ought to exhibit manly strength. As Orderic
Vital is, the chronicler of the norman house of Saint Evroult, describes the incident, his words had immediate effect: Henry and the nobles at once cut off their luxuriant tresses.21 Again, therefore, Saint Bernard returns to the key question of motivation: secular knights are driven by anger, glory or greed. 'It is certainly not safe to kill or be killed for such causes as these.'
The concomitant of God's new path to salvation for secular knights, as presented by ecclesiastical writers, therefore, is that it is not acccessible to those who refuse to adhere to the Church's standards. This was not an entirely disinterested position, for monasteries and churches were often the victims of knightly aggression and, as early as the late tenth century, attempts had
See R. M. Wright, 'The Great Whore in the Illustrated Apocalypse Cycles', Journal of Medieval History, 23 (1997) 199.
The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. and trans. M. Chibnall (Oxford, 1978) vol. 6: pp. 64-67, and notes 1-4. Saint Anselm, at that time archbishop of Canterbury, had already condemned long hair in men for similar reasons. Serlo alleged that such men were fornicators and sodomites:
The perverse sons of Belial grow the tresses of women on theit heads and deck their toes with the tails of scorpions, revealing themselves to be effeminate by their softness and serpent-like by their scorpion stings.'
In Praise of the New Knighthood been made, first to impose the peace of God, which tried to protect certain vulnerable social groups in time of war, and then, from the 1020s, the truce of God, aimed at prohibiting warfare at certain periods of the year such as Easter or days of the week such as Sunday.22 These measures do not seem to have had much practical effect. Matthew Strickland, for example, shows that such restrictions showed little or no appreciation of the exigencies of warfare, which often precluded the temporary cessation of hostilities or fine distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate targets. In this sense the monastic writers tried to have their cake and eat it, for they sought both protection and donations from their local aristocracy who, in turn, gained prestige from such associations. Yet inevitably such close links with a particular noble family made the monastery in question an obvious target for the enemies of that family.23 Nor were the ecclesiastical writers the only purveyors of standards, for the warrior class has its own codes and objectives, which most of them regarded as perfectly legitimate. Warfare could bring glory and prestige-and, indeed, even Saint Bernard admits that 'death in battle is more precious as it is the more glorious'—while adherence to the conventions on such matters as ransom and truces were essential (and usually practical) elements in the building of reputation among the aristocracy.24
Even so In Praise of the New Knighthood shows very clearly that ecclesiastical writers had not given up. Far from it. They had found in the crusading ethos a new lever to use against a recalcitrant aristocracy. Bernard s diatribe was followed by those of other distinguished twelfth-century writers, including Peter of Blois,
John of Salisbury, Stephen of Fougères, and Alain of Lille.25 The
See H.E.J. Cowdrey, 'The Peace and Truce of God in the Eleventh Century', Past and Present, 46 (1970) pp. 42-67.
Strickland, pp. 90-91; E. Mason, 'Timeo Barones et Donas Ferentes', in Studies in Church History, 15 (1978) pp. 61-62.
Strickland, p. 35.
See Kaeuper, pp. 77-80, and D. Carlson, 'Religious Writers and Church Councils on Chivalry', in The Study of Chivalry. Resources and Approaches, ed. H.
Chickering andT. H. Seiler (Kalamazoo, 1988) pp. 144-145.
Introduction
formation and subsequent popularity of the military orders shows that this was a more successful line of approach than that of the peace movements, for both the Templars and Hospitallers became wealthy corporations based upon vast networks of european preceptories, the foundations of which had been built from the donations of this same warrior aristocracy. Moreover, many of these men gave up their secular way of life and joined the orders, not in their dotage or after age or injury precluded further material activities—as was so often the case with traditional benedictine orders—but while they were in their prime, willing and able to fight for what both they and Bernard saw as a just cause. The perception of historians that aristocratic donations to monasteries were often niggardly, that they were 'gesture politics'26 quite subordinate to the fundamental need to protect the basic structure of the lordship, is not always borne out in analyses of donations to military orders. The Templar preceptory of Richerenches in the Vaucluse, for example, which was established in the 1130s, was largely based upon the patrimony of the Bourbouton family, whose male members themselves joined the Order and ran the house, leaving little of the original lordship intact, except for what was needed for their former dependents.27
Bernards rhetoric on the negativity of the worldly malitia is followed by a positive appreciation of the true militia. If the condemnation of secular knights was written with an eye on this particular constituency, then this section shows an acute awareness of clerical opinion as well. Once again, Bernard's approach suggests that this treatise was intended to be much more than simply a private communication to the Templars in the East, even if it is true that he had been pushed into writing it by Hugh of Payns. In Bernards view Christianity is not a pacifist religion. There is no prohibition on killing per se, as long as the right motive exists.
The fact that John the Baptist bid soldiers be content with their pay shows it was possible for Christians 'to strike with the sword', a view quite contrary to that of men like Peter Damian, who had
Mason, p. 61.
See Barber, pp. 260-261.
In Praise of the New Knighthood tried to counter the militant Christianity of the mid-eleventh century reform papacy.28 While he was not arguing that pagans be slaughtered if they could be prevented from harming the faithful by other means, it was necessary to use force if these other means were not available or had failed. This is clearly disingenuous.
Bernard himself came from a knightly background and must have been well-aware that the average crusader was hardly likely to pose this question to himself before wading into battle. Nor, indeed, is there any evidence of extensive diplomatic activity among the Muslim powers by Urban II before he launched an expedition which he liked to present in defensive terms. As the crusaders saw it, the crusade was an expedition to recover the holy places from pagans who, in the words of Robert the Monk, had unjustly invaded 'our lands'.29 Again, the First Crusade provides the context for Bernard's remarks.
The Templar virtues are reflected in their lifestyle, which Bernard undertakes to set out 'briefly'. Not surprisingly, in several ways, he sounds as if he is describing the Cistercians. Austerity and moderation are the keys, for the Templars are obedient, plain in dress and habits, chaste, and communal. They avoid excess in food and clothing, in contrast to secular knights, just as members of monastic orders should refrain from the elaborate building programmes of some of their contemporaries—a point already made very explicitly by Saint Bernard in his Apologia to William of Saint Thierry, written shortly before in the mid-1120s.30 More specifically, they keep themselves occupied in rare moments when they are not on duty by repairing their equipment, and they avoid contemporary frivolities such as dice, chess, hunting, falconry,
See Leclercq, 'St Bernard's Attitude Toward War, pp. 22-27.
Robert the Monk, Historia Iherosotimitana, in Receuil des Historiens des Croisades. Historiens Occidentaux, vol. 3 (Paris, 1866) p. 792.
Bernard of Clairvaux, 'Apologia ad Guillelmum Abbatem', in S. Bernardii Opera, vol. 3: Tractatus et opuscula, ed. J. Leclercq and H. Rochais (Rome,
1963), caps. IX, pp.20-1, X, pp. 24-26, XII, 28-29. On this issue see C.
Rudolph, The 'Things of Greater Importance': Bernard of Clairvaux's Apologia and the Medieval Attitude towards Art (Philadelphia, 1990) esp. pp.
159-191.
Introduction
jesters, troubadours, and jousts. They do not waste time in idle conversation or laughter. Merit and not their former social class determine their reputations.31 As a summary of the leisure-time pursuits of the secular knighthood, these observations add new emphasis to Bernard's contrast between the two kinds of warrior.
The reference to tournaments is particularly pertinent, for Pope Innocent II (of whom Saint Bernard was a strong supporter) had begun what proved to be a long series of prohibitions at the Council of Clermont in 1130. His restriction was repeated six times between then and the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, evidence both of its ineffectiveness and of the strength of ecclesiastical opposition to this aspect of the knightly life-style.32 Bernard's disgust at the participation of knights in a tournament almost immediately after they had returned from the Second Crusade
(1147-8) reflects his continued belief in the distinction between knights who maintained proper ethical conduct and those distracted by the superficialities of the material world.33
Most important of all is the Templar conduct in battle. There their sober and quiet approach contrasts with the gaudy ornamentation of the secular knighthood. They do not calculate the odds, for they know that God is on their side and are convinced, like the Maccabees, that victory is therefore certain. That they cut their hair and care nothing for washing shows their complete indifference to the bodily vanities of secular knights. Here the Templars accord with the idealised portrait of the knights of the First Crusade as described by Robert the Monk. These men 'do not fear death or the enemy... When they prepare for battle they raise their lances high and then advance in ranks, as silently as though they were dumb.'34 The Templars are the actual and literary successors of Robert the Monk's crusaders; in Bernard s words they are 'the picked troops of God'.
Morris, pp. 94-95.
D. Carlson, 'Religious Writers', pp. 143-149.
Bernard of Clairvaux, Ep. 376; Sancti Bernardi Opera, vol. 8, ed. J. Leclercq and H.M. Rochais (Rome, 1977).
Robert the Monk, p. 765. See Riley-Smith, First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading, p. 148, where this passage is translated.
In Praise of the New Knighthood The fifth chapter of the treatise, De Templo, is in many ways the key element in its structure, since it serves as a transition from the first four chapters, which are concerned with the contrast between the Templars and the secular malitia, and the next eight chapters, in which Saint Bernard analyses the significance of the key sites in the Holy Land which it is the brothers' duty to protect. At the same time, Bernard sets down some of the central ecclesiastical conceptions about the nature of crusading in the first half of the twelfth century and, in doing so, prefigures his role in the preaching of the Second Crusade in 1147. Saint
Bernard's new knighthood occupies the Temple of Solomon, a building which shines in its material splendour, whereas the Templars shine through their virtues. This is a typical bernardine perception. In his Apologia to William of Saint Thierry he castigates monasteries decorated with sculpture and painting, which may be necessary aids for a carnal laity, but should be eschewed by monks.35 Not so for Suger of Saint Denis, his contemporary as abbot (1122-1151), whose lavish rebuilding of the abbey church was a conscious effort to contemplate God through material splendour, an opportunity to raise oneself from 'the slime of the earth' towards the immaterial. Indeed, Suger made overt comparison between his refurbishment of the church and the ornamentation of Hagia Sophia at Constantinople, details of which he gained from conversations with those who had travelled there from Jerusalem.36 While Bernard and Suger were in complete agreement on the importance of ethical standards among contemporary knights,37 their attitude towards the value of the material and terrestrial environment as a means of reaching towards the Divine is quite different. For Saint Bernard, the Templars,
Bernard of Clairvaux, 'Apologia ad Guillelmum Abbatem', cap. XII; SBOp 8:28-29.
36 Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St-Denis and its Art Treasures, ed., tr. and annotated by E. Panofsky, 2nd ed. G. Panofsky-Soergel (Princeton, N.J.,
1979) pp. 64-65.
Suger, Vie de Louis VI le Gros, ed and tr. H. Waquet. Les classiques de l'Histoire de France au Moyen Age (Paris, 1929), for example, pp.134-135,
172-175. Grabois, 'Militia et Malitia: The Bernardine Vision of Chivalry', in The Second Crusade and the Cistercians, pp.52-54.
Introduction
even though their functional role was the defence of the holy places, needed always to remember that ultimately the temporal glory of Jerusalem should not eclipse its heavenly counterpart, for 'the one is the figure of the other'. In the literal fulfilment of the liberation of Jerusalem, one should not be blind 'to the spiritual meaning of the texts'.
The Temple is, too, the site of the one act of violence in Christ's life, the driving out of the money-changers and sellers of doves who were defiling 'this house of prayer'. In the minds of Urban
II and his twelfth-century successors, it was the Muslims who had polluted the holy places; Saint Bernard claimed that this pollution was far worse than that of the merchants. Equally, for Gregory VII the description of the expulsion of the moneychangers had a special meaning, for Gregory, above all, was responsible for the creation of the idea of the milites Christi who could fight material battles on behalf of a holy cause.38 Once
Jerusalem had been captured, the news redounded throughout the world, reaching even the most remote islands. It was an occasion so momentous that it parallels the mission of the Apostles, sent out by Christ at the time of the Ascension. These events are brilliantly recorded on the great tympanum in the narthex at the abbey-church of Vezelay in northern Burgundy. Adolf
Katzenellenbogen posits that the iconography here is the work of Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, and another of Bernard's contemporaries, and that through it he is making conscious reference to the First Crusade as the beginning of a new christian mission following the past victories of Islam. It was on the hillside at Vezelay, in 1147, that Bernard tore up cloth to distribute as crosses for those pledged to take part in the expedition known as the Second Crusade.39
The Templars and the crusaders are then a specially chosen gen-
See I.S. Robinson, 'Gregory VII and the Soldiers of Christ', History, 58 (1973) 169-192.
A. Katzenellenbogen, 'The Central Tympanum at Vezelay: Its Encyclopedic Meaning and its Relation to the First Crusade', Art Bulletin, 26 (1944)
141-151.
In Praise of the New Knighthood eration. They are former sinners whom God has used to achieve his ends while at the same time providing them with the means of their own salvation. Saint Bernard is here taking up Urban lis vision of the crusade as it was glimpsed by those who recorded his speech at Clermont. By this means christian lands in the West, plagued by thieves, murderers, perjurers, and adulterers, can be cleansed of these people, while the former sinners themselves achieve salvation in their service in the holy warfare of the East, a situation quite unimaginable before God's gift of the holy war.
Echoing Guibert of Nogent's assertion that a new way of salvation had been found for them, Bernard says that God has allowed
Jerusalem to be besieged so often 'to furnish brave men an occasion for valor and immortality'. One of the many signs of the fertility of Jerusalem, which provides all manner of sustenance— both literal and spiritual—is that it offers a rich harvest of martyrs'. To suggest that he may be no more accurate here than in his stylised description of knights encumbered in battle by the long sleeves of their elaborate clothing does not detract from Bernard's rhetoric. Bernard knew well that most knights were not actually anarchic or gratuitously cruel, at least in their dealings with each other; it was rather that knightly and clerical perceptions of right behaviour started from quite different sets of assumptions. It has been suggested, moreover, that the diversion of leading secular nobles to the East had, in practice, quite the opposite effect, leaving a power vacuum to be exploited by criminal elements who had stayed at home. Many people must have been relieved to see the crusaders return.40
At the end of the chapter on the Temple, Bernard says that he is going to set out 'something of the delights in which you [that is, the Holy Land] abound'. This is not meant to be a pilgrim guide in the manner of those written by several pilgrim visitors in the course of the twelfth century,41 for Bernard never himself visited
40 J. Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 1095-1131 (Cambridge, 1997) pp.
145-146.
41 See the accounts collected in Jerusalem Pilgrimage 1099-1185, ed. J. "Wilkinson, with J. Hill and W.F. Ryan, The Hakluyt Society, 167 (London, 1988).
Introduction
Palestine and in fact, disapproved of monks who did. It is rather a vehicle for explaining the spiritual significance of these sites, the key being that of the Holy Sepulchre, upon which he expatiates at length. To the Templars, mostly adult knights with no monastic or spiritual training, it was important to convey the true meaning of their task in defending the holy places, particularly as they in turn might be called upon to explain this to others.42 For the wider world the momentousness of the task which they had undertaken was surely justification for the creation of this new hybrid, the warrior-monk. In this section, Bernard was not building on Urban Us speech, for, in calling the crusade the pope had apparently made no attempt to exploit the potent attractions of the Holy Sepulchre. The abbot, however, recognised the great power that the holy places exercised over the imaginations of many western Christians and seized the opportunity to explain their full meaning to a receptive audience.43 As Jean Leclercq remarked, 'there could be no clearer demonstration of the fact that [for Bernard] war is subordinate to these higher realities.'44
Bernard assigns a chapter each to Bethlehem, Nazareth, the Mount of Olives, and the Valley of Josaphat, the Jordan, Mount
Calvary, the Holy Sepulchre, Bethphage, and Bethany, although nearly half of the survey is devoted to the Holy Sepulchre. The sequence is partly determined by the chronology of Christ's life rather than by any geographical coherence, and traces the significance of the places of his birth, childhood, baptism, death, and resurrection, ending with an analysis of the symbolism of Bethphage and of Bethany. By this means Bernard seems to be offering a theological interpretation of his earlier depiction of the role of knighthood. With Christ's first appearance at Bethlehem came 'the living bread' for 'the nourishment of holy
For Gillian Evans, The Mind of St. Bernard (Oxford, 1983) p. 29, his aim was to enable the Templars to look at these sites 'with spiritual eyes'. David
Carlson, 'Practical Theology', p. 138, has a similar explanation, that these chapters offered the Templars 'a version of the imitatio Christi adapted for their particular needs'.
See also the comments of the Jean Richard, The Crusades, p. 481.
Leclercq, 'Saint Bernard's Attitude to War', p. 25.
In Praise of the New Knighthood souls'. He draws out the significance for the Templars who, no longer concerned with their own bodily comforts, as mature men have undertaken to devote themselves to Christ. 'He who has found life in the words of Christ no longer seeks the flesh.'
Nazareth was where the infant God grew to maturity, as the fruit matures within the flower'. The inner truth then is covered by the outer garment, as the Templars' inner motivation lies beneath their exterior actions of fighting with the Muslims. Looking east from their quarters in the Temple, the brothers could see the valley of Josaphat and the Mount of Olives. To climb the one it was necessary to descend into the other so that 'one may not forget the fear of judgement'. In the valley the proud are crushed; only the humble can descend there in safety. Pride, the quintessential characteristic of the secular, worldly knight, cannot escape its end. The only route to the mountain is to be reborn in Christ in the baptismal waters of the Jordan. On Calvary Christ made atonement for the sins of humankind, as those who fight and die for the Lord undertake this action as a penance, to atone for their own sins.
The centrality of the Holy Sepulchre to the duties and obligations of the Templars is undoubted, and Bernard devotes to this by far the longest single section in the treatise. By his life and death Christ taught us all how to live and die: 'to live in holiness and to die in confidence'. These observations were central to contemporary debates about the reasons for the incarnation of Christ, debates which, stimulated by Saint Anselm's Cur Deus Homo, had been in progress since the 1090s.45 The Templars can be seen as men who had taken up a role for which Christ's life and death were the model, fighting for pure motives and dying as martyrs. The death of Christ gave humankind the gift of the remission of sins, attainable by those who undertook the tasks of the Lord on crusade or in the military order. Secular knights who spurned the opportunity die twice: once a voluntary spiritual death; and also an imposed physical death, ignoring the example given to them by Christ. For men who risked their lives almost on a daily basis, Bernard's meditation on the nature and consequences of death was particularly apposite.
Evans, pp. 152-153.
Introduction
Bernard concludes with Bethphage and Bethany.
Bethphage symbolises confession in the double sense: the total commitment of a follower of Christ and a penitent who fully perceives past sins. Bethany represents the supreme virtue of obedience which this confession entails. Both themes had been given emphasis in the earlier chapters describing the transformation effected in life and death when a knight joined the Templars.46 Christ himself was the model, preferring obedience 'to his very life', while the resuscitation of Lazarus at Bethany demonstrated the power of this virtue over life itself. By their lives and actions the Templars demonstrate this commitment, but they must not trust simply in their own qualities. In the end, they can prevail only by God's strength and approval. The Templars therefore both defend these holy places by their physical presence and embody the virtues which each of these places symbolise.
Saint Bernard's support was invaluable to the Templars. His treatise clearly influenced Innocent II who in his major privilege to the order, Omne Datum Optimum, of 1139, evidently picks up the same themes. At the same time, the aristocratic world responded to the new Order with enthusiasm, providing land, income, and manpower on such a scale that, by the mid-century, the Temple had a major network of preceptories across Western
Christendom, and through it was able to sustain its increasing responsibilities in the Latin states in the East. Even so, the doubts of those referred to by 'Hugh the Sinner' were never entirely dispelled, as Richard de Templo shows. For many the fundamental incompatibility of the cloister and the sword remained integral to their perceptions of the world. Among others, such diverse personalities as John of Salisbury, Isaac of Stella, abbot of L'Etoile in Poitou, and Walter Map, archdeacon of Oxford, have left critical commentaries on the functions of these warrior-monks,47 criticisms which, ultimately, would resurface at the vital time of the Templars' trial in the early fourteenth century.
Carlson, 'Practical Theology', p. 139.
See Barber, pp. 59-63.
TRANSLATOR S NOTE
BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX never visited the Holy Land, and did not apparently approve of monks who did. 'It is evident,' he wrote, 'that what is needed there are soldiers to fight rather than monks to pray'.1
Yet the sons of Saint Bernard did establish monasteries in the land where Christ had lived and taught, most recently in the valley of Ayallon—where Joshua made the sun stand still, and where that same sun still smiles on the richest vineyards in the East.
On the hill overlooking the monastery stand the ruins of a thirteenth-century crusader's castle, built by the same Templars for whom this treatise was written; and some half mile up the valley is Emmaus—or at least one of the sites identified as Emmaus— where Christ broke bread with his disciples on the evening of the first Easter. It was here that this translation was made.
The work of translating one of Bernard s better polished literary productions has been a real pleasure, and in doing it, I have followed the guidelines and general principles set down for the other treatises in this series.
May the earthly Jerusalem which Bernard never saw, but on whose soil his sons and successors are privileged to tread, continue to be the figure of that heavenly Jerusalem, our mother, to which Bernard so ardently aspired!2
Latroun, Israel M. Conrad Greenia OCSO
Bernard, Ep 355; SBOp 7:299; PL 182:337; BSJ, Ep 275, p. 348; and Ep 253; SBOp 7:149-155; PL 182:453; BSJ, Ep 328, p. 404. See also Vita
Bern 3:22; PL 185:316.
See below, 5.11.
2 Tim 2:3. The usual translation of miles is 'soldier', but 'knight' seems more suitable. On Hugh of Payens or Payns, see Jean Richard, 'Le milieu familial' in Bernard de Clairvaux, Commission d'Histoire de l'Ordre de Cîteaux
(Paris: Alsatia, 1953) 13-14.
2 Tim 4:7.
In 'Un document sur les débuts des Templiers' in Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique 52 (1957) pp. 81-91, Jean Leclercq edits a letter which he urges as being written by Hugh of Payens and giving the background for this exhor tation and defense on the part of Saint Bernard. However, C. Sclafert in his
'Lettre inédite de Hughes de Saint-Victor aux chevaliers du Temple' in Revue d'ascetique et de mystique 34 (1958) pp. 275-299, gives cogent arguments for attributing the letter to Hugh of Saint Victor. Leclercq republished his article, unchanged, in Recueil d'études sur saint Bernard et ses écrits, 2 (Rome:
Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1966) 87-99, adding at the end a 'Postscriptum' in which he notes Father Sclafert's article and concludes (p. 99):
'. . . l'attribution à Hugues de Saint-Victor est les plus vraisemblable.'.
Leclercq, Recueil 2:98, sees in the imagery Bernard uses here an indication that he is writing a defence.