THE 



POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



HISTORIC SKETCHES. XXXIX. 



THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS, OE RED CROSS KNIGHTS. 



ON the borders of the debateable land where the jurisdictions 

 of the Qneen and of the Lord Mayor of London conflict and 

 conjoin, is a stately monument, rich in historic interest and 

 in memories of bygone men. Hidden away under the block 

 of buildings which form the south side of Fleet Street, one 

 does not notice, without seeking for them, the colleges of the 

 Inner and Middle Temple, which constitute the monument 

 alluded to. It is from the river, from Waterloo or Blackfriara 

 Bridge, or better still from the Surrey shore, that one sees 



" Those bricky towers, 



The which on Thames' broad, aged back do ride, 

 Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers, 

 There whilome wont the Templar knights to bide, 

 Till they decayed through pride.'' 



Within those " bricky towers " do now study and work the 

 apprentices, barristers, and Serjeants of the law who are mem- 

 bers of the two societies of the Temple ; there are collected some 

 of the brightest minds which the Universities of the kingdom 

 have trained, some of the wittiest heads that ever Nature looked 

 upon and smiled, some of the most intellectual, polished, and 

 learned men that are owned by the three kingdoms. They call 

 themselves Templars, they worship in common in the Temple 

 Church, and they preserve the devices and traditions of an order 

 of knights whose name they bear, and in whose seats they sit. 

 How is this ? Was it always BO ? Certainly not. The lines 

 of Edmund Spenser, quoted above, testify as much, and their 

 witness, as we shall see in the course of this sketch, is exactly 

 even with the truth. Let us inquire eomewhat into the history 

 of these colleges of law, and see how they came to be colleges 

 at all ; let us glean something out of the historic memories 

 which cling around them, and follow the path pointed out by 

 the finger of Time, till it leads us to the epoch when the lawyers 

 dwelt not in the Temple, but armed Christianity stalled her 

 horse and sharpened her sword there. 



There was a cry in Christendom that the heathen had entered 

 into the inheritance of God, and had defiled His holy places. 

 Stories the most pitiable were told of what the infidels had 

 done to those who went up to Jerusalem to worship ; how that 

 once more the wicked had given the dead bodies of God's ser- 

 vants to be meat for the fowls of the air, and the flesh of His 

 saints to the beasts of the land. A thrill of horror went through 

 men as they listened to the accounts, most likely exaggerated, 

 which were repeated from mouth to mouth, " and the sensation 

 vibrated to the heart of Europe." Swiftly there followed upon 

 this a determination to bo up and doing, a stern sentiment 

 founded on religion and soldierly anger [prompting men to exact 

 satisfaction at the risk of their lives for the blood of Christ's 

 children which had been shed. This was in the year 1090. 



The Saracens (a people often confounded with Turks, from 

 whom they were altogether dissimilar), from Arabia, had con- 

 quered Palestine in the year of our Lord 637, driving out the 

 authority of the declining Greek emperors, and establishing the 

 religion and the state system of Mahomet. The Caliphs, or 

 chiefs of the Saracens, had so far respected the religion and 

 social habits of the conquered Christians that they had allowed 

 them to retain about one-fourth of the city of Jerusalem, besides 

 numerous places in the provinces. Among other things which 

 they were permitted to keep was the Church of the Holy Sepul- 

 chre, which the Empress Helena, mother of the first Christian 



79 N.E. 



Emperor, Constantino, had built over the spot where the Saviour 

 was supposed to have been buried. The Christiana experienced 

 at the hands of the Saracens the greatest moderation, though 

 the character and principles of the two religions were essentially 

 different, and in some particulars diametrically opposed. Pil- 

 grims flocked in hundreds and thousands from all parts of 

 Europe, to see the places which had been honoured by the real 

 presence of their Lord, to utter their prayers in the very places 

 where He had prayed, to abase themselves on the very scene of 

 His sufferings, and to adore Him in Jerusalem, " the place 

 where God ought to be worshipped." Though their numbers 

 must have proved inconvenient, one would think, to the Mussul- 

 man authorities, and though their enthusiasm was not unlikely 

 to have produced breaches of the peace, we do not hear of their 

 having been interfered with. Occasionally, perhaps, there was 

 a disturbance, but that in all probability was due rather to the 

 imprudence of the Christians than to the tyranny of the Caliph ; 

 so the pilgrimages went on, and were accounted by the reli- 

 gious system of the day for righteousness in those who per- 

 formed them. 



But a change came. In the year 1065, the year before the 

 conquest of England by the Normans, Palestine was wrested 

 from the Saracens by the Turcoman troops, whom they had 

 hired, in the decline of their own vigour, to defend them. The 

 power of the Arabian Caliphs was over ; that of the Turkish 

 Sultans or Emirs had taken its place. A very different sort 

 of power the Christians found it. Though professing the same 

 creed as the Saracens, the Turks had none of their moderation. 

 Brutality coupled with fanaticism these were the principles 

 on which the new rulers proceeded to govern. Forthwith 

 came a wail of misery from the Holy Land ; pilgrims were 

 ill-treated, insulted, and put to death. Women (it was cus- 

 tomary even for women to go) were outraged ; taxes the most 

 offensive were exacted from those pilgrims who had money, and 

 those who had none were driven back with the sword, whilst 

 great numbers perished through the instrumentality of the Turks. 

 A golden fee was required of every one before he could be ad- 

 mitted to the Holy Sepulchre. The Patriarch of Jerusalem was 

 dragged across his church by the hair of his head, and flung into 

 a dungeon, in order that he might be induced to procure the 

 large ransom demanded of him. These and other tales came to 

 Europe, brought by the wayworn and pitiable-looking objects 

 who returned from their pilgrimage with life, and the effect of 

 them was to arouse in the minds of all men the feelings of indig- 

 nation and pity which have been already referred to feelings 

 akin to those, though far more ecstatic, which were felt in 

 England when the story of the Indian mutiny came over, or, iu 

 a less degree, which were felt when the refusal of Abyssinian 

 Theodore to give up his captives was made known. 



Men's minds were ripe for action. They only wanted, as 

 they ever want, some master-mind to take the lead. That 

 master-mind was found in Peter the Hermit, who marched 

 barefoot through Europe, preaching a holy war, and exhort- 

 ing Christians not to suffer infidels to crucify the Lord afresh 

 in the persons of His children, and to put Him to an open 

 shame. Pope Urban II. backed the hermit with all his influ- 

 ence, and Christendom roused as one man. " It is the will of 

 God ! it is the will of God ! " the people shouted on the plains 

 of Auvergne, when Peter stirred up many thousands of them 

 with the burning words of his eloquence. A vast mob, num- 

 bering over 500,000, possessed with plenty of enthusiasm but 

 little military knowledge, marched forthwith under the guidance 

 of Peter the Hermit and Walter the Moneyless ; but they melted 



