KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. 



577 



charged with foreign matter. Dr Webster de- 

 scribes the hot springs of Pumas [in the volcanic 

 district of St Michael, Azores] as respectively va- 

 rying in temperature from 73 to 207 Fahrenheit, 

 and depositing large quantities of chiy and silice- 

 ous matter, which envelop the grass, leaves, and 

 other vegetable substances that fall within their 

 reach. These they render more or less fossil. 

 The vegetables may be observed in all stages of 

 petrifaction. '' Harrowgate is about three miles 

 from Knaresborough. The latter place had some 

 repute as a watering resort, until the mineral 

 springs of Harrowgate completely threw it into 

 the shade. The chief manufacture carried on in 

 Knaresborough is that of coarse linen. Popula- 

 tion of the town in 1831, 5296. 



KNIGHTS, TEMPLARS, (a. to the article 

 Templars.) In the year 1119, the twentieth of 

 the Christian dominion in Syria, nine pious and 

 valiant knights, the greater part of whom had been 

 the companions of Godfrey of Bouillon, formed 

 themselves into an association, the object of which 

 was to protect and defend pilgrims on their visits 

 to the holy places. These knights, of whom the 

 two chief were Hugo de Payens and Godfrey de 

 St Omer, vowed, in honour of the sweet mother of 

 God (la doce mere de Dieu), to unite monkhood 

 and knighthood; their pious design met with the 

 warm approbation of the king and the patriarch, 

 and in the hands of the latter they made the three 

 ordinary vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience ; 

 and a fourth, of combatting without ceasing against 

 the heathen, in defence of pilgrims and of the 

 Holy Land; and bound themselves to live accord- 

 ing to the rule of the canons of St Augustine, at 

 Jerusalem. The king assigned them for their abode 

 a part of his palace, which stood close by where 

 had stood the temple of the Lord. He and his 

 barons contributed to their support, and the abbot 

 and canons of the temple assigned them for the 

 keeping of their arms and magazines the street be- 

 tween it and the royal palace, and hence they took 

 the name of the soldiery of the Temple, or Tem- 

 plars. When Fulk, count of Anjou, in the year 

 following the formation of the society, made a pil- 

 grimage to the Holy Land, the order was even then 

 in such repute that he joined it as a married bro- 

 ther, and on his return home remitted them annu- 

 ally thirty pounds of silver, to aid them in their 

 pious labours, and his example was followed by se- 

 veral other Christian princes. 



During the first nine years after their institution, 

 the Templars lived in poverty and humility, and 

 no new members joined their society. Their 

 clothing consisted of such garments as were be- 

 stowed on them by the charity of the faithful, and 

 so rigorously were the gifts of pious princes applied 

 by them to their destination the benefit of pil- 

 grims and of the Holy Land in general that in 

 consequence of their poverty, Hugo de Payens and 

 Godfrey de St Omer had but one war-horse be- 

 tween them. When the order had arrived at 

 wealth and splendour, its seal, representing two 

 knights mounted on one charger, commemorated 

 this original poverty of its pious founders a cir- 

 cumstance which has been even made a ground of 

 accusation against them! 



During the reign of Baldwin II. the kingdom 

 was very hard pressed by the Turks of Damascus, 

 Mossul, and the neighbouring states, and the king 

 had been a captive in their hands. On his liber- 

 ation he sought every means of strengthening his 



VII. 



kingdom, and as the Templars had displayed such 

 eminent valour and devotion wherever they had 

 been engaged, he resolved to gain them all the in- 

 fluence and consideration in bis power. Accord- 

 ingly he despatched two of their members as his 

 envoys to the Holy See, to lay before the pope the 

 state of the Holy Land, and also furnished them 

 with a strong letter of recommendation to the 

 celebrated Bernard of Clairvaux, the nephew of 

 one of the envoys. Bernard approved highly of 

 the object and institution of the order. Hugo de 

 Payens and five other brethren soon arrived in the 

 west, and appeared before the fathers, who were 

 assembled in council at Troyes, to whom Hugo de- 

 tailed the maxims and the deeds of the Templars. 

 The fathers expressed their approbation of all he 

 said, the order was pronounced good and useful, 

 and some additions, taken from that of the Bene- 

 dictines, were made to their rule. By the direc- 

 tion of pope Honorius, the council appointed them 

 a white mantle as their peculiar dress, to which 

 pope Eugenius some years afterwards added a red 

 cross on the breast the symbol of martyrdom. 

 Their banner was of the black and white stripe, 

 called, in old French, Bauseant (which word be- 

 came their war-cry;) and bore the pious inscription, 

 Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da 

 gloriam. St Bernard, if he did not himself draw 

 up this rule, had at least a considerable participa- 

 tion in it ; throughout his life he cherished the 

 Templars ; he rarely wrote a letter to the Holy 

 Land, in which he did not praise them, and re- 

 commend them to the favour and protection of the 

 great. 



Owing to the influence of Bernard, and the sin- 

 cere piety and noble qualities of its founders, the 

 order rapidly increased in wealth and consequence. 

 Many knights assumed its habit, and with Hugode 

 Payens travelled through France and England, to 

 excite the Christians to the sacred war. With 

 Henry I. of England they met the highest consid- 

 eration. Fulk, of Anjou, re-united himself to 

 Hugo de Payens, and on the invitation of king 

 Baldwin, prepared, though advanced in years, to 

 set out for Palestine, to espouse the daughter of 

 the king, and succeed him on his throne. Gifts in 

 abundance flowed in on the order, large possessions 

 were bestowed on it in all countries of the west, 

 and Hugo de Payens, now its grand master, re- 

 turned to the Holy Land in the year 1129, at the 

 head of three hundred Knights Templars of the 

 noblest families in Europe, and shared in the disas- 

 trous attempt on Damascus. 



The Templars were, in fact, the most distin- 

 guished of the Christian warriors. By a rule of 

 their order no brother could be redeemed for a 

 higher ransom than a girdle or a knife, or some 

 such trifle; captivity was therefore equivalent to 

 death, and they always fought with Spartan despe- 

 ration. The Bauseant was always in the thick of 

 the battle; the revenue they enjoyed enabled them 

 to draw to their standard valiant secular knights 

 and stout and hardy footmen. The chivalry of St 

 John vied with them, it is true, in prowess and 

 valour, but they do not occupy the same space in 

 the history of the Crusades. The Templars hav- 

 ing been from the outset solely devoted to arms , 

 the warm interest which St Bernard, whose influ- 

 ence was so great, took in their welfare ; and the 

 circumstance that the fourth king of Jerusalem was 

 a member of their body all combined to throw a 

 splendour about them which the knights of St John 

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