The Reception of the ordo novus of the Temple, 1120–1150

The best-known descriptions of the Templars’ origins – the account by Archbishop William of Tyre and the chronicle attributed to Ernoul and Bernard the Treasurer – were written more than two generations after the Templars’ foundation and reflect later perspectives on the origins of Hugues de Payns’ Order. Contemporary evidence reveals a range of opinions about the new order, most of them favourable. The best-known response to the new Order of the Temple is Bernard de Clairvaux’s Liber ad milites Templi de laude novae militiae. Some contemporary clerical commentators took up his themes, describing the Templars as a new knighthood composed of both monks and knights. For others, the Templars were the only true knighthood, fulfilling God’s purpose for the milites. Donation charters indicate that both the clergy and the lords in Latin Europe welcomed the new order, and some prominent figures such as Count Fulk V of Anjou and Count Ramon Berenguer III of Barcelona became temporary members or associates. Yet Hugo Peccator’s letter to the Templars hints at a criticism of their vocation. At least two decades later, the Cistercian Abbot Isaac of Stella expressed misgivings about a new military group which used force to convert unbelievers to Christianity, even though conversion was not part of the Templars’ vocation. For Isaac and a few others, the originality of the Templars was grounds for suspicion, but the Templars’ supporters argued that the new order was essential to defend the holy places of Christendom