The now Al-Aqsa mosque is the building that, with its surroundings, was in about 1120 made available by king Baldwin
to the newly formed group of knights of the "Poor Fellow-Soldiers of
Christ and of the Temple of Solomon", later simply called Templars. In 1845 Addison described its preceding history as follows.
"This article examines the roles that religious pluralism and civic rights played in Prophet Muhammad’s vision of a “Muslim nation”.
"Gerard, a native of Provence, was at this period (start of the 12th century; TN) at the head of the society (of the Hospital of St. John; TN), with the title of “Guardian of the Poor.” He was succeeded (A.D. 1118) by Raymond Dupuy, a knight of Dauphiné, who drew up a series of rules for the direction and government of his brethren. In these rules *) no traces are discoverable of the military spirit which afterwards animated the order of the Hospital of St. John. That changed.
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"The Templars style themselves “The Avengers of Jesus Christ,” and the “instruments and ministers of God for the punishment of infidels,” and the Pope and the holy fathers of the church proclaim that it is specially entrusted to them “to blot out from the earth all unbelievers,” and they hold out the joys of paradise as the glorious reward for the dangers and difficulties of the task.
"The self-induced exclusion from the world discussed in the ‘Exordium Parvum’ is perhaps the first instance we see of the ideal of poverty, which became a part of the (Cistercian) Order’s mantra.
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"Brother Everard des Barres, the newly-elected Master of the Temple, having collected together all the brethren from the western provinces, in 1147 joined the standard of Louis, the French king, and accompanied the crusaders to Palestine.
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"The ‘Exordium Parvum’ is a 12th century Cistercian document that includes the early history of Cîteaux, incorporating official letters and documents with narrative. While this source illustrates to us that the monks left Molesme to pursue a more rigorous devotion to the Rule of St Benedict, yet there is contrary evidence within the ‘Exordium Cistercii’ that tells us that the monks left for a new way of life because Molesme placed too much emphasis on materialistic wealth and possessions.
"The Gregorian Reforms (initiated by Pope Gregory VII and the circle he formed in the papal curia, c. 1050–80, dealt with the moral integrity and independence of the clergy, TN). This reform inspired others to seek a monastic life far from the secular world and all its excesses and greed, to a life based around control of desire, and the strict discipline of the rules of the desert fathers.
Many new orders were formed, namely Benedictine and Augustinian. Of these new orders, it was the Cluniacs that dominated in the monastic aspect of the Church (which in the medieval period was much more significant). The Cluniacs sought to follow the Rule of St Benedict, taking vows of obedience and poverty. The importance of the Cluniacs in this innovative period cannot be understated; ‘At the end of the eleventh century, at the height of its magnificence, Cluny was the head of a huge monastic empire containing many hundreds of dependencies and associated houses spread throughout western Europe....
The Cistercian Order finds its origins in the Cluniac monastery. It was from the abbey of Molesme, that Robert of Molesme with other monks, including Stephen Harding, left in search of a monastic life of stricter poverty than had been seen hitherto by the Cluniacs....The Cistercian, though he lived a communal life, had his salvation very much in his own hands than his Cluniac cousin: he was expected to do more to eradicate his own sins than to pray for the forgiveness of others. This illustrates some other differences between the two reformist orders.
The early Cistercians sought an isolated place, rejecting the world, to pursue this vocation.... The history of the Cistercian Order is integral to the history of western monasticism....Indeed, the history of the Cistercian Order is so intertwined with the history of medieval Europe as a whole, that it is hard to identify which influenced the other more."
This blog quotes freely from the thesis by Lori Firth, Hull University (2012): "A Comparison of the Cistercian and Knights Templar Orders, And the Personal Influence of Bernard of Clairvaux", to be found here. References in this source. Illustration shows Pope Gregory VII source
"The Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem owes its origins to Godfrey de Bouillon of the first Crusade, who gathered around him a group of Knights who were entrusted with the protection of the religious Chapter of Canons at the Holy Sepulchre of Christ in 1100. Godfrey had been elected leader of the victorious Crusaders, but refused the title of King. Instead he took on the title "Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri" - "Defender of the Holy Sepulchre".
"The trial of the Templars is one of the most sensational events of the high middle ages. Contemporaries expressed astonishment when, on the 13th, the day after the funeral, all the members of the order in France were suddenly arrested and accused of what amounted to the renunciation of the faith that they were supposed to be defending with their lives.
"The Middle Ages were not only a period of European civilization. There was the western medieval period and that of the Eastern Empire, which still survived among the splendours of Byzantium for 1000 years after the fall of Rome. During those same centuries a great Arab civilization flourished, while in Europe there was a more or less clandestine, but very lively Jewish culture. The boundaries between these different cultural traditions were not as marked as people think today.
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| Death-site plaque of Jaques de Molay on Isle des Juifs, Paris |
"When Muslim armies came out of Arabia in the 630s and 640s, Christian writers in the Middle East looked to the Bible for understanding about what this invasion meant." (...) They soon saw this new religion as a sign of the coming Apocalypse.
