Hygiene as Doctrine
The Ordo militiae Templi, the Templar Rule, treated cleanliness as monastic discipline rather than courtesy. Brothers washed their hands before eating and before prayer, and those assigned to manual labour outside the commanderies were excused from handling food. The refectory itself was kept scrupulously clean and laid with tablecloths, a level of order rare in a century when even Europe's titled elite rarely reached 60 [1, p. 415].
A Regulated Table
Meat appeared only three days a week and in modest portions, since habitual meat eating was held to cause "a hateful corruption of the body." On Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, two or three vegetable dishes sufficed. Livestock and seed were imported directly from Europe rather than sourced locally in the Latin East, hunting was forbidden, and seafood, some of it farmed, was favoured instead. Cheese, olive oil, fresh fruit and pulses such as lentiles and beans formed the daily staple, a pattern strikingly close to what nutrition science now calls the Mediterranean diet.
What Modern Science Adds
Here the Rule's intuition and current research converge. A 2025 review of olive oil's role in healthy ageing finds its monounsaturated fats and polyphenols such as hydroxytyrosol lower inflammation and cardiovascular risk, the very staple the Templars ate daily [2]. By contrast, an osteological study of London monastic skeletons found monks on richer, meat heavy diets suffered obesity related joint disease at up to six times the rate of their secular neighbours [3], underlining how unusual Templar restraint was in an era when gout, obesity and, probably, high cholesterol were common among the wealthy. A wider demographic study of 115,650 European nobles across a millennium found that titled ranks, knights among them, died on average about four years later than untitled contemporaries [1, p. 424], a correlation consistent with, though not proof of, the dietary discipline the Rule prescribed.
Wine, Water and Aloe
Templars drank wine sparingly and diluted, often mixed with the pulp of Aloe, valued for its antiseptic, bactericidal and fungicidal properties, a small piece of practical medicine folded into daily custom.
Whether read as monastic humility or applied medicine, the Templar table offers a rare medieval case where austerity and longevity moved together.
This blog is original work by TemplarsNowTM based on an AI-assisted quick scan on the topic. It was inspired by a blog post by Francesco Franceschi (2018) The diet of Templar Knights: Their secret to longevity? Additional references and further reading, Open Access if available, all links verified September 8, 2026, but not all sources studied in detail: [1] Cummins, N. "Lifespans of the European Elite, 800 to 1800." Journal of Economic History 77, no. 2 (2017): pp. 415, 424; [2] Rigacci, S., Stefani, M. "Nutraceutical Properties of Olive Oil Polyphenols: An Itinerary from Cultured Cells through Animal Models to Humans." International Journal of Molecular Sciences 17, no. 6 (2016): 843; [3] Patrick, P. The Obese Medieval Monk: A Multidisciplinary Study of a Stereotype. BAR Publishing, 2014; [4] Curto, A., Maurer, A.F., Barrocas-Dias, C., Mahoney, P., Fernandes, T., Fahy, G.E. "Did Military Orders Influence the General Population Diet? Stable Isotope Analysis from Medieval Tomar, Portugal." Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 11, no. 8 (2019): 3797–3809. The illustration shows vegetables as a category of foodstuffs, from the Theatrum Sanitatis (Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome, MS 4182), painted around 1390 in the circle of Giovannino de' Grassi by an unknown master, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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