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Legitimising the Order
According to Firth [1] the Templars followed a tried Cistercian playbook. The Cistercians’ own foundation account, the Exordium Parvum, builds its case for legitimacy on letters and charters from bishops and popes, not on claims of reform [2]. The Templars’ earliest rule, the Latin Rule, emerged from the Council of Troyes in 1129 under Bernard’s close guidance, and its stress on obedience echoes the Cistercian Carta Caritatis and the Rule of St Benedict almost word for word [1]. In 1139, the papal bull Omne datum optimum freed the Order from tithes and from local church control, answerable only to the pope [1]. Firth calls this a privilege only the Cistercians had held before, but the Hospitallers had already secured a comparable exemption in 1113, under Pope Paschal II’s bull Pie postulatio voluntatis [3]. Firth nonetheless argues this borrowed legitimacy, not military success, explains the Order’s early growth.
A Structure Built on Cîteaux
Firth also traces Templar governance to the same source [1]. Martin’s study of Cistercian expansion shows how deliberate that model was: the Carta Caritatis, drafted around 1119, ordered correspondence between mother and daughter houses and a yearly General Chapter [4]. The Templar Master led the Order much as the Abbot of Cîteaux led the Cistercians. For their first decade the Templars had followed the Rule of St Augustine, only adopting the stricter Rule of St Benedict at the Council of Troyes [1]. Firth reads this as deliberate, tying fighting monks to an old, trusted authority rather than exposing them as a novelty, echoing the Cistercians’ own careful self presentation a generation earlier.
Bernard’s Personal Stamp
Bernard’s involvement was personal too. His uncle, Andrew de Montbard, gave him a documented connection to the Templars, and he is credited with shaping the Latin Rule itself [1]. He and Hugh de Payns also shared an indirect family connection, which will be dealt with in a seperate blog, and a common patron in Hugh, Count of Champagne. In his treatise De laude novae militiae, Bernard called the knights ‘a new kind of knighthood’, then argued they were not that new, finding precedent for fighting monks in scripture [1]. Firth concludes Bernard’s chief gift was reputation more than doctrine, framing the Templars as heirs to established practice rather than as an innovation [1].
Firth’s overall verdict is direct: authentication by the Church and a borrowed Cistercian structure mattered more to the Templars’ rise than any battlefield feat, echoing the same strategy the Cistercians had used on themselves [2], and Bernard’s real achievement was dressing a paradoxical fighting monkhood in the language of tradition [1].
This blog is original work by TemplarsNowTM based on an AI-assisted quick scan on the topic which was inspired by the thesis in reference [1]. All references and further reading, Open Access if available, all links verified September 13, 2026 but sources usually not studied in detail: [1] Firth, L. (2012) ‘A Comparison of the Cistercian and Knights Templar Orders, and the Personal Influence of Bernard of Clairvaux’, unpublished MA thesis, University of Hull; [2] Newman, M. G. (2021) ‘Reformed Monasticism and the Narrative of Cistercian Beginnings’, Church History, 90(3), pp. 537–556; [3] MacLellan, R. A. F. (2019) ‘Patronage of the Knights Hospitaller in Britain and Ireland, 1291–1400’, PhD thesis, University of St Andrews; [4] Martin, D. J. (2014) ‘The Chimerae of their Age: Twelfth Century Cistercian Engagement beyond Monastic Walls’, Pomona Senior Theses, no. 110, p. 20.
The illustration show a letter B-initial with Bernhard de Clairvaux, an illumination from the medieval manuscript (ca 1267-1276) Legenda Aurea (Keble MS 49, fol 162r), source Wikimedia, Public Domain.
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