Why knights went on crusades

Here are a few astonishing facts about these holy knights:. In the earlier part of the Middle Ages, knights were seen as thugs , overrunning the countryside and looting villages to line their own pockets. Promising to serve the Christian cause, they received papal recognition at the council of Troyes in Champagne in Significantly, in stories about the Knights of the Round Table written in the thirteenth century, the most perfect holy knight, Sir Galahad, wears a white shield with a red cross, which was the symbol of the Knights Templar.

They could have meat only three times a week, except on special holidays, since eating flesh was understood to corrupt the body. Fur and fancy clothes were forbidden. Breaking the rules could mean getting a beating, being banished from the brotherhood, or having to eat meals on the floor. The Knights Templar or Templars existed for nearly two centuries during the Middle Ages and were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusades.

During the Crusades, some Christian forces were ragtag armies with minimal training. Not the Knights Templar. They were highly trained, and became known as fierce fighters. They acted as the advance force in a number of battles of the Crusades, including the Battle of Montgisard, when they helped greatly outnumbered Christian forces defeat an army led by the great Muslim commander Saladin. A part of that fierceness probably came from religious devotion, which allowed them to see breaking their vows as a fate worse than death.

The Rule of the Knights Templar called for them to never retreat, surrender, or charge without being ordered to do so—excellent features for any army that needs to remain disciplined. While they were known for their piety and their readiness to fight for the spread of Christianity, the Knights Templar sometimes counseled their fellow Crusaders against rash action.

European Christians reaching Jerusalem for the first time often wanted to do battle with Muslims as quickly as possible. They just wanted to build up bigger armies so that they could effectively crush the Muslim forces.

While they were individually sworn to poverty, the Order as a whole became astonishingly wealthy. The Templars collected donations from all over Europe. Kings and queens gave them huge estates—Alfonso I of Aragon left them a third of his kingdom in his will.

Regular people also made donations in their wills, leaving the Order small plots of land that added up. The knights ended up owning castles, farms, and a whole fleet of ships, as well as the entire island of Cyprus. On medieval Christian maps, the area around Jerusalem was depicted as the center of the world both geographically and spiritually. In some sense, it still is the center of the world—a trouble spot through which trade routes pass and around which religious disputes have been fought for centuries upon centuries.

There is also the idea that the individual member of the organization is disposable but the ideology is what binds the organization together—and a belief that victory can only be counted once the Holy Lands are rid of all but true believers. Absolutely right! These estates were managed in order to maximize revenue and as a result the Templars became both extremely cash and property rich.

We know that during the Fifth Crusade, from to , the Pope was using Templars as tax collectors because they had the ability to go around, collect tax, and move it to the Crusades.

The Templars were especially close to the kings of France. When Louis IX found himself out of cash during the Seventh Crusade, the Templars were actively involved in provisioning his armies and renting ships to get the crusaders down to Egypt. During the crusade, Louis IX was captured and the Templars weighed in and paid the final installment of his ransom, which they were able to raise in a day from cash held on their ships.

The Templars are often described as bankers, and I use that term as shorthand in the book, but I think a better term today might be to describe them as providing medieval financial services.

As well as acting as a crude bank of deposits and withdrawals, they were also subcontracting much of the treasury and tax collection of the French crown and Papacy across many different territories. In , the crusader states were lost, and the Templars were kicked out of the Holy Land and had to retreat to Cyprus.

That led to some 15 years of introspection across the Western Christian world. The idea went around the polite circles of Western Europe that perhaps reform of the military orders was in order, including rolling up the Templars and creating a new military order.

In , Jacques de Molay , the last Templar master, was summoned back to Europe to discuss plans for a new crusade and to defend the order against the suggestion that the Templars ought to be rolled up. On Friday 13th , , Philip laid the groundwork for an attack on the Templars to raid their wealth and bolster his position as a Christian reforming king.

He sent agents to every Templar house in France to arrest every member of the Templars they could find and put them in prison. Many were tortured and put on show trials.

The process of persecuting the Templars in France and, more widely, across every territory in which they operated, ran between , at which time the Templars were formally abolished by a papal council known as the Council of Vienne. Two years later Jacques de Molay and several other Templar masters were brought from prison to be sentenced by a group of cardinals for their personal misdeeds. As Jacques de Molay dies, one eyewitness says the Templar master asked God to take revenge on the people who had tormented him.

Anders Breivik claimed to have been a founding member of a revived order of the Templars. He said nine founders got together in London and decided to found a new order of the Temple with the avowed mission of combating and doing harm to Muslims within Europe. The imagery and symbolism of the Templars are still incredibly alluring, particularly to neo-fascists, white supremacists, and Islamophobes, who believe we are engaged in a cosmic clash of civilizations between Christianity and Islam.

Paul, Nicholas, and Suzanne Yeager, eds. Remembering the Crusades: Myth, Image, and Identity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Prawer, Joshua. Oxford: Clarendon Press, Rozenberg, Silvia, ed. Exhibition catalogue. Jerusalem: Israel Museum, Visiting The Met? Reliquary Cross. Keystone from a Vaulted Ceiling. Sword Pommel with the Arms of Pierre de Dreux ca.

A Knight of the d'Aluye Family. Scene from the Legend of the True Cross. Initial A with the Battle of the Maccabees. Godfroy de Bouillon Colin Nouailher. Arabian Peninsula, — A. Balkan Peninsula, — A. Central Europe including Germany , — A. The Eastern Mediterranean, — A. Egypt, — A. France, — A. Iberian Peninsula, — A. Italian Peninsula, — A.