Free Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln Page A

by a pure and white life. ‘5
    In addition to these details, the rule established a loose administrative hierarchy and apparatus. And behaviour on the battlefield was strictly controlled. If captured, for instance, Templars were not allowed to ask for mercy or to ransom themselves. They were compelled to fight to the death.
    Nor were they permitted to retreat, unless the odds against them exceeded three to one.
    In 11396 a Papal Bull was issued by Pope Innocent II a former Cistercian monk at Clairvaux and protege of Saint Bernard. According to this Bull, the
    Templars would owe allegiance to no secular or ecclesiastical power other than the pope himself. In other words, they were rendered totally independent of all kings, princes and prelates, and all interference from both political and religious authorities. They had become, in effect, a law unto themselves, an autonomous international empire.
    During the two decades following the Council of Troyes, the Order expanded with extraordinary rapidity and on an extraordinary scale.
    When Hugues de
    Payen visited England in late 1128, he was received with “great worship’ by
    King Henry I. Throughout Europe, younger sons of noble families flocked to enrol in the Order’s ranks, and vast donations in money, goods and land were made from every quarter of Christendom. Hugues de Payen donated his own properties, and all new recruits were obliged to do likewise. On admission to the Order, a man was compelled to sign over all his possessions.
    Given such policies, it is not surprising that Templar holdings proliferated. Within a mere twelve months of the Council of Troyes, the
    Order held substantial estates in France, England, Scotland, Flanders,
    Spain and Portugal. Within another decade, it also held territory in Italy,
    Austria, Germany, Hungary, the Holy Land and points east. Although individual knights were bound to their vow of poverty, this did not prevent the Order from amassing wealth, and on an unprecedented scale. All gifts were welcomed. At the same time, the Order was forbidden to dispose of anything not even to ransom its leaders. The Temple received in abundance but, as a matter of strict policy, it never gave.
    When Hugues de Payen returned to Palestine in 1130, therefore, with an

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    entourage quite considerable for the time of some three hundred knights, he left behind, in the custody of other recruits, vast tracts of European territory.
    In 1146 the Templars adopted the famous splayed red cross the cross pat tee With this device emblazoned on their mantles, the knights accompanied King Louis VII of France on the Second Crusade. Here they established their reputation for martial zeal coupled with an almost insane foolhardiness, and a fierce arrogance as well. On the whole, however, they were magnificently disciplined -the most disciplined fighting force in the world at the time. The French king himself wrote that it was the Templars alone who prevented the Second Crusade ill-conceived and mismanaged as it was from degenerating into a total debacle.
    During the next hundred years the Templars became a power with international influence. They were constantly engaged in high-level diplomacy between nobles and monarchs throughout the Western world and the
    Holy Land. In England, for example, the Master of the Temple was regularly called to the king’s Parliament, and was regarded as head of all religious orders, taking precedence over all priors and abbots in the land. Maintaining close links with both Henry II and Thomas a Becket, the Templars were instrumental in trying to reconcile the sovereign and his estranged archbishop. Successive English kings, including King John, often resided in the Temple’s London preceptory, and the Master of the Order stood by the monarch’s side at the signing of the Magna Carta.”
    Nor was the Order’s political involvement confined to Christendom alone.
    Close links were forged with the Muslim world as well the world so