The Secret History of Freemasonry

The Crusades and the Templars 63

Paien or Payan de Montdidier; Archambaud de Saint-Armand or Saint-
Aignan; Andre de Montbard, maternal uncle of Saint Bernard de
Clairvaux; Godefroy; Gondemar; Roral or Roland; and Godefroy de
Bissot or Bissor. In 1126 Hugues, count of Champagne and donor of
Clairvaux, joined this number. Together they drew their authority from
the patriarch Theocletes, sixty-seventh successor of the apostle John,
for whom the Templars maintained, along with the Holy Virgin, a spe-
cial worship. These men took the three vows of obedience, poverty, and
chastity and swore an oath to do all in their power to safeguard the
roads and protect pilgrims against the attacks of brigands and infidels.
Initially the Order, which at first followed the rule of Saint
Augustine, did not expand greatly. In the ninth year of the order's exis-
tence, however, as Guillaume de Tyr notes, "during the council held in
France at Troyes [in 1128], attended by the lord archbishops of Reims
and Sens; their suffragans; the bishop of Albano, legate to the apostolic
see; and the abbots of Citeaux, Clairvaux (Saint Bernard),* and Pontivy
... a rule was instituted for the new knights." The chronicler adds,

Their affairs had prospered so well that at this time they had in

their monastery three hundred knights, more or less, all wearing

the white robe,+ not including the brother servants, whose number

was almost infinite. It is said they own immense properties, on

both sides of the sea and that there is not a single province in the

Christian world that has not assigned some portion of its holdings

to such an extent that their wealth is, on this we can be sure, equal

to that of kings.

The Order of the Temple was able to establish itself and prosper not
merely in the Holy Land, but in all regions of the Christian world dur-
ing the same era that witnessed the appearance of brotherhoods and

• With the council's consent, Saint Bernard, responsible for writing the new rule of the
  Templars, would have delegated this task to Jean Michel (Jean Michaelensis). See also
  H. de Curzon, La Regie du Temple (Paris: 1886). It should be noted that the rule of the
  Temple had much in common with the rule of Citeaux.+
  From 1146 on these robes were embellished with a red patty cross embroidered on the
  chest, which referenced the privilege bestowed upon them by Pope Eugene III on the
  authority of Bernard of Clairvaux. The servant brothers were clad in brown.