Brother Bertrand de Blanquefort, in his letters to the king of France, gives an account of the military operations undertaken by the Order of Temple in Egypt, and of the capture of the populous and important city of Belbeis, the ancient Pelusium.[63] During the absence of the Master with the greater part of the fraternity on that expedition, the sultan Noureddin invaded Palestine; he defeated with terrible slaughter the serving brethren and Turcopoles, or light horse of the order, who remained to defend the country, and sixty of the knights who commanded them were left dead on the plain.[64]
A. D. 1164.
The zeal and devotion of the Templars in the service of Christ continued to be the theme of praise and of admiration both in the east and in the west. Pope Alexander III., in his letters, characterizes them as the stout champions of Jesus Christ, who warred a divine warfare, and daily laid down their lives for their brethren. “We implore and we admonish your fraternity,” says he, addressing the archbishops and bishops, “that out of love to God, and of reverence to the blessed Peter and ourselves, and also out of regard for the salvation of your own souls, ye do favour, and support, and honour them, and preserve all their rights entire and intact, and afford them the benefit of your patronage and protection.”[65]
Amalric, king of Jerusalem, the successor of Baldwin the Third, in a letter “to his dear friend and father,” Louis the Seventh, king of France, beseeches the good offices of that monarch in behalf of all the devout Christians of the Holy Land; “but above all,” says he, “we earnestly entreat your Majesty constantly to extend to the utmost your favour and regard to the Brothers of the Temple, who continually render up their lives for God and the faith, and through whom we do the little that we are able to effect, for in them indeed, after God, is placed the entire reliance of all those in the eastern regions who tread in the right path.”...[66]
Philip of Naplous.
A. D. 1167.
The Master, Brother Bertrand de Blanquefort, was succeeded (A. D. 1167,) by Philip of Naplous, the first Master of the Temple who had been born in Palestine. He had been Lord of the fortresses of Krak and Montreal in Arabia Petræa, and took the vows and the habit of the order of the Temple after the death of his wife.[67]
We must now pause to take a glance at the rise of another great religio-military institution which, from henceforth, takes a leading part in the defence of the Latin kingdom.
In the eleventh century, when pilgrimages to Jerusalem had greatly increased, some Italian merchants of Amalfi, who carried on a lucrative trade with Palestine, purchased of the Caliph Monstasser-billah, a piece of ground in the christian quarter of the Holy City, near the Church of the Resurrection, whereon two hospitals were constructed, the one being appropriated for the reception of male pilgrims, and the other for females. Several pious and charitable Christians, chiefly from Europe, devoted themselves in these hospitals to constant attendance upon the sick and destitute. Two chapels were erected, the one annexed to the female establishment being dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, and the other to St. John the Eleemosynary, a canonized patriarch of Alexandria, remarkable for his exceeding charity. The pious and kind-hearted people who here attended upon the sick pilgrims, clothed the naked and fed the hungry, were called “The Hospitallers of Saint John.”
On the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, these charitable persons were naturally regarded with the greatest esteem and reverence by their fellow-christians from the west; many of the soldiers of the Cross, smitten with their piety and zeal, desired to participate in their good offices, and the Hospitallers, animated by the religious enthusiasm of the day, determined to renounce the world, and devote the remainder of their lives to pious duties and constant attendance upon the sick. They took the customary monastic vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty, and assumed as their distinguishing habit a black mantle with a white cross on the breast. Various lands and possessions were granted them by the lords and princes of the Crusade, both in Palestine and in Europe, and the order of the hospital of St. John speedily became a great and powerful institution.[68]
Gerard, a native of Provence, was at this period at the head of the society, with the title of “Guardian of the Poor.” He was succeeded (A. D. 1118) by Raymond Dupuy, a knight of Dauphiné, who drew up a series of rules for the direction and government of his brethren. In these rules no traces are discoverable of the military spirit which afterwards animated the order of the Hospital of St. John. The Abbé de Vertot, from a desire perhaps to pay court to the Order of Malta, carries back the assumption of arms by the Hospitallers to the year 1119, and describes them as fiercely engaged under the command of Raymond Dupuy, in the battle fought between the Christians and Dol de Kuvin, Sultan of Damascus; but none of the historians of the period make any mention whatever of the Hospitallers in that action. De Vertot quotes no authority in support of his statement, and it appears to be a mere fiction.