In later times the simple ceremony of admission became complicated by symbolical rites and ceremonies. The candidate was stripped of all his clothes; poor, naked, and helpless, he was to stand without the door and seek admission. This was not all. He yet had his religion. He was required to spit upon the cross and deny his Saviour. And then with nothing to help him, nothing to fall back upon, he was to be rebaptized in the chapter of the order: to owe everything to the Templars, to belong to them by the sacred kiss of brotherhood, by the oaths of secrecy, by the memory of his readmission into Christianity, by the glorious traditions of the order, and lastly, as is more than probable, by that mysterious teaching which put the order above the Church, and gave an inner and a deeper meaning to doctrines which the vulgar accepted in their literal sense. It is impossible now to say whether the Templars were Gnostic or not; probably they may have imbibed in the East not only that contempt for the vulgar Christianity which undoubtedly belonged to them, but also whatever there was left of Gnosticism floating about in the minds and memories of men. In that strange time of doubt and restlessness, the revolt against Rome took many forms. There was the religion of the Troubadour, half a mocking denial, half a jesting question; there was the angry protest of the Provençal, that every man is a priest unto himself; there was the strange and mysterious teaching of the Abbot Joachim; and there was, besides, the secret creed, which owned no bishop and would obey no pope, of these Knights Templars.
But this was to come; we are still in the time when St. Bernard can write of them, “O happy state of life, wherein one may wait for death without fear, even wish for it, and receive it with firmness!” This was when their banner Beauséant was borne in the front of every battle, with its humble legend, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give the glory.”
In the thirteenth century, the Hospitallers had nine thousand manors, and the Templars nineteen thousand. Each of these could maintain a knight in Palestine. And yet they did nothing for the deliverance of the country.
Li frères, li mestre du Temple,
Qu’estoient rempli et ample
D’or, et d’argent, et de richesse,
Et qui menoient toute noblesse,
Où sont ils?
After the reconquest of Palestine, and until their final and cruel suppression, they seem to have given up all thoughts of their first vows, and to have become an aristocratic order, admission into which was a privilege, which involved no duties, demanded no sacrifices, and conferred great power and distinction. To be a Templar was for a younger son of a noble house to become a sort of fellow of a college, only a college far more magnificent and splendid than anything which remains to us.
The Teutonic order was founded later, during the Crusade of Frederick Barbarossa. It was at first called the Order of St. George. After a stay of some time at Jerusalem, the knights, who were always Germans, went to Acre. And thence, receiving the provinces of Livonia, Culm, and all they could get of Prussia, they removed to Europe, where they founded Königsberg in honour of Louis IX. of France, and did good service against the pagans of Prussia. The order did not remain a Roman Catholic one, as was decided after the Reformation, and to gain admission into it it was necessary to prove sixteen quarterings of nobility.