the summit of Mount Moriah and guards from the profane tread
of the unbeliever the whole of that sacred ground whereon once stood the
gorgeous Temple of the wisest of kings.

When the Holy City was taken by the crusaders, the D'Jame al Acsa, with
the various buildings constructed around it, became the property of the
kings of Jerusalem, and is denominated by William of Tyre "the Palace,"
or "Royal House to the south of the Temple of the Lord, vulgarly called
the 'Temple of Solomon.'" It was this edifice or temple on Mount Moriah
which was appropriated to the use of the "Poor Fellow-soldiers of Jesus
Christ," as they had no church and no particular place of abode, and
from it they derived their name of "Knights Templars."

James of Vitry, Bishop of Acre, who gives an interesting account of the
holy places, thus speaks of the temple of the Knights Templars: "There
is, moreover, at Jerusalem another temple of immense spaciousness and
extent, from which the brethren of the Knighthood of the Temple derive
their name of 'Templars,' which is called the 'Temple of Solomon,'
perhaps to distinguish it from the one above described, which is
specially called the 'Temple of the Lord.'" He moreover informs us in
his oriental history that "in the 'Temple of the Lord' there is an abbot
and canons regular; and be it known that the one is the 'Temple of the
_Lord_,' and the other the 'Temple of the _Chivalry_.' These are
_clerks_; the others are _knights_."

The canons of the "Temple of the Lord" conceded to the "Poor
Fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ" the large court extending between that
building and the Temple of Solomon; the King, the Patriarch, and the
prelates of Jerusalem, and the barons of the Latin kingdom assigned them
various gifts and revenues for their maintenance and support, and, the
order being now settled in a regular place of abode, the knights soon
began to entertain more extended views and to seek a larger theatre for
the exercise of their holy profession.

Their first aim and object had been, as before mentioned, simply to
protect the poor pilgrims on their journey backward and forward from the
sea-coast to Jerusalem; but as the hostile tribes of Mussulmans, which
everywhere surrounded the Latin kingdom, were gradually recovering from
the stupefying terror into which they had been plunged by the successful
and exterminating warfare of the first crusaders, and were assuming an
aggressive and threatening attitude, it