_The Military Religious Orders_

The life of Bernard forms an appropriate introduction to a consideration
of the Military Religious Orders. Although weary with labor and the
weight of years, he traveled over Europe preaching the second crusade.
"To kill or to be killed for Christ's sake is alike righteous and alike
safe," this was his message to the world. In spite of the opposition of
court advisers, Bernard induced Louis VII. and Conrad of Germany to take
the crusader's vow. He gave the Knights Templars a new rule and kindled
afresh a zeal for the knighthood. Although the members of the Military
Orders were not monks in the strict sense of the word, yet they were
soldier-monks, and as such deserve to be mentioned here.

At the basis of all monastic orders, as has been pointed out, were the
three vows of obedience, celibacy and poverty. Certain orders, by adding
to these rules other obligations, or by laying special stress on one of
the three ancient vows, produced new and distinct types of monastic
character and life.

The Knights of the Hospital assumed as their peculiar work the care of
the sick. The Begging Friars, as will be seen later, were distinguished
by the importance which they attached to the rule of poverty; the
Jesuits, by exalting the law of unquestioning obedience. In view of the
warlike character of the Middle Ages it is strange the soldier-monk did
not appear earlier than he did. The abbots, in many cases, were feudal
lords with immense possessions which needed protection like secular
property, but as this could not be secured by the arts of peace, we find
traces of the union of the soldier and the monk before the distinct
orders professing that character. The immediate cause of such
organizations was the crusades. There were numerous societies of this
character, some of them so far removed from the monastic type as
scarcely to be ranked with monastic institutions. One list mentions two
hundred and seven of these Orders of Knighthood, comprising many
varieties in theory and practice. The most important were three,--the
Knights of the Hospital, or the Knights of St. John; the Knights
Templars; and the Teutonic Knights. The Hospitallers wore black mantles
with white crosses, the Templars white mantles with red crosses, and the
Teutonic Knights white mantles with black crosses. The mantles were in
fact the robe of the monk adorned with a cross. The whole system was
really a marriage of monasticism