THE MILITARY ORDERS. We have already sketched the history of the rise of monachism in the fourth century out of the groups of Egyptian eremites, and the rapid spread of the institution, under the rule of Basil, over Christendom; the adoption in the west of the new rule of Benedict in the sixth century; the rise of the reformed orders of Benedictines in the tenth and eleventh centuries; and the institution in the eleventh and twelfth centuries of a new group of orders under the milder discipline of the Augustinian rule. We come now to a class of monastics who are included under the Augustinian rule, since that rule formed the basis of their discipline, but whose striking features of difference from all other religious orders entitle them to be reckoned as a distinct class, under the designation of the Military Orders. When the history of the mendicant orders which arose in the thirteenth century has been read, it will be seen that these military orders had anticipated the active religious spirit which formed the characteristic of the friars, as opposed to the contemplative religious spirit of the monks. But that which peculiarly characterises the military orders, is their adoption of the chivalrous crusading spirit of the age in which they arose: they were half friars, half crusaders. The order of the Knights of the Temple was founded at Jerusalem in 1118 A.D., during the interval between the first and second crusades, and in the reign of Baldwin I. Hugh de Payens, and eight other brave knights, in the presence of the king and his barons, and in the hands of the Patriarch, bound themselves into a fraternity which embraced the fundamental monastic vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity; and, in The knights wore the usual armour of the period; but while other knights wore the flowing surcoat of the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, or the tight-fitting jupon of the fourteenth, or the tabard of the fifteenth, of any colour which pleased their taste, and often embroidered with their armorial bearings, the Knights of the Temple were distinguished by wearing this portion of their equipment of white, with a red cross over the breast; and over all a long flowing white mantle, with a red cross on the shoulder; they also wore the monastic tonsure. In the early fourteenth century MS. in the British Museum, Royal 1,696, at f. 335, is a representation of Eracles, Prior at Jerusalem, the Prior of the Hospital, and the Master of the Temple, sent to France to ask for succour. The illumination shows us the King of France sitting on his throne, and before him is standing a religious in mitre and crozier, who is no doubt Eracles, and another in a peculiarly shaped black robe, with a cross patee on the left shoulder, who is either Hugh de Payens the Templar, or Raymond de Puy the Hospitaller, but which it is difficult to determine. Again, in the fine fourteenth A Knight Templar. The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the Knights Hospitallers, originally were not a military order; they were founded about 1092 by the merchants of Amalfi, in Italy, for the purpose of affording hospitality to pilgrims in the Holy Land. Their chief house, which was called the Hospital, was situated at Jerusalem, over against the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; and they had independent hospitals in other places in the Holy Land, which were frequented by the pilgrims. Their kindness to the sick and wounded soldiers of the first crusade made them popular, and several of the crusading princes endowed them with estates; while many of the crusaders, instead of returning home, laid down their arms, and joined the brotherhood of the Hospital. During this period of their history their habit was a plain black robe, with a linen cross upon the left breast. When Palestine was finally lost to the Christians, the Knights of St. John passed into the Isle of Cyprus, afterwards to the Isle of Rhodes, and, finally, to the Isle of Malta,[15] maintaining a constant warfare against the infidel, and doing good service in checking the westward progress of the Mohammedan arms. In the latter part of their history, and down to a recent period, they conferred great benefits by checking the ravages of the corsairs of North Africa on the commerce of the Mediterranean and the coast towns of Southern Europe. They patrolled the sea in war-galleys, rowed by galley-slaves, each of which carried a force of armed soldiers—inferior brethren of the order, officered by its knights. They are not even now extinct. The order was first introduced into England in the reign of Henry I., at Clerkenwell; which continued the principal house of the order in England, and was styled the Hospital. The Hospitallers had also dependent houses, called Commanderies, on many of their English estates, to the number of fifty-three in all. The houses of the military knights in England were only cells, erected on the estates with which they had been endowed, in order to cultivate those estates for the support of the order, and to form depÔts for recruits; i.e. for novices, where they might be trained, not in learning like Benedictines, or agriculture like Cistercians, or preaching like Dominicans, but in piety and in military exercises. A plan and elevation of the Commandery of Chabburn, Northumberland, are engraved in Turner’s “Domestic Architecture,” vol. iii. p. 197. The superior of the order in England sat in Parliament, and was One of two earlier representations of knights of the order may be noted here. In a MS. in the Library at Ghent, of the date of our Edward IV., is a picture of John Lonstrother, prior of the order; he wears a long sleeveless gown over armour. It is engraved in the “ArchÆlogia,” xiii. 14. The MS. Add. 18,143 in the British Museum is said in a note at the beginning of the volume to have been the missal of Phillippe de Villiers de l’Isle Adam, the famous Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem from 1521 to 1534. In the frontispiece is a portrait of the Grand Master in a black robe lined with fur, and a cross patee on the breast. On the opposite page is another portrait of him in a robe of different fashion, with a cross rather differently shaped. The monument of the last English Prior, Sir Thomas Tresham, in his robes as prior of the order, still remains in Rushton Church, Northants. A fine portrait of a Knight of Malta is in the National Gallery. The Hospitaller given on the A Knight Hospitaller. It will be gathered from the authorities of the costume of the Knights of the Temple and of the Hospital here noted, that when we picture to ourselves the knights on duty in the Holy Land or elsewhere, it should be in the armour of their period with the uniform surcoat of their order; but when we desire to realise their appearance as they were to be ordinarily seen, in chapel or refectory, or about their estates, or forming part of any ordinary scene of English life, it must be in the long cassock-like gown, with the cross on the shoulder, and the tonsured head, described in the above authorities, which would make their appearance resemble that of other religious persons. Other military orders, which never extended to England, were the order of Teutonic Knights, a fraternity similar to that of the Templars, but consisting entirely of Germans; and the order of Our Lady of Mercy, a Spanish knightly order in imitation of that of the Trinitarians. One other order of religious—the Trinitarians—we have reserved for this place, because while by their rule they are classed among the Augustinian orders, the object of their foundation gives them an affinity with the military orders, and their mode of pursuing that object makes their organisation and life resemble that of friars. The moral interest of their work, and its picturesque scenes and associations, lead us to give a little larger space to them than we have been able to do to most of the other orders. It is difficult for us to realise that the Mohammedan power seemed at one time not unlikely to subjugate all Europe; and that after their career of conquest had been arrested, the Mohammedan states of North Africa continued for centuries to be a scourge to the commerce of Europe, and a terror to the inhabitants of the coasts of the Mediterranean. They scoured the Great Sea with their galleys, and captured ships; they made descents on the coasts, and plundered towns and villages; and carried off the captives into slavery, and retreated in safety The miserable fate of these helpless ones moved the compassion of some Christ-like souls. John de Matha, born, in 1154, of noble parents in Provence, with Felix de Valois, retired to a desert place, where, at the foot of a little hill, a fountain of cold water issued forth; a white hart was accustomed to resort to this fountain, and hence it had received the name of Cervus Frigidus, represented in French by (or representing the French?) Cerfroy. There, about A.D. 1197, these two good men—the Clarkson and Wilberforce of their time—arranged the institution of a new Order for the Redemption of Captives. The new order received the approval of the Pope Innocent III., and took its place among the recognised orders of the church. This Papal approval of their institution constituted an authorisation from the head of the church to seek alms from all Christendom in furtherance of their object. Their rules directed that one-third of their income only should be reserved for their own maintenance, one-third The order were called Trinitarians, from their devotion to the Blessed Trinity, all their houses being so dedicated, and hence the significance of their badge; they were commonly called Mathurins, after the name of their founder; and Brethren of the Order of the Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Captives, from their object. Before turning from the monks to the friars, we must devote a brief sentence to the Alien Priories. These were cells of foreign abbeys, founded upon estates which English proprietors had given to the foreign houses. After the expenses of the establishment had been defrayed, the surplus revenue, or a fixed sum in lieu of it, was remitted to the parent house abroad. There were over one hundred and twenty of them when Edward I., on the breaking out of the war with France, seized upon them, |