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TEMPIO PAUSANIA—TEMPLARS
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of the 5th duke of Richmond, and himself an actor and playwright. She had a charming soprano voice and was educated for the operatic and concert stage, but at first appeared in light comic opera, in which she became very popular. Abandoning music, however, for the comedy stage, she made an even greater success as an actress, notably in Becky Sharp (1901); and under her own management in later years she produced a succession of modern comedies, in which her capacity for rivalling in London the triumphs of Réjane in Paris was conspicuously displayed.


TEMPIO PAUSANIA, a town of Sardinia, in the province of Sassari, from which town it is 52 m. E.N.E. by road. It is also reached by rail by a branch line (25 m.) N.W. from the main line from Terranova to Cagliari, leaving the latter at Monti, 14 m. S.W. of Terranova. Pop. (1901) 6511 (town), 14,573 (commune). It lies in a mountainous district 1856 ft. above sea-level, to the N.N.W. of the Monte Limbara. It is the chief town of the Gallura, and has been an episcopal see since the 10th century (with Ampurias). The cathedral is a modern building. The district is agricultural and pastoral. The costumes are picturesque, especially those of the women. For the name Pausania see Terranova Pausania.


TEMPLARS. The Knights Templars, or Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (pauperes commilitones Christi templique Salomonici), formed one of the three great military orders, founded in the 12th century. Unlike the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights it was a military order from its very origin. Its founders were a Burgundian knight named Hugues de Payns[1] (Hugo de Paganis) and Godeffroi de St Omer, a knight from northern France, who in 1119 undertook the pious task of protecting the pilgrims who, after the first crusade, flocked to Jerusalem and the other sacred spots in the Holy Land. They were quickly joined by six other knights and soon afterwards organized themselves as a religious community, taking an oath to the patriarch of Jerusalem to guard the public roads, to forsake worldly chivalry, “of which human favour and not Jesus Christ was the cause,” and, living in chastity, obedience and poverty, according to the rule of St Benedict, “to fight with a pure mind for the supreme and true King.”

To this nascent order of warrior monks Baldwin I., king of Jerusalem, handed over a part of his royal palace lying next to the former mosque of al-Aksa, the so-called “Temple of Solomon,” whence they took their name. They had at first no distinctive habit, wearing any old clothes that might be given to them. Nor was their community exclusive. Their primitive rule seems to have enjoined them especially to seek out excommunicated knights, and to admit them, after absolution by the bishop, to their order, and they thus served a useful purpose in at once disciplining and converting the unruly rabble of “rogues and impious men, robbers and committees of sacrilege, murderers, perjurers and adulterers”[2] who streamed to the Holy Land in hope of plunder and salvation. It was this rule which led later to the most important privilege of the order, the immunity from sentences of excommunication pronounced by bishops and parish priests.[3]

This practice, as Prutz points out, might have brought them at once under the suspicion of the Church, and it soon became expedient to obtain the highest sanction for the new order and its rules. In the autumn of 1127 accordingly Hugues de Payns, with certain companions, appeared in Europe, where he was fortunate enough to secure the enthusiastic support of the all-powerful abbot of Clairvaux. Grateful pilgrims had already begun to enrich the order; the De laude novae militae, a glowing panegyric of this new and holy conception of knighthood, addressed by Bernard to Hugues de Payns by name, insured the success of his mission. In 1128 the council of Troyes discussed and sanctioned the rule of the order which, if not drawn up by Bernard, was undoubtedly largely inspired by him.[4]

Rule of the Temple.—No MS. of the original French Rule of the Temple (Règle du Temple) exists. Of the three extant MSS. representing later recensions, one is preserved at the Accademia dei Lincei at Rome (Cod. 44, A 14), one at the Bibliothèque Nationale (fonds français 1977), the third in the departmental archives at Dijon (H. III). The last of these, probably intended for the use of the master of a subordinate house, is much abbreviated; it dates, however, from the early part of the 13th century, whereas the others are of the end of the century at earliest. In essentials these copies preserve the matter and spirit of the primitive Rule, and they prove that to the end the order was, in principle at least, submitted to the same strict discipline as at the beginnings.[5]

The Règle du Temple in its final form as we now possess it contains the rules for the constitution and administration of the order; the duties and privileges of the various classes of its personnel; the monastic rules, regulations as to costume and as to religious services; rules for the holding of chapters, and a summary of offences and their punishment; the procedure at the election of a grand master and at receptions into the order; a definition of the relations of the order to the pope, and to other religious orders. It must be borne in mind, however, that the organization of the order as described below was only gradually developed, not having been fixed at Troyes. At first the master of the Temple at Jerusalem was only one among many; the seneschal and marshal appear not to have existed; and it was not till the bull Omne datum optimum of Pope Alexander III. (1163), the great charter of the order, that its organization was definitively centralized.

Constitution.—As finally constituted, the order consisted of (1) knights (fratres milites), (2) chaplains (fratres capellani), (3) sergeants or esquires (fratres servientes armigeri), (4) menials and craftsmen (fratres servientes famuli and officii). All were bound by the rules of the order and enjoyed its privileges. Women were not admitted to the order.[6]

1. At the head of the order was the master of the Temple at Jerusalem (in Cyprus after the fall of the Latin Kingdom), known as the grand master. His authority was very great—except in certain reserved cases his word was law—but he was not absolute. Thus in matters of special importance—alienation of the estates of the order, attack on a fortress, declaration of war, conclusion of an armistice, reception of a new brother—he had to consult the chapter, and was bound by the vote of the majority; nor could he modify or abrogate a decree of the council of the order without their consent. He had to obtain the consent of the chapter also to the nomination of the grand commanders of the provinces of the order; the lesser offices were absolutely in his gift. He was elected by a complicated process, a chapter summoned ad hoc electing a “commander of the election” and one other brother who, after vigil and prayer, co-opted two more, these four choosing another two, and so on till the number of the twelve apostles had been reached. A chaplain, representing Jesus Christ, was then added to complete the electoral college (see Curzon, Règle du Temple, p. xxxv).[7]

The grand master was allowed four horses for his ordinary use. His household consisted of a frater capellanus, a cleric, a frater serviens with two horses, a Saracen secretary (écrivain sarrazinois)

  1. A fief in Champagne, near Troyes.
  2. Bernard of Clairvaux, De laude novae militae, cap. v. (in Migne, Patrol. lat. 182, p. 928).
  3. Prutz, Templerherrenorden, p. 12. The Latin copy of the Rule (Bibliothèque Nationale) reads “Milites non excommunicatos” for “chevaliers escomenies”; which means, according to Prutz, that when the Latin version was made the original significance of the rule had been forgotten. M. de Curzon (Règle du Temple, p. iv.), on the other hand, assumes that the Latin text represents the original rules drawn up in 1128 and that the French version is a corrupt copy. That Prutz is right would seem to be shown not only by the reasonableness of the rule in itself (why should the Templars be instructed to look out for gatherings of non-excommunicated knights?) but by the language of cap. v. of the De laude novae militae, in which Bernard extols the knights for turning the enemies of Christ into his soldiers (ut quos diu pertulit oppugnatores magis jam propugnatores habere incipiat; faciatque de hoste militem).
  4. Bernard was not present at the council. But the “humble escrivain” of the Règle du Temple, Johan Michiel, writes “par le comandement dou concile et dou venerable pere Bernart abbés de Clerevaus.” Compare the rule also with the chapter (iii.) of the De laude: De militibus Christi.
  5. Of a secret Rule, in spite of the most diligent research, no trace has ever been found. It is now generally held that none ever existed. The legend of its existence, so fatal to the order, is probably traceable to the fact that the complete Rule was jealously guarded by the chief office-bearers of the order, only excerpts being given to the heads of the lesser houses (e.g. the Dijon MS.) and known generally to the knights.
  6. Rule 70. Perillouse chose est compaignie de feme, que le deable ancien par compaignie de feme a degeté pluisors dou droit sentier de paradis. It is interesting to compare this with the more wholesome view of the best of the contemporary chivalrous poets, e.g. Walther von der Vogelweide or Wolfram von Eschenbach (Parzival), who hold up true love as the highest earthly incentive to noble deeds.
  7. The bull Omne datum optimum (1163) decreed that the master must be a knight of the order who had taken the vows, and vested the election exclusively in the knights.