Knights Templar - The Catalyst

In my first post about the Templars a couple of days ago, I talked about two drivers of their ascent to massive wealth and power.

The first was the specific service they initially offered, which was protecting nobles on their pilgrimage to the holy land in Jerusalem. This starting point would act as a major catalyzing agent to their growth, and ultimately lead to a broad diversification of services - like banking - that would skyrocket their wealth yet further.

The second was an explicit culture and morality of restraint, embodied and championed by the founders and the Brothers of the Order. This would end up serving as a form of brand power that allowed them to accumulate such far reaching support across Europe, and recruit willing candidates seeking status, purpose, and a recognition of their piety. This cultural distinction also granted them societal autonomy, a sense of belonging, and promoted military competence through extreme discipline.

I’ll talk about the first today.

Between the Order’s founding in 1119 and its official sanction from the Church by Pope Honorius II in 1129, the co-founders Hugh(the knight) and Bernard (the abbot), were busy men.

Today, founders stress about raising capital over a four to six month period. These two bootstrapped for ten years before essentially getting the green light from the then reigning Pope in a meeting called the Council of Troyes. This was a meeting which took the founders some considerable effort to set up. In attendance were Bernard, some of the Pope’s high ranking people, French nobility, and Hugh, along with about five of his knight bros*.

Hugh delivered the medieval pitch deck by explaining to the Pope and his retinue what the order was all about, the 72** rules they followed, and so forth. Presumably, they covered traction points, topline revenue, plans for future growth and the like, though none of this is covered in official documentation.

The scribe, a gentleman by the name of Jean Michael noted that “ all that took place at that council cannot be told nor recounted…”. It is hard to imagine that the creation of such a titan organization was not explicitly planned, and that the Pope, one of the most powerful men in the world, recognized this and saw an opportunity to underwrite the Church’s influence and growth with force.

But details of such intentions would seem a contradictory component to leave in the records, as the Order’s outward facing charter was more about piety and service to the faith, and not about jumping on the best power play. But power play it became.

The Pope granted the Order exemption from local laws, freedom to pass through borders, and other advantages that greatly increased their freedom of maneuverability.

Hugh and Bernard continued to explicitly targeted wealthy individuals for support - as these were the only ones who could actually afford such a treacherous journey. Presumably, they initially networked their way to the Pope through these channels, and thus obtained the ultimate growth accelerant - an allegiance with the Church.

Over time, they’d deepen their network of highly aligned nobles, who would make donations, and put up their own estates and resources for use by the Order. I’d imagine that the backing of the Church only made these supporters all the more willing to demonstrate their loyalty.

This network of personnel, resources, and infrastructure would evolve into a tightly managed, efficient web through which intelligence could be transferred, and through which opportunities could be sensed - a form of medieval lead generation. In fact, 90% of the Order were non-combatant, and instead simply existed to oversee the administrative affairs of the Order. It was a well oiled machine.

The net result of their personnel and real estate infrastructure, combined with solid management practices, was a mass diversification of services, an increase in ‘contract volume’, and growth which required innovation to sustain. And so banking was born, and then things really took off from there.

More next.

LH

*They had cool names, shared from notes taken at the meeting “And also present was Brother Hugues de Payens, Master of the Knighthood, with some of his brothers whom he had brought with him. They were Brother Roland, Brother Godefroy, and Brother Geoffroi Bisot, Brother Payen de Montdidier, Brother Archambaut de Saint-Amand”

**Once the Order became larger and more complex, the list would later expand to 609 rules.