The Templars in Europe and Iberia: Recruitment, Patronage, and Military Service

Formed in Jerusalem around 1119–1120, the Templars were a religious order whose members combined monastic commitments with military service. Their initial purpose was to protect Christian pilgrims travelling to holy places, but the order soon developed a wider role in the defence of the Crusader states. Support from rulers, churchmen, nobles and other donors gave it a presence across western Europe. In Iberia, where Christian kingdoms fought to expand and defend their territories, the Templars also became frontier soldiers and custodians of strongholds. Their European houses and their Iberian military commitments were connected, but the demands placed on them varied by region.

On this page9 sections

From a Jerusalem mission to a European network

The order grew from a small group of knights associated with Hugues de Payens. They lived in Jerusalem and were given quarters in the royal complex on the Temple Mount, a site that supplied the order with its name. At the Council of Troyes in 1129, church leaders approved the Templars and established a religious rule for them. Pope Innocent II’s bull Omne datum optimum in 1139 strengthened their standing by placing them under papal protection and allowing them to have their own priests.

This recognition helped turn a local military brotherhood into an institution that could recruit and receive support across Christian Europe. The Templars’ houses, often called commanderies, provided local bases for brothers and supported the order’s wider mission. Their western possessions helped sustain their activities in the eastern Mediterranean, where the order continued to defend people, places and territories. The relationship between the two regions shaped Templar priorities: European houses were not simply independent local monasteries, and Iberian military service had to be balanced against the order’s commitments in the East.

Recruitment and the people who joined

Joining the order meant accepting a religious life as well as military discipline. The rule described entry as voluntary and lasting, and set conditions for candidates. These included being a free man, not being bound to another order, and not concealing an existing engagement or debt. Candidates had to disclose these circumstances before accepting the community’s discipline.

The Templars were not made up only of knights. Knight brothers, generally drawn from the nobility, were trained and equipped for mounted combat. Sergeant brothers, commonly from less privileged backgrounds, served in military and administrative roles. Chaplain brothers were ordained priests who provided for the community’s religious needs. Squires and other workers could support the brothers without being full members of the order. This range of roles allowed the Templars to combine fighting, worship, administration and the upkeep of their houses.

Recruitment depended in part on the order’s reputation and on personal ties. Noble families could offer sons as well as land or other resources, while men of different social backgrounds could seek admission if they met the rule’s conditions. A commitment to the Templars was therefore not just a route into military service: it placed a person within a religious community whose work connected local houses to campaigns far from home.

Patronage and provincial growth

Gifts from rulers, churchmen, nobles and other laypeople gave the order land, income and strongholds. Some donors sought spiritual benefits, including prayers for their souls or the remission of sins. Rulers could also use patronage to strengthen a frontier, support a military campaign or place a valuable site in the hands of an order with members and resources of its own. These purposes could overlap, though the reasons for any particular gift varied.

As the order spread, it organised its houses into provinces led by regional masters, who were responsible to the order’s central leadership. This structure allowed the Templars to recruit locally while keeping provincial activity connected to a wider organisation. The houses supported the order’s spiritual life and military capacity, and formed part of the network through which resources were directed to its eastern commitments. Their presence also gave local communities regular contact with the order, whether through its religious houses, its landholding or its relationships with rulers.

European houses and changing royal relationships

England illustrates how Templar relations with a monarchy could develop over time. King Henry II granted the order land, and by 1185 its London centre had moved to the New Temple, where the church was consecrated that year. Richard I confirmed earlier grants and privileges. King John had extensive financial dealings with the Templars and made further land grants. Under Henry III, Templar brothers received military, financial and diplomatic commissions; the king’s Wardrobe was based at the Temple in 1225.

Royal cooperation could coexist with coercion. In1263 Prince Edward, later Edward I, raided treasure at the New Temple to pay his soldiers. The place that supplied secure custody for the monarchy could consequently become a target when a royal campaign needed cash.

Relations also differed between kingdoms. In France, Philip IV’s order to arrest the Templars in 1307 set in motion the crisis that led to their suppression. In England, Edward II initially resisted taking similar action, then ordered arrests in January 1308 after papal pressure. The uneven responses are a reminder that the order’s provinces operated within different political circumstances, even when they belonged to the same institution.

Iberia as a military frontier

The Templars’ role in Iberia differed from that of houses elsewhere in Europe because local rulers sought armed support for campaigns and frontier defence. The Christian kingdoms of the peninsula were not pursuing one unified policy: each ruler’s military aims and needs varied. Templars generally served within royal campaigns and were expected to provide forces according to the scale of an operation, rather than conducting an independent war of their own.

Portugal and its strongholds

Portugal became an early centre of Templar activity. In 1128, Countess Teresa granted the order the castle of Soure and its dependencies. The Templars later held castles along the Tagus frontier. Under Gualdim Pais, construction of Tomar Castle began around 1160 and became the order’s principal base in Portugal. These strongholds connected the Templars’ religious and provincial organisation to the practical demands of defending and extending the territory ruled by Portugal’s rulers.

Templars took part in Portuguese campaigns, including the capture of Santarém in 1147 and the siege of Alcácer do Sal in 1217. Their service formed part of royal military efforts, while their castles gave them an ongoing role in frontier defence between campaigns.

Aragon, Castile and León

In 1143, Ramon Berenguer IV, count of Barcelona, asked the Templars to assist in Iberia. They accepted a role in defending and securing Christian-held frontiers. In Aragon, their position developed further when the order absorbed the Order of Mountjoy in the late twelfth century, making the Templars an important force on the border. Their participation included the campaign for Majorca in 1229 and the conquest of Valencia in 1238.

Templars also served in the kingdoms of Castile and León, where they held strongholds in exposed frontier areas. They participated in the Christian coalition at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. The frontier could remain vulnerable despite the possession of castles: Almohad offensives demonstrated the risks faced by the order and the kingdoms it served.

One order, different regional demands

In much of Europe, Templar houses were primarily local bases that sustained the wider order through recruitment, religious life and resources. In Iberia, those functions existed alongside a more direct military role in frontier defence and royal campaigns. The distinction was not absolute, since European houses supported the order’s military mission and Iberian houses were also part of its religious and administrative structure. But the balance differed.

The Templars also had to direct part of their resources to the East. Revenues from Iberia also had to support the wider order, including its eastern mission, whereas military orders founded in Iberia could concentrate more of their resources on the peninsula. This limited how fully the Templars could direct local income to local frontier needs. It helps explain why their Iberian service was important without making them the only or principal military institution in every kingdom.

Suppression in 1312

The fall of Acre in 1291 ended the Templars’ last major mainland base in the Holy Land, and the order’s headquarters moved to Cyprus. Its European and Iberian provinces continued to exist, but the order’s future was increasingly contested. After the arrests initiated by Philip IV in France in 1307, the dispute spread beyond the French kingdom. In 1312, Pope Clement V formally dissolved the order at the Council of Vienne. The Templars’ different regional histories had developed through local recruitment, patronage and military service, but the papal decision ended the medieval order as a single institution.