"[W]e grant to all knight brothers... white cloaks; and no-one who does not belong to the aforementioned Knights of Christ is allowed to have a white cloak, so that those who have abandoned the life of darkness will recognise each other as being reconciled to their creator by the sign of the white habits: which signifies purity and complete chastity." -- The Ancient Rule of the Order (Upton-Ward 1992, p. 24)

The Habit of the Order

Although initially the Order of the Temple wore whatever clothing people donated to them, in 1129, when the Rule was approved, they were given their first habit. This was a simple, white mantle or cloak which they wore over a dark tunic (Nicholson 2001, p. 23). White, to symbolise purity and chastity, as well as a sign that they had abandoned the "life of darkness" (Upton-Ward 1992, p. 24). When a man became a brother of the Temple, he entered another world, and lived in a different way. The wearing of the habit proclaimed this transition (Plate 23, 24).

Cistercians also wore a white habit, and historians agree that St Bernard, one of the founding members of the Cistercian Order, was instrumental in this choice, as well as in the writing of the Ancient Rule of the Order, which is essentially the same as that of the Cistercians, who lived by the reformed Benedictine Rule. Bernard was very outspoken in his support of the Templar Order from the outset, and was friendly with--and possibly related to--one or two of the original members of the Order.

According to Seward (1972, p. 22), St Bernard "thought of Hugues [de Payen]'s new brethren as military Cistercians. Significantly, brother-knights wore a white hooded habit in the cloister, like Cistercian choir monks, while lesser brethren wore brown, as did Cistercian lay brothers." As one of the founding members of the Cistercian Order, Bernard was probably no less than passionate about their way of life and beliefs, and wished to spread these teachings to as many people--and Orders--as possible, hence his involvement in the creation of the Templars.

That appearance was important to the Templars can be seen in their Rule. The Rule forbade the adding of fur or any other luxury decoration to the habit, because it would encourage sinful pride (Upton-Ward 1992, p. 24), but perhaps also because they wished to present a united and uniform front. When there is nothing to distinguish between one brother and another, any good deed a brother does is simply done by a Templar, to the glory of the Order, rather than to the glory of an individual. The Rule seems to bear this thinking out, since it goes on to say that members of the Order should all have the same clothing, though each brother's clothing should fit him properly, because ill-fitting robes would make the Order appear foolish. They wished to appear not only unified, but respectable.

However, not every member of the Order wore the white habit. The sergeants and squires wore black, or dark brown. The reason for this, says the Rule, is that there was a time when men joined the Templars under false pretenses, and brought shame upon the Order. The bragging of these false brothers' squires caused many scandals. Therefore, all subsequent squires and sergeants had to wear dark clothes made of the cheapest fabric, to teach them humility, as well as to show that they were not full Knights of the Temple (Upton-Ward 1992, p. 35-6). By outfitting the majority of its members in cheap fabric, the Order also managed to save itself a great deal of money.

Although Templar knights--but not their squires of sergeants--were allowed the white habit, it was not, at that time, considered to be a symbol of rank. However, by the time the Teutonic knights came into being in the 1190's, the white habit was considered to be a symbol of knighthood (Forey 1992, p. 177). This is a case of the Knights Templar unintentionally creating a symbol which was widely recognised and used. Many crusading knights subsequently wore white tabards over their armor in battle.

Most of the Templars were not knights. The majority of the brothers wore the dark robes. And yet, in nearly every pictorial representation of a Templar from that period, we are presented with a brother in a white habit. Knight brothers were more visible in a society which wore primarily dark colours. They stood out in a crowd, from a great distance, and were instantly recognisable for the clothes they wore. They were also of a higher class, and so were presented as the ideal of what a Templar should be--what all men should aspire to, even if only some could realistically achieve such a goal. Not a man joined the Order as a sergeant who would not rather have been a knight. Such is human nature. The white habit said "Templar" in a way the dark one never could.

It is somewhat ironic that not all the Knights Templar were knights. The sergeants were not knights in training, but lowborn individuals. Upton-Ward (1992, p. 94) tells us that this policy reflects the fact that the Templars did not train men to be knights, but accepted those who already had the necessary training. Only members of the knightly class were entitled to the white habit. The punishment for impersonating a knight when joining the Order was usually expulsion, though if an individual was indeed sorry for his actions, he might only be demoted to sergeant, and given the dark robes (Upton-Ward 1992, p. 116).

There was a concern that the Templar mantle might be misused by people who wished the Order ill. The Rule specified that anyone who left the Order had two days to return his robes. One reason for this was that it was mainly through expulsion from the Order that brothers left, and one had to do something fairly bad to be expelled. The kind of brothers who were likely to be expelled were also likely to do other bad things, like visit brothels or get drunk or start fights.

If someone wearing a Templar uniform was seen doing something disgraceful, it reflected badly upon the Order, whether the person in the habit was actually a Templar or not. There was also a concern that expelled brothers might try to sell their robes to criminals or confidence artists, who would use them for their own nefarious ends, and give the Order a bad name in the process (Regle in Nicholson 1995, p. 102).

The actions of a person wearing Templar garments, regardless of whether or not that person was, in fact, a Templar, reflected on the Order as a whole. It was only natural that the Templars were very conscious of their image, and took care to preserve it. Regle's statement suggests that there were people who would dress as Templars and intentionally do harmful or immoral things specifically to the detriment of the Order's image. The Templars had to be very careful about who wore their robes.

St George's Cross

The red cross, historically so closely associated in the modern mind with crusading knights, was not added to the official uniform of the Knights Templar until the late 1140's, twenty years after the inception of the Order. Pope Eugenius III allowed them to add this evocative symbol to display that they were knights of Christ. A red cross on a white field is both heraldically and historically a symbol of martyrdom (Nicholson 2001, p. 23), and was the traditional sign of St George (Plate 25)--an early Christian martyr and warrior--representing blood and purity.

The Templars identified with St George in their vocation (Nicholson 2001, p. 149-50), though the parallels between them were perhaps more readily understood then than in the present day. St George was not only a very holy man, but he had also been a warrior. Most depictions of him idealise him as a medieval knight, charging into battle on horseback. There is some questions as to whether St George ever really existed, but if he did, then he would have lived in the third century, long before a knightly class--as the Templars and their contemporaries would have understood it--existed at all.

However, the Templars would have been familiar with many of the legends of St George--for, by the Medieval period, there were multiple and sometimes conflicting versions of the martyr's story (Knight 2002, St George)--and understood it in contemporary terms. As a warrior and a saint, George was evidence that fighting did not preclude holiness, so long as one's cause was just, and one lived one's life otherwise in a way that was pleasing to God.

St George was also a symbol of martyrdom, which held great importance for the Templars, and for all their Christian contemporaries. A martyr is a person so steadfast in his faith, that he is unwilling to deny it, even under pain of death. Martyrs were held in great admiration by Christians, and were often made saints. The Church held that those who had suffered for their faith and paid with their lives did not suffer in Purgatory after their deaths, but went directly to heaven, a reward for which every Christian longed.

However, since Christianity had become the official religion throughout Europe, there was no longer much opportunity for martyrdom. The Templars, however, faced martyrdom regularly. They were glad to have that chance, and were not afraid to die. As St Bernard said, "Gladly and faithfully he stands for Christ, but he would prefer to be dissolved and to be with Christ, by far the better thing," (Blanchard 1995, Military Orders).

The cross, gules on a field, argent--the cross of St George--did not actually become associated with the saint until sometime in the early middle ages, and its origins are mainly heraldic: white for purity and red for blood. By the twelfth century, it had become a popular emblem among the crusaders, and came to signify Christianity's struggle against Islam.

The red cross which was added to the Templar habit was a sign of willingness for martyrdom in more ways than one. It was also meant as a spiritual shield, which each Templar wore over his heart. The bright red cross on the white habit made an ideal target for Muslim archers; the Templars could not hide from their enemies, but must ride bravely into battle to face them, and to face death without fear (Dafoe & Butler 2002, Garments). In donning his habit on the eve of battle, each brother was knowingly inviting martyrdom, and proudly displaying that he was not afraid.

The sergeants, too, were given a red cross to wear on the front and back of their dark mantles, though it cannot have provided such a high-contrast, easy target as those that their knight masters wore. The difference in dress between the upper and lower classes of Templars sometimes caused the sergeants to be mistaken for Hospitallers, who wore black robes with a white cross.

Some Templar robes, however, were kept without their red cross. As proscribed in the statutes of the Order, a brother who was doing penance for some transgression would be made to wear a habit without the customary cross (Upton-Ward 1992, p. 128, 167). This was perhaps to indicate that, for a length of time, that brother was not worthy of the honour of martyrdom.

Hair and Associations with the Muslims

The way in which the Templars wore their hair was also proscribed by their Rule, which states that the brothers should be "so well tonsured that they may be examined from the front and from behind; and we command you to firmly adhere to this same conduct with respect to beards and mustaches, so that no excess may be noted on their bodies," (Upton-Ward 1992, p. 25). Being well-shorn promoted a respectable, tidy appearance, in the same way that having properly-fitting robes did.

Short hair also served a practical purpose. When a knight rode into the heat of battle, the last thing he would want was his vision to be obscured--Medieval helmets cut away enough of their field of vision without having to worry that their hair was going to come flopping down into their eyes.

Long hair was very common among the knightly class of this period. Among the Templars, it would have been considered a symptom of vanity, and sinful, as well as impractical. What use was long hair to a man who did not bathe, and was not hoping to impress ladies with his looks?

Although they kept their hair short, and were, according to the Rule, supposed to keep their beards neatly trimmed, the Templars were actively encouraged to grow their beards long (Plate 23, 24, 28). The reason for this was that their Muslim enemies equated facial hair with masculinity (Dafoe & Butler 2002, Garments). They would never fear a clean-shaven enemy in battle, thinking them feminine or immature, and so the Templars used the psychological effect of facial hair to their advantage. In doing so, they often gained the respect, rather than the scorn of their enemies.

When the Latin Christians first arrived in the Holy Land on the First Crusade, needless to say, the Muslim inhabitants were surprised. They were not entirely certain why these barbaric foreigners had suddenly descended upon them. This confusion about the origin of their enemies led to the Muslims referring to them all as "Franks", though they came from all over Europe.

After a while, however, they began to draw a distinction between new Franks and orientalised Franks, who had lived in the East for some time. The Muslims considered these Franks to be more civilised, and perhaps they were. Usama, an Islamic chronicler contemporary with the Templars, said "Everyone who is a fresh emigrant from the Frankish lands is ruder in character than those who have become acclimatised and have held long association with the Moslems," (Hillenbrand 1999, p. 333). Usama even goes on to describe a group of Templars as his friends.

These "civilised" Franks, with their long beards and understanding of Eastern ways were considered much more worthy opponents in Muslim eyes than their Western brothers. The Templars must have seemed very different in appearance from secular knights; the one with short hair and a full beard, the other clean-shaven with flowing locks; the Templars in their white habits, all alike and indistinguishable, the secular knight with his armorial colours, so that he would stand out on the field of battle and be recognised by his men.

Templars maintained a group identity, and that identity was of purity and fearlessness. So long as they held to their vows, there was nothing to fear. They were willing martyrs, and proud to bear the mark which proclaimed this to the world. Even in a society which regarded with suspicion anything out of the ordinary, they were not afraid to wear beards, though their countrymen went cleanshaven. While this almost certainly fueled the rumours that the Templars were somehow in league with the Muslims, they did what they had to do to gain the respect--and possibly the fear--of their enemy, even if it was detrimental to their image in the West.

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©2005 Mary Adelle Leinart