Hugues de Payens and the First Templars
Hugues de Payens (c. 1070–1136) was the founder and first Grand Master of the Knights Templar. A minor French nobleman from the County of Champagne, Hugues would, in the words of the chronicler William of Tyre, “lay the foundation of so great a house.” He led a small band of French knights to Jerusalem in 1119, formed a brotherhood dedicated to protecting Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land, and within a decade saw that brotherhood recognized as a religious order by the papacy. The Order he founded would, within two centuries, become the most famous military religious order of the Middle Ages.
This cluster page tells the story of Hugues and of the original companions who formed the Order with him. It is a companion to the cluster page on the founding of the Order and to the biography of Bernard of Clairvaux, who would become the Order’s most important early champion.
Origins in Champagne
Hugues de Payens came from the small town of Payens in the County of Troyes in the County of Champagne, a region in north-central France. The county of Champagne was, in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, one of the most important feudal territories in northern France, and it was famous for its great religious houses, including the Abbey of Molesme and the new Cistercian Abbey of Clairvaux founded by Bernard in 1115.
The Payens family were minor lords, holding small estates in the region around Troyes. They were not of the highest nobility, but they were well connected. Hugues was related, by blood or by marriage, to several of the great noble families of the region, including the Counts of Champagne themselves. In particular, Hugues was a household knight of Hugh, Count of Champagne (died 1125), one of the most powerful lords of the region and a great patron of the new Cistercian order.
This connection to the Count of Champagne would prove important to the future Order. It was through the Count that Hugues was introduced to the abbey of Clairvaux, and it was through the count’s patronage that the early Order was able to acquire estates and support in Champagne.
The Crusade of 1101 and the Holy Land
Hugues had gone to the Holy Land with the Crusade of 1101, one of the smaller follow-up expeditions to the First Crusade of 1096–1099. The Crusade of 1101 was a disaster — most of the army was destroyed in Asia Minor — but Hugues survived and remained in the Latin East.
He settled in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Crusader state that had been established in 1099. The young Kingdom was precarious: it was surrounded by hostile Muslim powers, its population was small, and its resources were limited. Hugues established himself at the court of the king, Baldwin I (r. 1100–1118), as a household knight.
For nearly two decades, Hugues served in the Kingdom. He fought in several campaigns and acquired a reputation as a loyal and devout knight. He also acquired extensive contacts in the Latin East, both with the local French-speaking aristocracy and with the Italian merchant communities in the coastal cities.
The Founding of the Order (1119)
The Order was formally founded in 1119, when Hugues approached King Baldwin II of Jerusalem (r. 1118–1131) with a proposal. The details of the proposal are obscure, but the basic idea was clear: Hugues and a small group of companions would form a religious brotherhood dedicated to protecting Christian pilgrims on the dangerous roads of the Holy Land.
Baldwin, who had no military resources to spare, agreed. He gave the new brotherhood quarters in a wing of the royal palace on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This association with the Temple of Solomon would eventually give the Order its famous name.
The full story of the founding. See The Founding of the Order. The key source is the chronicler William of Tyre (c. 1130–1186), who wrote his Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum (History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea) in the 1170s.
The Original Nine
According to William of Tyre, the original group numbered nine knights. Although some later sources say seven or eight, the number nine became canonical. The traditional list of the original nine, recorded in a thirteenth-century source, is:
- Hugues de Payens — the first Grand Master
- Geoffroi de Saint-Omer — a major landowner in the north of France
- Payen de Montdidier — a lord from Picardy
- Archambaud de Saint-Aignan — a lord from central France
- André de Montbard — a relative of Bernard of Clairvaux and the uncle of five of Bernard’s brothers who entered the Order
- Geoffroi Bisol — a knight of obscure origin
- Roral — a knight of obscure origin
- Gondemare — a knight of obscure origin
- Nivard de Montier — the only non-knight, listed as a chaplain
The list, although traditional, is not without problems. Several of the names are obscure, and the historicity of some of them has been questioned. What is clear, however, is that the original brothers were a tightly knit group of French knights, all of relatively modest origin, with strong connections to the religious houses of northern France and Champagne.
The Council of Troyes (1129)
In 1127, Hugues de Payens left the Holy Land and traveled to Europe to seek support for the new Order. He visited the Count of Champagne and the great abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, and the two became enthusiastic champions of the Order. The visit culminated in the famous Council of Troyes of January 1129, at which the Order was formally recognized and given a Rule.
Hugues was at Troyes in person, as was Bernard. The Rule of the Order was drawn up by Bernard (or under his supervision), and it was approved by the bishops and abbots of the Council. From this point, the Order began to grow rapidly, with donations pouring in from across Europe.
The Council of Troyes. See Bernard de Clairvaux and the Templar Rule.
The Later Years and Death (1129–1136)
After the Council of Troyes, Hugues returned to the Holy Land, where he continued to lead the Order as its first Grand Master. The Order was now growing rapidly, with new recruits arriving from Europe and new estates being acquired in the Latin East and the West. The Order’s military role was also expanding, and the brothers were soon garrisoning castles and fighting in campaigns.
Hugues’s last years were spent in the Holy Land. He served as Grand Master for twenty years (or, by some counts, nineteen), and he died in 1136 in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. His successor as Grand Master was Robert de Craon, a French knight who had been one of the early brothers.
Hugues was buried in the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, in the church of the Order. His grave, like those of his early companions, has long since been lost. For the full list of Grand Masters, see The Grand Masters of the Order.
Hugues in Templar Legend
Hugues de Payens has been a major figure in Templar legend. The medieval chronicler Walter Map (c. 1140–1210) claimed that Hugues had, during the founding of the Order, made a pact with the patriarch of Jerusalem to discover the secrets hidden in the bowels of the Temple Mount. This story, the foundation of much of the modern mythology of the Order, was taken up and elaborated in the Holy Grail romances, in the Rosicrucian tradition, and in modern esoteric writings.
The idea that Hugues had discovered hidden knowledge beneath the Temple Mount is one of the central themes of Templar Mythology, Symbolism and Hidden Knowledge.
Conclusion
Hugues de Payens was a relatively obscure French nobleman whose founding of a small brotherhood of pilgrims in 1119 led, within two centuries, to the creation of one of the most powerful institutions in medieval Europe. The Order he founded would become the most famous military religious order of the Middle Ages, would be suppressed in dramatic circumstances in 1312, and would give rise to one of the richest and most enduring mythologies of Western culture.