The permanent hold of the Franks upon the eastern borders of the Mediterranean depended upon the strength of the colonies which their various princes were able to establish. It is impossible to learn how many pilgrims from the West made their permanent homes in the new Latin principalities. Certainly the greater part of those who visited Palestine returned home after fulfilling their vow to kneel at the Holy Sepulcher. Still the princes could rely upon a certain number of soldiers who would be willing to stay and fight the Mohammedans. The Turks, moreover, were so busy fighting one another that they showed less energy than might have been expected in attempting to drive the Franks from the narrow strip of territory--some five hundred miles long and fifty wide--which they had conquered. [Sidenote: The Hospitalers.] 75. A noteworthy outcome of the crusading movement was the foundation of several curious orders--the Hospitalers, the Templars, and the Teutonic Knights--which combined the dominant interests of the time, those of the monk and the soldier. They permitted a man to be both at once; the knight might wear a monkish cowl over his coat of mail. The Hospitalers grew out of a monastic association that was formed before the First Crusade for the succor of the poor and sick among the pilgrims. Later the society admitted noble knights to its membership and became a military order, while continuing its care for the sick. This charitable association, like the earlier monasteries, received generous gifts of land in western Europe and built and controlled many fortified monasteries in the Holy Land itself. After the evacuation of Syria in the thirteenth century, the Hospitalers moved their headquarters to the island of Rhodes, and later to Malta. The order still exists and it is considered a distinction to this day to have the privilege of wearing its emblem, the cross of Malta. [Illustration: Costume of the Hospitalers, showing the Form of the Cross of Malta.] [Sidenote: The Templars.] Before the Hospitalers were transformed into a military order, a little group of French knights banded together in 1119 to defend pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem from the attacks of the infidel. They were assigned quarters in the king's palace at Jerusalem on the site of the former Temple of Solomon; hence the name, Templars, which they were destined to render famous. The "poor soldiers of the Temple" were enthusiastically approved by the Church. They wore a white cloak adorned with a red cross, and were under a very strict monastic rule which bound them by the vows of obedience, poverty, and celibacy. The fame of the order spread throughout Europe, and the most exalted, even dukes and princes, were ready to renounce the world and serve Christ under its black and white banner, with the legend, _Non nobis, Domine_.