It was in the year 1118 that the proud and aristocratic order of Knights Templars was first instituted. Nine knights, nobly born, consecrated themselves, by a solemn vow, to protect pilgrims on the roads, and to labour for the safety and welfare of the Church. Their leaders were Hugh de Payens and Geoffrey de St. Aldemar. They had no church or place of residence, and the king assigned to them the building south of the Dome of the Rock, now called the Jámi‘ el Aksa. It was then called the Palace of Solomon, or the Royal Palace, and William of Tyre is careful to distinguish between it and the Dome of the Rock, which he calls the Temple of the Lord. The canons of the Temple also allowed the knights to make use of their own ground, that is, of the Haram Area. For nine years they wore no distinctive habit, and had no worldly possessions. But at the Council of Troyes, where they were represented by deputies, their cause was taken up by the Church, and they obtained permission to wear a white mantle with a red cross. Then, for some reason or other, they became the most popular of all the orders, and the richest. Their wealth quickly introduced pride and luxury, and William of Tyre complains that even in his time, writing only some fifty years after their foundation, there were 300 knights, without serving brothers, “whose number was infinite,” that, though they had kept the rules of their first profession, they had forgotten the duty of humility, had withdrawn themselves from the authority of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and were already rendering themselves extremely obnoxious to the Church by depriving it of its tithes and first-fruits. Here we see the first appearance of that hostility to the Church which afterwards caused the fall of the Templars. The reception of a new knight was a kind of initiation. The chapter assembled by night with closed doors, the candidate waiting without. Two brothers were sent out, three times in succession, to ask him if he wished to enter the brotherhood. The candidate replied to each interrogatory, and then, to signify the poverty of his condition, and the modest nature of his wants, he was to ask three times for bread and water. After this he was introduced in due form, and after the customary ceremonies and questions, was made to take the oath of poverty, chastity, obedience, and devotion to the defence of Palestine. The following is given as the formula, or part of it:—“I swear to consecrate my speech, my strength, and my life, to defend the belief in the unity of God and the mysteries of the faith; I promise to be submissive and obedient to the grand master of the order; when the Saracens invade the lands of the Christians, I will pass over the seas to deliver my brethren; I will give the succour of my arm to the Church and the kings against the infidel princes; so long as my enemies shall be only three to one against me I will fight them and will never take flight; alone I will combat them if