The Order of Christ was founded in the year 1318, but since it is a continuation—under a different name—of the Order of the Templars, it goes as far back as 1119. In all probability this makes the Order of Christ the oldest order of knighthood in the world. We say, in all probability, for there is quite a controversy about the prior antiquity of the Order of the Temple or that of the Hospital. The most likely answer seems to be that the Order of the Hospital antedates the former by a few years, inasmuch as the Hospitallers were organized in the year 1112. However, at first they were an order of charity and only gradually did they develop into a military order during the reign of the second master, Raymond du Puy (1120-60), whereas the Templars were organized from the outset as a military order. For that reason the Temple can be said to be the prototype of all orders of knighthood. Although the leaders of the first Crusade had defeated the infidels in the Holy Land and captured Jerusalem, July 15, 1099, still many bands of Saracens were left which held several mountain strongholds and were roving around the countryside, harassing the Christian pilgrims on their way to the holy places. In view of this state of affairs, Hugh de Payns, a knight from Champagne, in 1119, twenty years after the capture of Jerusalem, gathered around him in that city seven companions and formed with these knights a religious community. In contrast with the ordinary religious groups, this community had a special character, for the knights not only took the usual vows of obedience, poverty and chastity, but they added a fourth vow of a decidedly military nature. In virtue of this vow the knights became a kind of transport troops, providing the Christian pilgrims with police escort. Later, the vow assumed a more general character, namely that of defending the Holy Land. The knights called themselves _Milites Christi_, soldiers of Christ, but because their first Convent was a part of the palace of the king of Jerusalem, which was supposed to have been built close by the place where once Solomon’s temple stood, they became traditionally known as the Knights of the Temple, or the Templars. In the first few years of their existence, they followed the Augustinian rule, but later adopted a rule written for them by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the great promoter of the second crusade and admirer of the Templar’s ideal. This rule was based on the rule of the Cistercians but adapted to the way of life of the knights. Because of this connection with St. Bernard’s order, the knights wore over their armature a white mantle to which Pope Eugenius III added a red cross. The members of the Temple were divided into three classes: the knights, the sergeants-at-arms and priests who acted as chaplains for the order.