Between the years 1095 and 1291 seven major military campaigns were waged by English and European knights against the Islamic forces which had occupied Jerusalem and much of Palestine. The First Crusade, proclaimed by Pope Urban II in 1095, resulted in the reconquest of Antioch and Jerusalem. The Second Crusade, initiated by Bernard of Clairvaux in 1147, ended in defeat at Damascus. The Islamic armies under Saladin then succeeded in retaking Jerusalem in 1187. The answer of the church in Europe was the famous Third Crusade, led by Frederick Barbarossa of Germany, Philip II of France and Richard I of England, who was nicknamed ‘the Lionheart’. (His heroic statue may be seen in Old Palace Yard outside the Houses of Parliament.) During this campaign the English knights played a particularly important role as Frederick was drowned and Philip returned to France, leaving Richard in command. After much fierce fighting a three-year truce was arranged and Christian pilgrims were granted free access to Jerusalem. The last battle of the Crusaders was their loss of Acre in 1291.
During the two-hundred-year era of the Crusades, various strategic parts of the Middle East were held by the Christians as Crusade States; ruins of their fortresses may still be seen in Jordan, Israel and other places. The purpose of these was partly military, to provide protection for pilgrims, and partly monastic, to create Christian communities in the lands of the Bible. To man these Crusader outposts two semi-monastic orders were created, the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller. In reality, the system did not work—the forces of the Crusader States were not strong enough to establish permanent control over the holy sites—but the Templars and Hospitallers distinguished themselves in many a battle, and in medieval London they grew to be among the most powerful of the City’s many religious houses.
The legendary courage, discipline and Christian demeanour of the knights of the Crusader orders have been celebrated in innumerable romantic tales, and it is partly from these that Western civilization has derived the ideal of chivalry. Chaucer is thought to have had a Crusader in mind in the following description from the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales:
A Knight was with us, and an excellent man, Who from the earliest moment he began To follow his career loved chivalry, Truth, openhandedness and courtesy... He had never spoken ignobly all his days To any man by even a rude inflection, He was a knight in all things to perfection.
The Order of Knights Templar was established in 1118 by Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, to protect Christian pilgrims on the road to the Holy City. Ten years later the first master of the Order, Hugh de Payens, established a home for the Templars in London on the south side of Holborn. Later, when the Order had increased in wealth, a property was purchased between Fleet Street and the river and a vast monastery was set up, consisting of a council chamber, refectory, barracks, cloisters and a river terrace. Their beautiful round church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was consecrated in 1185 by Heraclius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who had come to seek help from Henry II against the victorious Saladin.
The Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem began as a hospital for pilgrims near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and became military when the Crusades got under way. Their priory in London was founded during the reign of Henry I (1100–35). It occupied an extensive property at Clerkenwell north of Smithfield with a number of grand buildings. St. John’s Gate, to be seen today on St. John’s Lane just off Clerkenwell Road, was the south entrance. Their church, similar to that of the Templars with a round chancel in imitation of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, was also dedicated by Heraclius in 1185. Both the Templars and the Hospitallers became immensely rich and powerful, and ultimately corrupt.
The Templars were abolished by Pope Clement in 1312, and the property, still called the Temple, became a resort of the legal profession. Temple Church is the only one of the original buildings remaining. The order of St. John of Jerusalem, on the other hand, lasted until the Dissolution under Henry VIII, when the property and buildings were sold off or given away. After changing hands many times the Church of St. John and St. John’s Gate and Gatehouse were taken over in 1831 by the revived Order of St. John of Jerusalem. This organization, which operates a voluntary ambulance corps, is in charge of the property today.