What I find interesting is that NEW AGE books on the history of the Knights Templar always make the claim that the Templar's must have discovered some immense Treasure or secret buried under Solomon’s Temple and that is what led to their great power. But in reality, the Templar’s real appeal came from the spiritual power found in Bernard of Clairvaux’s letter ‘In praise of the new knighthood’. I can’t find an online copy of the whole letter, but important excerpts can be found below.
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Hugh’s intention had been to get some words of spiritual comfort for his knights.
He can have had no idea how epoch-defining Bernard’s letter would turn out to be.
It began to circulate widely, copied repeatedly by scribes as it passed from hand to hand across Christendom.
In no time, Bernard’s letter became the Order’s official press release and public mission statement.
As more and more people read Bernard’s thundering words, the Templars’ lives, and the Crusades, were changed forever.
‘IN PRAISE OF THE NEW KNIGHTHOOD’
Bernard used his letter as an opportunity to crack European military society wide open, describing how the knights of Europe were vain, arrogant, and godless. He came from a French knightly family himself, so knew the gory details all too well.
He did not hold back. He humiliated the ordinary knights of Christendom:
"Therefore what error, knights, so immense, what frenzy so unbearable draws you to military actions at such expense and effort, all for nothing but death or crime? You cover your horses in silks and drape your armour with swatches of flowing cloths; you paint your lances, shields and saddles; you bling up your bridles and spurs with gold and silver and jewels; and with this pomp you rush only towards death, in shameful fury and shameless madness. Are these military insignia, or the trappings of women?(14)"
When Bernard had finished slamming the narcissistic self-serving thugs of the nobility, he declared that the Templars were the antidote: the perfect incarnation of a new, true chivalry, who fought for God and not their own devilish petty squabbles.
The Templars were, he declared, what Christian knights should be. They embodied virtue and rejected the vices of the age, fighting a war that was more spiritual than physical:
[It is] a new kind of knighthood, I repeat, one unknown to the ages gone by. It ceaselessly wages a twofold war both against flesh and blood and against a spiritual army of evil in the heavens.(15)
They were the model of humble, professional, lethal warriors:
"They are careful to avoid all excess in food and dress, being concerned only with what is necessary. … They never sit about idly or wander aimlessly, but always when (rarely) not riding out, they do not hang about eating bread, but mend and refurbish their clothes and weapons and get their kit straight … . They accept people of every rank, and defer to skill not noble blood. They vie with each other for honor; they bear each other’s burdens … . They detest dice and gaming; and take no pleasure in the ridiculous and cruel custom of falconry. They abominate jesters, magicians, story-tellers, singers of scurrilous songs and jousts as so many vanities and mad deceptions. They shave their hair, knowing from the Apostle that it is shameful for a man to have flowing locks. They rarely wash and seldom tidy their hair, content to be disheveled and dusty, unkempt, covered in dust and blackened by the marks of the sun and their armour.(16)"
Found here:
http://www.dominicselwood.com/the-knights-templar-4-st-bernard-of-clairvaux/