linguistic:translation, structural:reformatting
Military orders

The military orders emerged as a new form of religious organisation in response to the unstable conditions at western Christendom's borderlands. The first of them, the Knights Templar, developed from a knightly brotherhood attached to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Around 1119, the knights took the monastic vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience and committed themselves to the armed protection of pilgrims visiting Jerusalem. This unusual combination of monastic and knightly ideas did not meet with general approval, but the Templars found an influential protector in the prominent Cistercian abbot Bernard of Clairvaux. Their monastic rule was confirmed at the Council of Troyes in France in 1129. The name derives from Solomon's Temple, the Frankish name for the Al-Aqsa Mosque where they established their first headquarters. The Templars' commitment to the defence of fellow Christians proved an attractive idea, stimulating the establishment of new military orders, in Outremer always by the militarisation of charitable organisations. The Hospitallers represents the earliest example. Originally a nursing confraternity at a Jerusalemite hospital founded by merchants from Amalfi, they assumed military functions in the 1130s. Three further military orders followed in the Levant: the Order of Saint Lazarus mainly for leper knights in the 1130s, the German Order of Teutonic Knights in 1198, and the English Order of St Thomas of Acre in 1228.

As frequent beneficiaries of pious donations across Europe and the Levant, the Hospitallers, Templars, and to a lesser extent the Teutonic Knights accumulated considerable wealth. They administered their scattered estates through an extensive network of branch houses, each required to transfer a part—generally one-third—of its revenues to the Jerusalemite headquarters. As the regular transfer of goods and money required the development of complex logistical and financial systems, the three orders operated as early forms of supranational trading houses and credit institutions. Their networks facilitated international money transfers, because funds deposited in a branch could be paid out in another, and loans granted in one country could be repaid in another. The Hospitallers never abandoned charitable work. In Jerusalem, their hospital served hundreds of patients of all religions and genders. Pilgrims, pregnant women, abandoned children, and impoverished people could also enlist their aid. However, waging war against infidels remained the military orders' prime obligation. As an early example of a standing army, they had a pivotal role in the crusader states' defence. The knight-brothers and their armed servants were professional soldiers under monastic vows. They wore a habit, always with a cross on it, and showing its wearer's rank. As lay rulers and aristocrats seldom had the funds to cover all costs of border defence, they eagerly ceded their border forts to the military orders. The earliest examples include Beth Gibelin in Jerusalem, and Krak des Chevaliers in Tripoli, both seized by the Hospitallers.