Hugues de Payens

Template:Lang, commonly known in French as Template:Lang or Template:Lang (Template:IPA; Template:C. – 24 May 1136), was the co-founder and first Grand Master of the Knights Templar.

Origin and early life

The Latin text of William of Tyre's History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, dated Template:C., calls him Template:Lang,<ref>William of Tyre, History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, trans. E. A. Babcock and A. C. Krey (Columbia University Press, 1943, repr. Octagon Books, 1976); Latin version online at The Latin Library </ref> without any geographical reference. William's history was translated into French in the early 13th century, by an anonymous author who added that Hugh was from "Template:Lang,"<ref>Guillaume de Tyr et ses continuateurs, ed. Alexis Paulin Paris (Paris, 1879), p. 442; online at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook.</ref> “near Troyes." The 12th-century author Walter Map also noted that Hugh was named "Payns, from a village of that name in Burgundy.”<ref>Walter Map, De nugis curialium, ed. and tr. by M.R. James, rev. by C.N.L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1983), quoted in Malcolm Barber and Keith Bate, The Templars: Selected Sources (Manchester University Press, 2007).</ref> Hugh is therefore assumed to have come from the village of Payns, about 10Template:Nbskm from Troyes, in Champagne (eastern France).<ref>Malcolm Barber, "The origins of the Order of the Temple," in Studia Monastica 12 (1970), p. 221.</ref>

Template:Lang is mentioned as a witness to a donation by Count Hugh of Champagne in a document of 1085–90, indicating that the man was at least sixteen by this date—a legal adult and thus able to bear witness to legal documents—and so born no later than 1070. The same name appears on a number of other charters up to 1113 also relating to Count Hugh of Champagne, suggesting that Template:Lang or Template:Lang was a member of the Count's court. By the year 1113, he was married to Elisabeth de Chappes, who bore him at least one child, Thibaud, later abbot of the Abbaye de la Colombe at Sens. The documents span Hugh's lifetime and the disposition of his property after his death.<ref>Thierry Leroy, Hugues de Payns, chevalier champenois, fondateur de l'Ordre des Templiers (Maison Boulanger, 1997).</ref>

Bernard of Clairvaux, who favoured the Order and helped to compose its Latin Rule, also had the support of Hugh of Champagne. The Latin Rule of the Order was confirmed at the Council of Troyes.<ref>J. M. Upton-Ward, The Rule of the Templars: The French Text of the Rule of the Order of Knights Templar (Boydell Press, 1992), p. 11-12.</ref> A Templar commandery was eventually built at Payns. This is considered to be additional circumstantial evidence that Hugh was from the area.<ref>Barber (1970), p. 223.</ref>

Other suggestions that Hugh came from Viviers in the modern Template:Lang of Ardèche) or from Nocera dei Pagani in Campania can “reasonably be dismissed.”<ref>Barber (1970), p. 222.</ref>

The foundation of the Order

King Baldwin II of Jerusalem ceding the Temple to Hugh of Payens and Godfrey de Saint-Omer

Hugh, Count of Champagne made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1104–07 and visited Jerusalem for a second time in 1114–16.<ref>Barber (1970), p. 222-223.</ref> He was probably accompanied by Hugh of Payens, who remained there after the Count returned to France, as "Hugo de Peans" witnessed a charter in Jerusalem in 1120-1121. He was called Template:Lang ("Master of the Knights of the Temple") for the first time in a document dated 1125.<ref>Anthony Luttrell, "The earliest Templars," in Autour de la premiere croisade, ed. Michel Balard (Sorbonne, 1996), p. 200-201.</ref> He most likely obtained approval for the Order from King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Warmund of Picquigny, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, at the Council of Nablus in 1120.<ref>Dominic K. Selwood, "Quidam autem dubitaverunt. The Saint, the Sinner, the Temple and a Possible Chronology," in Balard (1996), p. 229.</ref>

In the late 1120s, Hugo de Paganis and five other Templars (Godfrey de Saint-Omer, Roland, Geoffrey Bisol, Payen de Montdidier, and Archambaud de Saint-Amand-les-Eaux) went on a diplomatic mission to western Europe on behalf of Baldwin II. They met with nobles and kings at the Council of Troyes in an attempt to encourage warriors to come to the Kingdom of Jerusalem and join an attack on Damascus that Baldwin was planning.<ref>Barber (1970), p. 229-230.</ref>

Death

Hugo died in 1136. The Templars commemorated his death every year on 24 May.<ref>Barber (1970), p. 239.</ref> He was succeeded as Grand Master by Robert de Craon.

Sources

• William of Tyre, History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, trans. E. A. Babcock and A. C. Krey (Columbia University Press, 1943, repr. Octagon Books, 1976.
• Walter Map, De nugis curialium, ed. and tr. by M.R. James, rev. by C.N.L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1983).
• J. M. Upton-Ward, The Rule of the Templars: The French Text of the Rule of the Order of Knights Templar (Boydell Press, 1992)
• Malcolm Barber, "The origins of the Order of the Temple," in Studia Monastica 12 (1970).
• Malcolm Barber and Keith Bate, The Templars: Selected Sources (Manchester University Press, 2007).
• Thierry Leroy, Hugues de Payns, chevalier champenois, fondateur de l'Ordre des Templiers (Maison Boulanger, 1997).
• Anthony Luttrell, "The earliest Templars," in Autour de la premiere croisade, ed. Michel Balard (Sorbonne, 1996).
• Dominic K. Selwood, "Quidam autem dubitaverunt. The Saint, the Sinner, the Temple and a Possible Chronology," in Autour de la premiere croisade, ed. Michel Balard (Sorbonne, 1996).

Further reading

• Simonetta Cerrini, La rivoluzione dei Templari (Mondadori, 2007)
• Simonetta Cerrini, "Le fondateur de l’ordre du Temple à ses frères: Hugues de Payns et le Sermo Christi militibus," in Dei Gesta per Francos: Crusade Studies in Honour of Jean Richard, ed. Michel Balard, Benjamin Z. Kedar, Jonathan Riley-Smith (Ashgate, 2001)
• Peter W. Edbury, "The Old French William of Tyre and the Origins of the Templars," in Knighthoods of Christ: Essays on the History of the Crusades and the Knights Templar (Ashgate, 2007)
• Helen Nicholson, A Brief History of the Knights Templar (Robinson, 2010)
• Albin Wallace, The Grand Masters of the Knights Templar in the Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford, 2025)

External links

• Helen Nicholson, translator, Contemporary reactions to the foundation of the Templars
• Hugues de Payns Museum Payns, France