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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6860742" data-attributes="member: 42582">What do you think the religious orders of knighthood of mediaeval times were concerned with?From St Bernard's tract <a href="http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~amtower/bernard.html" target="_blank">"In Praise of the New Knighthood"</a>, which lauds the Knights Templar and sets out the basis of their rule:It seems that a new knighthood has recently appeared on the earth . . . This is, I say, a new kind of knighthood and 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. . . . He is thus doubly armed and need fear neither demons nor men. Not that he fears death - no, he desires it. Why should he fear to live or fear to die when for him to live is Christ, and to die is gain? Gladly and faithfully he stands for Christ, but he would prefer to be dissolved and to be with Christ, by far the better thing. . . . Life indeed is a fruitful thing and victory is glorious, but a holy death is more important than either. If they are blessed who die in the Lord, how much more are they who die for the Lord! . . . The knights of Christ may safely fight the battles of their Lord, fearing neither sin if they smite the enemy, nor danger at their own death; since to inflict death or to die for Christ is no sin, but rather, an abundant claim to glory. In the first case one gains for Christ, and in the second one gains Christ himself. The Lord freely accepts the death of the foe who has offended him, and yet more freely gives himself for the consolation of his fallen knight. . . . Thus when the transgressors of divine law have been expelled, the righteous nation that keeps the truth may enter in security. Certainly it is proper that the nations who love war should be scattered, that those who trouble us should be cut off, and that all the workers of iniquity should be dispersed from the city of the Lord. . . . Once they have been cast out, he shall return to his heritage and to his house . . . Rejoice Jerusalem, and recognize now the time in which you are visited! Be glad and give praise together, wastes of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people. He has ransomed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared his holy arm in the sight of all peoples.The mere existence of these orders of knighthood is a "spreading of the word", a testament to their religious conviction and zealotry ("The Lord has bared his holy arm in the sight of all peoples"). The "tending to the faithful" by the Templars is concerned primarily with military defence; but the Hospitallers also (as their name indicates) operated the Hospital of St John, which is a more direct tending to the faithful. (And in D&D terms, correlates to the cleric's miraculous ability to cure injury and disease with a touch.)</blockquote>

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