King Louis did something quite astonishing: he signed over effective command of the entire mission to the Templar knights, allowing them to reorganize the military structure, take control of training and tactics and—most extraordinary of all—to temporarily enlist into the order every person in the vast royal following, from the meanest pilgrim to the mightiest knight. Suddenly the Templars were no longer a small but competent unit within the larger French army of the Second Crusade: they were effectively its leaders, and every man who followed them was, for a few weeks at least, a brother.
