To be fair, the Templars were different from the other major international military orders. Uniquely, from the beginning they were knights who took up a religious calling, rather than servants of a hospital that added a paramilitary wing. This gave them a certain quality that was useful for medieval romance: they corresponded exactly to the archetype of the truly chivalrous men—violent but chaste, tough but pure of heart, merciless but godly. They were the ideal that all knights in Arthurian legend strove toward.
