The Templars: The Rise and Fall of God's Holy Warriors

by Dan Jones

gave themselves over to finery instead of spiritual purity: ‘they are clothed in purple and fine linen, but their souls are in rags. Their bodies glitter with jewels but their lives are foul with vanity’.9

hair cut regularly and their beards and moustaches trimmed, ‘so that no excess may be noted on their bodies’.

A dangerous thing, for by it the old devil has led man from the straight path to paradise... the flower of chastity is always [to be] maintained among you... For this reason none of you may presume to kiss a woman, be it widow, young girl, mother, sister, aunt or any other... The Knighthood of Christ should avoid at all costs the embraces of women, by which men have perished many times.

‘Are these the trappings of a warrior or the trinkets of a woman?’