Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

378 Orders of Knighthood, Religious
eral hundred professed knights, and the lesser orders like St. Lazarus and
St. Thomas probably never included more than a few dozen. In addition to
the brother knights, most orders included a second class of military
brethren, called “brother sergeants” by the Templars and their imitators
and “brother sergeants-at-arms” by the Hospitallers and their imitators.
They were drawn from the families of landless knights (before ca. 1250)
and mere freemen, and served in much the same manner as the knights.
All orders also included a certain (relatively small) number of men in
holy orders called “brother chaplains,” who performed the numerous services
deemed necessary for the spiritual health of the order and its members,
and a larger class of servants of humble birth (called “brothers-ofwork”
by the Templars and “brother sergeants-of-office” by the
Hospitallers), who performed all of the other necessary tasks at the order’s
various houses, including the hospitals that several orders always maintained.
The brethren of this class were often heavily supplemented with
men merely hired for the purpose, but the members of the other classes
were made up entirely of “professed” brethren, who took solemn vows and
lived in community under the strict monastic rule of their order, either in
the convent or in one of the numerous daughter houses that served either
as military outposts or as sources of revenue and recruitment.
A number of orders, including both the Templars and Hospitallers,
also maintained associated lay confraternities, whose members (confratres,
or “fellow-brethren”) were admitted to all of the order’s spiritual privileges
in return for certain donations (whence the later title “donats”) and vows
of protection. The confratres who were also knights might even join in the
campaigns of the order for a season or two, and in the later fourteenth century
the Teutonic Knights in particular made a practice of inviting knights
from all over Latin Christendom to join them during their annual campaigning
season. Many of these knights—like the one in Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales who had participated in all the important battles fought by the
order against the heathen—probably became confratres of the order.
Like those of monastic orders generally, the professed brethren of
most military orders were distinguished from the beginning by a peculiar
habit (mode of dress) suggestive of their religious status. The nature of the
habit evolved gradually over time. By the end of the thirteenth century the
more formal version normally included a long mantle opening down the
front like a clerical cope, and as most monks wore nothing like it, the mantle
became and has since remained the most distinctive mark of membership
in a military order. In some orders, indeed (and possibly in all), new
members were solemnly invested with the mantle during the induction ceremonies
into the order. The mantles and habits of most orders were made
of undyed or white wool, like the habits of the Cistercians, but the Hospi-