Council of Troyes approves Templar Rule

January 13, 1128

Bernard of Clairvaux drafted a Latin rule for the fledgling Templars and presented it at Troyes. Overnight the order of nine poor knights acquired official status, a white mantle, and the authority to recruit and accept land donations across Europe. Within a decade they were continent-wide. Bernard's treatise In Praise of the New Knighthood provided the theological justification, arguing that killing in defense of the Holy Land was not homicide but malicide.