warrior monk

Monk-soldier is an established expression derived from Bernard of Clairvaux used to designate members of military and hospitaller religious orders, primarily the Knights Templar. The expression “monk-soldiers” is commonly used (and in modern times often overused) to describe the Templars. Its use is not illegitimate, as Saint Bernard himself associated the words “monk” and “knight”. Bernard of Clairvaux, in De laude novae militiae, wrote: “It is as remarkable as it is astonishing to see how they know how to show themselves at the same time gentler than lambs and more terrible than lions, to the point that one does not know whether they should be called religious men or soldiers, or rather that no other names seem better suited to them than these two, since they know how to unite the gentle...