The Place of the Crusader in Medieval Society

"The Place of the Crusader in Medieval Society." This article is concerned with how crusaders and members of the military orders fitted into the theoretical framework of medieval society. They were neither monks, clerics, or laymen nor were they prayers, fighters, or workers. Like some other new categories in twelfth-century society, including the ministerials and lay brothers, the crusaders shared the characteristics of more than one of the traditional orders and could be seen (as Bernard of Clairvaux said of the Templars) both as monks and laymen and as prayers and fighters. Like pilgrims, they were cut off, at least temporarily, from other members of society by their vows and consecrated status, which was guaranteed by privileges granted by the papacy. The military orders were regarded by contemporaries as religious orders whose members substituted fighting for God against the enemies of the church for the opus Dei of monks and canons. Scholars disagree whether they should be seen as permanent crusaders or as another new and distinct type of life.