THE   LATER  RULE   IN  THE  TEMPLE
passed. The positions o£ authority became more numerous
as well as more influential. A Templar might rule the
properties previously possessed by two or more nobles who
had ranked high in Syria, and the temptation to live as their
predecessors had lived was very strong. The example given
by the leaders was followed by the simple knights and the
commoners. The Order might not officially approve
display, but nevertheless it often encouraged the practice.
The importance of an organisation tended to be judged by
the benefits that it could confer upon its members, and in
later years the Temple had several reasons for wishing to
foster a high opinion of its importance. Recruits were
attracted by a brotherhood which flaunted its power, and the
Temple was determined to outshine the Hospital, in which
the same influences were at work.
Wealth was not the only explanation of the arrogance
which was shown by the Order in general. The Templars
had the contempt of the professional for the amateur. The
feudal army of the king was an inefficient military machine
compared with the disciplined brethren, and the Temple and
the Hospital did not disguise their opinion of the royal
troops. Without the aid of the Orders, the kingdom would
have collapsed more than once, and the brethren felt them-
selves entitled to demand homage from the people whom
they had protected. Even when the king or one of the
Christian princes arranged a treaty, it was common in the
thirteenth century for the Temple and the Hospital to be
asked by the Moslems to give it their sanction. The reason,
says a chronicler, is that the Moslems knew they could trust
the military Orders to see that such a treaty was then
respected by the Franks 3 but another chronicler suggests that
it was because neither the Temple nor the Hospital regarded
itself as bound by an agreement to which its approval had
not expressly been given. Sometimes the Orders made their
own treaties without consultation with the ruler. An