THE LATER RULE IN THE TEMPLE 173
in favour of the Moslems. There had been long periods of
comparative peace, and these would have been more
numerous and of greater duration in the twelfth century had
it not been for the Temple and the Hospital. But at that
time war was the principal reason for the existence of the
military Orders and their main source of support.
The tendency to favour peace did not show itself distinctly
in the Temple until the final stages of the Latin occupation.
It was a tendency not confined to the Templars. The
Hospital, the Teutonic Order, and most of the Franks
learned from experience that the kingdom lacked the men
to defend what the Latins still possessed, and that a footing
could be retained in the East only by making terms with
the Moslems. The West, however, did not understand.
Armies such as Islam could put in the field were almost
unknown in Europe, and Christendom continued to talk of
the Moslems as if their forces were no larger than those
of the petty barons of the West. If the Franks made a
treaty with Islam, therefore, it could only be because of
cowardice or indifference or greed, and Europe was especially
bitter towards the Temple which was so frequently in the
forefront of the negotiations.
The desire which had spread among the brethren to enjoy
the pleasures open to the members of a rich and powerful
Order, and the disinclination to exchange these pleasures for
the discomforts and danger of the battlefield had relatively
little effect upon the official attitude of the Temple until
the successes of the infidel made effective war impossible to
the Franks. The importance of the Holy War to Moslems
and Christians and the generations of antagonism between
them made any real and lasting peace impracticable.
Moslems who had lived for years beside the Franks might
be willing to show tolerance, but fiery infidels who came in
contact with the Christians for the first time were eager to
expel the invader. On the Christian side, the position was