In the decades following the Second Crusade, visitors to the Temple Mount were impressed with how it was being developed by the Knights Templar. After prayers at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with its chapels associated with the crucifixion and burial of Jesus and the discovery of the True Cross, pilgrims walked to the Temple Mount, entering through the western gate near the south side of the Dome of the Rock, the Templum Domini, or Temple of the Lord, a church served by canons of the Augustinian order. On the outer court the canons and Templars had built houses and planted gardens.
According to Theoderich, a German pilgrim who wrote about his visit to the Hoiy Land in 1172, the Tempie of the Lord bore an inscription that read The house of the Lord is weii buiit upon a firm rock’, but that as piigrims were in the habit of chipping away bits of the hoiy rock, its surface had to be paved with marbie and it was cordoned off by a taii and beautifuiiy worked wrought-iron screen which was put up between the encirciing coiumns.
From the Tempie of the Lord, continued Theoderich, the piigrims made their way south to the Tempiar headquarters at the ai-Aqsa mosque, or rather what he caiied the Paiace of Soiomon:
fihich is oblong, and supported by columns wthin like a church, and at the end is round like a sanctuary and covered by a great round dome. This building, wth all its appurtenances, has passed into the hands of the Knights Templar, m/?o dvell in it and in the other buildings connected with it, having many magazines of arms, clothing, and food in it, and are ever on the watch to guard and protect the country. They have below them stables for horses built by King Solomon himself in the days of old, adjoining the palace, a wondrous and intricate building resting on piers and containing an endless complication of arches and vaults, which stable, we declare, according to our reckoning, could take in ten thousand horses wth their grooms. No man could send an arrow from one end of their building to the other, either lengthmys orcrossmys, atone shot wth a Balearic bow Above, it abounds wth rooms, solar chambers, and buildings suitable for all manner of uses. Those Mio walk upon the roof of it find an abundance of gardens, courtyards, ante-chambers, vestibules and rain-mter cisterns; while down below it contains a wonderful number of baths, storehouses, granaries, and magazines for the storage of wood and other needful provisions.
The southern part of the Temple Mount had therefore become the combined administrative, military and religious headquarters of the Templars, with a vast stable underneath. The Grand Master had his chambers there and was attended by his entourage which included a chaplain, two knights, a clerk, a sergeant, a Muslim scribe to act as an interpreter, as well as servants and a cook. The Seneschal, the Marshal, the Commander of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Draper were also here along with their attendants. In addition there were about three hundred Templar knights and a thousand sergeants in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as well as the native Syrian light cavalry, called Turcopoles, who were employed by the order, and numerous auxiliaries, including grooms, blacksmiths, armourers and stonemasons, and many of these would
Have been quartered on the Temple Mount.
The Temple Mount was a busy place. fet at Its heart It was as silent as any monastery, for the Templars followed the canonical hours like any Cistercian or Benedictine monk, rising at four for Matins and retiring to bed after Compline, attending regular services and prayers In between, eating their meals In silence while listening to readings from the Bible, and otherwise caring for their horses.
The so-called Stables of Solomon were In fact a substructure of vaults and arches built by Herod to extend the platform of the Mount, and later reconstruction work was undertaken by the Umayyads and the Templars. The Templars Indeed used this as a stables, but Theoderich’s claim that ten thousand horses could be stabled beneath the Mount Is an exaggeration; other travellers estimated the capacity at about two thousand horses, and allowing space for squires, grooms and perhaps even pilgrims sleeping there, the number of horses stabled at any one time was more like five hundred.
These warrior monks were a powerful force In the Holy Land, whose defence since the Second Crusade fell Increasingly on their shoulders. Contrary to popular belief the Templars were not fanatics forever In search of battle with the Infidel. Generally they were pragmatic and conservative In their approach to politics and warfare. If anything more so than the counts and kings of Outremer who were driven by personal and dynastic ambitions In the
Here and now. In becoming a Knight Templar each man surrendered his will to the order, as in the words of one recruit: ‘I, renouncing secular life and its pomp,
Relinquishing everything, give myself to the Lord God and to the knighthood of the Temple of Solomon of Jersualem, that, as long as I shall live, in accordance with my strength, I shall serve there a complete pauper for God.’
Self-will was replaced with service to the order and its aims, and the Templars were playing a long game, dedicated to defending the Holy Land for all time. In any case conflict in the Middle Ages tended to be more about sieges of cities and castles than battle in the open field, which was unpredictable and risky even under the most favourable circumstances. And in Outremer patience had its rewards as it was usually only a matter of time before the uneasy Muslim coalitions against the Christians fell apart. And so it was with confidence that the Templars looked out from their headquarters atop the Temple Mount upon Jerusalem and the future that lay beyond.
Tunnels and Chambers Beneath the Dome of the Rock
In his account of the Temple Mount, the twelfth-century pilgrim Theoderich mentioned some strange underground features. After ascending the Mount pilgrims arrived at the lower court of the Templum
Domini, the Temple of the Lord, formerly the Dome of the Rock, which was built on the site of Solomon’s Temple. ‘One mounts from the lower court to the upper one by twenty-two steps’, wrote Theoderich, ‘and from the upper court one enters the Temple. In front of these same steps in the lower court there are twenty-five steps or more, leading down into a great pool, from which it is said there is a subterranean connection with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, through which the holy fire which is miraculously lighted in that church on Easter Even is said to be brought underground to the Temple of the Lord.’
The first mention of an aperture in the rock was made in AD 333 by a traveller known as the Bordeaux Pilgrim, but the first documented reference to the cave beneath the rock was made by Ibn al-Faqih in 903: ‘Under the rock is a cavern in which the people pray. This cavern is capable of containing 62 persons.’ A Persian, Nasir-i Khusraw, who visited the Dome of the Rock in 1047, described the large cavern under the rock ‘where they burn tapers’, which was perhaps the tradition that led Theoderich to make the connection with the miraculous Easterfire at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. All of Herat, who visited the Temple Mount in 1173 when Jerusalem was under Christian rule, gave this description: ‘Underneath the rock is the
Cave of the Souls. Theysaythat Allah will bring together the souls of all True Believers to this spot. You descend to this cave by some fourteen steps. The Cave of the Souls is of the height of a man. Its length extends 11 paces from east to west and 13 paces from north to south.’
Muslims say that the souls of the dead can be heard here as they await the Day of Judgement. And according to both Muslim tradition and the Talmud of the Jews the rock lies at the centre of the world. Beneath it is the abyss where Muslims say the waters of Paradise flow, but the Talmud says the waters of the Flood rage.
In some Jewish traditions it is also regarded as the place where the Ark of the Covenant stood-and where, when Solomon’s Temple was destroyed in 587 BC, the Ark was concealed and remains hidden.
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