The Templars perform courageous service in the Holy Land, and their numbers have increased rapidly, partly because of the propaganda writing of Bernard of Clairvaux.

The Templars had originally vowed obedience to the patriarch of Jerusalem, but Pope Innocent II in 1139 places the Templars directly under the pope's authority: the Templars thus are exempted from the jurisdiction of any bishop in whose diocese they might hold property.

The Templars rapidly diversify their activities.

Soon becoming a vital element in the defense of the Christian crusader states of the Holy Land, they garrison every town of any size there.

At their height, the Templars number about twenty thousand knights.