Two valiant Knights, Hugo de Payens and Godfrey de St Omer, seeing the dreadful miseries and cruelties inflicted by the Barbarian Infidels upon the Christian Pilgrims while travelling to the Holy Places in Palestine, first conceived the idea of forming a body which would give succour and shelter to the wandering Christians.  They were joined in this benevolent design by six other Knights of equal renown.  These devoted and disinterested Soldiers of the Cross vowed to dedicate themselves and their means to this holy, charitable, and honourable purpose.   To bind themselves still more strongly to  the performance of this pledge, they took upon themselves the Monastic obligations of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, between the hands of Guarimont, Patriarch of Jerusalem.  Such was the origin of the Order of the Temple in A.D. 1118.