Everard des Barres

Grandmaster coat of arms Everards des Barres

Everard des Barres ( lat. Ebrardus de Barris , dt. Eberhard von Barres , † November 15, 1176 in Clairvaux ) was the third Grand Master of the Templar Order .

Life

Everard comes from the von Barres family, a middle aristocratic family often mentioned in the history of Brie , Gâtinais , Nivernais , Burgundy and Bourbonnais .

Since 1143 he was Master (Preceptor) of the Templars in France ("Magister Galliae") and as such one of the highest dignitaries of the order. Under his chairmanship came in 1147 in the chapter of the order of Paris , at which Pope Eugene III. participated, 130 Knights Templar together. You must have prepared your departure for the Second Crusade here. Because in the same year took place under the direction of Eugene III. a council took place where Everard presented the hopeless situation in the Holy Land and asked the help of the Holy See. The Pope recognized the situation and called for the Second Crusade. On the occasion of this occasion, Eugene III. Granted the Templars the right to carry the red cross at all times (April 27, 1147) and granted them the right to read mass once a year even where the interdict was imposed. When the Grand Master Robert de Craon died in 1149, Everard was elected as his successor. He was the first Templar Grand Master to be addressed with the title “Magister Dei Gratia”.

Only a few weeks later he accompanied King Louis VII of France on the Second Crusade. Everard was part of the embassy that hurried ahead to Constantinople before Ludwig arrived there. Here he negotiated with the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I the transport of the crusader army across the Bosporus . While crossing Pisidia , Everard saved the king's life in a skirmish with the Seljuk Turks . The chronicler Odo von Deuil praises his piety and bravery; Everard seems to have had a great influence on the king. After the failure of the siege of Damascus in 1148, Everard, who carried the royal treasury, followed the king to France. His contingent of Knights Templar brought from France remained in the Holy Land, where they defended Jerusalem against a Seljuk attack in 1149 .

Through his diligence and shrewd care, Everard was able to solidify the spirit of the Order and encourage its growth. Apparently because of the grievances in the Kingdom of Jerusalem , the exclusive power and intrigue between Melisende and her son Baldwin III. and the actual spiritual contents and goals of the Crusader thought pushed into the background, Everard, after returning to France, resigned his grand master's office in the autumn of 1152 and became a monk in the Cistercian Abbey of Clairvaux , where he died on November 15, 1176.

literature

• Alain Demurger: The Templars. Rise and Fall 1120–1314. CH Beck, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-406-52367-6 .
• Dieter H. Wolf: Internationales Templerlexikon Studienverlag, Innsbruck 2003, ISBN 3-7065-1826-0 .

predecessor	Office	successor
Robert de Craon	Grand Master of the Knights Templar 1147–1152	Bernard de Tromelai