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He commissioned Uesugi Kagekatsu to attack the Sasa troops in rear while Maeda Toshiiye menaced them from the front; he told off Hachisuka to oppose the soldier-monks of Kii; he posted Sengoku Hidehisa in Awaji to hold in check the forces of Chosokabe Motochika, and he stationed Ukita Hideiye at Okayama to provide against the contingency of hostility on the part of the Mori family.
In spite of the opposition of court advisers, Bernard induced Louis VII. and Conrad of Germany to take the crusader's vow. He gave the Knights Templars a new rule and kindled afresh a zeal for the knighthood. Although the members of the Military Orders were not monks in the strict sense of the word, yet they were soldier-monks, and as such deserve to be mentioned here.
It has been shown that the monastery of Hiei-zan had afforded shelter and sustenance to the forces of Echizen and Omi during the winter of 1570-1571, and it has been shown also that Nobunaga, underrating the strength of the priests in the province of Settsu, sustained defeat at their hands. He now sent an army to hold the soldier-monks of Settsu in check while he himself dealt with Hiei-zan.
But Yoshitoyo managed to enlist the aid of the recently discomfited Sasaki, of the soldier-monks of Kofuku-ji, and, above all, of Hosokawa Masamoto, son of Hatakeyama Masanaga's old opponent, Hosokawa Katsumoto. With these co-operated the Yamana, the Isshiki, and other septs, so that Yoshitane found himself between two powerful armies, one in Kyoto, the other in Kii.
There can be little doubt that his animating purpose in thus acting was to create a counterpoise to the overwhelming strength of the monasteries of Nara and Hiei-zan. The latter comprised three thousand buildings temples and seminaries and housed a host of soldier-monks who held Kyoto at their mercy and who had often terrorized the city and the palace.
One might talk forever and yet not say too much about the charge of the Cuirassiers at Reichshoffen; but how many times did the Hospitaller knights and the Templars charge in similar fashion? Those soldier-monks, in truth, invented a new idea of courage. Unfortunately they were not always fighting, and peace troubled some of them.
He announced that if the soldier-monks persisted, their lord-abbot should be banished and their property confiscated; before which evidently earnest menaces the mob of friars turned their faces homeward.
There were many other Orders of soldier-monks besides these two. The best known are the Teutonic Knights, who originated during the Third Crusade at the siege of Acre in an association of North German Crusaders for the care of the sick and wounded. The Knights of the German Hospital of St. Their organisation was similar to that of the older Orders.
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