Rex Bellator

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("King warrior", in French) is the term coined by Raymond Llull in 1305 to designate a project whose aim is to unify military orders with the aim of regaining the Holy Land, following the loss of the kingdom of Jerusalem from 1291 (fall of Saint John of Acre).

Origins

It was in 1305, in his fine Liber, that Raymond Lolle created the term Rex Bellator to designate the man who, in his mind, had to unify military orders and then become king of Jerusalem.

The term merely consecrates the long debates that have stirred Christianity since the fall of Saint John of Acre in 1291, which then unleashed criticism against the "treason" of the orders charged with defending the Holy Land, while considering its reconquest. These criticisms sometimes demand a dissolution of such order considered negligent (Rostanh Berenguier thus demands the dissolution of the order of the Temple), but generally prefer a solution aimed at merging them.

Raymond Lolle, who for his part considered as a solution to put an end to the rivalries between orders to place them on different fronts (North Africa and "Turkey", Turquia), finally declared himself in favour of a single order, which would have as its name "the order of the Holy Spirit". The pope himself declares that the "common voice" demands the fusion of orders.

Results

In this way, when military orders are called upon to unite to become more effective in the conquest and preservation of the Holy Land, they react only in a disappointing way. The two orders directly at the heart of the much criticized rivalry, Templiers and Hospitallers, who retreated to Cyprus in 1291, did nothing but organize their new headquarters. When Pope Clement V consulted them in 1306 for their opinion on a crusade, the leaders of both orders (Jacques de Molay for the Templars, and Foulques de Villaret for the Hospitallers) responded by recommending - probably rightly - trade embargo with Egypt. But Jacques de Molay categorically rejects the idea of a merger, stressing on the contrary the advantages of a separation between orders.

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