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Abstract
At the turn of the first millennium, the Catholic Church was in dire need of reform. The corrupt clergy ignored the laity's needs in search of profit and pleasure. Knights roamed the countryside pillaging and burning towns, villages and churches. During the late 11th century, Pope Gregory VII came to power and began to enact a series of papal reforms that would continue during the 12th and 13th centuries. He brought the papacy back into the political realm by sparring with the Holy Roman Emperor and proving the effectiveness of excommunication. In 1095, Pope Urban II advocated reform through the crusade, whose message spread through out Europe rabidly. By 1139, Pope Innocent II still dealt with the corruption of the clergy and the destruction of knights, and he called the Second Lateran Council to address these issues.
At the Second Lateran Council, Innocent II presented the Omne Datum Optimum, which freed a young group of knights from all authority save the Pope's. Hugh de Payns founded the Knights Templar in 1119 with the idea that knights who took monastic vows could effectively protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. In 1129, with the help of Bernard of Clairvaux, the order received papal approval. The Templar Knights were Christian knights who took oaths of chastity, poverty and obedience and fought for God. Bernard and Innocent II lauded them as models for other knights to follow in hopes of reforming the destructive and blasphemous knights terrorizing Christendom.