Religion, Warrior Elites, and Property Rights

Abstract

In 1119 C.E., King Baldwin II of Jerusalem granted nine French knights space in the Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount over the ruins of Solomon’s Temple to create the headquarters of a new monastic order: The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici). The Knights Templar, or Templars, as they have become known, grew in wealth and power after that modest beginning to become an influential and pervasive organization throughout Western Europe until the years before their suppression by King Philip of France in 1307. The Templars were only one of a number of Christian holy orders of “warrior monks” founded after the First Crusade. The Knights Hospitaller (Order of Saint John) and the Teutonic Knights are the most well-known, but at least fourteen other orders were founded in Syria, in Central and Eastern Europe, and in the Iberian Peninsula. More importantly for this paper, the Templars are one example of what we label “warrior elites.” Our definition of warrior elites is not precise, but is intended to include pre-industrial full-time specialized soldiers that represent a relatively small part of a region’s military forces but possess disproportionate military strength. In addition, warrior elites often possess significant political and social power. This paper explores the extent to which warrior elites have two characteristics: they adopt a special religion, either different from the mainstream religion or a unique adaptation of the mainstream religion, and the special religion has doctrinal provisions which enforce property rights. To the extent warrior elites have these two characteristics, we hypothesize they are an example of a social institution that evolves as a low-cost alternative to government and to ordinary religion as a method of property rights enforcement. Our preliminary analysis yields mixed results. Certainly there are examples of warrior elites who have the two aforementioned characteristics: the Templars and at least some of the other post Crusades warrior monks being examples. By contrast, the loyalty to leaders by Japan's samurai the Ottoman Empire’s Janissaries likely eroded a well-defined system of property rights is not consistent with our hoped-for results.