Robert de Craon was the second Grand Master of the Knights Templar, the shrewd organiser who turned Hugh de Payns’ small brotherhood into a wealthy, privileged, and independent order.
Robert de Craon (Grand Master 1136–1149) succeeded the founder Hugh de Payns and, through skilful management and diplomacy, secured the privileges and endowments that made the Templars a great institution.
A nobleman of western France — from Craon in Anjou, and sometimes called Robert the Burgundian — he gave up a planned marriage to join the Templars, and rose to lead the order on the death of Hugh de Payns in 1136.
Where Hugh de Payns had been the pious founder, Robert de Craon was the builder — an able administrator and canny politician rather than a warrior-saint. His gift was for organisation and for winning friends in high places.
His decisive success came in Rome. In 1139 he obtained from Pope Innocent II the bull Omne Datum Optimum, which placed the Templars directly under papal protection, exempted them from tithes and from the authority of local bishops, and allowed them their own priests. At a stroke it made the order independent, wealthy, and answerable to no one but the pope.
Craon thus did as much as anyone to shape what the Templars became. Later generations would find that this very independence made powerful enemies — but in his own day it was the foundation of the order’s extraordinary rise.
Under Craon the Templars expanded rapidly across Europe, accumulating estates and recruits and organising the provinces that would fund the war in the East. The papal privileges he won were confirmed and extended by later popes.
He also led the order through the difficult years of the Second Crusade, when the Templars provided crucial discipline and credit to the struggling army of Louis VII of France.
Robert de Craon died in January 1149, leaving the Templars far stronger and better endowed than he had found them.
Craon is remembered as the organiser who made the Templars a great power — the master who won them their independence and set them on the path to wealth and influence.
The privileges he secured in 1139 defined the order’s standing in the Church for the rest of its existence.