It is not surprising early Scottish Templars have not been identified, despite Ailred of Revaulx's eye-witness testimony that, ‘very fine brothers of the illustrious knighthood of the Temple of Jerusalem surrounding David I of Scotland by day and night’ between 1128 and 1153, because it appears no one has looked for them. Instead, historians not finding the word ‘Temple’ attached to an individual on Scottish charter, have declared the members of the Templar brotherhood, missing, even though it was expected to find these virtuous members of the kings' entourage as witnesses on royal charter. But as twelfth century Scottish medieval charter does not include religious order designations, and it is usually names on specific document pertaining to an order or an order’s house, by implication identifies members of that order, and with no Scottish Templar document surviving from before the end of the twelfth century, we can presume Scottish Templar knights do exist on charter, it is only that we cannot easily identify them.
Just as it is difficult to identify an individual’s religious order affiliation, unless they appear in a document specific to that order, it is difficult to attribute medieval material to an owner without a name tag present. Despite popular belief, the Templars did not have trademark exclusivity of a cross design, employed marking them out as guardians of the Church, its people, and property.
In consideration of early Scottish Templars, historians should have considered any common group of knights surrounding David I on charter. Knights who displayed mutual attributes, a shared deviant title, crusaders by repute, and indication they were members of the king’s entourage by repeatedly witnessing royal charter.
Enter a knightly brotherhood populating twelfth century charter; titled Masculus; an honorific awarded to eleventh and twelfth century secular clerics; a Latin ecclesiastical legal descriptor of the exemplar classical male, a worthy Christian warrior. One knight, William Masculus, aka William le Riche, reported esteemed by David I, hero of the Battle of the Standard, crusader, a pious man short on land holdings, in comparison to his contemporary peer nobles. There is no mention of William or the other knights, Masculus, within the Templar Order, but without surviving Scottish twelfth century Templar record; the one surviving identifying only one knight by his full given name, their membership can neither be confirmed nor denied.
Fortunately, we have material artefact tagged with William’s unique title, in the context of David’s religious establishment. The material is not only marked with his name, but his rank. William is named father of a holy convent, not just sponsor, but the religious head of a community of brothers. It proves he existed as a knight within king David I’s entourage, while at the same time existing within the spiritual ascetic, and only members of the religious military orders could wear those two ‘hats’.
William le Riche’s declaration as master of a religious convent, offers proof he had crossed the bridge from the secular clergy to monastic life, all within a martial purpose as dictated by his rank, milites—knight—soldier; the very origins of the military religious orders, as Bernard de Clairvaux and Hugh de Payens, the architects of the Templar Order, seek to redirect the vanities of secular clerical knights into the Cistercian ascetic, within a focused religious life.