The Knights Templar owed their establishment in Laon to Bishop Barthélemy de Joux, then Bishop of Laon. Around 1134, he helped the Knights of the Temple to settle at the southern limit of the cathedral’s canons’ district.
Supported by numerous donations of houses, land and income, the Templars built up assets that enabled them to carry out their daily life and mission in the Holy Land.
In 1140, Louis VII exempted the Knights Templar from the payment of the censum that was due on their house in Laon, and from any custom. The Knights Templar built a mortuary chapel ” la Chapelle des Templiers ” on the model of the Madeleine Chapel of the abbey of Saint-Vincent-de-Laon.
It still houses three tombstones: the oldest of Gregory, chaplain of the Temple, another the remains of the first commander of Laon, Puisieux and Catillon, Jacques de Haute Avesnes, of the order of Saint John of Jerusalem, appointed in 1319, and the third was buried there, Charles Belotte, commander of the Hospitaller order of Saint John of Jerusalem.
The lord of Laon, Nicolas, gave them an oven in rue St Geneviève. They had other properties in the city: a house near the Porte Mortée, 25 sols de cens from the canons of Notre Dame. Around 1220, the knights charged Gregoire le Clerc to acquire in their name some neighboring plots of land. This operation, accompanied by a few alms, gave birth around 1257, to an estate of one third of a hectare, between the streets of the Trunk and the Temple. The knights acquired eleven houses, some of which were rented out.
In 1307, the tutor of Laon, Gervais de Beauvais, is arrested along with these brothers.