Hugo de Paganis, commonly known by the French translation Hugues de Payens or Payns (c. 1070 – 24 May 1136), was the co-founder and first Grand Master of the Knights Templar. In association with Bernard of Clairvaux, he created the Latin Rule, the code of behavior for the Order.
There is no known early biography of Hugo de Paganis in existence, nor do later writers cite such a biography. None of the sources on his later career give details of his early life. Information is therefore scanty and uncertain; embellishments depend partly on documents that may not refer to the same individual, and partly on histories written decades or even centuries after his death.
The majority of the primary sources of information for his life are presented in medieval Latin.
Latin sources call him Hugo de Paganis.
In Italian, he has been historically referred to as Ugo Pagani, Ugo or Ugone de' Pagani, or in full as Ugo dei Pagani.
Some of his purported appearances in documents are under the part-Latin, part-French name Hugo de Peans (1120–1125; details below). In later French works his name usually appears as Hugues de Payens or Payns (French pronunciation: [yɡ də pɛ̃]).
In English sources, his name is either kept in the original language, translated from Italian as Hugo de' Pagani, or translated from French as Hugh of Payens or Payns.
The Latin text of William of Tyre's History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, dated c. 1185, simply calls him Hugo de Paganis, without any geographical reference, but in the early 13th century an anonymous French translator added that Hugh was from delez Troies (French for 'near Troyes'). The 12th-century author Walter Map also reported that Hugh was named "Payns, from a village of that name in Burgundy." Hugh is therefore assumed to have come from the village of Payns, about 10 km from Troyes, in Champagne (eastern France).
Hugo de Pedano, Montiniaci dominus is mentioned as a witness to a donation by Count Hugh of Champagne in a document of 1085–90, indicating that the man was at least sixteen by this date—a legal adult and thus able to bear witness to legal documents—and so born no later than 1070. The same name appears on a number of other charters up to 1113 also relating to Count Hugh of Champagne, suggesting that Hugo de Pedano or Hugo dominus de Peanz was a member of the Count's court. By the year 1113, he was married to Elisabeth de Chappes, who bore him at least one child, Thibaud, later abbot of the Abbaye de la Colombe at Sens. The documents span Hugh's lifetime and the disposition of his property after his death.
Bernard of Clairvaux, who favoured the Order and helped to compose its Latin Rule, also had the support of Hugh of Champagne. The Latin Rule of the Order was confirmed at the Council of Troyes. A Templar commandery was eventually built at Payns. This is considered to be additional circumstantial evidence that Hugh was from the area.
There is long-dated claim that Hugo de Paganis came from Nocera de' Pagani in Campania, Southern Italy.
One of the earliest sources that detail an Italian origin for the later Grand Master are the commentaries on the life of Gelasius II (pontiff between 1118 and 1119), published by Costantino Gaetani in 1638, where he is described as "[...] the Italian brother Ugo dei Pagani, from the city of Nocera, near Salerno." Remarkably supported by French historians like Blaise François de Pagan and Pierre Dupuy, mentions of Nocera as his birthplace also appear in Baedeker's Italy: handbook for travellers. Part 3 (1869) and in the Old Catholic Encyclopedia (Volume 11) published by Robert Appleton Company in 1911. Multiple authors have stated that this claim is also supported by a letter Hugo supposedly wrote from Palestine in 1103, in which he talked of writing to "my father in Nocera" to tell him of the death of his cousin Alessandro.
In addition, the Templar cross is said to have been inspired by Paleochristian art found in the Early Christian Baptistery of Nocera.
Circumstantial confirmations also came from authors like Marco Antonio Guarini (1621), who reported that "Ugo Pagani" was buried in the Church of San Giacomo in Ferrara, Italy, which belonged to the Pagano family from Nocera.
Some scholars have however looked for Hugh's origins elsewhere. There was an early claim that he came from the Vivarais (the district of Viviers in the modern département of Ardèche). Hugh has also been identified with Hug de Pinós, third son of Galceran I, lord of Pinós in Catalonia; however, Galceran married only in 1090, far too late a date for him to be the father of the founder of the Knights Templars.
According to Malcolm Barber, the suggestions that Hugh came from Viviers in the modern département of Ardèche or from Nocera dei Pagani in Campania can "reasonably be dismissed."
Hugh, Count of Champagne made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1104–07 and visited Jerusalem for a second time in 1114–16. He was probably accompanied by Hugh of Payens, who remained there after the Count returned to France, as "Hugo de Peans" witnessed a charter in Jerusalem in 1120-1121. He was called magister militum Templi ("Master of the Knights of the Temple") for the first time in a document dated 1125. He most likely obtained approval for the Order from King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Warmund of Picquigny, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, at the Council of Nablus in 1120.
One early chronicler, Simon de St. Bertin, implies that the Knights Templar originated earlier, before the death of Godfrey of Bouillon in 1100: "While he [Godfrey] was reigning magnificently, some had decided not to return to the shadows of the world after suffering such dangers for God's sake. On the advice of the princes of God's army, they vowed themselves to God's Temple under this rule: they would renounce the world, give up personal goods, free themselves to pursue purity, and lead a communal life wearing a poor habit, only using arms to defend the land against the attacks of the insurgent pagans when necessity demanded."