Robert de Craon or Robert Burgundio was a French night . He was the son of Renaud le Bourguignons en Ennoguen de Vitre. He was engaged to the daughter of the lord of Angoumouis. But when he headed about the foundation of the Night Templar Order he gave up his wedding and travelled to the Holy Land. He soon showed his military capacities and his piety to the order. After the death of Hughes de Payens in June 1136 he was elected as the second Grand Master. He negotiated the expansion of the Order into the Iberian Peninsula with the acquisition of castles and territory and turned the Order by the end of 1130 into a major force.
Robert realized that the Order could only flourish with papal support. During one his visits to France and Italy he negotiated with Pope Innocent II, with as result that the pope issued the bull Omne datum optimum; "Every perfect gift" (29 March 1139). The contents of the bull consisted of the following points:
1. Promised all spoils from Muslim conquest to the Order,
2.,Allowed the Order to build churches, cemeteries, and houses
3. Permitted a chaplain in every Knight Templar house.
4. Leaders of the Order could expel unworthy members.
5. Allowed chapels for members and burials
6. Forbid the election of an outsider as Master of the Order
7. No homage or tithes were to be extracted from the Order.
8. The creation of a group of chaplain brothers for the Order. They could hear confessions andgiving absolution to all members of the Orders.
The Omne datum optimum was followed by Pope Celestine II’s Milites Templi ("Soldiers of the Temple" ) It ordered the clergy to protect the Kinght Templars and encouraged the faithful to contribute to their cause. It allowed the Templars to make their own collections once a year,
in 1145 followed by Pope Eugene III’s Militia Dei (“soldiers of God”). This one consolidated the Knight Templars independence from local clerical hierarchies by giving the Order the right to take tithes and burial fees and to bury their dead in their own cemeteries. The Knights were allowed to travel freely through Europe. Pope Eugenius III also gave the knight Templars the right to wear a red cross on their tunics. These bulls 3 together gave the Templars an extraordinary range of rights and privileges. They were the foundation for the orders future wealth and success.
Robert de Craon was Grandmaster till his death on January 13, 1149, and he was succeeded by Everard des Barres.
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