Guillaume de Chartres

Guillaume de Chartres ( dt William of Chartres, Latin Guillielmus de Carnoto or Willelmus de Carnoto, * to 1185; † August 26, 1218 before Damietta ) was from 1210, the fourteenth Grand Master of the Knights Templar.

He should have been a son of Count Milon IV of Bar -sur -Seine, about his life before 1210 is nothing else survived. In that year he was elected to succeed the deceased in November 1209 Grand Master Philippe du Plessiez.

As a Grand Master in 1210, he assisted at the coronation of John of Brienne as King of Jerusalem. During his tenure of the Templars was very active in Spain, and achieved important victories against the Moors.

From 1212 he sought with the help of Pope Innocent III. to the return of the former Templar fortress Baghras of King Leo II of Armenia Minor. In 1216 the castle was actually handed over to the Templars.

As of 1217, the Templars under his leadership in the Fifth Crusade involved. After the Muslim castle on Mount Tabor was unsuccessfully besieged, Guillaume was among those who spoke out for an attack of the crusader army to Egypt instead of Damascus. After some delay on the part of the European Crusaders, who took the Templar for thorough preparation of the expedition, the crusader army sailed in May 1218 of Acre on the Templar Castle Pelerin to the mouth of the Nile, where they besieged the Egyptian fortress city of Damietta. During the siege of the city, which lasted until November 1219, Guillaume de Chartres died in August 1218 from an illness, possibly typhus.