Obligatory: Not a historian but am going to try to answer this question based on two primary things: My professor (who specializes in the crusades) and the book "The Teutonic Knights" by William Urban. I'll do my best to, if not cite, at least make it clear who I'm pulling from.

This first part should be intuitively obvious, but it always bears repeating. The motivations of people in any time period are varied and complex; there is no one or two factors that inspired people to join the Crusading Orders.

With that said, there are a few things that can help describe why some people would have joined Crusading Orders. I'm going to focus on the nobility and the elite of society, because I'm more comfortable in providing a full answer.

First, one cannot forget the extent that Christianity permeated society. Most of life (at least within the 11th and 12th century) One's whole basis of life came from the Christian mindset. God favored the righteous and God is omnipotent, which meant that you (being the good Christian Knight that you are) were certain to win against those who blasphemed against God (see, the pagans of the North and the Muslims of the East). Additionally, something that my professor really stressed was the notion that Christianity was much more communal than it is now. There are plenty of records [none of which I have written down, sorry] that involve the community coming together to beseech God for something. The example that was most used was the story of the girl who went blind. The community all wailed and cried and begged God for mercy; suddenly her eyesight was restored. Thus, we can establish two things pretty quickly.

• 1. A knight who was fighting for God generally thought of himself as invincible (or, if not invincible, having a divine advantage over his heretic enemies)
• 2. Because Christianity was much more communal than it is now, the idea of sacrificing your pleasures in life (by becoming a warrior monk) that would then safeguard Christendom (both Pilgrims and otherwise) is far more attractive than it might seem to us in the modern day. In short, despite many modern historians arguing the crusades were not for spiritual reasons, it is important to remember that the knights (especially those who joined the crusaders) thought of themselves as Christian. [Professor]

While the spiritual benefits may be obvious, there are clear secular benefits as well.

First, becoming a Holy Warrior had a vast number of political advantages. Even though you were perhaps locked out of ever owning land directly, there were plenty of estates that needed supervision (for perspective, [this map] (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Deutscher_Orden_in_Europa_1300.png/440px-Deutscher_Orden_in_Europa_1300.png) is the Teutonic holdings alone in 1300. The Templars held a LOT more land during their prime). There was a chance that you ended up at least overseeing these territories.

Next, joining a Crusading Order was a phenomenal way of advancing your standing politically. For instance Hermann Von Salza, arguably the first real Tuetonic Grandmaster of note, came from a minor German family that would never have achieved any prominent position of power had he remained a secular knight. That is not to say that promotion within the COs was apolitical, only that merit played more of a role. [William Urban here]

Lastly, even if you never became a high ranking member of your Order, being a Crusading Knight carried great prestige. They often acted as emissaries, and the Papacy tended to give Holy Orders vast privileges. Being a Templar was more than being a border guard in the Levant, it was something to be genuinely proud of. For a glory hungry knight or son of a merchant with no chance of inheriting land, you could make a name for yourself serving God while keeping the exciting parts of life. [Professor]

TLDR: Being a knight carried a ton of spiritual and secular advantages. You got the reward of eternal heaven and the knowledge that you helped Christendom while still maintaining the excitement and enhancing one’s own prestige of being a Knight/from a noble background.

As for Clairvoux’s preaching, I can answer a few things. It was wildly popular and was largely responsible for establishing the prestige of the Templar’s (in essence, he brought the Order to the attention of Western Europe). Is it possible that some repentant knights joined the Order? Possibly. However, going on a Crusade gave you all the same spiritual benefits without having to dedicate your life to being a monk. As for your other two questions, I don’t have a solid answer, but I would reiterate my point that History is about People, and the people of the 12th and 13th century are no different. Recruits probably came from all walks of life; from the upstart noble to the veteran knight who went on pilgrimage.

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#Recruitment

Recruits to the medieval military orders were generally of the lower knightly class. Of the 105 Teutonic Knights in Thuringia in the thirteenth century, just nine were from baronial families, the rest were mostly reichsministeriales and ministeriales, though ten came from burgess families. Brethren of baronial rank were usually rare. From 1460 to 1540, just one man of baronial rank joined the Hospitallers in England, Richard Neville, son of George Lord Abergavenny. A few masters of the Temple in Aragon were from prominent Catalan families like the Torrojas and Moncadas. However, in the early modern period such members became much more common.

There is often little information about what age people joined the orders at, but it would usually have been in adulthood. The military orders discouraged the monastic practice of oblates, child members of an order, as they wouldn’t be able to fight and would probably be more a burden than a help. By 1433 the Hospitallers required recruits to be at least 14, though they could only bear arms at 18. The Templars required that brethren be of a suitable age to bear arms. Their Latin Rule does allow for children to be promised to the Order before they are of age, but they would remain living with their parents until that time. The exact age of majority varied depending on the individual. The Templar trial records show that one brother joined aged just eleven, while two others joined at thirteen. The trial records provide the best source for age at admission to the Templars, as the accused were normally questioned about this. Of the Templars (knights, sergeants, and chaplains) questioned at Paris and Lérida from 1307 to 1311, 17% joined when they were under 20, 44% between 20 and 29, and 27% between 30 and 39. Just 12% joined at 40 or older.

However, if only the knights are counted, then 50% of the brethren joined under 20 years of age, and 44% between 20 and 39. The sergeants and chaplains mostly joined between 20 and 39, accounting for 75% of each category. So it seems that the majority of brethren were well-split between experienced knights and novices when they joined the Templars, with sergeants and chaplains being generally older. There is little reason for the situation to be any different for most of the other military orders. It should be noted that these statistics are not wholly reliable as the brethren sometimes claimed significantly different ages at different interrogations or claimed to be ‘about’ that age.

It is important to remember that most of the military orders did not contain just knights but sergeants, chaplains, and sometimes nuns as well. Only those who were of knightly status or family outside the orders could become a knight within them. This requirement could be circumvented by deception, though this was difficult and risky. The Teutonic Knights were also a bit more lenient on this count, as the grandmaster could accept new brethren as knights even if they were not of knightly background. For other lay recruits, the rank of sergeant beckoned. Such a role could mean service as a foot soldier or a support role as an administrator, craftsman, or other non-combat and non-clerical job. Sergeants generally came from anywhere below knightly rank, ranging all the way from wealthy merchant families to free peasants. Chaplains and sergeants had to be freemen and born in wedlock but like knights, nuns had to be of gentle birth.