Teaching Is Crusade of Professor Who Became a Knight Templar

Sir Robert Bell has never been in a sword fight.

He’s never worn armor nor gone on a crusade. And he’s never rescued a damsel in distress from the tower of a well-guarded castle.

Yet Bell, a bespectacled English literature professor at Cal State Long Beach, is as much a knight as if he had done all those things.

Last year, the 54-year-old professor, who hails from Rock Island, Ill., flew to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he was dubbed one of the first American members of the Knights Templars, the oldest chivalric military order of knights in the world. (The appellation has no link to knighthoods for achievements bestowed by the Queen of England).

The designation was bestowed in recognition of his contributions to the teaching of medieval studies, a field in which he specializes. “It’s a major honor,” he said, “and I didn’t even have to ride a horse or joust.”

Earlier members of the order saw plenty of action. The group, formally called the Sovereign and Military Order of the Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem, was founded in France in 1118. Its first mission was to defend Jerusalem after Christians captured the city during the First Crusade.

Two hundred years later, the king of France took a fancy to the order’s holdings. The order was abolished by the Pope, and 57 of its members were burned at the stake. The Knights Templars found a home in Scotland, and the group survives today primarily as a social order devoted to the preservation of Scottish heritage and history. With about 500 members worldwide, including 200 in Scotland and America, the order accepts new members by invitation only. Names are proposed on the basis of charitable work, heritage and family background or scholastic achievement.

Bell, who, like most of the order’s other modern knights, is of Scottish ancestry, was chosen because of his distinguished academic career, said Col. William H. Bell, a retired Air Force officer who heads the largest group of American Knights Templars. (Robert Bell and William Bell belong to the same family clan but are not related.) Of particular interest, Col. Bell said, are the professor’s audiovisual presentations on the Middle Ages--a series of 35- to 50-minute video, tape and slide shows that are used as teaching tools in at least 50 universities throughout the United States, including most of the campuses in the California State University system.

“They are historical in content and give a very good insight into Celtic heritage,” Col. Bell said. “They teach ethnic Scots about their background and history; many of them know that their names are Scottish, but know absolutely nothing about what the Scots are about.”

Professor Bell dates his interest in medieval studies, which includes Scottish history and literature, from childhood when he learned about his own family heritage at the knee of his father, a mechanical engineer and history buff who had emigrated from Ireland in 1912. The family was originally Scottish, he said, but had moved to Ireland in the 17th Century.

After receiving a doctorate in English and medieval studies from the University of Maryland, Bell taught briefly there and at the University of Miami before arriving at Cal State Long Beach 24 years ago.

Besides creating the audiovisual presentations, he has published two textbooks and dozens of scholarly articles on various medieval subjects.

He considers himself one of the world’s foremost experts on hell, a discipline called “infernology” by its adherents. He says he became interested in it after writing a doctoral dissertation on the purported descent of Christ into Hades during the three days between his Crucifixion and Resurrection.

But most of his professional energies, Bell says, go into the classroom, where students describe him as humorous, informative and highly anecdotal. “Some of my students seem to think that I tell more stories than I should,” the professor admits.

Until recently, according to Col. Bell, American Knights Templars were almost unheard of. Then in 1989, the Grand Prior of Knights Templar in Scotland “decided that they were missing a bet because of all the ethnic Scots in the United States,” he said. Professor Bell was among the first handful of Americans invested as Knights Templars. Another was Norma Goodrich, the author of several books on the Middle Ages who recently retired as a professor of Medieval French at the Claremont Colleges.

Bell takes every possible opportunity to appear on campus wearing his official knight’s mantel: a flowing white cape with a crimson cross on its breast, decorated by a gold braid. He most recently wore it during graduation ceremonies.

“To uphold national values,” he says, “is to show that the greatness of our country is dependent on all the immigrants who came here.”

But not everybody sees it that way. While some colleagues and students recognize the value of his knighthood, Bell said, others deride it as a quaint and useless relic of the past. While some understand the symbolic nature of the honor, he said, others are more interested in practical considerations.

The honor has brought recognition from some of his colleagues. “The award is (deserved),” said Richard Wissolik, an English professor at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa.

And, according to Bell, there are certain practical advantages to being a Knight Templar.

He now has access to the special library of the Society of Antiquaries in Scotland, a privilege he says he has not yet taken advantage of. Other members of the order now read his articles and view his audiovisual displays, giving him a broader audience outside the academic world. And during a recent train delay in England, Bell said, his award helped him out of a jam.

“I received the royal treatment,” Sir Bell reports. After escorting him to the stationmaster to be introduced, he said, railroad employees hailed a cab and paid his fare to London.

Less tangible, however, is his title’s effect in the classroom.

Tom Tokunaga Jr., who recently completed a master’s degree in English literature under Bell’s tutelage, said he found the whole thing rather amusing. “It was just another feather in his cap,” he said. “I think we all enjoyed his being a knight.”