Among the Knights Templar, there are many personalities who, by the standards of the Middle Ages, lived to some phenomenal ages. For example, in the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ, there were representatives who reached the age of 70-80. Most people at that time could not even dream of such a thing. What is their secret? Maybe it was not for nothing that the French king burned the master of the order and the lion's share of his members at the stake for "witchcraft"?
Of course, there was no witchcraft in the Knights Templar, and King Philip IV the Handsome judged and executed a significant part of the European templars for purely pragmatic reasons. It’s just that the monarch owes a lot to the venerable knights and instead of waiting for collectors from orders, I decided to go the old proven way: to make it so that it was already possible to return the money no one. This unsophisticated business trick has been successfully used by "merchants" through the centuries throughout history and works almost invariably (never do it yourself).
Now a few words about life expectancy in the Middle Ages. Firstly, it really was much lower than modern. Secondly, most modern people do not really imagine how it looked in practice. The fact is that the low value of average life expectancy in the Middle Ages is primarily due to high infant mortality, as well as high maternal mortality during childbirth. Those lucky ones who survived the first 10-12 years after birth had every chance to make it to 45-60 years without any problems. Otherwise, life expectancy consisted of the same factors as today: the availability and development of medicine, the complexity of work and the diet. This is if we do not take into account various extreme manifestations such as war, infection, etc.
Actually, as today, much depended on the lifestyle and diet of a person. On the one hand, the nobility and the clergy ate, on average, better than most peasants and townspeople. They ate more, in addition, in their diet, in most cases, there was some kind of meat. True, the so-called "anthropological paradox" came into play here, when people with better nutrition, but people with an inactive lifestyle died earlier than people with an active lifestyle, but frankly lousy food. For example, many members of the nobility often suffered from gout, which led to premature death. And the main source of gout at that time was meat.
Medicine in medieval Europe was frankly in its infancy, despite all the ancient heritage. However, natural selection (no matter how cynical it may sound) did its job: most often only people with good immune systems survived in childhood before the advent of antibiotics. Therefore, both the medieval peasant and the knight as a whole were more enduring than modern man. On the other hand, proper nutrition really decided a lot. And the Templars had complete order with him.
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On the one hand, asceticism and adherence to religious rituals were promoted in every possible way in the military monastic order. On the other hand, this concerned primarily the "worldly" members of the order and non-warrior monks. The military wing of the order followed the church rules in the field of nutrition purely formally. Not at all because its representatives were not "good Christians", but because even the most stubborn religious fanatics understood that there was no use on the battlefield from a hungry fighter exhausted by great fasting exactly none.
Therefore, the knight brothers ate very well by medieval standards: they ate vegetables (primarily legumes), ate meat and chicken, fish of various cooking methods, chicken eggs, dairy products. Wine was the main drink. With all the “wealth” voiced, most of the ordinary brothers did not have the slightest chance to become covered with a fatty layer, since they constantly carried out military service. As a result, the Templars combined all the necessary conditions for a long life: a balanced diet, physical activity, strong immunity. Hence the numerous representatives who lived to 60 and even 70 years. Of course, if the Saracen arrow did not hit the eye before.
In continuation of the topic, read about medieval armor: Did they really save the knights.
A source: https://novate.ru/blogs/051021/60761/