Personal Life
Sonnac was born to a noble family in the French region of Rouergue. No date of birth survives for the Grand Master. He was described by Matthew Paris as "a discreet and circumspect man, who was also skilled and experienced in the affairs of war".
De Sonnac was an established member of the order before his election as Grand Master. He was the Preceptor of Aquitaine in France for the Templars and arrived in the Holy Land around autumn of 1247, finding "the remnants of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in a precarious state. Grand Master Armand de Périgord had been taken prisoner at the Battle of La Forbie in 1244, and after negotiations for his release failed two years later, De Sonnac was proposed as a replacement. Before his first year in the East was out, he was the order's new leader.
Read more about this topic: Guillaume De Sonnac
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“A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)