The Templars weren’t a people, they were a christian monastic order, right? So does it make sense to have female villagers building for them? Their pilgrims aren’t Templars themselves but wouldn’t their villagers be initiates of the order? And thus all male? I’m too lazy to do any research but it feels counterintuitive to me.
Next time do the research when you “feels counterintuitive”. No need to follow the trend of finding a reason to mold at everything they release. And it’s a video game with civs made out of inspiration from history not a simulator of perfect historical accuracy.
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Brothers as a naming convention includes the possibility of having Sisters, something that the Templar order (Teutons mostly I think) definitely employed! That being said, membership in most orders excluded women. They tried to maintain piety by ordering members to be celibate and unwed. Most Order members couldn’t own land, or even receive private messages!
However, women had roles in auxillary units, hospitals, and also have a history of being called to defend from enemy attacks. In Tortosa (12th century), records showed women dressing in mens clothing to defend against a Moorish assault.
Moorish armies found the city well-defended, though, for the ladies of the town donned men’s clothing and fought with whatever weapon was closest to hand, including hatchets. Berenguer was so impressed with the spirited defense that he created the Order of the Hatchet and bestowed it upon the women soldiers.
Source: Order of the Hatchet - Wikipedia
Take a look, it’s pretty cool!
And another good read, from the Hospitaller order: ‘Merely Nuns’? Exploring Female Agency in Hospitaller Houses in the Middle Ages - Museum of the Order of St John
The confusion is understandable when this was the orders communication to male order members:
The 1180s Hospitaller Rule stated that if the Brothers went near a woman, Satan would soon have them trapped.
Ah, so the gist of it is, the Order was very diverse across Europe, and some English branch had mixed-sex houses. Personally, I still think it would be more iconic to choose male only (which would also be historically accurate). Because even if the Order of the Dragon and the House Lancaster aren’t nations directly, they owned lands and all the people on them as serfs. The Templars were distinct, because, as I understand it, they only exercised direct control over adults who pledged themselves to them. Now, AoE doesn’t display children, so their absence wouldn’t distinct the Templars. Having no women could have served made them immediately distinct from the nations. But nice to know it’s historical.