Arnaud de Vilanova, said Arnaud de Villeneuve (Catalan physician of the University of Montpellier, died in 1311) manufactured the ardens aqua (burning water: maceration of plants and alcohol). He is the first one who practiced mutage with alcohol to improve the preservation of wine.

The Templars of Mas Deu in Perpignan generalized the process and marketed that drink, natural sweet wine still well known today.

Pineau des Charentes also uses this method of preparation.

It can reasonably be deducted that the Templars used to distil to obtain alcohol.

From the Templars Commanderie of  Angles (a few miles away from Cognac, very close to Cierzac) cited in a 1214 document regarding a sale of mills, remains only the Chapel with  various graffiti and a beautiful Templars cross behind the altar.

The region was already dedicated to vine growing, the Templars of Angles probably also knew the art of distillation which they might have got their brothers of Catalonia.

Hence the following legend:
Around the year 1295, at the morning prayer, the absence of two knights was noticed. The Commander brother Hugues de Narzac asked for going and fetching  them: it was difficult to wake them up and it appeared that they had drunk to excess the brandy which was in a barrel.
Notwithstanding the punishment that followed, the barrel and the rest of its content was hidden in a carefully closed cellar.
A few years later, brother Pierre Montignac, the new Commander welcomed in Angles the Bishop of Angouleme, Guillaume de Blaye, and had some drinks fetched in his honor, including the famous barrel forgotten for years: they discovered that the brandy as they aged, took a beautiful amber color and a pleasant woody taste, which gave the idea to the Templars to have brandy aged, brandy also called at that time  wine spirit.

One had not yet imagined the double distillation, one of the secret of Cognac, but one was on the right way.