Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
103
Templars and Hospitallers in the Cities of the West and the Latin East
(Twelfth to Thirteenth Centuries)Damien Carraz
Université Blaise-Pascal – Clermont-Ferrand 2 [email protected]
Abstract
Scholars usually consider the military orders as essentially involved in the agrarian economy and seigniorial society. However, this understanding is not entirely correct. All military orders were connected to the urban world from their origins and they built close spiritual and economic ties with urban societies. The aim of this article is to present some of the most recent research that has reappraised the role of the military orders in medieval towns. This survey is limited to the cases of the Temple and the Hospital, and it considers the question mainly in southern Europe (northern Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, and southern France), including some brief comparisons with the Holy Land. The article first discusses the ways in which commanderies contributed to the “urban fabric” by examining the conventual buildings and the orders’ policies of urbanization. Then, it turns to the social and spiritual networks and to the economic practices that the brethren managed to develop in places where several other churches were already deeply rooted. Finally, the study of urban commanderies enables us to better understand the transition from traditional monasticism to the new mendicant orders, with whom the military orders shared many similarities. Despite a few exceptions, it is nevertheless true that the economic activity and the spirituality of the military orders were in complete harmony with the urban expansion of the High Middle Ages.
Can we consider the military orders as the “offspring” of the urban revolution of the twelfth century? Do they represent a sort of stepping stone that can help us understand the passage from traditional Benedictine monasticism to the new orders of the thirteenth century, as embodied by the mendicants? It was actually within an urban context that most of the armed associations, which were the forerunners of the military orders, were formed between 1100 and 1200. This was the case of the Hospital and of the Order of St. Lazarus in Jerusalem, of the Teutonic Order in Acre, of Avis in Evora, of Calatrava created in the town of that name in Castile, or of the Sword Brothers founded in Riga (Livonia).1 Moreover, it was precisely in the holy
This paper was read at the Universidade Nova of Lisbon, on 5 November 2010. My gratitude goes to Anthony Luttrell and Cynthia J. Johnson for their valuable help on the translation from French to English.
1 For an introduction to the history of the military orders, see Alain Demurger, Chevaliers du Christ. Les ordres religieux-militaires au Moyen Âge, XIe–XVIe siècles (Paris, 2002).
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
104 DAMIEN CARRAZ
city of Jerusalem that the “proto-Templars” gathered around the Holy Sepulchre in about 1119/20. Without a doubt, the decisive foundation of the Templar Order inspired all the others, and their foundation took place in the Holy Land – in other words, in a melting pot of religious and social experiences in which the Church was essentially an urban institution.2
Not only did the Templar Order create its headquarters in Jerusalem, it also identified itself fully with the Holy City, as seen from its title of pauperes commilitones Christi templique Salomonici Hierosolimitani (Poor Companions of Christ and of the Temple of Salomon of Jerusalem). The reverse of the Master’s seal showed the dome of the Templum Domini, which was also a reminder of the Temple of Salomon. The Hospitallers, the Teutonic Knights and the Order of St. Lazarus referred likewise to their symbolic foundations in Jerusalem at a time when the Holy City, which had been recovered by the crusaders, was held in higher esteem than ever.3
United symbolically to the city by their origins, both the Temple and the Hospital also established themselves in urban centres from the beginning of their expansion in the West, as the following examples show. The papal letter Pie postulatio voluntatis of 1113 confirmed the very first houses of the Hospitallers in the West and made reference to Saint-Gilles, Asti, Pisa, Bari, Otranto, Taranto, and Messina.4 Even though this enumeration corresponded more to a programme for future development than to reality, all of these places were situated in urban centres, each representing a port or a stopover on the way to the Holy Land. As for the Templars, they made rapid progress in the north of France, beginning with their “birthplace” of Champagne and Flanders.5 Although historians usually consider the establishment of the Templars in this region as essentially rural, the brethren soon reached the towns. From about 1130, they settled in Ypres, Châlons, Provins and Laon, and before the middle of the century they were located in Douai, Arras, Paris and Beauvais.6
Although the archives rarely provide precise dates for the foundation of the urban commanderies, their development in towns was precocious as well as systematic. However, historians have not always realized the extent of this phenomenon.7
2 Bernard Hamilton, “A Medieval Urban Church: The Case of the Crusader States,” in The Church in Town and Countryside, ed. Derek Baker, Studies in Church History 16 (Oxford, 1979), 157–70.
3 Nikolas Jaspert, “Military Orders and Urban History: An Introductory Survey,” in Les ordres religieux-militaires dans la ville médiévale (1100–1350). Actes du colloque de Clermont-Ferrand, 26–28 mai 2010, ed. Damien Carraz (Clermont-Ferrand, 2013, in press), 15–36.
4 Anthony Luttrell, “The Earliest Hospitallers,” in Montjoie, 37–54.5 Victor Carrière, “Les débuts de l’Ordre du Temple en France,” Le Moyen Age 18 (1914): 308–35.6 Valérie Bessey, “L’implantation du Temple et de l’Hôpital dans les villes du nord du royaume de
France (1100–1350),” in Les ordres religieux-militaires dans la ville médiévale, 97–112.7 For a survey of the historiography, see Alain Demurger, “Histoire de l’historiographie des ordres
religieux-militaires de 1500 à nos jours,” in Prier et combattre. Dictionnaire européen des ordres militaires au Moyen Âge, ed. Philippe Josserand and Nicole Bériou (Paris, 2009), 32–46. On the specific problems related to the urban context see Damien Carraz, L’Ordre du Temple dans la basse vallée du Rhône (1124–1312). Ordres militaires, croisades et sociétés méridionales (Lyon, 2005), 255–59.
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
TEMPLARS AND HOSPITALLERS IN THE CITIES 105
In France, a longstanding tradition in rural historiography has emphasized the settlement of the commanderies in the countryside.8 This misunderstanding on the part of some scholars derives from the assumption that these orders were essentially involved in the agrarian economy and seigniorial society. In the Iberian Peninsula, historians’ interest seems to be primarily limited to the relations between the orders and the local governments (concejos).9 In Italy, historians’ long interest in urban affairs resulted in the development of the concept of “inurbamento,” in other words, the city’s power to attract population, and as a result, the urban influence on the religious orders. However, in Italy, the military orders have usually been studied within a monographic framework, and the presence of the commanderies in the urban landscape has not led to any broader reflection on this phenomenon by scholars. German historians have given more thorough attention to the link between the towns and the military orders. Yet, this scholarly tradition has adopted a more sociological approach centred on the last centuries of the Middle Ages.10 It also focuses on the role played by the Teutonic Order in the urbanization of the German and Slavic frontiers.11
Why has this urban aspect often been neglected in the history of the military orders? One explanation lies in the fact that the brethren themselves gave no real justification for their presence in this milieu. Reformed monasticism preached a clear separation between the monastic world and the secular world, while the mendicant orders felt the need to justify their “departure” toward the cities with all the means at their disposal. There was no need for the “warrior brothers” to do the same. Although distrustful of the secular world, the military orders’ rules provide no particular explanation for their presence in urban society.
One additional reason for this historical imbalance is the lack of sources. Few buildings testifying to the presence of the military orders have survived in towns. The fall of the Templars and the crisis of the late Middle Ages rapidly led to the decline of numerous buildings. From the end of the Middle Ages down to the industrial era, urban rebuilding projects condemned to disappearance most of the commanderies that had been built in the suburbs. Moreover, in areas such as Italy, Castile or the
8 This kind of emphasis would be more difficult to sustain nowadays: “L’implantation des maisons templières en Saintonge et en Aunis apparaît donc comme essentiellement rurale. Ce phénomène … peut être constaté en Poitou, en Limousin, en Berry, en Anjou, en Bretagne, en Normandie, en Ile-de-France, en Picardie, en Champagne, et il est à peu près certain qu’une étude étendue à tout le territoire de la France actuelle montrerait qu’il est général” (Anne-Marie Legras, Les commanderies des Templiers et des Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean-de-Jérusalem en Saintonge et en Aunis (Paris, 1983), 17).
9 See for example, Enrique Rodríguez-Picavea, Los Monjes Guerreros en los reinos hispánicos. Las órdenes militares en la Península Ibérica durante la Edad Media (Madrid, 2008), 450–53.
10 See, for instance, Karl Borchardt, “Urban Commanderies in Germany,” in La Commanderie, institution des ordres militaires dans l’Occident médiéval. Actes du premier colloque international du Conservatoire Templier et Hospitalier, Sainte-Eulalie de Cernon, 13–15 octobre 2000, ed. Anthony Luttrell and Léon Pressouyre (Paris, 2002), 297–305.
11 For the latest survey on German and Polish studies, see Sylvain Gouguenheim, “L’ordre Teutonique et les villes de Prusse (1230–milieu du XVe siècle),” in Les ordres religieux-militaires dans la ville médiévale, 127–38.
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
106 DAMIEN CARRAZ
British Isles, the scarcity and dispersion of the written sources have complicated the studies of urban settlement by the orders.12 In other regions, such as southern France or Catalonia, the commanderies left large cartularies and collections of charters enabling more precise social and religious analyses. Consequently, a number of recent studies have now taken into account the importance of the military orders’ urban presence: for example, Kristjan Toomaspoeg’s monograph on the Teutonic Knights in Sicily, Elena Bellomo’s thesis on the Templars in northern Italy, or the works I have published on the military orders in Provence.13 A conference held at Clermont Ferrand, France, in May 2010, entitled “The Religious-Military Orders in the Medieval Town,” enabled scholars to assess existing knowledge for multiple countries and to present a number of case studies. The present article reflects the bulk of this research, which is focused on the Occitanian and Catalan areas, the Latin East and Italy.
It is important to recall the context in which the commanderies’ urban establish-ment occurred. The military orders appeared right in the middle of the “Mutation of the Year 1100” – to quote the French historian, Dominique Barthélemy.14 This change was characterized by the rise of new urban classes, the transformation from a gift economy to a profit economy, a change in the urban landscape, and a “religious polycentrism” offering the faithful a choice of churches other than their parish or the local monastery.15 “Military monasticism” contributed to all these developments that made the towns the principal driving force behind economic growth, the transformations of religious life, and social changes.
Nevertheless, the attraction of the military orders to the cities did not represent a radical change. Towns had welcomed monastic communities since the early Middle Ages, and the reform of the canons came partly from the urban milieu. In addition, it is well known that the twelfth century was marked by the arrival of new orders, such as the Cistercians or the Camaldules, preaching a radical break with the world. Well before the friars, the urban world offered a favourable environment for various religious experiments. Consequently, the role of the military orders in the city should also be part of scholarly investigations into the complexity of these social and religious phenomena. This complexity is clearly expressed in the contradiction between the contempt of the world (contemptus mundi) and the attraction to the benefits of an urban setting. In my opinion, however, this urban attraction was even
12 For the Italian example, see Elena Bellomo, “Metodi d’indagine sulla milizia templare in Italia nord-occidentale (1142–1308),” Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia 1 (2010): 12–15.
13 Kristjan Toomaspoeg, Les Teutoniques en Sicile (1197–1492) (Rome, 2003); Elena Bellomo, The Templar Order in North-West Italy, 1142–c.1330 (Leiden and Boston, 2008); Carraz, L’Ordre du Temple.
14 Dominique Barthélemy, “La mutation de l’an 1100,” Journal des Savants (2005): 3–28. For a survey on the paradigm of the “feudal mutation,” see Dominique Barthélemy, “Debate: The Feudal Revolution,” Past and Present 152 (1996): 196–205.
15 For the general context, see in particular Lester K. Little, Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (London, 1978); and Jacques Chiffoleau, “Note sur le polycentrisme religieux urbain à la fin du Moyen Âge,” in Religion et société urbaine au Moyen Âge. Études offertes à Jean-Louis Biget, ed. Patrick Boucheron and Jacques Chiffoleau (Paris, 2000), 227–52.
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
TEMPLARS AND HOSPITALLERS IN THE CITIES 107
more important for the military orders than for the other new orders of the twelfth century. The Cistercians established town houses, guesthouses and colleges, but these places were more like enclaves within the city, a sort of monastic “fondachi.”16 Moreover, the White Monks always kept a certain distance from urban society. While traditional Benedictines placed their familiares and their servants outside the monastic enclosure, the Carthusians and the Camaldules tried to preserve themselves, symbolically, from the uproar and dangers of the city.17 None of this kind of behaviour can be found within the military orders, whose commanderies lay within secular neighbourhoods. From their very origins the military orders were integrated into urban societies in a systematic way.
This survey of recent scholarship on the subject is not exhaustive, because the quantity of available material is already colossal, despite the fact that this is a fairly new field of research. The precise circumstances of the orders’ arrival in the city or the political issues arising from their presence, in particular their relationships with princely powers, are beyond the scope of this article. This study is also limited to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries – in other words, to the period of greatest urban expansion. Both centuries also correspond to a phase during which the social and religious impact of the orders was at its height. I will concentrate on two main themes. The first considers the spatial impact of the Temple and the Hospital in the city and the ways in which their presence affected the urban landscape. The second examines the spiritual and social influence of the orders, showing in fact that their propositum vitae was fully consistent with the townspeople’s mentalities.
Commanderies in the Urban Landscape
Localization
The location of the military orders’ houses depended largely on the circumstances of their arrival in the city. They were often set up by princely or seigniorial powers, or sometimes invited by bishops. These benefactors offered them a piece of land, a chapel or occasionally a hospital, which was how they became established. In the first decades of their existence, the orders also tried to settle in places of their own choosing by sending missions who were instructed to collect donations and to promote their institutions to local government. It was in this way that the Templars spread into numerous episcopal cities of Provence between 1130 and 1170. Starting in Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux and Orange, they reached Arles and Saint-Gilles, and
16 Constance H. Berman, “Monastic Hospices in Southern France and Colleges in Montpellier, Toulouse, Paris, and Oxford: The Cistercian Urban Presence,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 102 (2007): 764.
17 Cécile Caby, De l’érémitisme rural au monachisme urbain. Les Camaldules en Italie à la fin du Moyen Âge (Rome, 1999).
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
108 DAMIEN CARRAZ
from there Avignon and Marseilles.18 The military orders appeared at a time when urban land was already well occupied, particularly by ecclesiastical institutions that had been established long before and jealously guarded their own spiritual prerogatives. Nevertheless, whenever possible, the brethren sought to establish themselves in the central areas of towns. In about 1180 in Avignon, the Hospitallers first set themselves up just outside the walled city in a house given to them by an influential knight. By 1200, they had built a chapel on the site with the bishop’s approval, yet only three years later they were seeking to transfer their house inside the city centre. They finally managed to do so, even though it caused a conflict with the canons of the cathedral.19 Similar transfers of a religious house to a more appropriate site occurred fairly frequently: for example, with the Temple in London and probably also for the Hospital in Acre.20
Thus, commanderies often settled first on land situated at the periphery of cities that were in the process of being urbanized. These suburban sites were not at all marginalized, because they were situated at crossroads. All regional studies have confirmed that the military orders’ networks were widely based on the road network. Locating commanderies on the principal roads has, in particular, been noted by Italian scholars.21 In northern Italy, both orders settled in most cities at crossroads on the Via Francigena, such as in Bologna, Parma or Piacenza. On all these sites, their houses were located on the side of a road or next to a bridge. The military orders, like the mendicants, also established houses close to the gates of the city walls. This occurred frequently in Provence, as at Arles where the Templar house was built close to a gate outside the city walls. In the case of Avignon, the commandery was just inside the town walls, near the portale militie. This proximity to the gates facilitated communication with the countryside where urban commanderies often had their landed estates. It was also the best way to attract the flow of the faithful and of pilgrims entering the cities.
These suburban sites also had a functional explanation, in so far as they contributed to urban defence. This defensive situation was common in the Holy Land, as for instance at Jaffa where the two orders were based by the ramparts.22
18 Damien Carraz, “Military Orders and the Town (Twelfth to Early Fourteenth Centuries): Urban Commanderies Case in the Rhône River Low Valley,” Chronica. Annual of the Institute of History of the University of Szeged 6 (2006): 84–85.
19 Claude-France Hollard, “Les Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem à Avignon aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles,” Annuaire de la société des amis du palais des papes 80 (2003): 18–19.
20 Helen J. Nicholson, “The Military Religious Orders in the Towns of the British Isles,” in Les ordres religieux militaires dans la ville médiévale, 113–26; Eliezer Stern, “La commanderie de l’ordre des Hospitaliers à Acre,” in L’architecture en Terre sainte au temps de saint Louis, ed. Nicolas Faucherre, Benjamin Z. Kedar and Jean Mesqui, Bulletin Monumental 164 (2006): 53–60.
21 Thomas Szabò, “Templari e viabilità,” in I Templari. Mito e Storia. Atti del Convegno di Studi alla Magione Templare di Poggibonsi-Siena, 29–31 maggio 1987, ed. Giovanni Minnucci and Franca Sardi (Siena, 1989), 305–07; Bellomo, The Templar Order, 64–68; Elena Bellomo and Kristjan Toomaspoeg, “Via Francigena,” in Prier et combattre, 956–57.
22 Denys Pringle, “The Military Orders in the Cities of the Holy Land,” in Les ordres religieux-militaires dans la ville médiévale, 79–95.
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
TEMPLARS AND HOSPITALLERS IN THE CITIES 109
In Acre, the Hospitallers and Templars each kept a portion of the eastern wall on the side of the Montmusard suburb. A commandery could also defend the gates of a city in the West. Well-known examples can be found on the Iberian frontier, such as at Tortosa, where the Templar house guarded the south-west corner of the city wall.23 Some cases can also be found in Provence, where the coast was threatened by Saracen pirates. In Hyères, the Templar commandery played an important defensive role outside the city. Today, however, all that remains is a massive tower with a chapel, an aula, and a guardhouse following a pattern found in the Holy Land, as in the castle of Château-Blanc (Safita).24
Finally, the military orders’ presence in ports connected to the Latin East was an essential feature for the logistical support of the Western commanderies. Therefore, in most coastal sites the brethren looked to settle as close to the sea as possible. This was the case in Marseilles, which was one of the main Templar and Hospitaller bases in the western Mediterranean. There, the Hospital protected the entry to the port, while the Temple was based close to the area for loading merchandise and to the arsenals where ships were maintained.25 Direct access to the water is also characteristic of their establishments in several fluvial cities, such as in London, where the New Temple was situated on the banks of the Thames.26
Impact on the Urban Landscape
All religious institutions participated in the “construction” of urban space. Yet, religious rules and social integration allowed certain regular communities to exercise a more important role than others in the urban landscape.27 For instance, the activities of cathedral chapters were much more visible than the simple town houses of the Cistercians. What, then, was the impact of the Temple and the Hospital on the urban landscape? The presence of the orders in the city was played out in the compounds, which consisted of conventual buildings and domestic and economic services. The enclosed compound conformed to the monastic tradition of isolation from the outside world. It also signified a legal limit to the lordship and to the spiritual tasks assigned to the military orders.28 Finally, the enclosure played
23 Joan Fuguet Sans, “El patrimonio monumental y artístico de los Templarios en la Corona de Aragón,” in Arte y patrimonio de las órdenes militares de Jerusalén en España: hacia un estado de la cuestión, ed. Amelia López-Yarto Elizalde and Wilfredo Rincón Garcia (Saragossa, 2011), 386 and 391.
24 Damien Carraz, “Causa defendende et extollende christianitatis. La vocation maritime des ordres militaires en Provence (XIIe–XIIIe siècle),” in Les ordres militaires et la mer, 130e Congrès national des sociétés historiques et scientifiques (La Rochelle, 2005), ed. Michel Balard (Paris, 2009), 26–27.
25 Carraz, “Causa defendende,” 24–25. 26 Michael Gervers, “The Commandery as an Economic Unit in England,” in La Commanderie,
institution des ordres militaires, 245–60. 27 Hélène Noizet, La fabrique de la ville. Espaces et sociétés à Tours (IXe–XIIIe siècle) (Paris,
2007), 405–13. 28 Damien Carraz, “Églises et cimetières des ordres militaires. Conflits, contrôle des lieux sacrés et
dominium ecclésiastique en Provence (XIIe–XIIIe siècle),” in Lieux sacrés et espace ecclésial (IXe–XVe siècle), Cahiers de Fanjeaux 46 (Toulouse, 2011), 282–84.
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
110 DAMIEN CARRAZ
a protective role, especially in towns on the frontiers of Christianity. The model of the military orders’ compound can probably be traced back to the Holy Land, where their headquarters formed impressive complexes. In Jerusalem, the Hospitaller compound was established in the patriarchal quarter and it housed 400 brethren inside a 130m × 130m wall. It still existed in a state of ruin as late as the nineteenth century. In addition to three shrines, there were two hospitals, a refectory, a cloister, dormitories, several bathrooms and warehouses.29 Since 1990, the headquarters of the Hospital in Acre has been of greater interest to archaeologists.30 This site covered an area of 4,500 square metres and extended on two or three levels around a central courtyard. Construction started in the middle of the twelfth century and the building was restored after 1191 when the town was recaptured by the crusaders. This complex continued to be expanded until Acre was finally lost in 1291 and is a typical example showing how a religious house was a never-ending building project that was frequently renovated. It also shows that the sites studied by archaeologists often correspond to the latest period of construction. Therefore, the first settlements are unknown to us; they were probably fairly modest and were sometimes based on existing buildings offered to the orders by their protectors.31
The location of some western headquarters in royal or princely capitals, such as Paris, London or Saint-Gilles, confirms the polarizing role of the city in the military orders’ organization. For instance, the Temple of Paris was a genuine enclosed quarter, outside the walls of King Philip Augustus.32 However, most urban houses did not attain such great size. The Temple in Avignon, a 40m × 40m square, was most certainly not occupied by more than about ten people, including the brethren and their familiares.33 At this location, there are traces of buildings around a central court, as well as of spaces dedicated to conventual life and domestic activities.
The material record clearly shows how the military orders left their mark on the towns. This is further demonstrated by the orders’ chapels, whose architecture was often quite innovative, such as the famous Templar rotundas of London or Tomar, or the Hospitaller chapel in Aix-en-Provence. The latter was the first church built in Provence in the French Gothic style, since the order enjoyed the protection of the Capetian count, Charles of Anjou.34 Finally, the centrality of the town is clearly expressed in castles on the Iberian Peninsula, which scholars often consider
29 Adrian J. Boas, Archaeology of the Military Orders: A Survey of the Urban Centres, Rural Settlements and Castles of the Military Orders in the Latin East (c. 1120–1291) (London and New York, 2006), 43–49; Alain Beltjens, “Le récit d’une journée au grand hôpital de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem sous le règne des derniers rois latins ayant résidé à Jérusalem,” Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire et du Patrimoine de l’Ordre de Malte 14 (2004): 5–79; Pringle, “The Military Orders in the Cities of the Holy Land.”
30 Boas, Archaeology, 49–58; Stern, “La commanderie.” 31 For some Provençal examples, see Carraz, L’Ordre du Temple, 264–65. 32 Henri de Curzon, La maison du Temple de Paris (Paris, 1888).33 Damien Carraz, “Une commanderie templière et sa chapelle en Avignon: du Temple aux
chevaliers de Malte,” Bulletin Monumental 154 (1996): 7–24.34 Damien Carraz, “Les ordres militaires, le comte et les débuts de l’architecture gothique en
Provence,” Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire et du patrimoine de l’ordre de Malte 13 (2003): 45–55.
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
TEMPLARS AND HOSPITALLERS IN THE CITIES 111
as points of territorial control.35 The case of Tomar castle, which was chosen as the Templar headquarters in Portugal, illustrates this idea. The presence of this building, which showed a “mature” model of military architecture for the end of the twelfth century, allowed the order to confirm its seigniorial power over the new town and to organize its management of the rural district.36
The “Urban Fabric”
Apart from their different-sized conventual houses, how did the military orders contribute to the “urban fabric?” As scholars have emphasized with regard to the mendicant orders, the implantation of these new religious houses led to a remodelling of the topography. The orders left their traces in the toponymy; we find names in charters such as ruga Templi, platea Templi, or porta domus milicie. Often, the orders also influenced the organization of the street network and cleared a space for small squares in front of their houses. For that purpose, the Templars purchased houses, lands and streets surrounding their commanderies in Saint-Gilles, Avignon and Arles. This kind of undertaking, intended to isolate the compounds from the urban environment and to limit neighbourhood conflicts, was carried out with even more drive in Acre. In the neighbourhood of their compound, the Hospitallers obtained control of a section and a gate of the urban walls. They were also busy buying as many properties as possible in order to control the streets leading to their “grand Manor.” The politics of managing the orders’ patrimony could therefore have an impact on the property and social geography of a town. In Acre, the regrouping of the possessions of the Temple, the Hospital and the Teutonic Order was intended to create homogenous quarters similar to those of the Italian communes. The military orders did not manage to create true quarters with a status of extra-territoriality, but their estates were easily distinguishable on the city maps of the fourteenth century.37 The brethren often developed these kinds of colonization strategies in urban locations and, when possible, around their commanderies’ quarters.
Investment in the most profitable economic sectors – such as windmills, public baths and workshops – sometimes led the brethren to participate in the development of commercial infrastructures. In the last quarter of the thirteenth century, the Hospitallers of Manosque took the initiative of enlarging the marketplace, in which they owned 29 stalls. In this town, the brethren had real decision-making power, as they were lords of the city. At the same time in Perpignan, the Templars
35 See: Le château et la ville. Espaces et réseaux (VIe–XIIIe siècle), ed. Patrice Cressier, Castrum 8 (Madrid and Rome, 2008).
36 Mario Jorge Barroca, “Tomar,” in Prier et combattre, 913–14 (with references to the bibliography). 37 David Jacoby, “Les communes italiennes et les ordres militaires à Acre. Aspects juridiques,
territoriaux et militaires,” in État et colonisation au Moyen Âge et à la Renaissance, ed. Michel Balard (Lyon, 1989), 198–207; and Jonathan Riley-Smith, “Further Thoughts on the Layout of the Hospital in Acre,” in Chemins d’outre-mer. Études d’histoire sur le Méditerranée médiévale offertes à Michel Balard, ed. Damien Coulon et al. (Paris, 2004), 753–64.
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
112 DAMIEN CARRAZ
helped finance the new corn market and they built a two-storey shop attached to the building.38 The military orders also contributed to the bonum commune by participating in the upkeep of public infrastructures such as town walls or bridges.39
Finally, urban commanderies also encouraged population growth. The initiatives of the Temple and the Hospital in the foundation of new towns (villeneuves) and outer-city boroughs are well known. Scholars have pointed to cases in northern Italy or in south-western France.40 These population enterprises, however, were rarely very successful except in conquered areas, as suggested by the example of Tomar. Yet, the orders also participated in the growth of existing towns by practising a conscious policy of urbanization, as has been clearly demonstrated for both Paris and Perpignan.41 In this latter case, the Templars were behind the origin of the Saint-François quarter, today known as Saint-Mathieu. The building process was at its height between 1241 and 1282, with the concession of emphyteutic leases for the construction of houses (ad faciendum ibi domum vel domos). The brethren planned the creation of a quarter in that town ex nihilo, comprising more than 300 houses built within a geometric system of streets. An archaeological study of a block of houses, in which the buildings are exceptionally well-preserved, has shown the existence of long plots with buildings 10 metres wide by 3–6 metres long.42 Even though the commanderies found ways of making their capital profitable, one should not underestimate the social and spiritual factors behind these real-estate undertakings. Indeed, historians sometimes consider the suburban zones in which the military orders settled as a “fertile ground” for religious innovations that later entered the city centres.43 This brings us to the second part of this survey, concerning the place of the military orders in the urban religious society of the High Middle Ages.
38 Damien Carraz, “Les ordres militaires et le fait urbain en France méridionale (XIIe–XIIIe siècle),” in Moines et religieux dans la ville (XIIe–XVe siècle), Cahiers de Fanjeaux 44 (Toulouse, 2009), 140.
39 For examples of maintenance and management of bridges by the Templars, see Bellomo, The Templar Order, 13–16.
40 Elena Bellomo, “The Temple, the Hospital and the Towns of North and Central Italy,” in Les ordres religieux-militaires dans la ville médiévale, 159–70; Charles Higounet, “Hospitaliers et Templiers: peuplement et exploitation rurale dans le Sud-Ouest de la France au Moyen Âge,” in Les Ordres militaires, la vie rurale et le peuplement en Europe occidentale (XIIe–XVIIIe siècles), Cahiers de Flaran 6 (Auch, 1986), 62–68.
41 Geneviève Etienne, “La Villeneuve du Temple à Paris aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles,” in Actes du 100e Congrès national des Sociétés savantes (Paris, 1975). Section de philologie et d’histoire, t. 2: Études sur l’histoire de Paris et de l’Ile-de-France (Paris, 1978), 87–99; Laure Verdon, “Le quartier Saint-Mathieu de Perpignan: un exemple de la croissance d’une ville au XIIIe siècle,” in La ciutat i els poders. Actes del colloqui del 8è centenari de la Carta de Perpinyà, Perpignan, 23–25 octobre 1997, ed. Louis Assier-Andrieu and Raimond Sala (Perpignan, 2000), 99–107.
42 Isabelle Remy et al., “Des maisons en terre médiévales sur un îlot du quartier Saint-Mathieu, à Perpignan. Premiers éléments de réflexion,” Archéologie du Midi médiéval 27 (2009): 53–95.
43 Bellomo, “The Temple, the Hospital and the Towns of North and Central Italy.”
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
TEMPLARS AND HOSPITALLERS IN THE CITIES 113
Spiritual Influence and Social Ascendency
Pastoral Care and Integration within the City
In France and in Italy, the military orders often received a warm welcome, partly because bishops expected some support with Church reform and pastoral care from these novae religiones. No detailed study of the brethren’s control of parishes yet exists,44 but it seems that the orders’ involvement with parishes was much more developed in the countryside than in the towns, where numerous churches competed for the care of souls. However, it was in urban rather than rural contexts that the orders developed the forms of lay affiliation that they had inherited from traditional monasticism.45 To get round the restrictions imposed by the secular clergy, who jealously guarded their spiritual prerogatives, they invented other forms of connections with the faithful. Their confraternities allowed the faithful to participate in the spiritual and material benefits provided by the commanderies. Open to women as well as men, they recruited essentially from the ranks of knighthood, but they attracted the new urban elites as well. This form of more specifically urban social activity thus fully corresponded to the expectations of these elites.
Moreover, through their pastoral ministry at death, the military orders resembled the mendicant movements that were to come. Even before the friars, they adopted the testamentary practices that progressively took the place of confraternity contracts or traditional donations causa mortis. In this way, their houses benefited from numerous burials and from legacies made in exchange for funeral services and masses that depended on perpetual pensions. Archaeological studies generally confirm that the urban commanderies welcomed the burial of men, women and children in their cemeteries. This was the case in Toulouse, where the excavation of the Hospitaller cemetery uncovered more than 1,700 tombs from the twelfth century to the end of the Middle Ages.46
Several tombs of pilgrims to Compostela were also discovered in Toulouse, which recalls another mission practised by the urban commanderies: charitable activities. Charity was an important part of the process of integrating the brethren into local society. This involved the development of the orders’ confraternities, which gave lay people the opportunity to accomplish the ideal of caritas.47 It also helps us understand the new status available to women. Some pious women, such as Ubaldesca of Pisa (d. 1206) or Toscana of Verona (d. 1343?), were attached to
44 For an initial overview: Damien Carraz, “Paroisse,” in Prier et combattre, 688–89.45 See for the example of Toulouse: Jörg Oberste, “Donaten zwischen Kloster und Welt. Das
Donatenwesen der religiösen Ritterorden in Südfrankreich und die Entwicklung der städtischen Frömmigkeitspraxis im 13. Jahrhundert,” Zeitschrift für historische Forschung 29 (2002): 1–37.
46 Nelly Pousthomis-Dalle, “Histoire et archéologie de la commanderie-grand-prieuré des hospitaliers de Saint-Jean à Toulouse: état de la recherche,” in Les ordres religieux militaires dans le Midi, 239–64.
47 On the links between confraternity and charity, see Bellomo, The Templar Order, 72.
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
114 DAMIEN CARRAZ
Hospitaller houses.48 These female models of active holiness through promoting charity reveal the attention that was given to new religious sensitivities. Thus, the brethren can be considered as agents of “civic religion,” a concept particularly developed in Italy.49 The commanderies took part in “princely piety” by celebrating masses for the souls of kings – as at the New Temple in London – or by housing dynastic tombs – as at the Hospitaller priory in Aix-en-Provence.50 Yet, they also developed popular cults such as those at Perugia in Umbria, where the Templars promoted the hermit figure of San Bevignate.51 The fresco painting of the flagellants in the church of San Bevignate at Perugia (ca. 1260–70) further illustrates the brothers’ involvement in new forms of religiosity in the thirteenth century.
Thus, through their charitable activities, pastoral ministry at death, and confraternities, the military orders were at the forefront of the spiritual revolution which radiated from the city. Their ability to adapt to new religious needs and sensitivities must be seen in connection with the social status of the benefactors as well as the commanderies’ urban recruitment.
Civic Society and the “New Economy”
The convergence between the development of the military orders and the rise of the lower and middle aristocracy is already well-known; examining the social status of the brethren and their affiliates provides further evidence of this convergence in urban contexts. For example, the urban knightly classes are well represented among the Provençal Templars and Hospitallers.52 In northern Italy, the Temple also recruited from the noble families (consorterie) that held power over communal governments.53 Although the orders certainly had a strong knightly presence, they were also open to members from the newer urban social strata, such as merchants and craftsmen. These new elites did not necessarily have military backgrounds; they were often urban groups with business experience which could be useful in managing the commanderies’ estates.
As mentioned above, the logistics of warfare and supplies for the Holy Land necessitated the presence of the military orders in marketplaces and in centres of production and consumption. The brethren easily adapted themselves to the
48 Nicole Bériou, “Ubaldesca, sainte,” and André Vauchez, “Toscana, sainte,” in Prier et combattre, 941 and 923–24.
49 Marina Gazzini, “L’insediamento gerosolimitano a Parma nel basso Medioevo: attività ospedaliera e gestione del culto civico,” in Riviera di Levante tra Emilia e Toscana. Un crocevia per l’Ordine di San Giovanni. Atti del Convegno, Genova-Chiavari-Rapallo, 9–12 settembre 1999, ed. Josepha Costa Restagno (Bordighera, 2001), 421–46.
50 Nicholson, “The Military Religious Orders”; and Carraz, “Les ordres militaires, le comte,” 45–55.
51 Giovanna Casagrande, “San Bevignate: una chiesa per la città,” and Chiara Frugoni, “In margine a Templari e Flagellanti,” in Milites Templi. Il patrimonio monumentale e artistico dei Templari in Europa (Perugia, 6–7 maggio 2005), ed. Sonia Merli (Perugia, 2008), 191–204 and 285–97 respectively.
52 Carraz, L’Ordre du Temple, 298–301.53 Bellomo, The Templar Order, 129–47 and 159–60.
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
TEMPLARS AND HOSPITALLERS IN THE CITIES 115
“new economy,” which was part of the framework of the overall growth that took place in the High Middle Ages.54 In this way, the commanderies accumulated income from suburban agriculture and real estate. They invested in the means of production and, at the same time, they sought to control taxes on crafts and on commercial activities. In cases where they owned important parcels of urban land, the commanderies exercised an influence on the real-estate market by speculating in variations of rents, entry taxes and sales taxes. In their new quarter in Perpignan, the Templars made the most of population growth to increase the taxes on rented houses (acaptum, intrata).55 This speculation on rented houses, which was made possible by the dissociation of the dominium directum and dominium utile, differed from the management of cultivated land.
The commanderies created privileged connections with merchants and craftsmen everywhere they could. At Manosque, the Hospitallers sold their wool and rented out their mills for a fee. In Perpignan, the Templars leased out stalls to butchers and oil merchants as well as workrooms in the lotissement of Saint-François. Both orders developed speculative businesses in wool, leather and meat; at the same time, they controlled the supply of raw materials as well as the sale of the end products. Moreover, in port cities such as Barcelona, Genoa or Marseilles, Templars and Hospitallers developed strong common interests with shipowners and merchants. These relationships with “working” people were often accompanied by spiritual bonds. For example, the shoemaker Peire Nègre made a large donation for the benefit of the poor who were fed by the Hospitallers of Toulouse. His generous gift was attested by a lapidary charter dated 1215 and inserted in the wall of the priory’s cloister.56
Observing these close ties with the new social elites has opened up novel ways for scholars to think about how assimilating urban culture may have benefited the military orders. For example, it is possible that the commanderies experimented with new forms of pragmatic literacy, which reflected their management needs resulting from the transformation of the urban economy. Thus, account books and inventories kept in the archives should be analysed within this perspective. In one case, King James II of Mallorca employed the Templars of Perpignan to lead an inquiry into royal rights in Roussillon.57 In Occitania, the military orders were among the first to take advantage of the diffusion of notarial practices in the consulates. Thus, they developed a real interest in law in the urban environment.
54 The concept of the “new economy” has been borrowed from Gérard Sivery, L’économie du royaume de France au siècle de Saint Louis (vers 1180–vers 1315) (Lille, 1984).
55 Laure Verdon, “La seigneurie templière à Perpignan au XIIIe siècle,” in La ville au Moyen Âge. II. Sociétés et pouvoirs dans la ville, ed. Noël Coulet and Olivier Guyotjeannin (Paris, 1998), 221–28.
56 Patrice Cabau et al., “Deux inscriptions du cloître de l’ancienne maison de l’Hôpital Saint-Jean de Jérusalem de Toulouse (XIIIe siècle),” Mémoires de la Société archéologique du Midi de la France 64 (2004): 93–100.
57 Rodrigue Tréton, “Recueil des chartes de la maison du Temple du Mas Déu en Roussillon (1101–1329). Étude et édition,” 5 vols. (doctoral thesis, Université Paris 1, 2007), 1:115–31.
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
116 DAMIEN CARRAZ
Finally, we should also mention their contribution to urban law through the statutes and fueros they promulgated for the inhabitants of their estates.58
Thus, as we have seen, the military orders were heavily involved in urban society, affecting the material and physical features of cities as well as a range of urban social, economic, and legal practices. In turn, the orders were also shaped by their urban environment. Nevertheless, their urban integration was not universal, nor did it necessarily occur without conflict.
Limits of Integration
The map of the urban settlement of the military orders largely coincides with that of the European urban network. In less urbanized areas, such as the British Isles or central France, their establishments were essentially rural. In northern France, it has long been noted that the military orders focused their activities in the countryside. In Normandy or in Picardy, the two orders did not particularly seek to develop commanderies in urban centres; they merely established simple town houses in the same way as the Cistercians.59 Yet, even in some urbanized regions, certain areas remained closed to the commanderies. In the lower Rhône valley, more than half of the Templar and Hospitaller houses were indeed situated in urban centres, which were generally episcopal cities. Yet the brethren were unable to establish themselves in some towns. For instance, in the middle of the twelfth century, the bishops of Vaison and Uzès preferred to establish the Templars in rural areas such as Roaix and Montfrin. In Provence, as in southern Italy, bishops were often reluctant to share their modest resources with the newcomers.
Another limitation to the orders’ inurbamento can be explained by the fact that the town was, more than any other place, a potential area of conflict. The military orders were often obliged to find space among churches and hospitals that had already been established or were settling in the towns at the same time as they were. In addition, in Provence, as in many other areas, most towns had both a Templar and a Hospitaller commandery. Yet, these two orders established a way of coexisting, for example by agreeing on their respective properties or by putting procedures in place to prevent conflicts.60 However, competition for control of the ecclesiastical economy was rather fiercer with bishops and canons, as several historians have shown. In many places, the military orders’ success with the faithful caused conflicts with the secular clergy over distribution of tithes, alms and burial rights.61
58 Carlos de Ayala Martínez, “Fueros,” and Juhan Kreem and Pierre Monnet, “Privilèges municipaux,” in Prier et combattre, 375 and 741–43 respectively.
59 Michel Miguet, Templiers et Hospitaliers en Normandie (Paris, 1995), 104–06; Valérie Bessey, Les commanderies de l’Hôpital en Picardie au temps des chevaliers de Rhodes, 1309–1522 (Millau, 2005), 25.
60 Carraz, L’Ordre du Temple, 251–52. For the Latin East, see Alain Demurger, Les Templiers. Une chevalerie chrétienne au Moyen Âge (Paris, 2005), 363.
61 For an overall understanding of this matter, see Thomas Krämer, “‘Demones et praelati ac homines impii.’ Konflikte und ihre Beilegung im Umfeld der geistlichen Ritterorden in Südfrankreich
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
TEMPLARS AND HOSPITALLERS IN THE CITIES 117
Other kinds of disputes arose with the secular elites over the possession of urban land. As suggested above, the military orders competed with lay powers for the control of certain quarters in Acre.62 In Provence, towns tried very hard to control the acquisitions made by the commanderies. Consequently, the Templars had to use lay procuratores in order to increase their real-estate holdings. It is important to remember that lands bought by the commanderies became the property of the Church and therefore their legal status changed. Tax exemptions, and most of all the inalienability of land, could sometimes lead to a “freeze” in the real-estate market. From the end of the thirteenth century, in a context of economic stagnation, there was increased competition with the richest citizens for control of resources – such as grazing rights for animals in the areas surrounding the towns.63
At other times, urban implantation of the military orders was limited by political circumstances. The case of Strasbourg, for example, shows the Hospitallers’ strong desire to settle in a town whose inhabitants were in fact hostile to their presence.64 Although the Hospitallers had been established in Alsace since the thirteenth century, they did not succeed in moving into the Strasbourg house of Grüner Wörth until 1371, and then only thanks to the help of an influential protector. Their late arrival in the town can be explained by the fact that the order had long been an ally of the Geroldseck family, with whom the Strasburgers had been in conflict throughout the second half of the thirteenth century. Moreover, as urban lords, the orders sometimes faced opposition to their domination, to such an extent that occasionally they preferred to give up their positions, for example at Tortosa in Catalonia.65 In this case, the Templars already owned considerable land in the town and in the district of the Ribeira. In 1182, they obtained two-thirds of the lordship of the town from King Alfonso of Aragon. However, faced with other co-lords and the rise of municipal power, the order preferred to abandon control of Tortosa to King James II in 1294. In many cases, urban houses were unable to avoid conflicts with other powers because they were involved in political life. Indeed, the brethren often came from local circles and had maintained close ties with their secular families. Elena Bellomo has shown how the Templars were involved in various internal conflicts that tore apart the communes of northern Italy, as at Piacenza.66 Since the end of the twelfth century, Santa Maria del Tempio at Piacenza had been closely involved in local political life. However, the Templars suffered from their alliance with the lord of Piacenza, Alberto Scotti, who faced hostility from several noble factions,
und Oberdeutschland,” (doctoral dissertation, Freie Universität Berlin, 2010).62 Jacoby, “Les communes italiennes.”63 Carraz, L’Ordre du Temple, 512–14.64 Nicolas Buchheit, “Strasbourg et les Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem au XIVe siècle:
histoire d’une intégration urbaine,” in Les ordres religieux-militaires dans la ville médiévale, 189–203.65 Nikolas Jaspert, “Bonds and Tensions on the Frontier: The Templars in Twelfth-Century Western
Catalonia,” in Mendicants, Military Orders and Regionalism in Medieval Europe, ed. Jürgen Sarnowsky (Aldershot and Brookfield, 1999), 19–46; Laureà Pagarolas i Sabaté, “Tortosa,” in Prier et combattre, 919–21 (with references to the bibliography).
66 Bellomo, The Templar Order, 170–74.
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
118 DAMIEN CARRAZ
including the Visconti. This climate of conflict forced the order to abandon the site of Santa Maria del Tempio to the friar preachers in 1304. Finally, international stakes were sometimes added to local political problems. At Arles, in 1248, the citizens attacked the Hospitaller commandery and slaughtered several brothers. The Arlesians repeatedly plundered the estates of the military orders because they resented their economic activities, and they blamed the alliance of the military orders with Count Charles of Anjou with whom the townspeople were at war.67
In conclusion, the question arises to what extent the military orders’ inurbamento was unique compared to that of other religious houses. From the perspective of seigniorial management and land policy, urban commanderies were perhaps not very different from Benedictine monasteries or the urban houses of canons. The orders’ economic strategies, however, seem to have been more enterprising because they were motivated by the absolute necessity of supporting the Holy War. Thus, their inurbamento must be viewed in light of the larger networks developed by Templars and Hospitallers, in which the town assumed a central place. Indeed, while traditional orders limited their economic and social horizons to their own monasteries, the centralized organization of the military orders allowed them to plan development strategies on a regional level. Thus, urban commanderies always made sure to increase their acquisitions in the countryside, and by this means they participated in the economic dominance of a city over its rural territory.
Here as always, the interactions between a town and its countryside require further investigation. One question to be explored concerns the ways in which the orders’ activities between town and country affected population dynamics. For instance, when the Templars founded the Saint-François quarter at Perpignan, this new area absorbed the population of the nearby village of Mailloles where the Templars were also lords, hastening that village’s decline.68 The connection between the town and the countryside also explains the functioning of some “two-headed commanderies,” that is, those having both a rural house and an urban site. In northern Catalonia, the Templar houses of Perpignan and Mas-Deu functioned this way, and the same was true with the houses of Barcelona and Palau-Solita.69 Yet in these two cases, in about 1280, the brethren moved the seat of their commanderies to the two princely capitals of Perpignan and Barcelona. This move clearly shows the importance of the city in the overall organization of the order. The network of the military orders thus supported their autonomy and favoured their spread into new areas.
67 Damien Carraz, “Les ordres militaires face aux crises politico-religieuses de la basse vallée du Rhône (seconde moitié du XIIe–XIIIe siècle): un jeu ambigu?,” in L’anticléricalisme en France méridionale (milieu XIIe–début XIVe siècle), Cahiers de Fanjeaux 38 (Toulouse, 2003), 375–404.
68 Remy et al., “Des maisons,” 56. 69 Juan Fuguet Sans and Carme Plaza, Los Templarios en la Península ibérica (Barcelona, 2006),
84–87.
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
TEMPLARS AND HOSPITALLERS IN THE CITIES 119
Rather than consider each house as a discrete entity, I would suggest that we think in terms of flow: the circulation of men, merchandise and information defined the network of the military orders just as much as the framework of the commanderies. An important part of these Templar and Hospitaller logistics was the town, with its gates, its markets and the roads passing through it, as this article has shown. In this context, it is also important to bear in mind the increasing recruitment of urban elites into the military orders from the thirteenth century.70 At the end of the Middle Ages, these urban knights, ministeriales, burgesses and patricians, considerably modified the structure of the military orders, an internal structure marked in particular by the growing role of clerics and an allegiance to princely power.71
Finally, a comparison has been implied several times in this paper: that the precocity and the systematic character of the military orders’ attraction to the urban environment inevitably takes us back to the mendicant orders. Without going into too much detail here, one can easily find points of similarity; in certain respects, we can even say that the “warrior brothers” prefigured the friars. Their impact on the “urban fabric” is comparable. The mendicants’ convents, which were often in the suburbs, had a much larger surface area than that of the average commandery.72 In contrast to the military orders, however, the mendicants made very few investments in real estate, and this limited their influence on the processes of urbanization. Second, the fairly wide social recruitment of the military orders also resembled that of the friars. Like the commanderies, the mendicant convents can be considered as places of “interpenetration” between lay and religious spheres. In both of these spaces, benefactors were buried, fraternities were sheltered, urban authorities often met and conflicts were solved. Moreover, city archives were also sometimes kept in mendicant convents. All these activities were already characteristic of the commanderies by the time the mendicants came onto the scene. Finally, there was considerable mobility of the brethren between one commandery and another, which meant from one town to another. This rupture with the stabilitas loci represents another difference from traditional monasticism, a difference that the military orders shared with the mendicants.
However, there is at least one fundamental difference between the two religious phenomena, which, although primarily spiritual, also has both economic and cultural implications. Since the mendicants could not, in theory, own any property, they invented other means of subsistence based on alms, bequests, and masses for
70 Damien Carraz, “Le monachisme militaire, laboratoire de la sociogenèse des élites laïques dans l’Occident médiéval?,” in Élites et ordres militaires au Moyen Âge. Actes du colloque de Lyon, 21–23 octobre 2009, ed. Philippe Josserand, Luís F. Oliveira and Damien Carraz (Madrid, forthcoming).
71 On what might be called the “clericalization” of the orders, see Jürgen Sarnowsky, “The Priests in the Military Orders: A Comparative Approach on Their Standing and Role,” in Élites et ordres militaires; and, on the increasing interference of monarchies, Alain Demurger, “Service curial,” in Prier et combattre, 866–68.
72 For a recent regional study, see for example Panayota Volti, Les couvents des ordres mendiants et leur environnement à la fin du Moyen Âge. Le nord de la France et les anciens Pays-Bas méridionaux (Paris, 2003).
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
120 DAMIEN CARRAZ
the dead.73 This economy was as profitable as the one developed by the military orders and, paradoxically, money circulated freely and quickly between the hands of the Franciscans and other friars. This lifestyle, which was in contradiction with the mendicants’ vow of poverty, incited them to reflect on the economic transformations of their time and on their spiritual implications. As a result, the friars developed theories about the new monetary economy by giving a proper place to the merchant and to money in the construction of Christian society.74 From this point of view, they had a much greater intellectual and social impact than the military orders. We know, however, that the military orders did not come to town to reflect on economic theories or on the usus pauper, or to reflect on the evangelization of the infidels. The vocation of the brethren was to maintain the Holy War, to participate in the spiritual care of the faithful, and to work in charity; the town was the perfect place to do this.
73 Économie et religion. L’expérience des ordres mendiants (XIIIe–XVe siècle), ed. Nicole Bériou and Jacques Chiffoleau (Lyon, 2009).
74 Giacomo Todeschini, Ricchezza francescana. Dalla povertà volontaria alla società di mercato (Bologna, 2004).
ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m ashg
ate.co
m
© Copyrighted material
