A History of the Crusades

by Jonathan Riley-Smith

  Other Activities

  On the battlefield, the Hospital and some Spanish orders appear to have provided care for the injured and wounded; but charitable activities—which formed part of the functions of all military orders—were mainly performed away from the field of battle. When it was amalgamated with the ransom hospital of the Holy Redeemer in 1188, Montegaudio assumed the task of ransoming Christian captives, and the rule of Santiago stated that all booty taken by that order was to be used for a similar purpose. Santiago came, in fact, to possess ransom hospitals in most parts of the Iberian peninsula. The Hospital of St John and the Teutonic Order had both been founded for the care of the poor and sick, and they continued this task after they had become military orders. Although in the later twelfth century Pope Alexander III expressed concern that the Hospital’s military functions were adversely affecting its charitable work, the pilgrim John of Würzburg, who visited Jerusalem in the 1160s, wrote of the Hospital that: ‘a great number of sick—both men and women—is gathered in various buildings, and is daily restored to health at great expense. When I was there, I learned from the report of the servitors themselves that the sick totalled up to two thousand.’ The Templars, as was frequently pointed out during their trial, were under no obligation to provide hospitality, but they—like all other military orders—were expected to dispense alms regularly. This duty was partly fulfilled by assigning to the poor a tenth of the bread baked and used in Templar convents.

  Members of all orders inevitably became involved in estate management, and the Teutonic Order assumed responsibility for the government of the whole of Prussia, while the leading orders in the Holy Land also wielded considerable political power. Several orders—especially the Temple—also developed banking and moneylending interests. Their convents were often used as places of deposit for money, jewels, and documents. It has sometimes been emphasized that the orders’ military and religious character made them particularly suited to this task, although it should not be assumed that all convents away from frontier regions were located in well-fortified strongholds. Some deposits were merely for safekeeping, but orders could also arrange the transfer of goods from one place to another. Operations of this kind were facilitated by the network of convents which the leading orders possessed throughout western Christendom. Many deposits were of an occasional nature, but some individuals had a current account with the Temple, which regularly received the client’s revenues and made payments on his behalf. For much of the thirteenth century the Temple in Paris acted as a treasury for the French kings; and many nobles, including several of Louis IX’s brothers, had accounts with the Templars there.

  The Templars also became particularly important as moneylenders. In Aragon, for example, they were advancing money as early as the 1130s, and in the later thirteenth century they were regularly making loans to the Aragonese crown. In the twelfth century, loans were usually sought in order to meet a special need, but in the following century borrowing became a regular feature of government financing: rulers’ cash obligations were increasing, and to meet financial needs they often anticipated their revenues by resorting to short-term loans. They turned to those whose capital was sufficient to provide large sums, and these included not only firms of Italian merchants, but also the Templars, although there were occasions when the Temple was itself obliged to borrow in order to meet royal demands for money: to retain royal favour it could not easily reject requests for loans.

  Resources

  The orders’ military and charitable activities inevitably necessitated very considerable expenditure, and were dependent on the availability of adequate resources. Income was obtained in various ways. Successful warfare was itself a source, usually in the form of booty and estates in conquered territories, while on some fronts tribute was also obtained. But most orders received much of their income from property situated in regions away from frontier districts. The Temple and Hospital were able to assume a leading role in the defence of the Holy Land because they—unlike rulers and nobles in the Latin East, who had to rely mainly on income obtained locally—could draw regularly on sources of revenue in all parts of western Christendom. These were, however, the only orders which gained considerable holdings in all areas of the West.

  Gifts in regions away from the borders of western Christendom were made by all ranks of lay society, though patronage by the secular clergy was limited. By their donations, benefactors were in part seeking to further the Christian cause against the infidel. In the twelfth century, the concept of holy war was still comparatively new, and influenced patterns of patronage at a time when the popularity of older monasteries was waning. Some had more particular reasons for supporting a military order: a gift was sometimes a substitute for going on a crusade, while some patrons were men who had taken the cross and had personal experience of the orders’ military and charitable operations. In deciding to patronize a military order, individuals were sometimes influenced by personal and family links, and geographical factors were also of importance: benefactors often patronized an order which had a convent in their neighbourhood. But by their gifts all donors were seeking divine favour, to be shown both in this world and in the next. The names of patrons were included in prayers said in an order’s convents, although benefactors of military orders did not usually seek to found new convents in the way in which monasteries were commonly endowed by wealthy patrons. Twelfth-century benefactors expected the income from their donations to be used primarily for military and charitable purposes. In the thirteenth century, however, there was a growing tendency for patrons to make gifts for the endowment of chantry priests, and for masses or for lamps which were to burn before altars in orders’ chapels. Some donors also expected to obtain the more material benefits—such as maintenance—which were frequently assigned to monastic benefactors.

  Military orders added to gifts of land by purchasing property. They were investing surplus revenues in a way which would bring long-term profit; and in some districts purchases were more numerous than donations, although usually not as valuable. Acquisitions made by gift and purchase were very varied in nature. Since military and charitable activities were costly, military orders could not, like some monastic foundations, place restrictions on the kinds of property which were considered acceptable. The second clause of the rule of the Teutonic Order states that, because of the expense of warfare and of caring for the poor and sick, ‘the brothers can have both movable and immovable property … namely, lands and fields, vineyards, townships, mills, fortifications, parish churches, chapels, tithes, and the like’. This list is not exhaustive: gifts of horses and armour or of cash were common, and the orders also received privileges, which either provided opportunities for increasing their income or allowed them to retain more of their revenues for their own use. The papacy, for example, allowed those who made an annual benefaction to an order to have a seventh of their penance remitted, and most orders also obtained from the papacy a partial exemption from the payment of tithes. Orders could also increase their income by involving themselves in the land reclamation which was taking place in most parts of western Christendom during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Moneylending was a further source of income, although few details have survived of the profits made. It was commonly said, however, that the orders also sought to increase their revenues by abusing their rights and privileges.

  Although military orders had various ways of obtaining wealth, not all of these retained their importance. In Syria and in Spain, where the Reconquista came to a halt in the mid-thirteenth century, opportunities for profiting from war against the infidel dwindled; and in most districts away from the Christian frontiers the flow of donations declined in the thirteenth century, as did the number of purchases. The military orders were losing their popularity with patrons, while the decline in purchases is to be related to the orders’ financial situation.

  Orders were not only failing to increase their wealth: they were also losing existing sources of revenue. Es
tates in the East were lost as the Mamluks advanced: in 1268 the Hospitaller master was claiming that he had received no revenues in the kingdom of Jerusalem for eight years. But the frequency of papal threats against those who harmed the possessions of the military orders shows that the retention of rights anywhere in western Christendom required constant vigilance. Among those who did manage to encroach on those rights were the secular clergy, who were anxious, in their own financial interest, to restrict the orders’ privileges in matters such as the right of burial. The orders were also affected by more general trends, such as inflation, and in many parts of western Christendom income was reduced, at least in the short term, by warfare and other disturbances.

  Nor should it be imagined that most of the revenues which the orders did receive could be devoted to military and charitable activities, or investment in property. A large part of Templar and Hospitaller income in western Europe was used for maintaining brethren resident there, for it was in the West that the majority of Templars and Hospitallers lived. Religious obligations in the form of chantries and masses also consumed revenues: according to an inquest compiled in 1309, more than a quarter of the Templars’ income at Cressing, in Essex, was used for this purpose. Payments also had to be made to those who were promised maintenance, and to men whose favour an order needed. The orders’ disposable income was further reduced by the dues and taxes which were owed to outsiders. In the thirteenth century earlier exemptions were restricted: thus tithe exemptions were limited by Innocent III in 1215, and were further reduced by local compromises after conflicts with diocesans. Some secular rulers, faced by growing financial needs, similarly sought to reduce the exemptions from taxation which their predecessors had earlier granted. The orders were also expected to contribute to new forms of general taxation which were being exacted in the thirteenth century by both kings and popes: although the papacy did not demand contributions to taxes which it imposed in aid of the Holy Land, the orders were on various occasions asked for subsidies for papal needs in the West.

  While some of the smaller orders, such as Monfragüe, never possessed sufficient revenues to become viable, even well-established foundations often experienced financial difficulties when taking on additional burdens or when they had suffered serious military setbacks. The Hospital, for example, overreached itself by giving over-enthusiastic support to plans for the conquest of Egypt in the 1160s, and in Spain the Castilian king found it necessary to subsidize Calatrava after its losses in the aftermath of the defeat at Alarcos. Yet during the course of the thirteenth century there is growing evidence of more long-term financial difficulties experienced by the leading orders. References to debts increase, and these were by no means always short-term debts. At the beginning of the fourteenth century the Hospitallers sought to overcome financial difficulties in Germany partly by restricting recruitment and banning new building; but a more common solution was to alienate property. This might provide relief in the short-term, but at the expense of long-term income.

  Both charitable and military activities were affected by these problems. In 1306 the Hospitaller master was asserting that his order no longer had the resources to maintain the sick adequately, and on several occasions in the later thirteenth century Templar masters claimed that, because of poverty, it might become necessary to abandon the Holy Land. In Spain the master of Santiago was similarly arguing in 1233 that his resources were scarcely adequate to defend his order’s strongholds, and the growing reluctance to give service in the Iberian peninsula appears to have been occasioned by financial problems. Many orders were finding it increasingly difficult to carry out their obligations.

  Recruitment

  A steady supply of recruits, as well as of cash resources, was needed, especially as the mortality rate in military orders was likely to be higher than in religious houses of a contemplative nature. Most military orders recruited mainly, though not exclusively, in one region: postulants to the Spanish orders came principally from the Iberian peninsula, and most members of the Teutonic Order were German-speaking. Only the Templars and Hospitallers regularly attracted applicants throughout western Christendom, although even these orders looked to France as their chief area of recruitment. As in monastic orders, however, there were entry requirements. All recruits had to be of free status, and in the thirteenth century knightly descent was required of those wishing to enter the rank of knight. Knightly recruits to the Temple and Hospital at that time also had to be of legitimate birth. Knightly postulants comprised, however, only a minority of recruits in orders such as the Temple and Hospital: the majority entered the rank of sergeant. In most orders married postulants were not allowed to join without the assent of their spouses, and recruits were further questioned about their health and financial status. In the earlier Middle Ages, religious houses had commonly been regarded as suitable places of refuge for deformed or handicapped offspring, and the military orders particularly wanted to avoid being saddled with these; they also sought to ensure that they were not burdened with a recruit’s debts. Although in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there was growing opposition in the Church to the requirement that recruits to the religious life should make a gift on entry, this practice was slow to die out in the military orders. These orders were, however, more in line with current Church practice in rejecting child oblation. Although it was not uncommon for sons of nobles to be reared in a convent, instead of being placed in a noble household, children who lived in the house of a military order were under no obligation to take vows; and several orders set minimum age limits for entry. The records of the Templar trial show that in practice a few joined when they were only 10 or 11, but these were exceptions: the average age of recruitment was the mid-20s.

  As is clear from the wording of regulations, however, this did not mean that parents were deprived of all say in their children’s choice of career. Younger sons, who comprised a considerable proportion of recruits, were, moreover, often in need of a livelihood. The words addressed to postulants at admission ceremonies imply that entry was seen by some to offer a comfortable existence. In some instances it also promised enhanced social status. That considerations of these kinds were often of importance is suggested by the claim made by one Templar that when he joined ‘they asked him why he wanted to do this, since he was noble and rich and had enough land’. Yet most surviving sources stress the spiritual concerns of recruits, and these should not be discounted too lightly. To some, especially in the early crusading period, fighting against the infidel may have seemed a more comprehensible way of serving God, and of securing salvation, than enclosure in a monastery. There was, however, also the further factor that military orders were less exclusive than monasteries: those who might enter monasteries only as conversi could become full members of a military order. Nor should family and neighbourhood links with an order be overlooked when explaining recruitment.

  Difficulty in attracting recruits was most often encountered in an order’s early years; and some foundations, such as Montegaudio, may never have overcome the problem of attracting sufficient numbers of postulants. But once they had become established, the Temple and Hospital—though attracting few clerical postulants—seem to have had little difficulty in recruiting enough laymen in most parts of the West, even in the thirteenth century. Some postulants were able to gain admission only through the intervention of influential patrons, and the chronicler Matthew Paris reports that after the defeat at La Forbie in 1244 the Templars and Hospitallers ‘admitted to their orders many selected laymen’. In the thirteenth century the situation faced by military orders in the Iberian peninsula may not, however, have been so favourable.

  Organization

  In the years immediately following its foundation, a military order consisted of a small group of brethren under the leadership of a master: at this stage little governmental machinery was needed. As property and recruits were gained, however, it became the norm to establish subordinate convents, both in frontier regions and elsewhere. If
expansion was considerable, an intermediate tier of government between convents and an order’s headquarters was soon needed, since it became difficult for masters to supervise distant convents, and a system was needed by which resources and recruits could easily be channelled to frontier regions from convents in other parts of western Christendom. Orders which fought on several fronts also required a military leader in each district. The forms of organization then existing in the monastic world hardly suited the purposes of military orders, and the more important of these adopted the practice of grouping the convents in a region into what were called provinces or priories. Although there were variations in detail, the leading orders adopted a three-tier system of government.

  In frontier districts, convents were often located in castles and had military responsibilities, whereas elsewhere a primary task was the administration of property in the surrounding district. Most members of a convent were normally lay brethren, though some orders, such as Santiago, had a number of separate convents for clerics, and several military orders possessed houses of sisters. Convents of sisters sometimes contained as many as forty or fifty members, but male houses away from frontier regions usually contained no more than a handful of brothers, who were far outnumbered by the outsiders who lived or worked there. The head of a convent was generally called a ‘preceptor’ or ‘commander’ and was normally imposed from above, and not elected by the members of the house. He had to see that the rule was followed, and in frontier districts he led his brethren in the field; he was also responsible for the administration of his convent’s property, from the revenues of which in non-frontier districts a portion had to be paid each year to his superior. He had few subordinate officials, but was expected to govern with the advice of the conventual chapter, which normally met once a week. Heads of provinces or priories were also appointed from above, and had functions similar to those of commanders. In the Temple, Hospital, and Teutonic Order, heads of provinces in western Europe were normally under the obligation of sending a responsion of a third of their provinces’ revenues to headquarters. At this level there were again few assistant officials, but provincial masters were counselled by provincial chapters, which met annually and were attended by heads of convents. At the headquarters of the leading orders, the master was assisted by officials who included a grand commander, a marshal with military responsibilities, and a drapier who had charge of clothing; these offices are not, however, encountered in smaller orders. A master would consult the members of his central convent, who presumably met each week in chapter, and all orders of any size adopted the practice of holding periodic general chapters, at which some brethren from the various provinces were present.