Message #123169

[Savannah]

The way in which Templar convents were founded in order to administer, and sometimes to defend, the possessions of the Temple in a particular district meant that with a few exceptions -- such as the subjection of Torres de Segre to the convent at Miravet (109) -- the estates belonging to a convent were concentrated in one area, and the possessions of different houses did not overlap geographically. It did not mean, however, that any attempt was made to ensure that all convents had possessions of approximately the same value. It is clear from Hospitaller valuations which survive from the early fourteenth century, and from references to the leasing of Templar estates by the Crown after the arrest of the Templars, that the incomes of different convents varied considerably. While the revenues of Monzón were assessed by the Hospitallers at 2,500l. and those of Miravet at 2,000l., Boquiñeni, on the other hand, was valued at only 50l. and Añesa at even less. (110) At times the income of the smaller convents was scarcely sufficient to maintain a community. In 1277 it was said that the convent of Boquiñeni had fallen into 'the greatest poverty', and it was necessary to use revenues drawn from other convents to pay off Boquiñeni's debts and to undertake essential expenditure there. (111) Although some convents with small incomes were situated in the more southerly regions of the Corona de Aragón -- Alfambra was valued at 100l. by the Hospitallers and Villel at 150l. (112) -- most of the poorer convents lay in the more northerly parts of Aragon and Catalonia. The convents of Selma, Castellón de Ampurias, Aiguaviva, and Novillas, as well as Boquiñeni and Añesa, were among the least wealthy Templar communities. The reason for the creation of a number of small convents in these areas is perhaps to be found in the fact that in the north Templar [103] possessions were more scattered than in the more southerly districts, where they tended to be concentrated in lordships granted by the Crown. It was probably more convenient to establish a number of convents than to try to administer these scattered possessions from just a few houses, which would have had lands at a considerable distance. There were therefore by the later part of the thirteenth century few places in the Corona de Aragón that were very remote from a Templar convent. It was only in parts of the extreme north and in the extreme south, in the southerly region of Valencia, that there was an absence of Templar foundations.



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