4
Rights and Privileges: (i) Secular
[110] As a result of the acquisitions of property made by the Templars in the Corona de Aragón the Order's convents possessed a wide variety of rights, both secular and ecclesiastical, and to these were added privileges of exemption for the Templars and their vassals, obtained from both lay and ecclesiastical authorities.
Secular rights were gained over both persons and land. Rights of a purely personal character were acquired primarily through contracts of protection and confraternity. Those who sought the Order's protection or entered into the confraternity of the Temple usually agreed to pay a small annual rent to the Templars. Although it was very occasionally stated that this rent was to be taken from a particular piece of land, (1) the obligation was basically a personal one, resting upon the individual rather than upon his land. But while payments of this kind are mentioned in every contract of protection, not all confratres undertook to pay a fixed sum annually to the Temple. The amount which a confrater was to give was sometimes not specified -- Peter Gómez of Zamora, for example, merely promised to give his 'charity' annually (2) -- and in some agreements of confraternity there is no reference to an annual payment at all. Similarly although a contract of confraternity often gave the Templars a claim to a specific bequest from a confrater, this was not an essential characteristic of these agreements. When Mary, the daughter of Raymond of Centelles, was accepted into the confraternity of the Temple in 1259 she promised to leave merely 'something according to my desire and wish'; (3) and some confratres made no bequest at all to the Order. Confratres were expected to give their patronage to the Temple, but the form of benefaction varied. Besides making payments or grants to the Order, confratres usually gave themselves to the Temple 'body and soul in life and death'. This phrase could be employed in a variety of contexts and does not of itself tell anything of the nature of confraternity ties. (4) But the obligations [111] implied by this undertaking are made clear in a number of charters. The confrater was promising to be buried in a Templar cemetery; this would, of course, bring profit to the Order. He was also undertaking not to transfer his allegiance to or join another order without the permission of the Temple. To ensure that a confrater carried out this promise and fulfilled his obligations an oath of fealty, sworn on the Gospels, was exacted from him, and some confratres also did homage to the Temple 'with hands joined and on bended knees with hands and mouth'. (5) If a confrater wished to be released from his obligations he would normally have to give compensation to the Order. When Bernard of Odena in 1273 wanted to free himself from an undertaking to pay a pound of wax annually and one morabetino at death and to be buried in the Temple, he gave in perpetuity the rent of a pound of wax to the Order, and even then the condition was made by the Templars that if he died within a day's journey of Barcelona he was still to be buried in the Order's cemetery there; (6) and over a century earlier, in return for a surrender by the Temple of its right to bury his body, a confrater called Nicholas had abandoned his claim to three pieces of land. (7) It is not clear whether the Templars, like some other lords, (
also usually obtained redemption payments from those who wished to free themselves from contracts of protection. Charters are usually brief and imprecise in wording, and in no document is it specifically stated that a redemption was to be paid. In one instance in 1279, on the other hand, the Templars promised not to demand any payment of this kind, (9) and in a number of charters it was stipulated that the Order was to seek nothing other than the annual rent, (10) while the reference in some documents to the protection of lands 'while they are between crosses' suggests that a merely temporary arrangement was being made. (11) But in many other cases it is clear that the agreement was intended to be of a permanent character, and as some of those under Templar protection promised not to seek another lord without Templar permission, (12) it is likely that on some occasions the Temple was able to exact redemption payments from those under its protection.
While contracts of confraternity and protection were concerned with personal ties, most of the acquisitions made by the Templars in the Corona de Aragón consisted of rights over landed property and over individuals as tenants of land or as inhabitants [112] of places under Templar lordship. Exactly what the Order gained from such acquisitions is not always known, especially when small properties, such as manses, were acquired. Charters tend again to be short and vague in wording: an individual would merely state that he was giving or selling a particular piece of property, which apparently meant that he was surrendering whatever rights he had in it. But it was often not stated what these were; the defining of rights was often done orally, leaving ample scope for later dispute. But it is possible to some extent to distinguish two main kinds of secular lordship gained over landed property by the Order. In some instances the Temple was obtaining the rights of a landlord; this was commonly the case when small parcels of land were acquired and also when strongholds and townships in newly conquered areas were gained. Alternatively or in addition the Temple obtained what may be termed franchisal lordship, which included public rights and dues; this was gained whenever a castle or township was acquired and also in some instances when smaller properties were obtained. In practice of course these forms of lordship were not always clearly distinguished, but contemporaries did at times make reference to the two different kinds of authority: in 1280 Peter III contrasted the 'men' of the Temple with the 'tenants who hold lands and possessions of the Temple', (13) and in 1297 the queen similarly made a distinction between the 'men' of the Temple and the 'landholders and countrymen, who held lands and possessions of the said house of the militia of the Temple'. (14) While the Temple exercised franchisal rights over its 'men', the others merely held lands of the Order.
When the Temple acquired the rights of a landlord it gained either direct control of the land or -- if the property was not held in demesne -- dues such as land rents in money or kind, labour services, and in some parts of Catalonia the malos usos, besides the right to appoint a judge to settle disputes concerning the fulfilment of a tenant's obligations. (15) Thus when Beatrice of Castellón and her son confirmed the grant of a manse to the Order in 1238, the rights and dues listed in the charter of confirmation included rents, works, intestias, exorquias, cugucias, the redemption payments of the men and women on the manse, and judicial rights. (16) Most documents, however, are not so explicit, but it is clear that individuals who gave or sold rights of this kind to the Order normally transferred all the rights they possessed.
[113] The rights which might be gained through the acquisition of franchisal lordship were partly of a financial character. They included the right to certain dues paid by the inhabitants of the land or district, such as peita or questia, monedaje, (17) bovaje, (18) and cenas. They also included -- when lordship over a whole community was gained -- the right to exact tolls and customs, such as Iezda and peaje.
When the Temple gained this kind of lordship from private individuals, the latter appear usually to have surrendered all their financial rights, although these are often not defined in detail. The wording of early royal charters is often similarly imprecise and few financial rights are mentioned by name. The castles assigned to the Templars in 1143 were given merely with
all usajes and customs, with all lezda and pasaje, with all cultivated and uncultivated land, with plain and mountain, with meadow and pasture; (19)
and in 1169 Chivert and Oropesa were granted with lezda, usajes, and pasaje and with
all their terms and tenements, both by land and by sea, waste and settled, plain and mountain, pasture, woods and uncultivated land and with all water and ademprivia. (20)
Later royal charters are sometimes more explicit and give a fuller list of dues and financial rights granted to the Order: the places in Valencia given by James II in 1294 in exchange for Tortosa were granted with lezda, peaje, usajes, herbaje, carnaje, fishing and hunting rights, rights over treasure, control of the saltpans of Peñíscola, monedaje, control of weights and measures, ovens, mills, the office of public notary, cena, peita, questia, and ademprivia. (21) 'But even when few dues and rights were mentioned by name, a clause granting in general all other exactions and rights was often added, and it is clear that the king normally granted to the Temple all his financial rights: Peter II's retention of 200m. in the lezda of Ascó in 1210 was exceptional. (22) That the Order received all dues is also apparent from charters of exemption issued to the Temple by Peter II and James I, for in these the men of the Temple were exempted from the payment of questia, peita, tolta, forcia, bovaje, monedaje, or any other exaction to the Crown. (23) These [114] dues were still paid by the Order's men, but the profits went to the Temple, not the king.
In practice these concessions were understood to mean that if men under the franchisal lordship of the Temple held lands elsewhere in realengo, the dues from these lands still belonged to the king. A decision to this effect was made by a royal justice in 1290 after a long dispute between the Temple and the concejo of Burriana about those living in the Order's alquerías of Mantella and Benhamet. (24) On the other hand, a royal writ issued in 1276 ordering officials in Valencia not to exact questia or other dues from lands held at rent from the Temple indicates that those who were not subject to the franchisal lordship of the Order, but merely held lands of it, were exempted from paying taxes to the king from these lands, and the dues from them fell to the Temple. (25) The same conclusion may be drawn from a Templar complaint in 1279 that officials in Burriana were compelling those who merely held land of the Temple to pay questia and other dues for the property which they held of the Order; (26) and the exemption of these men is clearly set out in a decree concerning the exaction of bovaje issued in 1297. (27) These rulings implied, of course, a blurring of the distinction between the different kinds of lordship, but not all those holding lands of the Temple would be affected, for presumably some would owe public dues to private individuals or institutions, not to the king.
The value of the financial rights acquired by the Temple was in several cases enhanced by the grant of special powers, such as the privilege of holding markets and fairs, which enabled the Temple to benefit from the commercial expansion of the period. James I allowed weekly markets to be held at Barbará, Castellote, and Gandesa, (28) and a similar privilege was granted in 1292 for Mirambel. (29) James I also permitted the holding of annual fairs at Monzón and Horta, which were to last for ten and eight days respectively. (30) Other concessions by the king included the permission given in 1263 to alter the course of the Zaragoza-Tortosa road so that it passed through Algars. (31) This increased the Temple's revenues from tolls, as did the right to have a ferry across the Ebro at Novillas, which was confirmed by James I in 1251. (32) The value of the financial rights gained by the Templars had, on the other hand, sometimes been reduced through concessions made by previous holders of these rights: in 1149, for example, [115] Raymond Berenguer IV had granted a number of exemptions to the inhabitants of Tortosa, including freedom from the payment of lezda, portaje, and pasaje in the city. (33)
