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The Templars in the Corona de Aragón

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Author Topic: The Templars in the Corona de Aragón  (Read 7162 times)
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Savannah
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« Reply #15 on: January 11, 2009, 04:20:57 am »

This restriction on the Order's privileges apparently resulted from a compromise made between the king and the Temple at Biar in 1244, at the time of the completion of the Aragonese reconquest, (100) but no text of the agreement has survived and the exact circumstances in which it was made are unknown. There was, however, no formal revocation of the Order's immunities, for total exemption from royal tolls was still included in a confirmation of the Order's privileges issued by James II in 1292. (101) The Crown was thus, as in the exaction of monedaje, giving verbal recognition to the Temple's immunity, while in practice disregarding it, and this is reflected in the wording of several royal writs. In a letter written in 1286 following a Templar complaint about the exaction of lezda, Alfonso III made reference to usage and custom as well as to the Temple's privileges,(102) and in 1291 the collectors of lezda and peaje in Daroca were commanded not to force payment in contravention of the Order's privileges 'except as has been accustomed until now'. (103)
A restriction on the Temple's right to a tenth of royal revenues was imposed at about the same time as the limitation of freedom from tolls and customs. Although in 1227 James I confirmed the charter issued in 1143 by Raymond Berenguer IV, (104) twenty years [124] later the Order was obliged to accept that the promise of the tenth did not apply to the districts conquered or otherwise acquired by James himself. (105) There is no indication, however, that there was any attempt to stop payment of the tenth in the lands ruled by James when he first came to the throne, although the Order had temporarily lost the tenth from the royal demesne in Aragon early in Peter II's reign, when with Templar rights in Ascó it was given in exchange for the lordship of Serós, (106) and in James I's reign the tenth was on occasion withheld by the king as a loan from the Order; this was done between 1238 and 1244, in 1246, and apparently again in 1258, when the commander of Palau drew up an account of certain tenths in Barcelona which the king had retained for use on the fleet. (107)

Although only occasional references occur to the exaction of cenas from the Temple in James I's reign (108) and although most of the evidence about the payment of this tax by the Templars is found in the registers of James's successors, it is clear that by the time of his death the taking of cenas from the Order by the king and the royal procurador had become a firmly established practice. (109) Peter III's promise in 1283 not to exact cenas except in places where his predecessors had enjoyed them, and not even in these places if immunity through privilege could be established, (110) brought no general benefit to the Temple, for the Crown's claim was by then too well established; and although the Aragonese Templars later persuaded Clement V that cenas had been exacted 'almost by violence and with them always protesting and opposing', (111) in practice they had come to accept the obligation well before the end of the thirteenth century. Apparently the only occasion when the royal claim to cena was generally questioned was in 1296 following the publication of the bull Clericis laicos. (112) At other times the Templars were merely concerned to ensure that the limits established by custom in the exaction of cenas were not exceeded.

The obligation to pay cenas was not, however, imposed uniformly on all Templar convents. A few gained complete exemption through particular privileges. The immunity of Castellón de Ampurias was established as the result of an inquiry carried out in 1293; cenas had been taken from this convent in the time of Peter III and Alfonso III, but the registers of James I's reign showed that it was not liable for payment. (113) Further exemptions [125] were gained in the following year. When James II recovered the lordship of Tortosa from the Templars he granted that the commanderies of Tortosa and Chivert and the districts given to the Order in exchange for Tortosa should enjoy exemption. (114) But when the majority of houses owed cenas, the exemption of a particular convent could easily be overlooked, and there was the further danger that a cena given voluntarily by an exempt house might be used as a precedent: when the queen was given hospitality for several days in 1303 by the convents which had gained exemption in 1294, the Templars felt it necessary to obtain from her a charter stating that this hospitality had been given freely and should not prejudice the Order's privileges. (115)

Some other convents enjoyed the privilege of giving cenas only when the king or procurador was present and took them in kind, which meant in practice that the cena would not be exacted every year. This right was established in 1298 for the commanderies of Castellote, Cantavieja, and Horta. (116) Although cenas in money had been taken in these places in the early years of James II's reign and in the reigns of his father and brother, an investigation of royal registers revealed that James I had not exacted cenas from these commanderies in absentia, and James II therefore accepted that they should not be obliged to pay cenas in money. In 1305 the house of Monzón also claimed the privilege of giving cenas only in kind, but although payment had usually been in this form, it is not known whether the convent managed to establish an exemption from the payment of cenas in money. (117)

From most commanderies cenas could be taken either in kind or in money. In practice they were usually taken in the latter form. In 1282 the convents of Miravet and Ascó were ordered to provide cenas in kind for the king, including twenty sheep, a cow, two sides of salted meat, thirty pairs of hens, bread and wine to the value of 50s., and ten cahíces of grain, (118) but on all other known occasions cenas were exacted from these houses in money. The king could obviously not exact cenas in kind everywhere in every year, and the right to commute the cena into a money payment provided him with a useful additional source of income.

While the convent or commandery was the normally accepted unit of assessment for cenas, the Aragonese kings attempted to gain further revenues by applying to Templar estates the policy followed elsewhere of exacting cenas separately from aljamas of [126] Jews and Moors. (119) And although in 1290 Alfonso III abandoned his claims to a separate cena from the Jews of Monzón, (120) demands were made of the Jews and Moors of Tortosa right up to the time when the lordship of the city reverted to the Crown. (121)

James I also asserted that the Jews under Templar lordship, like those subject to other private lords, (122) should pay peita to the Crown. But he did not succeed in establishing his claim. Admittedly for a time payments were apparently obtained from the aljamas of Tortosa and Monzón: in 1260 the tribute paid to the king by the Jews of Tortosa was increased by 800s. to make good a deficit elsewhere, (123) and in undated lists compiled towards the end of James's reign the aljama of that city was assessed at 2,000s. and 6,000s., while the Jews of Monzón were to pay 4,000s.; (124) and in 1283 the Infante Alfonso ordered all Jews assessed for peita with the aljama of Monzón to contribute to a payment then being made to the Crown 'just as you have been accustomed in the past to pay and contribute to royal exactions with that aljama'. (125) But an investigation into the royal right to exact peita and questia was made in 1289 after the provincial master had protested that the Jews of Monzón should be exempt. Alfonso III entrusted the inquiry to Raymond of Besalú, archdeacon of Ribagorza, but in the following year he ordered the judge delegate to take no further action because the matter had already been decided in the reign of James I, when a privilege had been drawn up. (126) This decision had obviously been in favour of the Temple, for Alfonso ordered that payments which were to have been made out of the peita of the Jews of Monzón should now be made from other revenues.(127)

James similarly failed to establish a right to a fifth of the booty taken by the Templars. He asserted a claim to this due in the 1240s and, when the Order opposed his demand, he even appealed to the pope, who in April 1247 appointed as judges delegate the prior of the Dominicans in Barcelona and the sacristan of Gerona; (128) but in July of the same year James gave up his demand. (129) The surrender of royal claims to the fifth formed part of a compromise settlement on a number of disputed issues, and the Temple in return made several concessions. But while it is possible to account for the abandoning of this royal claim, it is not known in what circumstances James gave up his demand for peita from the Jews under Templar lordship.

[127] The failure of James's successors to establish a right to exact bovaje at the beginning of a reign in Catalonia and to take quinta from Templar estates in Aragon is easier to explain. In February 1277 Peter III ordered that bovaje should be collected without exception for his benefit in Catalonia since he had the right to exact it on succeeding to the throne. (130) Both the Templars and the Catalan prelates protested, but whereas on 13 April the latter were ordered not to impede the collection of the tax on their estates, the collectors of the bovaje were on that date commanded to delay collection from the Temple until a further order had been issued; (131) and a further order to delay was sent out a month later, even though the tax was then being collected from other ecclesiastical lordships. (132) At this time, however, the Templars appear to have been unable to maintain their immunity, for although in 1279 officials were still being ordered not to exact the tax from the Order's men, (133) in 1280 the inhabitants of Tortosa were being compelled to contribute and there is also evidence that at least some men subject to the commander of Puigreig made payments to the king. (134) Early in Peter III's reign the Temple's men in Aragon were similarly being obliged to pay the quinta to the king. (135) But in this, as in other matters, royal policy was attacked in 1283. At the Cortes of Zaragoza complaint was made about the quinta 'which has never been given in Aragon, except by request for the expedition to Valencia', and Peter was forced to concede that 'henceforth it is never to be given from any cattle or from any thing'. (136) In the Cortes at Barcelona the king further promised not to exact bovaje except in the places where his predecessors had taken it and in the accustomed form; (137) royal rights were to be established by Easter 1285, although in fact the matter was apparently still under examination at the end of 1286, when the lieutenant of the provincial master was summoned to an assembly to discuss the 'form of the payment of bovaje'. (138) After 1283 there is no evidence of further demands for quinta from Templar vassals, but the Order's immunity from the payment of bovaje was again questioned in the last years of the century. Although exemption from bovaje was included among Templar privileges confirmed by James II in 1292, the Order was in October 1296 again protesting about demands for bovaje from its men. (139) The Temple's complaint led to a further investigation of the Order's privileges, and its immunity was established early in 1297 [128] by reference back to the practice of Peter III's reign; (140) and in the following years the Crown appears to have adhered to this ruling. (141)

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