The Templars in the Corona de Aragón

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The creation of new convents on estates formerly subject to Novillas was paralleled in Aragon by a similar development which occurred slightly later and on a smaller scale on the lands subject to the convent of Zaragoza. In this area new convents were founded at Ricla, Pina, and La Zaida. In documents concerning Templar rights at Ricla drawn up between 1173 and 1176 a brother Nuño is mentioned, often together with Bernard of Salvi, the commander of Zaragoza. (76) In 1184 Nuño was called commander of Ricla and was accompanied by at least three other Templars; (77) and there is a reference to a Templar house there seven years later. (78) The convent at Ricla may therefore have been established before the end of the twelfth century.

Bernard of Salvi also acted for the Temple in the 1170s in the earliest transactions in the district of Pina and La Zaida; (79) but in 1182 García of Aragon -- already mentioned in a document drawn up in 1177 (80) -- was called commander in a charter concerned with land in this area, though his title was given no territorial qualification. (81) He was probably, however, the predecessor of Michael of Luna, who was commander of La Zaida and Pina from 1185 until 1188. These two places were still subject to a single commander [99] in 1200, (82) but the evidence is insufficient to show exactly how long this practice was maintained. There appear to have been convents at both Pina and La Zaida, however, by the 1230s, when there were commanders and subordinate officials at each of these places. (83) Yet in 1244 both Pina and La Zaida were again subject to a single official, and since no commander of Pina is known between then and 1263 and since in 1255 the commander of La Zaida made a grant of land in Pina, (84) it is possible that in this period there ceased to be a convent at Pina. But this could have been only a temporary development. In 1270 references were made to a chamberlain of the house of Pina, (85) and in 1277 Pina and La Zaida were assessed separately for payments to the provincial master. (86) And while the convent at Pina survived until the arrest of the Templars, it was the house at La Zaida that was abandoned after the Temple had alienated its rights of lordship there.

A gradual development of convents also occurred in the areas of Catalonia already in Christian hands before 1143, although little is known about the process of foundation. A commander of Barbará is mentioned in 1173 and there is a reference to the convent there a year later. (87) There was a commander of Selma in 1190, but the existence of a convent there is indicated only by much later sources. (88) Again, very few documents survive about the convent which was established at Juncosa, not far from Selma. According to Miret y Sans the house of Juncosa had originally been established at Gunyolas, where there was a commander in 1160. (89) When or why it was transferred to Juncosa is not known, but the transference must have occurred in the later part of the twelfth century, since the first known commander of Juncosa was a brother Dominic in 1199/1200; (90) but a convent there is not mentioned until 1243. (91)

The history of the foundation of convents in the more northerly parts of Catalonia is equally obscure. Very little can be discovered about the convent founded at Aiguaviva, south-west of Gerona. According to Miret y Sans it was in existence by 1192, but the only document now surviving in the Hospitaller archive is a transcript of three agreements dating from the year 1209, by which time a chapel had been built at the convent there. (92) Equally little is known of the convent which was established at Castellón de Ampurias, to the east of Figueras; its archives have completely [100] disappeared. Again according to Miret y Sans a commandery had been set up there by 1168, when land in Castellón was sold to brother Berenguer of Mulnels, who was described as 'preceptor of that province'. (93) But this vague title suggests that there was in fact no convent at Castellón at that time and that Berenguer of Mulnels was merely a Templar bailiff, who administered the Order's possessions in that area. There is no reference to a Templar establishment at Castellón de Ampurias until 1217, when James I in an exchange granted his rights over a man in Besalú to the commander of the house at Castellón, (94) and the only clear indication that a convent was established there is the inclusion of Castellón among the places owing dues to the provincial master at the beginning of the fourteenth century. (95)

According to Monsalvatge y Fossas a further Templar convent was established in north-eastern Catalonia at San Lorenzo de las Arenas; he states that Pons Hugh II, count of Ampurias, was buried in the Templar chapel he had endowed there and that the Templars of the convent there later supported Hugh IV in a quarrel with the bishop of Gerona. (96) But a document drawn up in 1226, at the end of this dispute, makes it clear that the house in question at San Lorenzo belonged to the Hospitallers, not to the Templars. (97)

The only other convent established in northern Catalonia was at Puigreig. A Templar with the title of commander of Solsona was mentioned in 1169, (98) but from 1181 the official in charge of Templar estates along the upper Llobregat was usually called commander of Cerdaña or of Cerdaña and Bergadán. (99) The reference in these titles to a wide area and not to a single place indicates that at the end of the twelfth and in the early thirteenth century the commander was merely a bailiff in charge of the Order's possessions and that no convent had been established. When Puigreig was finally acquired it became the centre of administration in that area: the title of commander of Puigreig is found in 1239, although it did not at once completely supersede the older descriptions of the office. And in time a convent was created there. Yet it is not clear when the break from Palau occurred. There is a reference to a Templar house at Puigreig in 1248, (100) but for most of the thirteenth century the documents show the commander acting with only one or two other Templars, and no minor conventual officials are mentioned until 1285.(101)

[101] Acquisitions from private individuals did not lead to a similar process of foundation in the more recently conquered areas. By the time that the most southerly districts were recovered from the Moors the Order was no longer increasing its property to any great extent through purchases or gifts from private individuals, and in the places conquered in the middle and later parts of the twelfth century the acquisitions which the Order made after the initial grants from the Crown did not usually compare in importance with these royal grants. The Templar convents in the more southerly parts of the Corona de Aragón were therefore almost exclusively those established in places granted by the Crown. Even when a convent was apparently founded late, as at Ribarroja, it was established in a place gained from the king. The only one that can be looked upon as an exception is that at Barbens, which was established on lands first subject to Gardeny and which was not founded as the result of royal patronage. The Order plainly had no establishment there in 1164, for in that year an individual promised that if a Templar house were built on any land at Barbens from which he received tithes he would surrender his right to them. (102) But there is a reference to a Templar house at Barbens three years later, (103) and a commander of Barbens is mentioned in a document drawn up in 1168. The authority of the head of Gardeny was not, however, then withdrawn from Barbens. He continued to conduct business there until at least the early part of the thirteenth century, and lack of evidence makes it impossible to say when Barbens became an independent convent; the first hint is provided by the presence of the commander of Barbens at what appears to have been a provincial chapter in 1244. (104)

Although, as in the case of Barbens, there is no evidence of some convents until almost the end of the Temple's history in the Corona de Aragón, it can be shown that most Templar convents had been set up by the middle of the thirteenth century, in the period when Templar property was expanding most rapidly; and there is no instance in which it can be definitely stated that a convent was established after the middle of the thirteenth century. The only changes that are known to have occurred after 1250 were in the siting of convents. Palau, to the north of Barcelona, was not a very convenient site for a convent, since the commander had frequent business with royal officials in Barcelona and with Barcelona merchants who transported Templar supplies [102] to the East. (105) These factors probably explain the transfer of the convent to Barcelona, which -- as changes in title indicate -- occurred in 1282. Romeo of Burguet was appointed as commander of Palau in 1280 or 1281, but from May 1282 his title was changed to 'commander of Barcelona', although he continued to administer all the possessions of the former commandery of Palau. (106) The convent at Ricla had similarly by 1289 been transferred to Calatayud, (107) although the reason for the change is not known, and after Peñíscola had been obtained from the king in exchange for Tortosa it became the site of the convent previously situated at Chivert. (108)

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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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Notes for Chapter Three

1. He is mentioned frequently between these dates in the documents published by Albon, Cartulaire; see also Cartulaires des Templiers de Douzens, ed. P. Gérard and E. Magnou (Collection de documents inédits sur l'histoire de France, série in-8o, vol. iii, Paris, 1965).

2. Arnold of Bedocio is last mentioned in 1139: Albon, Cartulaire, pp. 139-40, doc. 199. It is stated in the introduction to Cartulaire de Ia commanderie de Richerenches de I'Ordre du Temple (1136-1214), ed. Marquis de Ripert-Monclar (Avignon, 1907), pp. cliv, clviii, that from 1136 to 1138 Arnold of Bedocio was in charge of the Templar establishment at Richerenches, north of Orange; but his authority was not limited to this area: see Albon, Cartulaire, p. 88, doc. 127; pp. 92-3, docs. 132, 133, etc. Leonard, Introduction, pp. 23, 40, states that Arnold at this time both held office at Richerenches and had authority over a wider area.

3. Albon, Cartulaire, p. 74, doc. 102; pp. 75-6, doc. 105; pp. 76-7, doc. 107; pp. 77-8, doc. 108, etc.

4. On the organization of convents, see cap. VII.

5. The earliest known Hospitaller province was in existence by about 1120: Riley-Smith, Knights of St. John, p. 353.

6. Cf. G. Le Bras, Institutions ecclésiastiques de la chrétienté médiévale (Histoire de l'Église depuis les origines jusqu'à nosjours, vol. xii, Paris, 1964), pp. 490-1.

7. In 1291, for example, in a letter to the pope, the French clergy argued that the Order should keep only a few Templars in the West and should concentrate its manpower in the East: Bartholomew Cotton, Historia Anglicana, ed. H.R. Luard (London, 1859), p. 213.

8. In some cases it can be shown that the most rapid growth of Templar property occurred in a district during the years following the establishment of a convent there.

9. Albon, Cartulaire, pp. 204-5, doc. 314; CDI, iv. 93-9, doc. 43. The word 'Provence' was not used in a precise sense; see J.A. Durbec, 'Les Templiers en Provence. Formation des commanderies et repartition géographique de leurs biens', Provence historique, ix (1959), 3.

10. See below, p. 107, note 75.

11. AHN, Montesa, P. 18.

12. AHN, cód. 689, pp. 96-7, doc. 103.

13. The Aragonese province of the Dominican Order created at the beginning of the fourteenth century covered the same territories: F. Diago, Historia de Ia provincia de Aragón de Ia Orden de Predicadores (Barcelona, 1599), fols. 2-3.

14. ACA, CRD Templarios, nos. 169, 278. The commander of Caravaca in Murcia is mentioned in a number of Catalan documents at the beginning of the fourteenth century: e.g. AGP, parch. Gardeny, nos. 231-6, 383-5, 2249, 2250.

15. Those in Navarre were at Ribaforada and Aberín. The most complete list of communities directly subject to the Aragonese provincial master is found in ACA, CRD Templarios, no. 81; see below, p. 415.

16. In 1250 reference was made to the 'convent' of the Holy Redeemer at Teruel, although this establishment was subject to Villel: AHN, cod. 466, pp. 361-2, doc. 438; but this is an isolated exception.

17. See below, p. 318.

18. There is a reference to a Templar house built at Mas-Deu as early as 1138: Albon, Cartulaire, p. 119, doc. 171.

19. Ibid., pp. 140-1, doc. 202.

20. ACA, parch. Raymond Berenguer IV, no. 132.

21. Albon, Cartulaire, p. 122, doc. 177; Lacarra, 'Documentos', no. 342 (v. 564-5).

22. Albon, Cartulaire, pp. 242-3, doc. 384; Lacarra, 'Documentos', no. 350 (v. 571-2).

23. Albon, Cartulaire, p. 279, doc. 447.

24. Ibid., p. 235, doc. 367.

25. Ibid., p. 248, doc. 395.

26. J.L. de Moncada, Episcopologio de Vich, i (Vich, 1891), 437-8. The document in question (Episcopal Archive of Vich, armario del derecho de diversas iglesias, no. 13) was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War. I am grateful to the Revd. M.S. Gros i Pujol for providing me with this information.

27. ACA, parch. Alfonso II, no. 578; parch. Peter II, no. 169.

28. AHN, cod. 499, p. 19, doc. 33. In 1146 the provincial master was said to be holding Monzón, but this refers merely to rights of lordship: Albon, Cartulaire, p. 246, doc. 390.

29. AHN, cód. 499, p. 19, doc. 33.

30. Lacarra, 'Documentos', no. 377 (v. 593-4).

31. Albon, Cartulaire, p. 308, doc. 499.

32. Miret y Sans, Les Cases, p. 66.

33. One section of the Cartulary of Gardeny in the AGP, beginning on fol. 54, consists of documents concerning Corbins. There was, however, a convent again at Corbins in the thirteenth century.

34. AGP, parch. Gardeny, no. 537.

35. AGP, parch. Corbins, no. 122.

36. AGP, Cartulary of Gardeny, fol. 24, doc. 35; fols. 33v-34, docs. 63, 65; fol. 41v, doc. 88; parch. Gardeny, no. i. Albon, Cartulaire, p. 63, doc. 82, assigns to the year 1134 a will which includes the clause 'I leave my body to the militia of Gardeny'; but the French king by whose regnal year the document is dated must be Louis VII, not Louis VI. The will belongs to the year 1163.

A convent may also for a time have been established at the castle of Remolins, which had been given to the Order in 1143. In 1162 it appears still to have been under the authority of Gardeny since a record of a dispute in that year about rights there was made by the chaplain of Gardeny; and this document was later copied into the Cartulary of Gardeny (fol. 24v, doc. 37). The commander of Remolins mentioned in 1181 was probably therefore a subordinate of the tander of Gardeny. But in 1271 reference was made to land held of the commander and brothers of the house of Remolins, and six years later the commander and brothers there were involved in a dispute concerning land: AGP, parch. Gardeny, no. 1960; parch. Espluga de Francolí, no. 183. Yet if was a convent at Remolins at this time, it was not maintained. At the beginning of the fourteenth century Remolins, together with Torres de Segre, was under the control of the commander of Miravet, who established a subordinate commander at Torres: AGP, parch. Torres de Segre, nos. 51, 58, 62.

37. AGP, Cartulary of Tortosa, fol. 26, doc. 77; S.A. García Larragueta, 'Fueros y cartas pueblas navarro-aragonesas otorgadas por Templarios y Hospitalarios', AHDE, xxiv (1954), 592-3; Font Rius, Cartas de población, i. 285-6, doc. 208.

38. AGP, Cartulary of Tortosa, fol. 30v, doc. 93. In the same year land was given in an exchange to Aymeric and the brothers 'who are with you in Tortosa': ibid., fol. 67v, doc. 217. Miret y Sans, Les Cases, p. 82, quotes a document from the Cartulary of Tortosa (fol. 50v, doc. 153) which records that William Berard, master and commander of Miravet and Tortosa, bought a vineyard in 1153 from Geralda, widow of Peter of Toulouse. But Peter of Toulouse was still alive in 1170 (ibid., fol. 34v, doc. 110), and William Berard held office from 1165 to 1174. Possibly the date of the document should be 1173.

39. Sancho of Vergea was called procurator of the house of Tortosa: ibid., fol. 60, doc. 185.

40. Iñigo Sánchez was called gubernator, procurator, and ministrator: AGP, Cartulary of Tortosa, fol. 33v, doc. 104; fol. 61-61v, docs. 191-3.

41. The first official who was clearly commander only of Miravet was R. Bernard in 1190. Dalmau of Godeto was given the title of commander of Miravet between 1178 and 1181: ibid., fol. 37v, doc. 218; fols. 67v-68, doc. 218; but he was probably commander of Miravet and Tortosa for he intervened in matters concerning Tortosa and no other commander of Miravet and Tortosa is known during this period.

42. Ibid., fol. 94v, doc. 295.

43. Dalmau of Godeto is called commander of La Ribera in a document bearing the date 1187: AHN, San Juan, leg. 529, doc. 1; but the titles of the other Templars mentioned show that the date is inaccurate, as does the reference in the document to another charter which was not drawn up until 1190: ACA, parch. Alfonso II, no. 561. In 1187 Bertrand of Conques was commander of Miravet and Tortosa.

44. AGP, parch. Comuns, no. 114.

45. AGP, Cartulary of Tortosa, fols. 41v-42, doc. 132. The document is undated, but it was issued by bishop Pons of Tortosa, who died in July 1193.

46. AHN, San Juan, leg. 351, doc 1.

47. The last reference to it is in ACA, parch. James I, no. 422.

48. RAH, 12-6-1/M-83, doc. 14.

49. It was assessed with Ascó for the purposes of royal taxation: ACA, reg. 68, fol. 25v.

50. ACA, parch. Peter III. no. 26; CRD Templarios, no. 81; see below, p. 415.

51. AHN, cód. 689, p. 83, doc. 86.

52. Ibid., pp. 61-2, doc. 60. The commander and three brothers are named; 'others', in the plural, are not.

53. There is no reference to a convent there before 1244: ibid., p. 79, doc. 80.

54. AHN, cód. 466, p. 205, doc. 177.

55. RAH, 12-6-1/M-83, doc. 14.

56. M. Albareda y Herrera, El fuero de Alfambra (Madrid, 1925), pp. 39-41.

57. AGP, parch. Comuns, no. 197. Bertrand of Arlet was then head of the convent. He is also mentioned -- without a title -- in a slightly earlier document belonging to the same month: J. Miralles Sbert, Catálogo del Archivo Capitular de Mallorca, ii (Palma, 1942), 341, no. 7723.

58. AHN, Montesa, P. 18.

59. AHN, Montesa, P. 14.

60. AHN, Montesa, P. 73, 85.

61. For the convent at Burriana, see AHN, Montesa, P. 249, 251, etc.

62. ACA, parch. Peter III, no. 26.

63. AGP, parch. Cervera, no. 232; ACA, parch. Alfonso II, no. 333.

64. ACA, parch. Alfonso II, no. 451; published by M. de Riquer, 'El testamento del trovador Guilhem de Berguedán', Mélanges de linguistique et de littérature romanes à la mémoire d'Istvan Frank (Annales Universitatis Saraviensis, vol. vi, 1957), pp. 581-3. Riquer, ibid., p. 576, explains the presence of the commander of Palau by the fact that the troubadour held a few rights in villages near Palau; but these were of only minor importance. It seems more likely that he was present because the castle of Puigreig was to come under his authority.

65. Albon, Cartulaire, p. 333, doc. 543.

66. AHN, cód. 470, p. 10, doc. 11.

67. AHN, cód. 469, pp. 354-5, doc. 300.

68. AHN, cód. 468, p. 460, doc. 439.

69. In a document drawn up in 1172 William of Bais, who had been master, was placed at the head of a list of Templars at Novillas, but was assigned no title: AHN, cód. 691, fol. 121v.

70. AHN, cód. 499, p. 17, doc. 26; p. 54, doc. 130; A. Bonilla y San Martín, 'El derecho aragonés en el siglo XII', II Congreso de historia de la Corona de Aragón, i (Huesca, 1920), 236-7, doc. 3.

71. Ibid. The first occasion when there is a specific reference to a convent at any of these places is at Huesca in 1176: AHN, cód. 499, pp. 7-8, doc. 11.

72. AHN, cód. 468, p. 150, doc. 134.

73. AHN, San Juan, leg. 38, doc. 19; cód. 468, p. 154, doc. 137.

74. AHN, San Juan, leg. 38, doc. 19; cód. 470, p. 10, doc. 12. In 1184 the house of Boquiñeni was taken under royal protection: cód. 467, p. 129, doc. 146.

75. RAH, 12-6-1/M-83, doc. 52. The convents of Aberín and Ribaforada in Navarre were similarly established on lands formerly subject to Novillas. But the convent of Novillas seems to have lost rights in Navarre not only in this way but also as a result of the cession of the more southerly parts of Navarre to Castile in 1179 -- see the maps published by A. Ubieto Arteta as an appendix to his article 'Las fronteras de Navarra', Principe de Viana, xiv (1953) -- for this apparently led to the transference of Templar rights in these districts, including Aleanadre, to the Castilian province. At the time of the arrest of the Templars Alcanadre was certainly in that province, and as in the thirteenth century the house at Alcanadre is never mentioned in the records of the Aragonese province, the transfer seems to have followed the political changes of 1179. By that date apparently no convents had been established in these southerly parts of Navarre. Although there is a reference to a Templar house at Alcanadre in 1175 (AHN, San Juan, leg. 718, doc. 6), the two Templars who held office as commander of Alcanadre in that year can both be traced at other times at Novillas and were probably merely bailiffs appointed by the head of Novillas.

The only other indication of Templar organization in these areas before 1179 occurs in a document in a cartulary of the monastery of Fitero, recording an agreement between the abbot and the Templar provincial master in 1173: M. Arigita, Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de Navarra (Pamplona, 1909), p. 109. This charter makes reference to the 'brothers of the Temple of Solomon of Carbonera', but gives no indication of the character of the Templar establishment there.

76. Bonilla y San Martín, loc. cit., pp. 244-5, doc. 8; AHN, cód. 468, p. 516, doc. 502; San Juan, leg. 285, docs. 2, 3.

77. Bonilla y San Martín, loc. cit., pp. 255-6, doc. 19.

78. Ibid., p. 266, doc. 30.

79. AHN, San Juan, leg. 529, doc. 8; cód. 467, p. 472, docs. 566, 567.

80. AHN, San Juan, leg. 529, doc. 8.

81. AHN, cód. 467, p. 473, doc. 569.

82. Ibid., p. 432, doc. 405.

83. Ibid., p. 368, doc. 459; cód. 468, p. 521, doc. 530.

84. AHN, cód. 467, pp. 369-70, doc. 462.

85. Ibid., p. 378, docs. 474, 475.

86. ACA, parch. Peter III, no. 26.

87. ACA, parch. Alfonso II, no. 170 (the name of the commander mentioned in this document, which is dated 6 Kalends of March in the year of the Incarnation 1174, suggests that it was drawn up in 1174 and not 1175).

88. ACA, CRD Templarios, no. 81; see below, p. 415.

89. Miret y Sans, Les Cases, p. 174; cf. Font Rius, Cartas de población, i. 168-9, doc. 115.

90. The document in which he is mentioned is dated March 1199, and could thus belong to either 1199 or 1200: Cartulari de Poblet (Barcelona, 1938), p. 166, doc. 274.

91. AGP, parch. Vilafranca, no. 601. A. Alegret, 'Los Templarios en Tarragona', Boletín arqueológico, xvii (1905), 496-516, argues that the Templars built the church of St. Mary in Tarragona and had an establishment next to it. This argument is based on tradition and on the architectural style of the church. That there was no architectural style peculiar to the Templars has been shown by E. Lainbert, L'Architecture des Templiers (Paris, 1955); and that the Templars had no establishment in Tarragona is apparent from the fact that they retained a right of hospitality in some houses there: ACA, parch. James I, no. 2273.

92. Miret y Sans, Les Cases, p. 172; AGP, parch. Aiguaviva, no. 3.

93. Miret y Sans, Les Cases, pp. 173-4. The document recording this sale has been published by F. Monsalvatge y Fossas, Los condes de Ampurias vindicados (Noticias históricas, vol. xxv, Olot, 1917), pp. 337-8.

94. Huici, Colección diplomática, i. 10-11, doc. 3.

95. ACA, CRD Templarios, no. 81; see below, p. 415.

96. Monsalvatge y Fossas, op. cit., pp. 102, 107.

97. ES, xliv. 265-6, Appendix 4. On the Hospitaller house at San Lorenzo de las Arenas, see Miret y Sans, Les Cases, p. 197.

98. AGP, Cartulary of Tortosa, fol. 38v, doc. 122.

99. For the titles used, see Appendix II.

100. ACA, parch. James I, no. 1137.

101. ACA, parch. Peter III, nos. 460, 465.

102. AGP, Cartulary of Gardeny, fol. 63-63v, doc. 154.

103. Ibid., fol. 66v, doc. 162.

104. RAH, 12-6-1/M-83, doc. 110.

105. e.g. ACA, parch. Peter III, no. 292.

106. The change occurred between 2 April and 26 May: ACA, parch. Peter III, nos. 294, 301. Later in the same year Romeo of Burguet, as commander of Barcelona, granted out land at Sta. Perpetua: parch. Peter III, 1105. 324-30.

107. J. Miret y Sans, 'Inventaris des les cases del Temple de la Corona d'Aragó en 1289', BRABLB, vi (1911), 65.

108. At the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century the commander of Chivert was merely a subordinate of the head of the house at Peñíscola: ACA, parch. James I, no. 2180; CRD James II, nos. 1737, 1747.

109. In the later thirteenth century Miravet appears to have been the chief house in the province (see below, p. 316), and presumably therefore incurred additional expenses, and this could explain why Torres de Segre was made subject to it.

110. Miret y Sans, Les Cases, pp. 399-400. In 1309 Templar revenues from Ascó and Ribarroja were farmed out for 10,000s.J. per annum, while those of Peñíscola were farmed for 13,000s. in one year and 10,000s. in another: ACA, reg. 291, fol. 187; Finke, Papsttum, ii. 228-9, doc. 124.

111. ACA, parch. Peter III, no. 26. Some of these revenues may have been used to buy property at Boquiñeni, for a series of small purchases of land was made there between 1260 and 1280; and these acquisitions may represent an attempt to put the convent on a sounder economic footing.

112. These houses had, however, recently been deprived of the patronage of certain churches: Miret y Sans, Les Cases, pp. 399-400.

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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)

[Savannah]

Judicial as well as financial rights were normally gained through the acquisition of franchisal lordship, but the judicial rights which the Templars obtained either from nobles or from the rulers of Aragon and Catalonia are not usually defined in detail in charters. Thus in 1134 Raymond Berenguer IV issued a general statement to the effect that no one was to have the power to judge or distrain the Temple's men in secular matters and that the Order was to have the right to judge its men, provided that it was ready to do justice. (34) Later twelfth-century charters from the Crown seem similarly to grant wide powers, but these are not described in detail. In most instances the transfer of judicial rights is to be inferred only from general clauses and phrases, such as 'whatever right or reason I have or ought to have there', included in the charter recording the grant of Tortosa to the Temple in 1182. (35) Even when direct reference was made to judicial rights, no detailed account of them was given. In 1145, for example, it was stated merely that the places granted by Raymond Berenguer IV in 1143 had been given 'with all jurisdictions' and that the inhabitants were to have no recourse to the count or his court, (36)while a general privilege granted at the beginning of the thirteenth century by Peter II refers merely to the profits of justice, which were to go to the Order, without making it clear whether the Temple itself exercised jurisdiction. (37)

Later evidence helps, however, to clarify the situation. It is apparent in the first place that the Templars had their own courts over which their officials presided: in an agreement made in 1263 between the Temple and the inhabitants of Ambel it was stated that cases should be brought before the justiciar there appointed by the Order, and in the code of customs approved at Horta in 1296 it was decreed that the Templar commander and his officials should dispense justice. (38) It is further clear that despite the apparent comprehensiveness of the Order's privileges some offences were normally reserved for judgement by the Crown. Cases of default of justice were tried by royal officials. This reservation was made implicitly in the charter issued by Raymond Berenguer IV in 1134 and it was repeated in many later documents. It further quickly became accepted that royal officials might take action in [116] cases involving breaches of the pax et treuga. (39) At least in Catalonia, however, certain concessions were made on this point to the Temple and other ecclesiastical lords. In the Cortes held at Barcelona in 1200 it was decreed that if vassals of monasteries or of other religious lords injured each other and a complaint was made to the royal vicar, the latter was to return the accused to his lord, who was to do justice within fifteen days. (40) A much greater concession was apparently made in 1214, for the wording of the decrees then issued implies that an ecclesiastical lord was to have jurisdiction over his vassals in all cases involving a breach of the peace; (41) but from 1218 onwards there was a return to the wording which had been used in 1200, (42) and this was also employed in a decree for Roussillon issued in 1217. (43) At the Cortes of 1283 Peter III made the further concession that royal officials should not intervene on account of breaches of the pax et treuga committed within the district subject to a castle held by a private lord. (44) Entries in the royal registers show that these concessions made in the Cortes were observed and enforced by the Aragonese rulers: in 1294, following a complaint by the Temple, the royal vicar of Vallés was reprimanded by James II for contravening the peace decrees issued by Peter III, (45) and three years later, after a further petition from the Order, the vicar of Cervera and Tárrega was ordered to surrender to the Temple -- in accordance with the decrees of the pax et treuga -- some inhabitants of Grañena who had been involved in a dispute with the vassals of the monastery of Stas. Creus. (46) One further concession had been made to the Temple by James I in 1272 when he ordered royal officials not to proceed against the Temple's men until it had been ascertained for certain that the pax et treuga had been broken. (47) This necessitated a preliminary investigation before action could be taken against the Order's men. Thus in 1277 the royal bailiff and vicar of Lérida commissioned Raymond of Vallés, a canon of Lérida, to discover whether the peace had been broken at Corbins through the seizure and detention of certain men there by the commander and inhabitants of Corbins. (48)

While private individuals who gave or sold rights of franchisal lordship to the Temple usually surrendered all their financial and judicial powers, they sometimes retained certain claims to military service, the right to which comprised the last main characteristic of this kind of lordship. When Raymond Galcerán [117] of Pinós granted the Temple his rights over an inhabitant of Bergadán in 1211, he stipulated that the man was still to perform castle-guard for him and assist in local defence, (49) and when Bernard of Anglesola in 1176 gave the Order his rights over Torre de Bafes, he retained the military service of the knights there. (50) The Aragonese and Catalan rulers, on the other hand, usually granted to the Temple all their rights of military service. The earliest reference to this practice seems to be made in a charter issued by the count of Barcelona in 1145 concerning the castles given to the Order two years earlier, for in this document Raymond Berenguer states that

since we gave to God and the Temple the said castles and other places mentioned in the charter that the race of Moors might be confounded, we will that all men or the greater part of the men of the said castles and places participate with the said lords always and on every occasion in campaigns and expeditions wherever these take place. (51)
Templar rights were defined more precisely, however, in charters issued by the Aragonese kings later in the twelfth century and early in the thirteenth. In 1182, for example, Alfonso II promised not to seek hueste or cabalgada from the inhabitants of Tortosa or Ascó, (52) and when in 1174 the king granted the Temple his rights over an individual called Martin Moçarau, he freed him from the obligation of hueste and cabalgada to the Crown. (53) And in a confirmation of Templar privileges issued by Peter II at the beginning of the thirteenth century the exemption of all those under the franchisal lordship of the Temple was clearly set out: they were freed from hueste, cabalgada, apellido, or any payment in lieu of these obligations to the Crown. (54) Although these terms were not always clearly differentiated in meaning, the word apellido normally referred to a defensive action, and cabalgada signified an offensive expedition, while hueste could be used for either. (55) A complete exemption from military service to the Crown was thus being granted; all service was to be owed instead to the Temple. The Templars were of course from 1143 onwards expected to participate in Aragonese campaigns against the Moors and to bring their vassals with them; but no precise military obligation was ever imposed upon the Temple, except in Mallorca, where the Order was obliged to provide the service of four knights. (56)
[118] Besides these rights over men and land, the Templars gained a number of other privileges and exemptions for both themselves and their men. Among these were exemptions from tolls and customs. In Raymond Berenguer IV's charter of 1143 it was conceded that no lezda, costumbre, or pasaje was to be taken from the Order's own property. (57) During the course of the twelfth century freedom from royal tolls and customs was extended to the Temple's men. In 1180 Alfonso II granted that the inhabitants of Miravet should be exempt from lezda and pasaje on both land and sea, (58) and by the time of Peter II's confirmations of Templar privileges in 1208 and 1209 it was accepted that all men of the Temple -- Christian, Jew, or Moor -- with all their possessions and merchandise were exempt from the payment of herbaje, carnaje, lezda, portaje, or any other custom to the Crown. (59) In the same way the count of Urgel in 1189 exempted the inhabitants of Tortosa from the payment of tolls in Mequinenza, and in 1248 Berenguer of Villafranca granted the Templars a similar exemption in Montblanch, but only a few privileges of this kind granted by nobles have survived. (60)

The Templars further obtained from the Crown certain judicial immunities for themselves. In 1134 Raymond Berenguer had stated that the Templars, like their men, should be free in secular matters from distraint and justice in the count's courts, (61) but more detailed information about the Templars' judicial immunity is not found until the thirteenth century. The Crown then accepted that the Templars should not normally be obliged to appear before lay courts. In 1221, during a dispute about tolls between the Temple and the inhabitants of Zaragoza, James I upheld the commander of Monzón's assertion that the Order was not obliged to answer the charge made against it

except under the examination and by the judgement of an ecclesiastical judge according to the practice and custom of the Temple; (62)
and in 1261 the same king commanded his bailiffs and vicars not to force the Temple to receive justice from them, provided that it was prepared to do justice 'in the power of its ordinary judge'. (63) In practice, however, since arbitration was the most common method of settling disputes, the Templars did often submit to the judgement of laymen, including the king. In 1273 a dispute [119] with the Hospitallers of Mallén, involving charges of homicide, arson, and the devastation of property, was submitted for arbitration to Martin Pérez, zalmedina of Zaragoza, and John Giles Tarín, later merino of the same city; (64) and in 1284 the provincial master offered to appear before Peter III when the inhabitants of Zaragoza, Huesca, and Barbastro were complaining about the exaction of tolls by the Order at Monzón and Tortosa. (65) Similarly, when the Temple made a complaint to the king, a counter-claim by the other party appears sometimes to have been heard by him; this was possibly done with the agreement of the Order. (66) But there were some occasions when the king intervened more directly. He took action to bring the Templars to justice if they refused to satisfy their opponents, and when he himself had claims against the Order about land or other rights, he appointed judges to hear the dispute, just as the Templars did when they had claims against their own vassals: in 1284, for example, Peter III appointed William Aymeric, a Barcelona lawyer, to hear his claim to rights in the castle of Ollers. (67)

[Savannah]

The Temple lastly gained promises of protection for itself and its men. In 1134, in the earliest grant of general privileges made to the Order in north-eastern Spain, the count of Barcelona joined with the archbishop of Tarragona in placing the Templars and their lands under the truce of God, and at the same time the count took the Order's possessions under his own protection. (68) The grant of protection was renewed in the peace proclamations issued by the Aragonese rulers in the Cortes. In Catalonia the Templars were first included in these decrees at the Cortes of Fontaldara in 1173, (69) and from 1192 onwards the Order's vassals were also mentioned in them. (70) At the Aragonese Cortes held at Huesca in 1188 the king's protection was extended to the clergy in general and their property, (71) while at the later meetings of the Aragonese Cortes at Almudébar in 1227 and at Zaragoza in 1235 the Templars with their possessions and vassals were specifically placed in the king's peace. (72) The Templars, their men, and their property were similarly included in the peace decree for Roussillon issued in James I's minority by Nuño Sánchez, (73) and in that for Valencia published by James I in 1271. (74) The Aragonese kings, in addition, issued charters of protection to individual Templar convents. Alfonso II in 1184 took the house of Boquiñeni under his protection, (75) and the convents for which charters were issued in [120] James I's reign included Palau, Gardeny, Zaragoza, Huesca, and Valencia. (76)

In 1173 Alfonso II left the enforcement of his decrees -- in so far as they touched the Church -- mainly in the hands of the bishops; (77) but in time royal officials took over the work of enforcement. In the thirteenth century writs were often issued ordering royal agents to proceed against those who molested or harmed the Templars or their possessions; (78) and these officials could if necessary summon the inhabitants of a district to assist them in carrying out the peace decrees.

Charters of protection were also granted to the Temple by members of the lay nobility. In the thirteenth century, for example, the convents of Barbará and Puigreig received charters of this kind from the viscounts of Cardona, (79)and at the beginning of the fourteenth century the house of Puigreig also enjoyed the protection of the Catalan family of Pinós and of the count of Pallars. (80) A promise to protect the Order was also included in some contracts of confraternity, although the amount of protection which a confrater could give inevitably varied according to his status. It was stated in some contracts that the confrater would inform the Temple of anything to its detriment which came to his knowledge, and this was probably the limit of the obligation of those of lesser rank. (81) To men of greater standing promises of protection brought an increase in judicial revenues and sometimes a small annual payment by the Order; (82) but probably the main purpose of promises of protection was in fact the protection of the Temple at a time when rights and legal processes were readily ignored and when the use of force was the rule rather than the exception. It was a layman's duty not only to endow but also to protect the Church. The grant of protection appears not, however, to have brought the Temple any more positive advantage, for there is no evidence to show that it led to the manipulation of justice in favour of the Order.

The Templars thus acquired in the Corona de Aragón very considerable secular rights and privileges, most of which were gained in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. During the course of the thirteenth century, however, the Aragonese rulers sought to recover many of the rights which they had earlier granted to the Temple. The Crown's lack of resources led the Aragonese kings in the first place to seek money from every possible source. The [121] Order, like the Church generally, (83) suffered a diminution of its rights. By the end of James I's reign the Temple's privileges concerning the payment of monedaje and tolls had been considerably reduced, as had its right to a tenth of royal revenues, and the Crown had further established a claim to exact cena from the Temple. But not all of James's attempts to limit the Order's financial rights were successful, nor were his successors able to add to his encroachments on Templar privileges. Royal policies provoked a reaction which found expression in the meetings of the Cortes in 1283, and after that date it was usually accepted by the Crown that it should be bound by the custom and practice of James I's reign.

For most of the thirteenth century the king took half of the monedaje owed by the Order's men. This was apparently done as early as 1219, and even then it seems not to have been an innovation; (84) and although there is no continuous evidence, the statements in royal writs that the division was made in 1284 'as is customary and ordained between the lord king and the Temple' and in 1289 'as has been customary until now' show that it became a regular practice, which the Order had sanctioned.(85) This division seems to represent a working compromise between the conflicting claims of the Temple and the Crown to the full enjoyment of the tax from the Order's men, and it was paralleled by similar arrangements on other ecclesiastical estates, where there were rival claims to the tax. (86) For most of the century the compromise was accepted by both sides. The only known occasion when the Temple failed to give the king his half was at Tortosa in 1279, when Peter III complained that the Order had retained a whole third of the monedaje from the city, instead of surrendering half of that amount to the Crown. (87) Similarly the king seems only rarely to have tried in practice to take all the monedaje from the Order's estates. In March 1264, when James I arranged to pay a debt of 4,000m. to the Temple from the monedaje exacted from the Order's men, the Templars were commanded to give the king all that remained. (88) But this demand obviously brought a protest from the Order, for later in the same month the king recognized the Temple's claim to half of the tax, although he commanded that it should produce documents in support of this claim. (89) This practice of dividing the monedaje left undecided the question of right, and this meant that both sides could still preserve their [122] theoretical claims to full enjoyment of the tax. Thus when James I reached a settlement with the Temple on a number of disputed issues in 1247 he maintained his claims while not denying that the Order might have rights:

We except monedaje, however, from this agreement and remission, and retain it for ourselves and our successors in towns and castles under Templar jurisdiction in our lands and kingdoms, to be paid in full to us and our successors, as it is customarily paid in cities and other places of our land. Through this retention or exception of monedaje, however, we do not wish any harm to be done to the Temple's right or privilege, if it has any, of not paying monedaje. (90)
At the same time the Temple similarly maintained its claim to exemption, while conceding that the king might have a right:
We retain and keep for ourselves and our successors and for the brothers of the Temple, now and in the future, the right of not paying the said monedaje.... Through this protestation and retention, however, we do not wish any harm to be done to your right, if you have any, or privilege of demanding and taking the said monedaje. (91)
That the payment of half of the monedaje to the king should prejudice neither royal rights nor Templar privileges was further stated in royal writs issued in 1277, 1284, and 1289. (92) By this arrangement the Crown was able to gain a profit without disproving Templar claims. Yet despite these statements about safeguarding privileges, the custom of dividing the monedaje was in fact destructive of the Temple's immunity -- even though this exemption was clearly set out in charters obtained from the Crown -- for practice led in time to the abolition of privilege. The force of custom manifests itself in the agreements about monedaje made in 1283 between Peter III and the opponents of the Crown, for these had as their basis the practice of James I's reign; and although in the decrees issued in that year at Barcelona a clause was inserted safeguarding particular privileges, this was of little value to the Temple. (93) And finally in 1292 the force of established usage made it possible for James II formally to revoke the Temple's complete exemption from the payment of monedaje and to establish for the Crown the right to half of the monedaje paid by the Order's men. (94)
By the middle of the thirteenth century the Order's exemption from royal tolls and customs had also been reduced. During [123] a dispute in 1245 about the exaction of lezda and peaje from the inhabitants of Ambel, the Infante Fernando was ordered by James I not to exact these dues from the Temple's men unless they were merchants. (95) Although only those who bought goods and then resold them were to pay lezda and peaje, such individuals must have comprised a considerable proportion of the Templar vassals who journeyed about the country carrying goods; the king's order therefore represented a marked encroachment on the Temple's immunities. It was repeated in a general decree issued at the beginning of the next year,(96) while in 1247 the ruling was also applied to the exaction of herbaje and carnaje. (97) This interpretation of the Order's privileges was maintained throughout the rest of the century: in 1268 James I commanded royal officials to exact lezda, peaje, and pasaje from merchandise carried by the Temple's men, (98) and in 1285 Peter III ordered that

if their [the Templars'] men were merchants and traded in merchandise from which peaje or lezda ought to be given, they should pay on these wares as other men pay. (99)

[Savannah]

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)

[Savannah]

James I's successors were, however, able to extract increasing sums from the Temple and its men in the form of extraordinary taxes, since these were given voluntarily, at least in theory. James I had already obtained by consent grants of bovaje for his expeditions, and to these the Temple had contributed; (142) he had also sought subsidies from particular places under Templar lordship. (143) But while in his time such taxes were exceptional, in the reigns of his successors they became common. They were usually levied under the names of aid (auxilium), subsidy (subsidium), or assize (cisa), and consisted either of general taxes consented to in the Cortes, such as those granted at Monzón in 1289 and Barcelona in 1292, (144) or of more local and particular levies. The Templars contributed to these taxes only reluctantly. In 1289, for example, when Alfonso III was demanding a subsidy of 20,000s.B. from the Temple towards the expenses of a royal embassy to Rome, the king was obliged to repeat his demand and to threaten seizure of Templar possessions if the tax was not paid; (145) and in 1292 James II complained that the provincial master had ignored a royal letter commanding him to ensure that the cisa decreed in the Cortes was imposed at Monzón. (146) The Templars showed reluctance partly because they feared that their privileges might be endangered by this form of taxation: thus in 1286 they sought to obtain from Alfonso III a promise that payment of the subsidy then being demanded should not prejudice their immunities or be used as a precedent. (147) Perhaps as important, however, was the weight of the burden which royal demands placed upon the Temple and its men. This is particularly apparent in 1292, when a separate subsidy was being demanded from the clergy in addition to the cisa granted in the Cortes. The Temple was asked to contribute 20,000s. towards this ecclesiastical subsidy. (148) On this occasion, however, it managed to persuade the king to abandon his demands; (149) but usually it could gain no more than a reduction in assessment, as in 1286 when its contribution was reduced from 12,000s.B. to 10,000s.B. (150)

The Jews under Templar lordship were expected to contribute separately to extraordinary taxes, which were either demanded directly from individual aljamas or negotiated at meetings attended [129] by representatives of all the aljamas of Aragon or Catalonia. Thus in July 1282 the sum of 1,500s. was demanded as an aid from the aljama of Monzón, (151) and towards the end of the same year representatives from both Monzón and Tortosa were summoned by Peter III to an assembly at Barcelona in order to negotiate a further aid. (152) In the following year, however, the provincial master and Raymond of Moncada supported the aljama of Tortosa in its claim that it had never been accustomed to contribute to taxes jointly with the other aljamas. (153) It is clear that on this occasion the Jews of Tortosa managed to establish an immunity, for the Infante Alfonso ordered that their contribution should be paid by the other aljamas. (154) But if the Jews of Tortosa were able to establish a right not to be taxed jointly with other aljamas, the Aragonese kings could still make separate demands of them: in 1285 Peter III ordered them to send delegates with powers of attorney to answer certain questions put to them concerning a proposed subsidy, (155) and in 1287 Alfonso was seeking an aid of 10,000s. from them. (156) The collection of this subsidy was delayed,(157) but it is not known whether the aljama of Tortosa succeeded in excusing itself usually from such taxes. The position of the aljama of Monzón is clearer. It opposed the exaction of extraordinary taxes and gained certain concessions. Subsidies demanded in 1286 and 1289 were reduced from 15,000s.J. to 10,000s.J. and from 6,000s.J. to 4,000s.J. respectively, (158) while in 1294 the Jews of Monzón were freed from the obligation to contribute to a tax of 30,000s.J. originally demanded jointly from the aljamas of Monzón, Lérida, and Fraga; (159) and when in 1300 James II asked the Jews of Monzón to give 10,000s.J. to help meet war expenses he admitted that he had excused them from the payment of earlier subsidies. (160) But petitioning for concessions was not just a customary ritual whose outcome was known beforehand. All depended on the will of the king, whose favour could equally be withheld. In 1300 James forced payment by the removal of protection, the denial of justice, and the requisitioning of debts owed to the Jews of Monzón. (161) In this situation his promise that their contribution should not endanger their privileges could have provided little consolation. (162)

The demands for extraordinary taxes which were being made in the later part of the thirteenth century only indirectly affected Templar privileges, since such taxation was in theory obtained [130] by consent. Nor did the more direct attacks on Templar fmancial privileges made by the Crown in the last quarter of the thirteenth century have any permanent consequences, for after 1283 the custom and practice of James I's reign became the criterion against which royal claims were judged: the Crown thus found itself obliged at the end of the century to abandon its demands for bovaje and some cenas. But most of the encroachments on the Order's financial rights appear to have occurred before the death of James I, and these were not affected by the concessions made in 1283. The Temple's privileges were therefore subject to considerable permanent reductions. Some of these, such as the restriction on freedom from tolls, were imposed at the time when the Aragonese reconquest was coming to an end and it is possible that royal policy towards Templar privileges was in some instances influenced by the completing of the reconquista; but it is clear that the Aragonese rulers were attempting to increase their revenues from all sources: the restricting of the Temple's financial rights formed only part of a wider policy pursued by the Crown in the thirteenth century.

In that century the Aragonese rulers also sought to extend their judicial powers. This was done partly by invoking the concepts of Roman law. In 1251 James I claimed the exclusive right of merum imperium in Valencia: no one else was to exercise justice of 'life and limb'. (163) And a similar claim was made in the Fuero of Aragon. (164) The king sought to apply this principle to places under Templar lordship; thus in 1254 he decreed that royal officials could enter the lands of the convent of Mas-Deu not only when there had been a default ofjustice or a breach of the pax et treuga, but also in order to punish and execute those guilty of homicide. (165) He claimed that the Crown customarily exercised these powers. But royal claims were not readily accepted by the Templars, who maintained that they should enjoy the right of merum imperium over their men. In a dispute which occurred apparently in 1271, for example, the Order claimed this right in Roussillon, Conflent, Vallespir, and Cerdaña. This claim was contested by the Infante James, who argued that the Temple's charters of privilege did not specifically mention the rights comprising merum imperium and that the Order should therefore not exercise this kind of jurisdiction. And the Infante's arguments were accepted by arbiters, who agreed that the Crown should have [131] cognizance of all offences for which the punishment was death or mutilation. (166) The Templars nevertheless continued to question royal claims. They were clearly doing this in 1272, for in answer to a complaint by the Order about the way in which royal officials enforced the peace decrees James I maintained that the Temple could not exercise jurisdiction in cases involving capital punishment or mutilation.(167) A similar claim was asserted by the Crown in the next reign: in 1282 the royal sub-vicar in Tortosa was ordered to exercise rights of merum imperium in the city and the Templars and Raymond of Moncada were commanded not to impede him. (168) But royal policy, pursued generally, again aroused widespread opposition, which found expression in the meetings of the Cortes held in 1283. At Zaragoza the nobles objected to the introduction of the term merum et mixtum imperium, which they claimed 'had never been used before', and they demanded that the king should not 'set up justiciars or cause judgements to be made in any township or in any place which is not his own'. (169) Peter III was obliged to grant this demand, just as later in the same year at the Cortes of Barcelona, which was attended by the provincial master, the king was forced to restore the right of merum imperium to the nobles and clergy who had previously enjoyed it. (170) Although in the following years royal officials continued to challenge the Order's claim to exercise this kind of jurisdiction, (171) the Crown itself gave temporary recognition to the Temple's right; it was unable to establish a claim based on earlier custom. Yet at the end of the century James II made a further attempt to deprive the clergy of their rights of merum imperium. He adopted a method similar to that often employed in the thirteenth century to obtain taxes from the Church: in 1297, when he was at peace with the pope and when the latter was trying to persuade him to take action against his brother in Sicily, James instructed his envoys in Rome to ask Boniface VIII to grant him merum imperium in all places under ecclesiastical lordship, including those subject to the military orders. (172) An alliance of this kind between king and pope would -- if achieved -- no doubt have silenced any protests from the clergy, who would no longer have been able to appeal to the pope to act in defence of their privileges. But James's request was refused, as was a similar demand made three years later, (173) and the Templars were able to retain their rights of merum imperium until their arrest. (174)

[132] The other judicial matter over which there was conflict between the Crown and the Temple was the right to hear appeals. The Order both claimed and exercised this right in the thirteenth century. In 1263, following a dispute about jurisdiction between the Order and the inhabitants of Ambel, the provincial master decreed that appeals against the judgements pronounced by the justiciar of Ambel should be made to the commander there and that appeals against the latter's judgements should be taken to the provincial master; and a similar procedure was laid down for Horta in 1296. (175) The actual exercise of the right is illustrated by the hearing of appeals in 1277 and 1296 by Peter of Butzenit, a lawyer set up as an appeal judge by the commander of Gardeny, (176) although admittedly both of his judgements were concerned only with dues and services owed to the Order and there are no surviving examples of appeals in cases of other kinds. This right to hear appeals was called in question in the second half of the thirteenth century. The evidence remaining from James I's reign does not provide any precise statement of royal claims, but shows that at that time the king heard some appeals from the Temple's men, who were obviously ready to take their cases to him. Thus in 1261 James promised Amato of Monzón that if by Christmas of that year the latter had received no communication from the Grand Master of the Temple, then those who had been exiled from Monzón following disputes with the Order could return to the town. (177) This promise clearly resulted from an appeal to the king, after an earlier appeal to the Grand Master had apparently had no effect. The provincial master's decree at Ambel two years later suggests that the inhabitants of that place were similarly making appeals to the king. (178) The royal claim to appeal jurisdiction is set out more clearly in the documents of James's successors. In 1282 Peter III decreed that appeals against decisions in civil cases in Tortosa should be made to the royal vicar there and then to the king; he claimed that the right to hear appeals was part of royal jurisdiction. (179) Twenty years later James II argued that appeals by men subject to the Temple in Aragon should be brought before the justiciars of royal towns, the Justiciar of Aragon, or the king. (180) He commanded the provincial master to revoke the decree, made by the Temple, that appeals should be made only to the Order's commanders or to the provincial master, and he wrote to the inhabitants of Templar towns, telling [133] them to take their appeals to royal officials or to himself. James maintained that the hearing of appeals by the Templars was a recent innovation and that in the reigns of his predecessors appeals had been made to the king or royal officials; he claimed the right to hear appeals by reason of royal right and ancient custom. But although during a similar dispute with the bishop of Tortosa the king was advised that he could find support for his claims in the Fuero of Aragon and in the writings of the jurist Vidal of Canellas, (181) James did not produce any evidence to substantiate his claims against the Templars, and he was clearly unable to prove his case, for in 1318, after the Hospital had taken over the Temple's property, he was still trying to establish his right to hear appeals from those formerly under Templar lordship. (182)

[Savannah]

Although from the middle of the thirteenth century onwards there was tension between the Crown and the Temple about rights of jurisdiction, it must nevertheless be remembered that the Templar attitude to royal interference was not one of complete hostility. The Order was ready to seek the aid of the king and royal officials against its members or its vassals when necessary. When in 1282 a Templar called G. of Monzón had discarded his habit and 'was going through the world rebellious and disobedient', the Infante at the request of the Temple commanded royal officials to assist in his capture; (183) and the Templars similarly sought the help of the Crown against vassals who failed to carry out their obligations to the Order. (184)

The military rights and exemptions of the Temple were, like its other privileges, called into question in the thirteenth century. It is possible that the Aragonese rulers put forward a claim to the redenciones of the Temple's men who did not serve against the Moors, although according to the Order's privileges these payments should have been received by the Temple. In 1305 royal officials attempted to collect redenciones from men of the Temple who had not participated in a recent expedition in Valencia. The Order protested and the king agreed that they should not pay. The reason that he gave, however, was not that they were exempt by privilege, but that as the provincial master had served with a large force of knights he had conceded de gratia that the men of the Temple should not be called out for the campaign and therefore should not be forced to pay a redención. (185)

More significant, however, were the demands which began to [134] be made for service against the Aragonese kings' Christian enemies. The Order's military privileges had been granted at a time when the conquest of Moorish territory occupied an important place in royal policy. But towards the end of the thirteenth century no further conquests to the south were possible and the Aragonese rulers needed service elsewhere, for they not only were trying to extend their power in the Mediterranean but at the same time also required military aid within the Peninsula against rebel nobles, against Castile, and against the French, who in alliance with Navarre and Mallorca attempted to put into effect the papal award of the kingdom of Aragon to Charles of Valois. It was inevitable that Templar houses sited along the Christian borders of Aragon should become involved in the defence of these frontiers: thus orders for the provisioning and fortifying of Templar convents near the Navarrese frontier were issued in 1283 and 1286. (186) But the Aragonese kings went further than this, as did some other rulers; they summoned the men of the Temple and even the Templars themselves for service in the royal army against the Crown's Christian enemies. (187) In 1275 James I summoned the men of the convent of Mas-Deu to serve against the count of Ampurias on the pretext that action was being taken against those who had attacked ecclesiastical persons and their property. (188) In the following reigns the Templars themselves were called out. The provincial master was summoned to serve with his men against the French in 1283 and 1285, (189) and against Castile in 1300 and 1301, (190) while the castellan of Monzón was called out in 1284 against the count of Foix. (191) In the last two decades of the thirteenth century the men of the Temple were also summoned frequently by themselves, as in 1280 for the siege of Balaguer, (192) in 1289 when the men of Monzón served in Cerdaña, (193) in 1293 against Artal of Alagón, (194) and in 1297 for a campaign in Pallars. (195)

When service was demanded only from the men of the Temple, the king issued summonses to them directly -- although he sometimes also wrote to the Order telling it to send its men (196) -- and this service was enforced by royal officials. (197) On these occasions military service was a matter between the Crown and the Order's men: when the inhabitants of Monzón served with Alfonso III in 1289 the king promised to support them if any objections to their serving in Cerdaña were raised by the provincial master or [135] the castellan of Monzón. (198) It became the practice, however, to send summonses directly to the Temple's men even when members of the Order served. (199) This was probably done in an attempt to ensure that service was given; it does not imply that the Order's men did not then serve with the Temple. Although in August 1300 the inhabitants of Monzón were summoned directly by the king to fight against Castile, a letter was sent to the castellan of Monzón telling him to come for service with all the knights -- both of the Temple and others -- and the foot-soldiers of his commandery. (200) At such times the Order's men were still giving service to their lords, and on these occasions royal officials did not intervene. The royal sub-vicar of Urgel was reprimanded in 1283 for summoning the host in places under Templar lordship in that district 'especially because the host is being called out by the said brothers in these places in our aid'. (201)

Once the Crown had demanded military service directly from the Temple's men against Aragon's Christian enemies, it almost inevitably followed that it would also claim the redenciones of those who did not serve. Already in 1275 James I sought a payment of 1,000s. when the men of Mas-Deu failed to appear against the count of Ampurias; (202) and although redenciones were not generally sought at the time of the siege of Balaguer -- the king ordered payment from Templar vassals only for lands which they held in realengo (203) -- from the time of the French invasion in 1285 the Aragonese rulers claimed full payment from men of the Temple who had been summoned but did not fight. If none of the inhabitants of a township appeared, as happened in a number of cases in 1290 when service against Castile was demanded, the king imposed a joint redención of arbitrary amount on the township as a whole; (204) when only some failed to appear, a royal official was sent to inquire who they were, and the size of the redenciones was determined through negotiation and composition. (205)

When Peter III first sought the service of the Temple's men at the siege of Balaguer, he implied that such aid would be of a voluntary character, for at the end of letters issued on 23 June 1280 the clauses 'we will be grateful' and ' they will be thanked' were included, which are not encountered in other summonses sent out at the same time. (206) But this summons was accompanied by a request for a loan. (207) When a further summons was issued on the next day, the king asserted a more definite claim to service [136] by referring to the article Princeps namque in the Usages of Barcelona, which commanded all men to fight in defence of the country; (208) and this became the basis of royal claims to service from the Templars and their men against the Crown's Christian enemies, and it was quoted in summonses which did not apply merely to Catalonia. (209) The Usages did not, however, give the king the right to service outside the frontiers of his dominions, and in practice the Aragonese rulers did not try to assert any right of this kind. In 1289 the inhabitants of Monzón did accompany the king to Cerdaña, but Alfonso admitted that service had been given 'not out of duty but as a special favour and at our prayers'; it was not to be used as a precedent. (210) The Aragonese kings abided by this ruling. When the provincial master was summoned in 1301 to help repel a threatened Castilian invasion he was told to join the king wherever the latter was 'within the borders of our dominions';(211) and in 1306 before attempting to use the Templars on a proposed expedition to Sardinia James II considered it necessary to seek permission from the pope. (212) The only obvious exception occurred in 1292, when the purpose of the royal summons for troops to assemble at Tarazona was said to be the invasion of Navarre. In fact the king intended merely to exact redenciones; the circumstances were therefore exceptional. (213) It is not known whether on this occasion the men of the military orders paid the sums demanded of them. Certainly the collection of redenciones from those of the Hospital was delayed, which suggests that the Orders at least protested against this imposition. (214)

[Savannah]

Nevertheless the Usage Princeps namque could be used to justify requests for service on a wide variety of occasions, when the king was opposed by foreign invaders or by rebels. Yet the Aragonese rulers did not try to exact service from the Ternplars and their men at every possible opportunity. The Crown was clearly wary of using the Templars themselves against its Christian enemies. Members of the Order were admittedly called out when the country was in danger of invasion from Castile or France and strong measures were threatened to ensure that service was given; a summons to the master's lieutenant in 1300 thus contained the threat

if you do otherwise we will proceed against you and the possessions of the said Order as is just against those who thus inhumanly refuse to fight for their country. (215)
[137] Yet the timing of summonses in 1285 indicates the king's hesitancy in demanding service from the Templars. On 22 April the Temple's vassals were ordered to join the king, who was at Figueras, and the master was commanded to send some men to the Navarrese frontier as well; (216) further summonses ordering the men of the Temple to join the royal army were issued at the beginning of May; (217) and it was only on 7 June that the military orders themselves were assigned the task of defending the coast, which was being threatened by the French fleet. (218) Nor was the aid of the Templars themselves usually demanded for suppressing risings of nobles. Similarly, although the men of the Temple were summoned more frequently than the members of the Order and were used against rebels, their services were not always sought. When Peter III, for example, called out the men of ecclesiastical lords in 1281, he commanded royal officials not to demand service from men subject to the Templars and Hospitallers, because he had excused them for the time being. (219) On such occasions royal officials who tried to exact service were rebuked by the king and ordered not to enforce service unless the men of the Temple were summoned by the king's command. (220) When the vassals of the military orders were summoned, it was often not until the middle of a campaign, when the king needed reinforceinents. Thus although Peter III began to besiege Balaguer towards the end of May 1280, he did not seek the aid of Templar vassals until the later part of June. (221) Similarly, although the men of religious lords, including the Temple, were summoned for service in Pallars at the end of June 1297, (222) towards the end of May the royal vicar of Cervera had been ordered not to demand service from the Temple's men. (223) In the same way, the Aragonese kings did not always press their demands for redenciones from Templar vassals who did not serve. Although in order to enforce payment Alfonso III in 1289 commanded that all the possessions of the citizens of Tortosa on the island of Mallorca should be seized, (224) on some other occasions demands were abandoned, as in 1290 when the king de gratia gave up his claim to redenciones from the inhabitants of Monzón who had not served on a recent campaign in the north. (225)
The Crown's demands for service were being made at a time when royal encroachments on privilege were being denounced and when a return to earlier custom was being demanded. In [138] this situation the Aragonese rulers were hesitant in making new claims to service, especially as there was in the 1280s the danger that the Temple might give its support to Aragon's French and papal enemies. The only solution for the king, as in the sphere of jurisdiction, was to persuade the papacy itself to agree to a diminution of the Order's privileges. James II therefore in 1297 sought not only the right of merum imperium but also that of hueste and cabalgada in places subject to the military orders and other ecclesiastical lords. (226) But the royal request was rejected, as was a demand made three years later that the king should lead the men of religious lords in expeditions undertaken in defence of the country; (227) and after the dissolution of the Temple the question of military service continued to be an issue in dispute between the Crown and the Hospitallers. (228)

The Aragonese kings' new demands for military service were probably more influenced by the completion of the reconquest than the claims they made in the fields of finance and justice, which formed part of a wider policy. But while royal demands for service against Christians are to be explained in part by the declining importance of the struggle against the Moors once the Aragonese reconquest was completed, it is possible that in seeking this kind of service the Aragonese kings were also influenced by the Templars' reluctance to fulfil the obligation which they still owed of fighting against the infidel. Although the Templars still participated in campaigns against the Moors, (229) they were often slow to respond to royal summonses and sought temporary exemptions for themselves.

The first clear indication of the Order's changing attitude is found in a papal bull issued in 1250, in which Innocent IV ordered the Temple and Hospital to assist in the struggle against the Moors in Spain. (230) This letter was sent in response to a petition from James I, who had obviously complained about the Orders' conduct. Fuller evidence of this reluctance is encountered towards the end of the century. It is revealed, for example, by the timing and wording of a series of royal summonses issued at the end of 1286 and early in 1287, after the treaty made with Granada in 1282 had been repudiated. (231) On 9 December 1286 the king wrote from Mallorca commanding the military orders to go without delay to Valencia to repel an invasion which the Moors were preparing. (232) This first summons was followed at the beginning [139] of January 1287 by a further letter from Alfonso to Peter of Tous, the lieutenant of the provincial master, ordering him to prepare to repel the Moors and not to put forward any excuses; in this letter the king recalled that the Templars had been given lands on the understanding that they would always be ready to defend the kingdom against the Moors, and he threatened to seize some of their property if they did not serve. (233) On 11 April the military orders were further ordered to serve under Berenguer of Puigvert and Peter Fernández,(234) but it was necessary to write again ten days later to the Templars, Hospitallers, and the commander of Alcañiz to order them to go to Valencia immediately; on this occasion the king threatened to seize all their property in Valencia if they did not comply. (235) In the same way, when the Temple was commanded to serve on the frontier for the whole of January 1304, it was made known to the provincial master that

if, which is scarcely to be believed, he delays in carrying out this order, the king will take whatever action he thinks fit. (236)
The Templars did serve on the frontier in the early months of 1304, but after raiding into Granada in conjunction with troops from Murcia and with Alabes Abenraho, the leader of a Muslim force in the service of the Aragonese king, (237) the provincial master wrote from Lorca in May to James II, seeking to excuse the Templars from remaining on the frontier; (238) and the master was again loath to serve when the Templars were further summoned in September of the same year. (239)
This reluctance was apparently not the result of waning interest in the struggle against the Moors: in 1304 the provincial master was exhorting James II to attack and conquer Granada, (240) just as earlier the Templar Olivier in his poem 'Estat aurai lonc temps en pessamen' had urged James I to go on a crusade to the East. (241) It sprang primarily from a lack of adequate resources. In May 1304 the provincial master pointed out to the king that the Order had incurred heavy expenses on the frontier, to cover which it had been necessary to obtain loans; (242) and in September, when service was again being demanded, the master Berenguer of Cardona wrote to the commander of Alfambra, saying

Although we might make our excuses to him [the king] on the grounds that we have spent a large amount of money this year on frontier service and in the kingdom of Murcia, nevertheless, seeing that [140] if we failed him great dishonour would fall on us and the Temple, especially as all the nobles and other ranks are going, and seeing that we want to serve God and uphold the honour of the Temple, we are preparing to go and help our lord the king. (243)
Yet in October he again complained to the king about costs. James therefore on 24 October asked him to bring merely twenty or thirty knights, (244) and on the next day the provincial master ordered the commanders of Alfambra, Villel, Calatayud, Añesa, and Aberín, who had been incurring expense while waiting at Murviedro, to return to their commanderies. (245)
Lack of resources not only made the Templars reluctant to serve; it apparently also meant that when they did serve they had difficulty in equipping an adequate force. Towards the end of the thirteenth century convents did not have enough horses for all fighting brothers: in 1289 the house of Monzón possessed only five hacks and two mules on which its members could ride. (246) Horses for those going to serve on the frontier were provided in part by the provincial master, who borrowed some from Templars who were not called out: on one occasion the master ordered a commander to give his horse to his companion and to borrow another from the commander of Miravet, who had been excused from service. (247) Even the horses which the Templars did possess were not always their own. In 1309 James II received a petition from an individual who was seeking to recover a horse which he had lent to the Order; (248) and in the following year requests were also made for arms and armour which had been loaned to the Templars. (249) Inventories compiled towards the end of the thirteenth century provide further evidence of the inadequacy of the equipment in some Templar houses. When the commander of Huesca drew up a list of his convent's possessions in 1289 he noted that three hauberks and three other coats of mail had been lent to Novillas on the order of the provincial master, and that all that remained at Huesca were four hauberks and seven and a half pairs of chausses. (250)

Such a situation easily explains James II's request to the pope that the Templars should devote all their resources to fighting the Moors of Granada and should send nothing for the support of the Order in the East. (251) But this request was refused. All that the Aragonese kings could do to ensure that the Templars provided an adequate number of troops -- apart from threatening action [141] against their lands -- was to stipulate how many knights were needed for service on each occasion. In May 1287 the king ordered the Temple to maintain thirty knights on the frontier -- the same number being demanded of the Hospital and twenty from Calatrava; (252) and in October 1303 the Temple was ordered to send a hundred knights to Valencia, while the Hospital, Calatrava, and Santiago were asked for contingents of sixty, thirty, and twenty respectively. (253) But since property on the mainland had not been granted to the Orders in return for a specific amount of service, (254) the king had difficulty in enforcing such demands. In the register containing the summons of October 1303 the figure '100' was crossed out and the words 'as large a force as you can manage' substituted, probably as the result of a Templar protest that the Order could not furnish the number required.

Even if it was occasioned by lack of money, this reluctance on the part of the Templars to fight against the Moors, and the Crown's difficulty in enforcing service, could well have helped to justify in the minds of the Aragonese kings a demand for military service against Aragon's Christian enemies: if the Templars did not fulfil the military obligations expected of them in one sphere, then an argument might be put forward for demanding service from them elsewhere.

The encroachments on Templar rights and exemptions which have been discussed apparently all resulted from attempts by the Crown to increase its wealth and power. Although on a number of issues the evidence is very incomplete, it is clear that charters of privilege issued by earlier rulers in themselves gave little protection against these royal demands, for kings did not feel necessarily obliged to accept concessions made by their predecessors: hence the practice of seeking frequent confirmations of privileges. Lip-service might admittedly be paid to the Order's rights and it might be stated that a particular demand was not to harm the Temple's immunities and was not to be used as a precedent, but the more often this was said the more meaningless it became. In some instances the Order was able to reach a compromise with the king, so that not all of the latter's demands were met, but royal encroachments could not be halted by individual action. The Crown could be effectively checked only when widespread hostility to royal policies was aroused, as happened in 1283. Thus, in contrast to the earlier policy of encroachment, there was [142] from 1283 a reversion to past practice, if not an acceptance of all earlier privileges, and apparently the only new demand that was being enforced in the later thirteenth century was for military service against Aragon's Christian enemies; and although the Aragonese kings could put forward a claim based on the Usages of Barcelona, they were hesitant in demanding this service and turned to the papacy for assistance in establishing a right to hueste and cabalgada from the Temple's men.

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The desire of the Aragonese kings to increase their power and wealth does not, however, account for all the Crown's contraventions of Templar rights and privileges. Some were occasioned merely by the inadequacies of royal administration, and in particular by a failure to maintain adequate records. A number of demands for cena, for example, were made of the Temple apparently because exemptions were not always properly noted. Thus although it was established in 1298 that the commandery of Horta was not obliged to give cenas in absentia, the convent was again assessed for money cenas in 1300 and in some later years, and in each case the Temple had to take action to ensure that Horta's privilege was observed. (255) During the reigns of Peter III and Alfonso III demands for cena from places subject to Monzón were similarly repeatedly made and then cancelled. (256) Charters of privilege did give some protection against abuses committed in these circumstances.

The Order's secular rights and immunities were contravened not only by the Crown. Rights might be called in question from any quarter. But the individuals against whom the Temple made the most frequent complaints were local royal officials and tax-farmers, who not only carried out royal orders but were also themselves responsible for many abuses. The activities of royal officials affected all the Temple's immunities and privileges, but it is in the financial sphere that the fullest information about their actions survives. The royal registers, for example, contain a very large number of writs to royal officials concerning the payment of the tenth of royal revenues to the Order, and numerous letters on the same subject are included in the Liber super decimis (257) and in the collections of royal parchments and paper documents. It is therefore primarily in this sphere that an explanation of the activities of royal officials is to be found and it was naturally with the Temple's financial privileges that tax-farmers were mainly [143] concerned. In some cases, of course, encroachments on Templar immunities require little explanation. Farmers of revenues wanted to derive as much profit as possible from the dues which they farmed and officials similarly sought to gain by abusing privileges: in 1261 James I attacked those officials who proceeded against the Temple 'out of avarice rather than because of a zeal for justice'. (258) Yet such desires do not explain all the complaints made by the Temple. Abuses were again frequently caused by the difficulties which confronted medieval administrators and by the limitations of medieval administration. This was recognized by Peter II in 1205 when he blamed the Temple's difficulty in obtaining its tenth on frequent changes in personnel among royal officials. (259) The great variety of privileges enjoyed by different persons and institutions and the frequent lack of any adequate record of such immunities in the royal archives led to the issuing of general decrees on behalf of the Crown, which took no account of particular exemptions. Local officials and tax-farmers needed a detailed knowledge of the rights enjoyed by the inhabitants of their districts if friction was to be avoided. This was not always possible, especially when royal revenues were farmed out annually. Thus in 1293 the royal official in charge of the collection of primicias in the district of Teruel issued a general order, which his subordinate -- ignorant of particular immunities -- tried to enforce at Albentosa, where the Temple should have received the primicias. (260) An aggrieved person might be able to produce charters of privilege, but such documents were often vague in wording and the rights recorded in them had sometimes been modified by usage and custom. Charters did not therefore always provide a reliable guide, and a royal official might feel reluctant to accept them as evidence. He might also in these circumstances find himself confronted by a conflict of privilege, for rights were often granted by the king without reference to existing immunities, of which the Crown frequently had no record. In 1294 a dispute arose in Zaragoza because the Temple claimed to have privileges exempting certain Jews in the city from the payment of royal taxes, while the aljama of the Jews there asserted that they possessed a privilege which obliged all Jews in the city to contribute with them to these taxes; (261) and five years later, when the Temple complained that it was not receiving its share of royal revenues from Zaragoza, the merino of the city asserted that these revenues [144] were not sufficient for paying out all the grants which had been made from them. (262)

Those collecting dues might be inadequately informed not merely about particular rights and privileges. Templar complaints that cenas were collected before a year had elapsed since the last exaction can probably be explained by ignorance of the proper date of collection on the part of the collectors. Orders for the exaction of cenas were not sent out at any particular time in the year, but were often issued well in advance of the proper date of collection. The first writs for the collection of cena from Templar commanderies for the year 1298 were sent out in September 1297, (263) while those for the year 1299 began to be issued in May 1298. (264) On these occasions the entries in the royal registers make clear which year's cena was being ordered, but in many instances this information is lacking in the registers and it may similarly have been omitted from the letters sent to officials. In this situation the latter probably sought to carry out their orders at once, thus provoking Templar complaints that two cenas were being demanded in one year.

At other times complaints might be occasioned by misunderstandings among royal officials and tax-farmers. When in 1295 the farmers of royal rents in the district of Prades were ordered by the king to pay the tenth due to the Temple, they claimed that the royal official who had farmed out the rents had promised to pay the tenth himself, and it was only after several months of dispute that it was agreed that the farmers should pay the tenth but should then deduct the amount involved from the sum which they owed to the Crown. (265) In these circumstances it is not surprising that when tax-farmers were appointed the Temple sought to extract charters from them, in which they guaranteed payment of the tenth to the Order. (266)

The limitations of medieval administration can also in part explain the slowness with which disputes were settled. The Aragonese kings certainly took action about complaints concerning the activities of royal officials and tax-farmers, but they could usually not give a definitive ruling without making an investigation of rights and privileges; and as complaints were frequent and administrative resources limited this could not always be done. Normally inquiries were instituted by the king only when the dispute was between the Templars and the Crown. When the issue [145] lay between the Order and a royal official, the king often merely wrote to the individual concerned, ordering him not to go beyond right and custom, and to give up his demands if these exceeded established limits. Thus when the Templars complained in 1287 that the royal procurador in Valencia was unjustly demanding cenas from the Templar houses of Valencia, Burriana, and Chivert, the king merely ordered the procurador to abandon his demand if other procuradores had not received cenas in these places. (267) Similarly when in 1291 the Templars protested against the demand for cenas from both Torres de Segre and Remolins, the official concerned was merely ordered by the Infante Peter to give up his claim if he was satisfied that Remolins and Torres de Segre constituted one commandery. (268) The settlement of a dispute was thus often left in the hands of the official of whose conduct the Temple was complaining, and this could lead merely to the prolongation of a dispute. In 1291 after the Infante's letter had been read out to the collector of the cena and the Teniplars had asserted that Torres de Segre and Remolins formed one commandery, the collector merely said that he would deliberate on the matter; no quick solution was reached. This method of dealing with complaints was not therefore a very effective one, but in view of the administrative limitations of the time it was all that the king could do. He had difficulty in carrying out his duty of protecting right and privilege, and those enjoyed by the Temple were endangered not only by royal policy in the thirteenth century but also by the activities of many others, especially royal officials and tax-farmers. The defence of the Order's rights and privileges from outside interference was inevitably a matter of frequent concern to the Templars.

They did what they could to ensure that these rights and privileges were maintained, although they in turn were at times hampered by administrative limitations. Confirmations of rights were frequently sought and obtained; title deeds and charters of privileges were preserved and often copied: transcripts were made and cartularies were compiled both for individual convents and for the Order as a whole in Aragon. (269) Most of those that survive, however, were not compiled until the second half of the thirteenth century, by which time some documents had no doubt been lost; (270) and although -- since most of the cartularies are now incomplete -- it is usually difficult to assess how systematically the [146] work of copying was done, there are several surviving parchments recording acquisitions by the convent of Tortosa which are not found in the cartulary of that house, even though this volume does appear to be complete. (271) Finally, the royal registers show that the Templars were quick to protest whenever they felt that their rights had been abused. By adopting such procedures and by taking such action, they were able to protect their rights and immunities from many attempts at encroachment, even if they were not able to prevent the Aragonese kings from restricting the Order's privileges.



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Notes for Chapter Four

1. ACA, parch. Alfonso II, no. 667; AHN, cód. 499, p. 80, doc. 193; cód. 691, fol. 173v, doc. 422.

2. AHN, cód. 1311, side A.

3. AHN, Montesa, P. 223.

4. J. Orlandis, '"Traditio corporis et animae" (La "familiaritas" en las iglesias y monasterios españoles de la alta edad media)', AHDE, xxiv (1954), 136, seems to be reading more than is justified into the phrase when he says that it meant that the soul was given for prayers and the body for burial. It was used rather to signify the completeness of a gift.

5. AGP, parch. Tortosa, nos. 5, 64; AHN, San Juan, leg. 174, doc. 1.

6. ACA, parch. James I, no. 2151.

7. AHN, cód. 691, fol. 51-51v, doc. 249.

8. Cf. E. de Hinojosa, El régimen señorial y la cuestión agraria en Cataluña (Madrid, 1905), p. 87.

9. ACA, parch. Peter III, no. 164.

10. ACA, parch. Alfonso II, nos. 489, 718; Peter II, no. 52; see below, p. 375.

11. ACA, parch. Peter II, nos. 52, 68, 236, 286; see below, p. 375.

12. e.g. ACA, parch. Alfonso II, no. 266; Peter III, no. 175.

13. ACA, reg. 48, fol. 34.

14. ACA, parch. James II, no. 771; see below, p. 409.

15. Cf. Hinojosa, op. cit., pp. 93-4.

16. ACA, parch. James I, no. 730.

17. On this tax, see J.C. Russell, 'The Medieval Monedatge of Aragon and Valencia', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, cvi (1962), 483-504; F. Mateu y Llopis, '"Super Monetatico" o "Morabetino"', Mélanges offerts à René Crozet (Poitiers, 1966), ii. 1115-20.

18. One view of the origins and nature of this tax is provided by F. Soldevila, 'A propòsit del servei del bovatge', Anuario de estudios medievales, (1964), 573-84.

19. CDI, iv. 94, doc. 43; Albon, Cartulaire, p. 204, doc. 314.

20. CDI, viii. 45-7, doc. 13.

21. AHN, Montesa, P. 523.

22. AHN, San Juan, leg. 186, doc. 3.

23. ACA, parch. Peter II, no. 315; AHN, Montesa, R. 31. It may be noted that there is no specific reference to cena in this list. This is possibly because cena was not a tax that was assessed on individuals. The right of cena is, however, specifically granted to the Temple in some royal charters of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries concerning particular properties: AHN, cód. 470, pp. 93-4, doc. 112; AHN, Montesa, R. 20: published from a different manuscript m BSCC, xi (1930), 355.

24. AHN, Montesa, P. 492.

25. ACA, reg. 20, fol. 318v.

26. ACA, reg. 41, fol. 92v.

27. ACA, parch. James II, no. 771; see below, p. 409.

28. ACA, reg. 14, fol. 146v; AHN, cód. 689, pp. 4-5, doc. 3; ACA, reg. 310, fol. 47; see below, p. 397. R.I. Burns, The Crusader Kingdom of Valencia (Harvard, 1967), i. 193, confuses Gandesa with Gandía on this point.

29. ACA, reg. 91, fol. 203v.

30. ACA, reg. 16, fol. 162.

31. AHN, cód. 471, p. 112, doc. 108.

32. Huici, Colección diplomática, i. 536, doc. 397.

33. CDI, iv. 144-7, doc. 61.

34. Ibid., pp. 29-32, doc. 11; Albon, Cartulaire, pp. 53-5, doc. 71.

35. LFM, i. 493, doc. 466.

36. AHN, cód. 472, p. 220, doc. 222.

37. AGP, parch. Comuns, no. 136; see also below, p. 377.

38. AHN, San Juan, leg. 174, doc. 16; J. Cots i Gorchs, 'Les "Consuetuds" d'Horta (avui Horta de Sant Joan) a la ratlla del Baix Aragó', Estudis universitaris catalans, xv (1930), 312.

39. See Cortes de Aragón, Valencia y Cataluña, vol. i (Madrid, 2896), passim, for Catalonia; ACA, reg. 16, fol. 236, for Aragon; and B. Alart, Privilèges et titres relatifs aux franchises, institutions et propriétés communales de Roussillon et de Cerdagne (Perpignan, 1874), pp. 211-12, for Roussillon.

40. Cortes de Aragón, Valencia y Cataluña, i. 84.

41. Ibid., p. 94.

42. Ibid., pp. 100, 108, 118.

43. L. D'Achery, Spicilegium sive collectio veterum aliquot scriptorum (Paris, 1723), iii. 588.

44. Cortes de Aragón, Valencia y Cataluña, i. 149-50.

45. ACA, reg. 97, fol. 203v.

46. ACA, reg. 108, fol. 100v.

47. ACA, reg. 21, fol. 72v; reg. 310, fol. 59v.

48. ACA, reg. 40, fol. 27.

49. AGP, parch. Cervera, no. 375.

50. AGP, parch. Casas Antiguas, no. 71. In his will, however, Bernard bequeathed this service to the Church, and by paying his widow 250m. the Templars were able to ensure that it was assigned to them: AGP, Cartulary of Gardeny, fol. 98-98v, doc. 238.

51. AHN, cód. 471, p. 210, doc. 212.

52. LFM, i. 492-5, doc. 466.

53. AHN, cód. 470, pp. 93-4, doc. 112.

54. ACA, parch. Peter II, no. 315.

55. A. Palomeque Torres, 'Contribución al estudio del ejército en los estados de la reconquista', AHDE, xv (1944), 217-22.

56. CDI, xi. 38. As the result of the increase of Templar property on the island, the number was raised to seven, but then reduced to six in 1268: ACA, reg. 15, fol. 108.

57. CDI, iv. 93-9, doc. 43; Albon, Cartulaire, p. 205, doc. 314.

58. AHN, San Juan, leg. 306, doc. 5; ACA, reg. 320, fol. 22.

59. AGP, parch. Comuns, no. 136; AHN, San Juan, leg. 39, doc. 79; ACA, parch. Peter II, no. 315; see below, p. 377.

60. AGP, Cartulary of Tortosa, fol. 87v, doc. 277; ACA, parch. James I, no. 1128. In 1242 the Temple made an arrangement with the Hospital for a reciprocal exemption: parch. James I, no. 870; cf. E. Bayerri, Llibre de privilegis de la vila de Ulldecona (Tortosa, 1952), pp. 58-9, no. 57.

61. CDI, iv. 29-32, doc. 11; Albon, Cartulaire, pp. 53-5, doc. 71.

62. ACA, reg. 320, fols. 43v-44.

63. ACA, parch. James I, no. 1667.

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64. AHN, San Juan, leg. 342, doc. 4.

65. AHN, San Juan, leg. 40, doc. 140.

66. AHN, cód. 471, p. 133, doc. 233.

67. ACA, reg. 43, fol. 83.

68. CDI, iv. 29-32, doc. 11; Albon, Cartulaire, pp. 53-5, doc. 71.

69. Cortes de Aragón, Valencia y Cataluña, i. 58.

70. Ibid., pp. 68, 73, 83, 91, 96, 103-4, 114.

71. J.M. Ramos y Loscertales, 'Textos para el estudio del derecho aragonés en la edad media', AHDE, i (1924), 398.

72. Fueros y observancias del reyno de Aragón (Zaragoza, 1667), fols. 182-183v.

73. D'Achery, op. cit. iii 587-9.

74. Aureum opus regalium privilegiorum civitatis et regni Valentie (Valencia, 1515), fols. 27-8. A peace decree was issued for Mallorca shortly after the island was conquered, but it has apparently not survived: E. Wohlhaupter, Studien zur Rechtsgeschichte der Gottes- und Landfrieden in Spanien (Heidelberg, 1933), p. 149.

75. AHN, cód. 467, p. 229, doc. 146; see below, p. 373.

76. Huici, Colección diplomática, i. 263-4, doc. 161; AGP, parch. Gardeny, no. 471; ACA, reg. 12, fol. 133; AHN, cód. 472, pp. 116-17, doc. 114; Montesa, R. 96.

77. Wohlhaupter, op. cit., pp. 81-2.

78. e.g. ACA, reg. 22, fol. 72v; reg. 43, fol. 120v; reg. 44, fol. 235.

79. ACA, parch. James I, no. 1659; parch. James II, no. 688.

80. ACA, parch. James II, nos. 1490, 1668.

81. AHN, Montesa, P. 533, 540.

82. A penalty of 500m. was decreed in a number of charters of protection issued by the nobility. The viscount of Cardona received an annual payment of five pounds of wax from the Temple in return for his promise of protection: ACA, parch. James II, no. 688.

83. J. Vincke, Staat und Kirche in Katalonien und Aragon während des Mittelalters (Münster, 1931), passim.

84. In that year James I ordered the Templars to make a payment on his behalf 'from that half of the monedaje which pertains to us which you have collected from our [sic] honours': AHN, cód. 472, p. 107, doc. 202. The fourteenth-century scribe who copied this document into the Cartulario Magno appears to have confused 'vestris' with 'nostris'.

85. ACA, reg. 51, fol. 10v; reg. 8o, fol. 25v. The monedaje was usually collected jointly by royal and Templar officials: AHN, cód. 471, p. 131, doc. 131; pp. 135-6, doc. 237.

86. Vincke, op. cit., pp. 28-9; L. Klüpfel, Verwaltungsgeschichte des Königreichs Aragon zu Ende des 13.Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1915), p. 55 ; J. Delaville Le Roulx, 'Les archives de l'Ordre de l'Hôpital dans la péninsule ibérique', Nouvelles archives des missions scientifiques, iv (1893), 41-2, 199.

87. ACA, reg. 41, fol. 103v.

88. ACA, reg. 14, fol. 48v.

89. ACA, reg. 13. fol. 157-157v.

90. Huici, Colección diplomática, i. 452-7, doc. 330.

91. Ibid.

92. ACA, reg. 40, fol. 26v; reg. 46, fol. 174; reg. 80, fol. 25v.

93. Cortes de Aragón, Valencia y Cataluña, i. 243.

94. AHN, Montesa, R. 146. The royal right to half of the monedaje owed by the men of the Temple and the Hospital was confirmed in the Cortes of Aragón in 1307: Fueros y observancias del reyno de Aragón, fols. 172v-173.

95. Huici, Colección diplomática, i. 402-3, doc. 287.

96. Ibid., p. 407, doc. 292.

97. Ibid., pp. 452-7, doc. 330.

98. AHN, Montesa, R. 120.

99. ACA, reg. 43, fol. 117v.

100. ACA, parch. James I, no. 1011.

101. AHN, Montesa, R. 146.

102. ACA, reg. 63, fol. 89.

103. ACA, reg. 90, fol. 138v; see below, p. 405.

104. CDI, iv. 98, doc. 43.

105. Huici, Colección diplomática, i. 452-7, doc. 330.

106. ACA, parch. Peter II, no. 201; AHN, cód. 472, pp. 136-7, doc. 139.

107. Ibid., pp. 207-8, doc: 103; Huici, Colección diplomática, i. 450-2, doc. 329; ACA, parch. James I, Appendix no. 28.

108. e.g. ACA, reg. 23, fols. 18, 38; F. Fondevilla, 'La nobleza catalano-aragonesa capitaneada por Ferrán Sánchez de Castro en 1274', Congreso de historia de la Corona de Aragón, ii (Barcelona, 1913), 1151 (the reference should be to reg. 17, fol. 5v); F. Soldevila, Pere el Gran: l'infant (Barcelona, 1950-6), pp. 81, 446.

109. Most of the information about the payment of cenas by the Order in James I's reign comes from James's later years, and it cannot be stated when cenas were first exacted from the Temple. M.L. Ledesma Rubio, La encomienda de Zaragoza de la Orden de San Juan de Jerusalén en los siglos XII y XIII (Zaragoza, 1967), p. 154, note 19, states that the Hospitallers were paying cena in 1203; but the document to which she refers belongs to the year 1303: ibid., p. 268, doc. 90. J. Vincke, 'Das Gastungsrecht der aragonischen Krone im hohen Mittelalter', Spanische Forschungen der Görresgesellschaft: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kulturgeschichte Spaniens, xix (1962), 166, argues from the wording of the general exemption from taxation granted to the Hospital in 1221 that the Hospitallers were then exempt from cena; but charters of this kind cannot always be accepted at their face value; some were already out of date at the time when they were issued.

Royal vicars in Catalonia had the right to exact cenas in Peter III's reign, but this was revoked by Alfonso III: ACA, reg. 66, fol. 55v.

110. Cortes de Aragón, Valencia y Cataluña, i. 244.

111. Finke, Papsttum, ii. 221, doc. 117.

112. Finke, AA, i. 34-5, doc. 27. Finke states that the tax mentioned in this document is the papal tenth; but he does not expand the word cens, although in the manuscript it has an abbreviation mark over it: ACA, CRD Templarios, no. 179. That the dispute involved the exaction of cenas is also apparent from the wording of ACA, parch. James II, no. 834.

113. ACA, reg. 100, fol. 350; reg. 333, fol. 74.

114. AHN, Montesa, P. 523.

115. ACA, parch. James II, no. 1714.

116. ACA, reg. 324, fols. 272, 282; AHN, San Juan, leg. 231, doc. 5.

117. ACA, reg. 55, fol. 66-66v; reg. 333, fol. 99. For assessments in kind, see reg. 59, fol. 11 (1282); reg. 68, fol. 5v (1286); reg. 68, fols. 32, 89 (1287); reg. 330, fol. 4 (1293); reg. 324. fol. 265 (1297); reg. 332, fol. 287 (1302); reg. 333, fol. 98v (1305). At the end of 1286, however, the king asked for 1,500s.J. instead of the cena in kind which he had earlier ordered: reg. 68, fol. 21v; and money cenas were demanded of the convent in 1290, 1292, and 1293: reg. 82, fol. 34; reg. 331, fol. 9; reg. 330, fol. 2.

118. ACA, reg. 59, fol. 8. For other examples of cenas in kind exacted from the Templars, see E. Ohlendorf, 'Zur "cena in presentia" des Königs von Aragon', Spanische Forschungen der Görresgesellschaft: Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Kulturgeschichte Spaniens, xxi (1963), 155-61.

119. Klüpfel, op. cit., p. 139; A.A. Neuman, The Jews in Spain (Philadelphia, 1944), i. 78-80.

120. ACA, reg. 81, fol. 93; cf. Régné, 'Catalogue', no. 2115 (lxix. 179).

121. ACA, reg. 330, fols. 14v, 176; reg. 331, fol. 21.

122. Cf. Klupfel, op. cit., p. 145; F. Baer, Studien zur Geschichte der Juden im Konigreich Aragonien während des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1913), p. 50.

123. ACA, reg. 11, fol. 177v; cf. Régné, 'Catalogue', no. 127 (lx. 186).

124. ACA, reg. 17, fol. 20; F. Baer, Die Juden im christlichen Spanien (Berlin, 1929), p. 112, doc. 103; J. Jacobs, An Inquiry into the Sources of the Jews in Spain (London, 1894), pp. 133-4; cf. Régné, 'Catalogue', no. 484 (lxii. 40).

125. ACA, reg. 59 fol. 192; cf. Régné, 'Catalogue', no. 997 (lxiv. 230).

126. ACA, reg. 80, fol. 30v; reg. 81, fol. 213; cf. Régné, 'Catalogue', nos. 1980 (lxix. 157), 2241 (lxix. 199).

127. ACA, reg. 82, fol. 181; cf. Régné, 'Catalogue', no. 2339 (lxix. 216).

128. ACA, Bulas, leg. 9, doc. 30; cf. F. Miquel Rosell, Regesta de letras pontificias del Archivo de la Corona de Aragón (Madrid, 1948), p. 84, no. 141.

129. Huici, Colección diplomática, i. 452-7, doc. 330.

130. Villanueva, Viage, xvii. 360-1, doc. 64. Peter's claim is discussed by F. Soldevila, 'Alguns aspects de la política econòmica de Pere el Gran', VI Congreso de histonia de la Corona de Aragón (Barcelona, 1959). pp. 186-7.

131. ACA, reg. 39, fol. 187; Vincke, Staat und Kirche, p. 121.

132. ACA, reg. 39, fol. 202.

133. ACA, reg. 42, fol. 222.

134. ACA, reg. 48, fols. 114, 184; reg. 49, fol. 1; reg. 59, fol. 120v. It might of course be argued that in Tortosa the king was taking only the proportion of the bovaje that was due to him as his share of the city's revenues; but the evidence from Puigreig suggests that this was not so.

135. ACA, reg. 41, fol. 63; reg. 42, fol. 131, 131v; reg. 48, fols. 3, 28v.

136. Fueros y observancias del reyno de Aragón, fols. 7v-8v.

137. Cortes de Aragón, Valencia y Cataluña, i. 143.

138. ACA, reg. 70, fol. 18; published by F. Soldevila, 'A propòsit del servei del bovatge', Anuanio de estudios medievales, (1964), 586. Soldevila argues, ibid., pp. 581-3, that this assembly was concerned with the exaction of bovaje for Alfonso's Menorca expedition in 1287, but in the documents which he publishes there is no reference to the actual collection of bovaje.

139. ACA, reg. 105, fol. 130.

140. ACA, parch. James II, no. 771; see below, p. 409.

141. ACA, reg. 257 contains a number of orders for the collection of bovaje from the clergy in 1300, but none of these refers to the Temple; cf. Vincke, Staat und Kirche, p. 162.

142. ACA, reg. 310, fols. 44v, 47-47v; in this second document the tax is referred to as monedaje, but this must be an error in transcription. Cf. Soldevila, loc. cit., pp. 579-81.

143. F. Carreras y Candi, 'Rebelió de la noblesa catalana contra Jaume I en 1259', BRABLB, vi (1911), 536; Huici, Colección diplomática, ii. 281, doc. 882.

144. ACA, reg. 81, fols. 19v, 212; reg. 306, fol. 2.

145. ACA, reg. 80, fol. 43v.

146. ACA. reg. 306, fols. 8, 11-11v; see below, p. 406.

147. ACA, reg. 64, fols. 133v-134.

148. ACA, reg. 306, fols. 2, 8, 11, 39v; reg. 331, fol. 50.

149. Ibid.

150. ACA, reg. 68, fols. 47-8.

151. ACA, reg. 59, fols. 50v-52; cf. Régné, 'Catalogue', nos. 935-7 (lxiv. 220-1).

152. ACA, reg. 59, fol. 147v; cf. Régné, 'Catalogue', nos. 982, 986 (lxiv. 228-9). On this aid, see D. Romano, 'El reparto del subsidio de 1282 entre las aljamas catalanas', Sefarad, xiii (1953), 73-86.

153. Ibid., pp. 80, 84-5.

154. Ibid., pp. 81-2, 85-6.

155. ACA, reg. 57, fols. 226v-227; cf. Régné, 'Catalogue', no. 1455 (lxvii. 68).

156. ACA, reg. 68, fol. 55v.

157. Ibid.

158. ACA, reg. 68, fol. 41v; reg. 80, fols. 16v, 31v; cf. Régné, 'Catalogue', nos. 2544 (lxvii. 198), 1969, 1974 (lxix. 156).

159. ACA, reg. 331, fol. 55v.

160. ACA, reg. 332, fol. 93.

161. Ibid., fol. 93v; see below, p. 412.

162. Ibid., fol. 93.

163. Aureum opus regalium privilegiorum civitatis et regni Valentie (Valencia, 1515), fol. 11v; cf. Furs, III. v. 72, in Volumen Fororum et Actuum Curiae (Valencia, 1548), fol. 74v.

164. Fueros y observancias del reyno de Aragón, fol. 166; cf. J. Guallart y López de Goicoecha, 'El derecho penal de la Compilación de Huesca, 1247', Anuario de derecho aragonés, iv (1947-8), 36, 66-7.

165. B. Alart, Privilèges et titres relatifs aux franchises, institutions et propriétés communales de Roussillon et de Cerdagne (Perpignan, 1874), pp. 211-12; Huici, Colección diplomática, ii. 30-1, doc. 487.

166. AHN, cód. 1032, pp. 158-62, doc. 98. This version of the document is undated. E. de Barthelemy, 'Étude sur les établissements monastiques du diocèse d'Elne', Bulletin monumental, xxiii (1857), 482, assigns the dispute to the year 1271, but gives no reference.

167. Prutz, Entwicklung, pp. 312-13, doc. 5. The date, which is given incorrectly by Prutz, should be 21 April 1272.

168. ACA, reg. 59, fol. 13v; see below, p. 400.

169. Fueros y observancias del reyno de Aragón, fol. 7v.

170. Cortes de Aragón, Valencia y Cataluña, i. 142.

171. e.g. AHN, Montesa, P. 434.

172. Finke, AA, i. 41, doc. 30.

173. Ibid. i. 83, doc. 59; cf. Vincke, Staat und Kirche, pp. 63-4.

174. The Hospital continued to exercise these rights in places taken over from the Temple: A.T. Luttrell, 'The Aragonese Crown and the Knights Hospitallers of Rhodes: 1291-1350', English Historical Review, lxxvi (1961), 8.

175. AHN, San Juan, leg. 274, doc. 16; leg. 355, doc. i.

176. AGP, parch. Gardeny, nos. 1291, 1532.

177. ACA, reg. 11, fol. 235.

178. A right of appeal to the king was also claimed by the inhabitants of Monzón in 1292: AHN, cód. 471, p. 238, doc. 221.

179. ACA, reg. 46, fol. 64".

180. M. Albareda y Herrera, El fuero de Alfambra (Madrid, 1925), p. 47; cf. Delaville, Cartulaire, iv. 44, doc. 4579.

181. A. Giménez Soler, 'El poder judicial en la Corona de Aragón', Memorias de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona, viii (1901), 62, 103-4.

182. ACA, reg. 25, fols. 153-4. At the beginning of the fourteenth century a similar conflict was being waged over appeals in Mallorca, then ruled by a branch of the Aragonese house. In 1301 the king of Mallorca argued that only one appeal could be made to the Templar commander of the island; any further appeals were to be made to the king and his court: ACA, CRD Templaris, nos. 152, 153 extra saccos. In 1303 he made a similar claim with regard to the archbishop of Tarragona's estates in Ibiza: A. Pons, Constitucions e ordinacions del regne de Mallorca, ii (Mallorca, 1934), 8-10. But the outcome of this conflict is unknown.

183. ACA, reg. 59, fol. 43.

184. See below, p. 226.

185. ACA, reg. 307, fol. 136v.

186. ACA, reg. 61, fols. 115, 137, 171 (1283); reg. 63, fol. 74v (1286).

187. The English king Edward I had some Templars in his army at the battle of Falkirk in 1298: T.W. Parker, The Knights Templars in England (Tucson, 1963), p. 48.

188. F. Fondevilla, 'La nobleza catalano-aragonesa capitaneada por Ferrán Sánchez de Castro en 1274', Congreso de historia de la Corona de Aragón, ii (Barcelona, 1913), 1157-8. Service was demanded before this from the vassals of the Order of Calatrava: in 1254 James I conceded that the exaction of hueste and cabalgada against Castile from them should not injure Calatrava's privileges: J. Miret y Sans, Itinerari de Jaume I 'el Conqueridor' (Barcelona, 1918), p. 242; and four years later he claimed the right to service against Christians from the inhabitants of Alcañiz, who were under the lordship of Calatrava: Bullarium ordinis militiae de Calatrava, ed. I.J. de Ortega y Cotes, J.F. Alvarez de Baquedano, and P. de Ortega Zuñiga y Aranda (Madrid, 1761), pp. 731-2.

189. ACA, reg. 25, fol. 242; reg. 56, fol. 124; reg. 61, fols. 107v-108; cf. Delaville, Cartulaire, iii. 442, doc. 3826; 479-80, doc. 3903.

190. ACA, reg. 332, fols. 75, 77v, 152v; see below, p. 422.

191. ACA, reg. 62, fol. 58.

192. ACA, reg. 48, fols. 51v, 56; Delaville, Cartulaire, iii. 395, doc. 3727. On the siege of Balaguer, see F. Carreras y Candi, Miscelanea histórica catalana, ii (Barcelona, 1906), 33-56.

193. ACA, reg. 80, fols. 33v, 40.

194. ACA, reg. 98, fol. 229-229v; reg. 330, fol. 69.

195. ACA, reg. 253, fol. 14v.

196. ACA, reg. 48, fol. 51v; reg. 56, fol. 84v; reg. 62, fol. 144v.

197. ACA, reg. 62, fols. 57v, 144v-145.

198. ACA, reg. 80, fol. 40.

199. ACA. reg. 332, fol. 79-79v. Summonses for service against the Moors were apparently also sent directly to the Temple's men in some instances: AHN, San Juan, leg. 333, doc. 15.

200. ACA, reg. 332, fol. 79-79v.

201. ACA, reg. 61, fol. 188.

202. ACA, reg. 23, fol. 27v; Varia 38, fol. 4.

203. ACA, reg. 48, fol. 77v; reg. 50, fol. 160v.

204. ACA, reg. 82, fols. 75v-77v.

205. ACA, reg. 71, fol. 42v; parch. Alfonso III, no. 111.

206. ACA, reg. 48, fols. 51v-52v; cf. Carreras y Candi, op. cit. ii. 44-6.

207. ACA, reg. 48, fol. 55.

208. Ibid., fol. 56-56v. The Usage is published in Cortes de Aragón, Valencia y Cataluña, i. 26.

209. ACA, reg. 56, fol. 80v; reg. 61, fols. 107v-108; reg. 62, fol. 58. The first of these documents is published in J. Vincke, Documenta selecta mutuas civitatis Arago-Cathalaunicae et ecclesiae relationes illustrantia (Barcelona, 1936), pp. 21-2, doc. 41.

210. ACA, reg. 80, fols. 33v, 40.

211. ACA, reg. 332, fol. 152v.

212. V. Salavert y Roca, Cerdeña y la expansión mediterránea de la Corona de Aragón (Madrid, 1956), ii. 203-4, doc. 158.

213. ACA, reg. 331, fol. 60; cf. fols. 64v, 67v.

214. Ibid., fol. 66. When Templar vassals failed to answer a summons in 1290, Alfonso demanded payments from them towards the costs of his attack on Castile; but they had originally been summoned to defend the country against invasion: ACA, reg. 82, fols. 75v-77; reg. 84, fol. 41v.

215. ACA, reg. 332, fol. 75; see below, p. 412.

216. ACA, reg. 56, fols. 80v, 84v.

217. ACA, reg. 62, fols. 143v, 144v.

218. ACA, reg. 25, fol. 242; reg. 56, fol. 124; cf. Delaville, Cartulaire, iii. 479-80, doc. 3903.

219. ACA, reg. 49, fol. 87v.

220. ACA, reg. 307, fol. 31.

221. ACA, reg. 48, fols. 51v, 56; cf. Carreras y Candi, op. cit. ii. 37.

222. C. Baudon de Mony, Les Relations politiques des comtes de Foix aver la Catalogue (Paris, 1896), ii. 243-4, doc. 129.

223. ACA, reg. 108, fol. 67. The men of the Temple were furthermore not compelled to serve with the juntas established for keeping the peace; but if they did not serve, the juntas were then under no obligation to come to their aid: reg. 74, fol. 50.

224. ACA, reg. 80, fol. 124.

225. ACA, reg. 81, fol. 28.

226. Finke, AA, i. 41, doc. 30.

227. Ibid., p. 83, doc. 59.

228. Luttrell, loc. cit., pp. 8-9.

229. e.g. ACA, reg. 70, fol. 103; reg. 71, fol. 45v; AHN, Montesa, P. 276; Finke, AA, iii. 122-4, doc. 54; J. Miret y Sans, 'Inventaris de les cases del Temple de la Corona d'Aragó en 1289', BRABLB, vi (1911), 68. In 1276 Peter of Moncada, who was then in charge of the Aragonese province, was captured by the Moors: Chronicle of James I, caps. 558-9, trans. J. Forster (London, 1883), ii. 668-70; Gesta Comitum Barcinonensium, ed. L. Barrau Dihigo and J. Massó Torrents (Barcelona, 1925), p. 63; F. Soldevila, Pere el Gran, II. i (Barcelona, 1962), 106, doc. 100.

R.I. Burns, The Crusader Kingdom of Valencia (Harvard, 1967), i. 184, states that for half of each year the masters of the Temple and Hospital took command of the Valencian frontier, each of them being in change for a four-month period. The masters were in fact placed in charge of defence only temporarily when the king went to Montpellier shortly after the conquest of the city of Valencia: Chronicle of James I, cap. 295, trans. Forster, ii. 408.

230. Prutz, Entwicklung, p. 283, doc. 7; Delaville, Cartulaire, ii. 686, doc. 2517. D. Mansilla, La documentación pontificia hasta Inocencio III (965-1216) (Rome, 1955), pp. 116-17, doc. 98, publishes a letter written probably in 1155 by the papal legate Hyacinth, in which -- according to the editor -- he exhorted the Templars and Hospitallers to fight against the Moors. But in fact the legate was merely seeking pack animals and other necessary supplies from the Orders.

231. On the relations of Aragon and Granada in 1286-7, see F.D. Gazulla, 'Las compañías de zenetes en el reino de Aragón (1284-1291)', BRAH, xc (1927), 183-95.

232. ACA, reg. 70, fol. 25v.

233. Ibid., fol. 63v; see below, p. 403.

234. ACA, reg. 70, fol. 92v.

235. Ibid., fol. 106.

236. ACA, reg. 307, fol. 96v. The relations between Aragon and Granada in 1303-4 are discussed by A. Giménez Soler, 'La Corona de Aragón y Granada', BRABLB, iii (1905-6), 301-24, 333-4.

237. ACA, CRD Templarios, no. 101; Finke, AA, iii. 122-4, doc. 54; A. Giménez Soler, 'Caballeros españoles en Africa y africanos en España', Revue hispanique, xii (1905), 365-9.

238. Finke, AA, i. 146-7, doc. 99.

239. ACA, CRD Templarios, no. 383; reg. 307, fol. 131v.

240. Finke, AA, i. 146-7, doc. 99.

241. M. Milá y Fontanals, De los trovadores de España (Barcelona, 1889), pp. 381-2.

242. Finke, AA, i. 146-7, doc. 99. Finke gives only a partial transcription of the document: ACA, CRD Templarios, no. 84.

243. ACA, CRD Templarios, no. 383.

244. ACA, reg. 307, fol. 131v.

245. ACA, CRD Templarios, no. 419. Neither in this letter nor in that to the commander of Alfambra is the year of issue given, but they can be linked with a series of royal letters issued in the autumn of 1304. On 1 September 1304 the king, who was at Stas. Creus, ordered the provincial master to prepare to join him in Valencia to repel a threatened invasion: ACA, reg. 307, fol. 107. The master's letter to the commander of Alfambra telling him to go to Murviedro was issued at Gardeny on the first Friday in September, which in 1304 was the 4th. On 12 September the king wrote from Tortosa saying that the Moors had retreated and therefore the Templars need not go to Valencia but should remain in readiness: reg. 307, fol. no 116v. On 28 September, however, the king issued a new summons because of a renewed threat by the Moors, and this was followed by further royal letters sent on 8 and 9 October seeking immediate aid: ibid., fols. 120, 128, 128v. James's letter of 24 October was issued at Valencia, and the provincial master's order written on 25 October was sent from Peñíscola.

246. J. Miret y Sans, 'Inventaris de les cases del Temple de la Corona d'Aragó en 1289', BRABLB, vi (1911), 62.

247. ACA, CRD Templarios, no. 539.

248. ACA, reg. 291, fol. 235.

249. Ibid., fol. 285.

250. Miret y Sans, 'Inventaris', p. 63.

251. Finke, AA, i. 158, doc. 108; Salavert y Roca, op. cit. ii. 102, doc. 72.

252. ACA, reg. 70, fol. 101v; cf. Delaville, Cartulaire, iii. 500, doc. 3959.

253. ACA, reg. 307, fol. 96. The claim by James II's representatives at the papal court in 1309 that the Templars had provided 300 knights for service against the Moors was clearly much exaggerated: Finke, AA, iii. 195, doc. 90.

254. In 1303 James II claimed the service of seven knights for one castle belonging to Santiago, but this seems to have been exceptional: ACA, reg. 307, fol. 96-96v.

255. ACA, reg. 332, fol. 16; reg. 333, fols. 26v, 33v.

256. ACA, reg. 61, fol. 181; reg. 62, fol. 26; reg. 68, fols. 8v, 28; reg. 80, fol. 26v; reg. 82, fol. 109.

257. ACA, Varia 1, fols. 25-40; see below, p. 404.

258. ACA, parch. James I, no. 1667.

259. ACA, reg. 310, fol. 34-34v; AGP, parch. Cervera, no. 196; parch. Barbará, no. 124.

260. AHN, cód. 466, p. 64, doc. 63.

261. ACA, reg. 99, fol. 5-5v.

262. ACA, CRD James II, no. 641.

263. ACA, reg. 324, fol. 272.

264. ACA, reg. 332, fol. 1.

265. ACA, CRD James II, nos. 235, 236.

266. ACA, parch. Alfonso III, nos. 344-6.

267. ACA, reg. 74, fol. 42.

268. AGP, parch. Torres de Segre, no. 20; see below, p. 403.

269. The convents for which Templar cartularies survive are Castellote, Gardeny, Huesca, Novillas, and Tortosa. On these and other cartularies, see below, pp. 456-7.

270. Only those for Gardeny and Novillas were compiled earlier.

271. e.g. AGP, parch. Tortosa, nos. 8, 20, 56.

[Savannah]

5

Rights and Privileges: (ii) Ecclesiastical

[159] The rights which the Temple enjoyed in the churches that it acquired in the Corona de Aragón normally comprised not only the right to present to livings but also control over the revenues deriving from them as appropriated benefices: apparently the only exception was at Selma, where in 1237 Bernard of Portella managed to establish before papal judges delegate a claim to hold the church there 'with full right as rector'. (1) But the Templar income from these churches was limited not merely by the need to provide for vicars, if these were not members of the Order, but also by the obligation to pay certain dues to the diocesan. Admittedly Alexander III conceded that in places which they gained from the infidel, where the Christian religion had not been established, the Templars could build churches which were to be subject only to Rome and in which the diocesan was to have no rights. (2) But the lands won from the Moors in Spain had earlier been in Christian hands, and as the reconquista proceeded the former ecclesiastical organization was restored; bishops in the reconquered lands were able to claim rights inherited from distant predecessors. The churches which the Templars possessed in the Corona de Aragón were thus all subject to episcopal authority, and the majority were in fact granted to the Templars by the bishops themselves. And the latter not only retained powers of jurisdiction over Templar churches, including the right to institute vicars and the power to correct them, (3) but also in most cases reserved to themselves certain revenues.

When García, bishop of Zaragoza, granted the Templars the church of Novillas in 1135, he demanded a payment of only twelve pence annually, (4) but two years later his successor Bernard made a fresh agreement with the Order and reserved to himself a quarter of all tithes and of other revenues. (5) In the second half of the twelfth century, however, it became the custom in the diocese of Zaragoza for the bishop to take a quarter only of the tithes of [160] 'bread and wine' from Templar churches. This was the amount reserved by the bishop Peter when he confirmed Templar rights in the churches of Novillas, Boquiñeni, and Razazol in 1157; (6) and when he granted the church of Encinacorba to the Order in 1176 he ordered the Templars to pay the quarter as it was given from Novillas, Boquiñeni, and other Templar churches in the diocese. (7) The Templars were similarly obliged to pay to the bishop a portion of the tithe from the churches they held in the dioceses of Pamplona, Urgel, and Tortosa, although in some cases the obligation was commuted into a fixed payment: when the bishop of Tortosa granted the church of Ribarroja to the Order in 1281 he reserved to himself 60s. per annum in lieu of the quarter, and three years earlier the bishop of Urgel had similarly demanded 50s.B. annually from the tithes of Puigreig. ( A few bishops, however, surrendered their right to a portion of the tithes. Although in 1145 Michael, bishop of Tarazona, retained the quarter when he granted the church of Ambel to the Templars, three years later he gave the Temple the quarter as well; (9) and when in 1149 the bishop of Lérida granted the church of St. John in Monzón to the Templars he made no reference to the quarter among the rights which he retained. (10)

In the charter recording the gift of St. John at Monzón there is similarly no reference to the episcopal right of hospitality, but bishops usually retained the cena from Templar churches. The only specific exemption was that granted by the bishop of Zaragoza in 1157 with regard to the church of Razazol. (11) This obligation did not, however, always fall on the Templars themselves. In some instances vicars were made responsible for providing hospitality. When a vicar was maintained in a Templar house, as at Encinacorba or Añesa, (12) the bishop presumably received hospitality there from the Order. When a church was not near a Templar house or convent, the vicar might be obliged to provide hospitality for the bishop, as happened at Ademuz in the diocese of Segorbe. (13) But there was no rigid rule. At Estiche in 1286 the obligation of cena was shared between the Temple and the vicar who was then appointed. (14)

The financial rights which the Temple enjoyed in the churches under its authority were determined primarily by local agreement. They were only rarely the subject of papal decrees. Innocent III stipulated in 1204 that the Templars could receive the [161] revenues of a church in their patronage for forty days during a vacancy, and this period was extended in 1255 to fifty days; (15) but the only statements made by the papacy about the division of revenues when a benefice was occupied -- apart from decrees of a general nature (16) -- were that the Templars 'should give a reasonable amount for temporal things' to a vicar, (17) and that after money had been set aside for him and for obligations to the diocesan the revenues should be used in aid of the Holy Land. (18)

The papacy did, however, confer a variety of other rights and privileges on the Order, and the Aragonese Templars were able to derive benefit not only from the ecclesiastical rights which they gained in the Corona de Aragón but also from these papal concessions. For most of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the defence of the Holy Land occupied an important place in papal policies. The popes were therefore staunch supporters of the military orders, and sought in the first place to help to provide resources for the struggle against the infidel. (19) This they did partly by the grant of rights and privileges which helped to increase the military orders' income. These included first the right of burial in the Temple's cemeteries. In the bull Omne datum optimum Innocent II in 1139 allowed the Templars to have cemeteries attached to their houses, in which members of the Order and its familiares could be buried. (20) There is no specific statement until the beginning of Innocent III's pontificate that this privilege was extended to permit anyone to receive burial in the Temple's cemeteries; (21) the versions of Omne datum optimum issued later in the twelfth century add merely the right to bury travellers. (22) But the Order early established the practice of burying confratres, and the right to bury anyone is already implicit in Alexander III's bull Dilecti filii nostri, which refers to those who chose burial in the Temple. (23) When the papacy granted these privileges concerning burial to the Order, it sought to safeguard the interests of the secular clergy, and the latter's rights were defined in the bull Dilecti filii nostri. Of things granted to the Temple by persons in good health or by those who were ill but recovered or by those who were buried elsewhere, the secular clergy was to claim nothing; of bequests made by those who on their deathbed chose burial in the Temple, a quarter could be taken by the secular clergy. Urban III made it clear that nothing was to be taken [162] from those who were not inhabitants of the diocese in which they were buried; (24) Innocent III further granted that horses and arms left to the Temple should be exempt from the regulation about the quarter; and he also allowed the Temple's priests to hear the confessions of those who had chosen burial in the Temple, and to bear their bodies 'with cross and procession' to the Order's cemeteries. (25)

Other papal privileges, like that concerning burial, provided further opportunities for the Temple to gain wealth. From the earliest period of the Order's history the popes offered a remission of penance to anyone who became a lay associate of the Temple and made an annual benefaction to it. The incentives were added that such people, provided they were not excommunicate, would not be denied a Christian burial, and that when the Templars came to collect these donations they could once a year open churches and hold services in places under interdict. (26) Further promises of indulgences were included in special appeals made in aid of the Temple when the situation in the East was causing alarm. After the Grand Master of the Temple had been killed and the Templar stronghold of Jacob's Ford destroyed in 1179, Alexander III sought aid for the Order from the rulers of Christendom in return for a remission of their sins, (27) and further remissions were offered by Innocent IV in 1253, after the Order had suffered heavy losses in the East during Louis IX's crusade and in Sicily at the hands of Frederick II. (28) Indulgences were also promised to those who patronized Templar churches: in 1249, for example, Innocent IV granted a relaxation of 40 days' penance to those who contributed towards the cost of building a church at the Templar house in Barcelona. (29) But it must be remembered that the granting of indulgences was becoming an increasingly frequent practice in this period and that the Templars were not securing an especially favoured position on this point. Also in order to increase its revenues, the Temple was in the thirteenth century allowed to receive the redemptions paid by any of its vassals who had taken the cross but were prevented by age or infirmity or other just cause from fulfilling their vows: this was a privilege which was normally enjoyed by secular lords who had taken the cross. (30) Urban IV further in 1262 permitted the Temple to receive property which members of the Order would have inherited, except that held in fee. (31)

[163] In order to prevent financial loss on the part of the Temple, Urban in the same year granted the Aragonese Templars the privilege that if any of their vassals were convicted of heresy, the possessions which the latter held of the Temple should revert to it, instead of being confiscated by the lay authority. (32) A similar purpose lay behind the bull issued by Innocent III at the end of the twelfth century, which decreed that the vassals of the Temple should not be forced to fight against Christians, for the pope was here trying to prevent the expenditure of Templar resources on ransoms. (33) And Alexander III had earlier tried to ensure that the Temple's men were in a position to carry out their obligations to the Order by commanding prelates to impose penance and not monetary penalties on them. (34)

The papacy sought to provide resources for the Temple not only by granting these privileges, but also by exempting it from the payment of certain dues. Of the financial exemptions granted to the Order, the most important in the twelfth century was that concerning the payment of tithes. It is possible that a privilege in this matter had been obtained by 1130, for in article fifteen of the Latin version of the Templar Rule, which has been attributed to that year, (35) it is stated that

although the reward of poverty which is the kingdom of heaven is without doubt due to the poor, we nevertheless order you, whom the Christian faith counts among them, to give daily a tenth of all bread to your almoner. (36)

[Savannah]

This may imply that the Order retained the tithes from its property and was itself to dispense alms from these dues, as did a number of monasteries which did not pay tithes to outsiders. (37) Certainly to have imposed the obligation of giving a tenth of bread to the poor in addition to the normal payment of tithes would have imposed a heavy burden on an institution which was only just establishing itself. The first direct reference to the Templar exemption is not found, however, until 1139, when in the bull Omne datum optimum Innocent II conceded that
since those who defend the Church should live and be supported by the goods of the Church, we entirely prohibit the exaction of tithes against your will from movables or animals or from anything which pertains to your venerable house. (38)
[164] This was a vague privilege, and Anastacius IV stated more precisely that the Order should be exempt from the payment of tithes on lands which it worked itself or at its own expense and on the food of its animals. (39) Yet even if this was a new ruling for the Temple, it was one which had been applied earlier to monks and regular canons (40) and before the publication of Anastacius's bull it was influencing the granting of local privileges to the Order. When the bishop of Pamplona in 1149 granted the Templars the right to build a church at Añesa, he conceded that 'as is your custom' they should not pay tithes on lands which they cultivated themselves, (41) and in the same year in an agreement about the church of St. John in Monzón the bishop of Lérida retained the tithes of Tamarite, except those from the Order's animals and from lands worked by the Templars. (42)
The Templars were also exempted from the payment of certain procurations. Alexander III decreed in 1160 that the Order should give hospitality in kind to papal legates and nuncios, but should not be liable for procurations in money, except to cardinals. (43)

The papacy often justified the Templars' financial exemptions on the grounds that the Order's resources were used in the Holy Land. This argument had its most obvious application in the sphere of extraordinary papal taxation, a considerable part of which was destined for the East. It was put forward, for example, in a papal letter to the archbishop of Tarragona in 1246 about the twentieth for the Holy Land which had been imposed at the Council of Lyons in the previous year. (44) The Temple's exemption from this kind of taxation was defined in 1256 by Alexander IV in the bull Quanto devocius divino. He granted that

you are not to be held or in any way forced to contribute by reason of your churches, houses, or possessions in any tallia, collecta, sums of money, or other exactions, under whatever name they are taken, or to pay them for whosoever's benefit or for whatever reason they are imposed, on the authority of letters issued or to be issued by the Holy See or its legates, without a special order from that See, making full and express reference to this exemption.(45)
This decree did not of course limit the pope's power of taxing the Temple, but in practice the Templars were exempted from papal taxes for the Holy Land and from those imposed by the papacy for the benefit of secular rulers: the military orders were [165] thus exempted from payment not only of the twentieth for the Holy Land in 1245 but also of the tenth granted to James I by Clement IV in 1265. (46) But for much of the thirteenth century taxes were also being imposed by the papacy to further its own interests in Italy and Sicily, and contributions to these were sometimes demanded of the Order. At the end of Gregory IX's pontificate the churches under Templar patronage in the province of Tarragona paid a fifth to the pope to assist him in his struggle against Frederick II, (47) and in 1264 Urban IV sought a subsidy from the Temple during his conflict with Manfred, (48) while at the end of the thirteenth century Boniface VIII made several demands of the Templars. In 1298 he sought the sum of 12,000 florins from the Order for his war against the Colonna, (49) and the military orders were also asked to provide the pope with money for his Sicilian policies. (50)
Although the financial exemptions granted to the Temple by the papacy were primarily concerned with ecclesiastical taxes, the popes did also attempt to restrict the Order's liability for secular dues by exempting it from the payment of tolls and customs. Lucius III in 1182/3 commanded prelates to prohibit the exaction of pedagium, vendum, passagium, lauragium, or any other custom from Templar goods; and this order was frequently repeated by later popes. (51)

Besides concerning itself with the financial needs of the Templars, the papacy also sought to further the interests of the Order by placing it under papal protection. A promise of protection for the Temple and its possessions was included in the bull Omne datum optimum in 1139, (52) and the promise was renewed in later issues of this bull (53) and in others such as Quociens a nobis petitur,(54) besides being repeated, as in 1178 and 1179, with special reference to the Templars in Aragon. (55) In granting protection the papacy was of course merely extending to the Temple a privilege already enjoyed by many monasteries and churches, but in the case of the Temple in Aragon there is no evidence of any annual payment to the pope in return for protection.(56)

The value of this privilege is apparent from the frequency with which the Templars made use of it. The large number of appeals for protection which they made to the pope need not, however, be taken as a sign of widespread hostility to the Order, as Prutz would suggest; (57) it provides merely a further indication of the [166] general lawlessness of medieval society, where force was commonly used and often took the place of legal action. Templar complaints against a particular individual or individuals were usually referred by the pope to members of the Aragonese clergy, who were either ordered to hear and judge the complaint or told merely to obtain satisfaction for the Temple by ecclesiastical censures. Thus in 1261 the archdeacon of Tarantona(?) and the cantor of Lérida were ordered to judge the grievances which the Temple had against Berenguer of Puigvert, (58) while the provost of Tarragona was ordered merely to compel Arnold of Belmonte to give satisfaction to the Templars, who claimed that he had attacked their property. (59) Orders of this latter kind were also contained in bulls of protection of a more general character which the Order obtained from the papacy. (60) The course of action which might be adopted when a bull of this type was issued is illustrated by a letter sent by the archbishop of Tarragona to his clergy in 1299; quoting a bull from Boniface VIII, in which he was commanded to obtain within a suitable period of time the restoration of rights and possessions seized from the Temple in his province, he ordered that

you are to publish and cause to be published the said privilege or letter in your churches in the presence of the people whenever and however many times the brothers of the Temple request it of you. A suitable period, namely ten days, is to be assigned to those harming the Order in the manner aforesaid, within which period they are to make satisfaction to the preceptor and brothers of the Temple or come to an agreement with them. If they fail to do this within a further suitable period, which you assign them for the purpose, you are then to promulgate a general sentence of excommunication on them. (61)
Papal orders to obtain satisfaction must frequently, however, have necessitated an examination of the Templar complaint before action could be taken. In the bull sent to the provost of Tarragona in 1261 the clause 'if it is so' was included, as in many royal writs concerning Templar complaints, and this implies that an investigation had to be conducted before sentence could be passed; and when the bishop of Sigüenza received a letter from Innocent IV in 1244, ordering him to take action against those who molested the Templars and their possessions, he ordered those accused by the Order to appear before his delegates so that Templar complaints could be investigated. (62)
[167] The grant of protection in 1139 was not accompanied by the privilege of exemption from episcopal jurisdiction for the Order, but in the bull Omne datum optimum Innocent II restricted the rights of prelates over the Temple in several ways. He decreed that no ecclesiastical or secular person should alter the customs of the Temple, or exact oaths of fealty or homage from its members. If priests or clerks were admitted to the Order the permission of their bishop was to be sought but even if he refused they could still be received into the Temple. Once priests had become members of the Order, bishops were not to claim obedience from them. Finally, the Templars could have their clerks ordained by any bishop; they were not obliged to have recourse to the diocesan.

It is not known at exactly what date the Order's privileges were extended to include exemption from episcopal jurisdiction, but the Templars clearly enjoyed the immunity before the end of Alexander III's pontificate. When Honorius III in 1216 prohibited the passing of sentences of excommunication or interdict on the Templars or their servants, as long as they were in the Order's service, he referred back to a similar decree issued by Alexander III; (63) moreover, at the Third Lateran Council the prelates complained that the Templars tried to use their privileges to exempt confratres of the Order from episcopal sentences, and this implies that members of the Temple at least were exempt by 1179. (64) The Templars' immunity, like that of the Cistercians, (65) may in fact have been granted by Alexander III for, according to Giraldus Cambrensis, he is reported to have said that he especially favoured the Temple, the Hospital, and Citeaux. (66) These were apparently the Orders which gave him firmest support in his conflict with Frederick Barbarossa, and the privilege of exemption may have been granted to the Temple partly as a reward for its aid in the struggle against emperor and anti-pope. (67)