Download PDF | Adrian Boas - Archaeology of the Military Orders_ A Survey of the Urban Centres, Rural Settlements and Castles of the Military Orders in the Latin East (c.1120-1291) -Routledge (2006).

Download PDF |  Adrian Boas - Archaeology of the Military Orders_ A Survey of the Urban Centres, Rural Settlements and Castles of the Military Orders in the Latin East (c.1120-1291) -Routledge (2006).

337 Pages 

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE MILITARY ORDERS

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Military Orders played an active role in the defence of the Latin States in the East (modern Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Cyprus) and administered various urban and rural properties. They were also significantly involved in the various activities relating to the welfare of the Frankish populace and of the pilgrims visiting the Holy Land.

This book presents a detailed description of the archaeological evidence for the five Military Orders active in the Latin East — the Hospitallers, Templars, Teutonic Knights, Leper Knights of St Lazarus and Knights of St Thomas. The three principal sections of the book consist of chapters relating to the urban quarters of the Orders in Jerusalem, Acre and other cities, their numerous rural possessions, and the tens of castles built or purchased and expanded by them in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The distinctive architecture relating to their various undertakings (such as hospitals in Jerusalem and Acte) is discussed in detail, with emphasis on the important role of the Military Orders in the development of military architecture in the Middle Ages.

Adrian J. Boas is Senior Lecturer at the University of Haifa. He has published several articles and two books on Crusader archaeology.

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Archaeological research of the Military Orders in the East is inseparable from the general study of archaeology of the Crusader period. The urban centres of the Orders were amongst the most important institutions in Crusader cities and their remains include some of the principal surviving examples of twelfth- and thirteenth-century urban architecture in the Latin East. The castles of the Military Orders include the largest and the most advanced examples of Frankish military architecture. Consequently it is impossible to discuss the Crusader city or military architecture of the period without considering the Military Orders.

The aim of this book is to provide a survey of the extensive archaeological research relating to the Military Orders to accompany the growing body of historical studies dealing with the subject. Nearly a century and a half of excavation and survey has brought to light numerous sites and finds relating to the Military Orders, and in recent years, particularly within the last two decades, many important discoveries have been made, notable amongst these being the monumental remains exposed by the ongoing excavations of the Hospitaller compound in Acre. However, while there are a great many informative publications on these discoveries scattered amongst archaeological journals, there is no comprehensive work bringing them together in a single volume.

It was not a simple matter to decide upon the format and scope of this book. I have chosen to concentrate on architecture, keeping the references to small finds to a minimum, and have limited the discussion historically to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and geographically to the eastern Mediterranean. It will include the entire period of Frankish rule in the mainland Crusader states and Cyprus until 1291, but excluding fourteenth-century Cyprus, Rhodes and other possessions of the Military Orders in the eastern Mediterranean which I hope to present in a second volume in the future.

I am grateful to the helpful staff of the library of the University of Haifa, the Archaeology Department library at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the National Library at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the library of the Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi Institute in Jerusalem and the library of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem. I am in debt to Ross Burns, whose acquaintance with the Syrian castles has saved me from many of the pitfalls that I would otherwise have faced in attempting to describe places that I cannot visit. His advice about travel in Cilicia held me in good stead and he has also been kind enough to supply me with several of the accompanying photographs. For their help and advice I am grateful to Eliezer Stern, Edna Stern, Israel Roll, Amos Kloner, Hervé Barbé, Rabei Khamissy and Georg Philipp Melloni. My particular thanks go to Denys Pringle who was kind enough to read the entire manuscript and who made many useful comments and corrections and supplied me with some of the photographs. Where I have strayed from his suggestions the responsibility is my own. I am grateful to Batsheva Kohai for many hours of effort on the illustrations, and to my son Joni for his help in correcting some of my last-minute errors. The indispensable editing of Sue Gorodetsky and the kindness and remarkable patience of my publishers at Routledge have made the research and writing of this book a pleasant task. Finally I must express my gratitude to my wife Yochi. Although her interests lie elsewhere, she has been a valuable springboard for ideas and a sympathetic and remarkably patient travel companion. Adrian J. Boas Jerusalem 2005

BACKGROUND

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a new type of institution evolved in the Crusader states in the Near East. Historian Joshua Prawer referred to it as one of only two original contributions made by a society in which ‘the social and intellectual climate ... stunted the new and original’.' This was the Military Order, in essence a lay order of knights and sergeants living their daily lives according to monastic rule. Prawet’s remark was an overstatement. There are other areas in which the Franks in the East introduced innovations, but the Military Order was certainly a novel idea. The combination of soldiering activities and a monastic lifestyle was a remarkably practical conception. It provided the Latin East, and subsequently much of Europe, with a welltrained and well-equipped fighting force consisting of individuals who were free from family ties and responsibilities. The strict, organised monastic regime was an ideal framework for the promotion of a well-disciplined armed force. The Military Orders were to play an important role in the defence of the Frankish states, guarding roads, building castles, and supplying the armed and trained soldiers, knights and sergeants who formed one of the most valuable components of the Crusader army. With their expansion throughout the West they came to play a similar vital role in Europe.

However, armed service, although it may be the activity for which the Military Orders are best known and perhaps the most vital one as far as the survival of the Frankish states is concerned, was not by any means the only role they fulfilled. They were also involved in the guardianship of pilgrims and in the welfare of the poor and ill. In order to carry out these functions they established several hospices, hospitals and orphanages in the Crusader cities. Through these activities the Orders played a vital role in Frankish society. Moreover, the Templars became involved in banking, providing indispensable services such as money-lending and the use of their convents as safe depositories for money documents and jewels.

The Military Orders were active from the beginning of the twelfth century and continued long after the fall of the Crusader states. They have left a remarkable archaeological record, both in the Near East and in Europe, in the form of castles, urban and rural administrative centres, convents, churches, hospitals and hospices, granges, mills and other agricultural installations, and a large range of minor objects. The archaeological evidence for the activities of the Military Orders in the two centuries of Frankish rule in the East is the subject of this book. There are many useful studies of the history of the Military Orders (see the bibliography); and it is not my intention in the present work to add to these but rather to present a survey and discussion of their architectural remains. However, for the convenience of the general reader, I believe that a brief outline of the development of these institutions in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries will not come amiss and will serve to put the discussions following into context. This section will also include a review of the principal written sources for the study of the Military Orders, and a survey of the relevant past and current archaeological research.

The idea of the Military Order

For at least the first two decades of the Frankish rule, the leadership had little success in its attempts to persuade Crusaders to remain permanently in the Crusader states or to encourage new settlers to come to the East. As a result, the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the other Crusader states were too sparsely populated to defend their lands and settlements adequately and were unable to prevent Muslim raiders from attacking the towns and travellers on the roads.” Their ability to control and govern the often hostile local population was limited, and the threat of a unified attack from outside Frankish territories was constant. The need accordingly arose for some form of organisation that could supply trained and equipped soldiers, construct fortresses and aid in the defence of the cities. The Military Orders that were established in the Latin East during the twelfth century were intended to serve these and other needs. They proved to be highly successful in providing armed escorts for travellers and attending to the poor and ill. They also played a central role in the revival of pilgrimage, an important factor in the social and economic recovery of the cities which had suffered from the destruction wrought during the conquest, including the slaughter or expulsion of much of the local population.

Establishing a foothold: the foundation of the Order of the Knights of the Temple

According to the German chronicler Albert of Aachen (Aix), at Easter 1120 a group of about 700 unarmed pilgrims who were taking the road from Jerusalem to the baptismal site on the River Jordan were attacked in a secluded area near the castles of Cushet and Burgenvins by Muslims from Tyre and Ascalon. Some 300 of them were slaughtered and another sixty taken into captivity.’ Although the historical references to the founding of the Templar Order make no direct connection between this calamity and the Order’s foundation at about the same time, this event may well have served as a catalyst; it was just this type of disaster that the Order was intended to prevent.* The ‘Order of the Poor Knights of Christ of the Temple which is in Jerusalem’, as it was later called at the Council of Troyes (1129), was established by two knights, Hugh de Payns and Godfrey of Saint Omer. There are a few references in twelfth-century sources to the intentions of these knights in establishing the new foundation. Simon, a monk of St Bertin, writing about 15 years after the event, identified the two founders as participants in the First Crusade. They had remained in the East and chosen to renounce the material world and take up a monastic lifestyle while retaining their knightly role when necessary to defend the land against the attack of insurgent pagans.’ Writing several decades after Simon, the Crusader historian, Archbishop William of Tyre suggested that the military vocation of the new order came at the instigation of the patriarch, Warmund of Picquigny. His aim appears to have been to establish a religious society which would provide protection for pilgrims visiting the holy places.° That this was the chief motivation for the establishment of the new organisation is evident from the form of the vows to the patriarch taken by Hugh, Godfrey and the other seven knights, which are recorded by William of Tyre. These vows included not only obedience, poverty and chastity but also an undertaking to aid and protect pilgrims on the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem.’

The need for protection on the roads is evident from the graphic descriptions of travel found in the pilgrim itineraria of the early years of Crusader rule. The Anglo-Saxon traveller Saewulf, who visited the kingdom in 1102/03, describes the dangers of travelling the road between Jaffa and Jerusalem:

We went up from Joppa to the city of Jerusalem, a journey of two days, along a mountainous road, rocky, and very dangerous. For the Saracens, always laying snares for the Christians, lie hidden in the hollow places of the mountains, and the caves of the rocks, watching day and night, and always on the look out for those whom they can attack on account of the fewness of the party through weariness ... Oh, what a number of human bodies, both in the road and by the side of it, lie all torn by wild beasts! ... On that road not only the poor and the weak, but even the rich and the strong, are in danger. Many are cut off by the Saracens, but more by heat and thirst; many through scarcity of drink, but many more perish from drinking too much.®

A few years later the Russian abbot Daniel of Kiev, who visited the Holy Land in 1106/ 07, wrote about the road from Jerusalem to the River Jordan:

This road is very troublesome and dangerous and destitute of water. Brigandage is frequent in those high rocky mountains and fearful gorges.’

These accounts illustrate what must have been abundantly apparent to the Frankish leadership: there was an urgent need for armed escorts to accompany and protect pilgrims and travellers on the roads of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Later in the century, the historical accounts made a connection between these raids and the foundation of the Templar Order. Writing in 1182, Walter Map, the Archdeacon of Oxford, who served as a secular clerk at the court of Henry II of England (1154-89), also referred to the repeated attacks of Muslims on the pilgrims.'? His contemporary William of Tyre records:

the main duty of this order — that which was enjoined upon them by the patriarch and the other bishops for the remission of sins — was, that, as far as their strength permitted, they should keep the roads and highways safe from the menace of robbers and highwaymen, with especial regard for the protection of pilgrims."

This, together with the protection of the holy places, was to be the chief task of the Templar Order. The assignment of protecting the pilgrims to the River Jordan was specifically incorporated into the Order’s Rule: The Commander of the City of Jerusalem should have ten knight brothers under his command to lead and guard the pilgrims who come to the River Jordan; and he should carry a round tent and the piebald banner or flag, for as long as his authority lasts.'”

A second incentive for the establishment of the Orders was to provide troops to participate in campaigns for the expansion and defence of the Crusader states. Prior to the establishment of the Templar Order, knights who could be mustered for a campaign or even for regular defensive needs were in short supply. Fulcher of Chartres recorded that few knights remained in the East after the capture of Jerusalem in 1099. Baldwin I had, at first, no more than 300 knights in his service.'? Following the establishment and rapid expansion of the Templars in the twelfth century, they alone numbered around 300 knights by the 1170s.'* Together with the Hospitallers, they came to provide about half of the entire fighting force of the Crusader army.””

From its foundation the Templar Order benefited from royal and ecclesiastical patronage. King Baldwin II supported the new organisation to the extent of providing (temporarily, according to William of Tyre) a wing in his palace, the Templum Salomonis (al-Aqsa Mosque) in the south of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.'° The Augustinian canons of the neighbouring Templum Domini gave them a square nearby. The Templars, who took their name from their new residence, were organised under a Master in three classes: knights, sergeants and chaplains. They took vows of obedience, personal poverty and chastity, established a communal coenobitical life and organised their day according to a monastic daily routine which was based on the Benedictine Rule and, under the guidance of Bernard of Clairvaux (St Bernard), were probably influenced by the ascetic and anti-materialistic Cistercian reforms.'’ They slept in a common dormitory, ate in a communal refectory and divided their time, according to the canonical hours, between prayer, various household tasks, military training and care of their equipment. They adopted a white tunic symbolising chastity, like that of the Cistercians, adding a red cross in order to distinguish them from the monks. They wore their hair short and avoided all contact with women. The fourth decade of the twelfth century witnessed rapid recruitment to the Order, due in no small part to the enthusiastic support of Bernard of Clairvaux. Bernard wrote a treatise, De laude novae militiae ad milites templi (In Praise of the New Knighthood), in order to silence criticism of the foundation by those who regarded warfare as ungodly and incompatible with a religious vocation.'®

The Templar Rule is believed to have been composed by Bernard at the time of the Council of Troyes in January 1129.'? Two years later Patriarch Stephen of Jerusalem (1128-30) completed its form. In 1139 Pope Innocent II (1130-43) granted the Templars extensive privileges in a bull (Ommne datum optimum).

The foundation of the Military Order of the Hospital of St John

The Order of the Hospital of St John, commonly known as the Hospitallers, was the second Military Order to be established in the Holy Land. As an institution, it existed much earlier than the Templars, not as a Military Order but rather as a welfare institution providing care for the needy and treatment for the ill. Its origins may possibly go as far back as the beginning of the seventh century, when in the year 603 Pope Gregory the Great called for the establishment of a hospice for Latin pilgrims. Though Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land entered a period of decline under Islam, by the mid-tenth century it was on the rise again, despite the difficulties faced by Christian travellers in the Holy Land under Muslim rule. At this time an institution which can be considered the precursor of the Hospitallers was established by a group of Amalfitan merchants in Jerusalem. An anonymous Amalfitan chronicler records that while on pilgrimage to Jerusalem around 1080 Archbishop John of Amalfi (¢. 1070— 81/2) visited the new establishments, which included a hospital/hospice for men and another one for women.” William of Tyre writes that the Amalfitans built two institutions: a monastery dedicated to the Virgin Mary, which was known as the monastery of the Latins, and a convent of nuns dedicated to St Mary Magdalene.”' These were set up on a plot of land to the south of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and followed the Benedictine Rule. The monastery had a hospital (xenodochium), which according to William was dedicated to St John the Almoner, but which modern scholars prefer to see as having been dedicated from the beginning to John the Baptist.”

These institutions were devoted to the care of poor and sick Latin pilgrims who arrived in Jerusalem. Towards the end of the eleventh century the hospice/hospital was under the astute leadership of a certain Gerard, possibly himself of Amalfitan origin, although there is no clear evidence for this.” Gerard’s wisdom and foresight enabled the hospital to survive the traumatic events of 1099 and to continue to function and expand under Crusader rule in the early twelfth century. Gerard persuaded Duke Godfrey and his successor, Baldwin I, to support the hospital. The king gave the institution grants of properties in and outside of Jerusalem and, following the Battle of Rama (Ramla) in 1101, a tenth of all the spoils.4 In 1112 Patriarch Arnulf of Chocques (1112-18) and Archbishop Evremar of Caesarea exempted the hospital from paying tithes.” In 1113, the Hospitallers received recognition and privileges in a bull (Pie postulation voluntatis) from Pope Paschal II (1099-1118). They were recognised as an independent Order. The privileges granted the Order papal protection, confirmed its possessions, and allowed the brothers to elect their own Master without being required to confer with any other lay or ecclesiastical authority. Pope Calixtus I (1119-24) confirmed Paschal’s grants and Popes Innocent II and Anastasius IV (1153-54) extended their privileges. The Order began to expand its holdings, acquiring property in the West where it received extensive grants before 1113. Hospices were established in Italy, the Iberian Peninsula and southern France.”°

Like that of the canons of the nearby Holy Sepulchre, the Order’s Rule, which was drawn up by Gerard’s successor Raymond du Puy (1120—58/60) and later added to by subsequent Masters, was based on the Rule of Saint Augustine.”’ In both East and West the Order remained primarily involved in the care of the needy and sick. However, Raymond du Puy, an energetic and effective organiser, led the Order to pursue an active military role. As early as 1123 an emergency unit of mounted knights was formed against the Fatimid threat. From 1136, the Hospitallers were given the castle of Bethgibelin by King Fulk and thus began their important role as castle-owners.

In Jerusalem the Hospitallers continued to occupy the area to the south of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, expanding their holdings to include the entire plot of land from the church to David Street on the south and from the Street of the Patriarch (modern Christian Street) in the west to the triple market on the ancient Cardo in the east. They began a monumental building programme in Jerusalem and in Acre.

The Teutonic Knights

The Teutonic Order was established in Acre in the last decade of the twelfth century.”* Its origins lay in the collapse of the German contingent of the Third Crusade. In the spring and early summer of 1190, the Germans led by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who formed the largest faction of the Crusader army, crossed Asia Minor on the way to Tyre. However, the emperor was drowned while crossing the Saleph River on 10 June 1190, an incident which led to the total collapse of his army. Many of the Germans returned to Europe and others fell victim to an epidemic which broke out amongst the regrouping forces at Antioch. Despite these disasters, many Germans did arrive to participate in the siege of Acre, joining the other contingents of the Crusader armies from England and France. According to a contemporary text known as Narracio de primordiis ordinis theutonici, a fleet of fifty-five ships of German Crusaders had joined King Richard I of England, who occupied Acre on 12 July 1191 after an extended siege.”

Richard went on to recover the coast as far as Ascalon, but failed to retake Jerusalem. Consequently Acre’s importance rose as the interim administrative capital of the rump kingdom. During the siege of Acre in 1190, some members of the German army, citizens of Liibeck and Bremen, established a makeshift hospital outside the eastern walls of the city near the Cemetery of St Nicholas, using a ship’s sail for shelter. When the city fell to the Crusaders, the Germans purchased a garden inside the walls near the Gate of St Nicholas and built a church, hospital, tower and other buildings there. The hospital was dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

In 1197/8 a meeting of German ecclesiastical and lay leaders in Acre decided that the Germans should model their care of the poor and sick on the example of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, while taking the Templars as the model for their religious and military activities.*° A papal bull of Pope Innocent III confirmed these decisions in February 1199, and the Teutonic Knights adopted the Templar Rule (which they later modified for their own needs) and its white mantle.*

The name subsequently adopted by this Order, the Hospital of St Mary of the House of the Teutons in Jerusalem, appears only about two decades later. It served as the basis for the successful claim of the Grand Master, Hermon von Salza (1210-39), to Frederick II in 1229 that the Order should receive the property formerly held by the German hospital in Jerusalem.

As latecomers to the scene, the aspirations of the Teutonic Order to expand and to gain possession of rural properties required them to centre their activities in the Galilee, which was less intensely occupied by the Hospitallers and Templars than most of the other fertile farmland in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In order to do so, they set up a rural headquarters in Castellum Regis (Chasteiau dou Rei), a castle located on the crest of a hill overlooking farmland in the hills of the western Galilee. In 1226 the Order acquired extensive rural property in the region. Probably in the following year, work began on a new castle, Starkenberg, more commonly known by its French name, Montfort, which subsequently (by 1244) replaced Acre as the central headquarters of the Teutonic Order in the Latin East.

The Leper Knights of St Lazarus

Like the Order of St John and the Teutonic Order, the Order of St Lazarus began not as a Military Order but as a hospital. Its origins go back to a leper hospital established outside the walls of Jerusalem in the third century AD (or possibly to the founding of an institution outside the walls of Caesarea by St Basil in the late fourth century).° ?

In the Crusader period, the Order of St Lazarus is first recorded in a document dating to between 1128 and 1137 referring to a leper hospital located outside the northern wall of Jerusalem between the Tower of Tancred and St Stephen’s Gate. The Order was headed by a magister (le maister de Saint Ladre des Mesiaux), who was a suffragan of the patriarch of Jerusalem and who, Clermont-Ganneau suggested, may be the mitred figure appearing on the seal of the Order (Figure 80).** The brothers wore a green cross on their mantles and followed the Rule of St Augustine. Although, like the other Orders, the Knights of St Lazarus received many grants and privileges, papal recognition was achieved only in 1255.*° Like the larger Military Orders, the Leper Knights began acquiring landed holdings quite early on. However, we lack information as to when they first took on a military role. The first reference comes only in 1244, when knights of the Order fought at La Forbie. Six years later they took part in the campaign of Louis IX in Egypt.

In the twelfth century a leper hospital was established by the Order in Acre, located well outside the walls. When the city expanded north and was refortified the leper hospital came within the walls. In 1240 land was rented to the Order by the Master of the Temple, Armand of Perigord, for an annual payment of 15 bezants.** There are records of other leper hospitals in the kingdom, including one at Castellum Regis (Mi iliya) in the western Galilee and another dedicated to St Bartholomew in Beirut; but not all leprosaria were connected to the Military Order.*”

Perhaps not all the brothers of the Order of St Lazarus were lepers. Statute 429 of the Rule of the Templars states: ‘Nor may any brother of the Temple enter the Order of St Lazarus unless he becomes a leper.’** This would seem to suggest that in the past some Templars who were not lepers had joined the Order. Why they should have done so is difficult to tell, but there would be no reason to make such a rule if this was not a possibility which had to be prevented.

The Order of St Thomas of Canterbury

The Order of St Thomas of Canterbury is another institution that did not begin its existence as a Military Order. It was founded as a religious house of regular canons around the time of the Third Crusade (1189-92) and, perhaps not surprisingly, Richard I has been said to be its founder.*? Ralph de Diceto (the dean of St Paul’s) wrote that its first prior was William, his former chaplain. The new foundation received the support of the family of St Thomas Becket. The Order adopted the Rule of St Augustine and evolved into a Military Order towards the end of the third decade of the thirteenth century. When the Order of St Thomas became a Military Order under Bishop Peter, he chose to adopt the Rule of the Teutonic Knights.“ Papal approval and support came in 1236 from Gregory IX, and in 1256-57 from Alexander IV."' Edward I of England became a patron of the Order in the late thirteenth century. 

Expansion in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

During the twelfth century the Military Orders went through a phase of rapid development and expansion. They acquired properties by various means, through grants, donations and purchases and through exchanges between the Orders themselves, each of which was attempting to build up its own consolidated areas of landholdings. Most of the properties were acquired before 1187. Of a total of 858 Frankish sites in the Kingdom of Jerusalem alone that have been identified by Prawer and Benvenisti, 171 are known to have belonged to the Military Orders at various times.” These include urban sites, rural properties and castles. In even more detail, RileySmith lists the Hospitaller estates as including some 224 identified sites in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and some 47 unidentified sites, as well as some additional unnamed properties.*? In the County of Tripoli he lists 53 identified sites, 29 unidentified sites and two unnamed casalia (villages). In the Principality of Antioch, the County of Edessa and the Kingdom of Armenia he lists 79 identified estates, 59 unidentified estates and a few unnamed casalia. In Cyprus there are nine identified Hospitaller estates and four unidentified sites. There are also some 13 Hospitaller sites in the Latin East whose location is entirely unknown, and several unnamed casalia and other properties. Although they suffered a major setback with the loss of their inland properties and their headquarters in Jerusalem in the aftermath of the Battle of Hattin in 1187, the Military Orders recovered and in the thirteenth century made new acquisitions and strengthened their fortifications.

Cyprus came into Crusader hands within a month after the arrival of King Richard I of England, leading a contingent of the Third Crusade, on 6 May 1191. The illtreatment of his sister by the Byzantine ruler of Cyprus, Isaac Ducas Comnenus, served as the justification for the occupation of the island by Richard. He subsequently sold Cyprus to the Templars for the sum of 100,000 gold bezants (40,000 to be paid in advance and the promise of an additional 60,000 to be paid in the future from the island’s revenues). However, the Templars appear to have made an error of judgement by purchasing Cyprus at a time when their resources were stretched to the limit. Consequently, lack of manpower (they could assign fewer than twenty knights to its garrison) and finances (they were not able to make the promised payment of 60,000 bezants), as well as the lack of local support resulting from their harsh rule and heavy taxation, forced them to abandon the island by April 1192. In their place Richard sold the island to Guy of Lusignan, who had been displaced as King of Jerusalem.“ However, the Templars did retain holdings on the island and expanded them in the thirteenth century. They had properties in Famagusta, Limassol, Nicosia and Paphos, and the castles and estates of Gastria, Khirokitia, Phasouri, Psimolophou (and the dependent settlements at Tripi and Kato Deftera), Temblos and Yermasoyia until the 1270s, when the Templar Master’s support of Charles of Anjou as King of Jerusalem over the rival claims of Hugh III of Cyprus cost them their Cypriot holdings.” Though these were apparently returned in 1282, whatever remained passed to the Hospitallers in 1308 after the suppression of the Templar Order.

The Hospitallers held the tower of Kolossi near Limassol, which served as their Grand Commandery from ¢. 1210, and a second Commandery at Khirokitia, which was destroyed by the Mamluks in 1426.*° Kolossi was in a sugar-growing district and a sugar refinery was located adjacent to the tower.*’ In Limassol they had a tower and in Nicosia a fortified or semi-fortified house. Other estates held by them in the thirteenth century included Plataniskia, Monagroulli, Phinikas, Palekhori, Kellaqkli, Louvaras and Trakhoniu, and property at Mora, as well as additional unidentified properties.”

The Teutonic Knights and the Knights of St Thomas of Canterbury held very little property in Cyprus. The German Order probably found little support on the island because of their unpopular patron, Frederick II. The impoverished English Order had few possessions anywhere, but did have an estate near Limassol and a church dedicated to St Nicholas in Nicosia.”

The Military Orders played a role in the defence of Armenian Cilicia from an early date. By 1131 or 1136/37 the Templars had established a march in the Amanus Mountains north of Antioch.” The Amanus Mountains form a natural barrier between Cilicia and Syria. Two routes pass through the mountains: the pass of Hajar Shughlan, located north of Alexandretta (Iskenderun), and, further south, the celebrated Belen Pass (the Syrian Gates). The Templar march controlling these two routes included the castles of La Roche de Roissol (generally identified with Chivlan Kale) and La Roche Guillaume (of uncertain location) guarding the northern pass. Gaston (Baghras) guarded the southern pass, and Trapesac (Darbsak) played an important role, being located between the eastern approaches of both passes.

Armenian control in Cilicia reached its peak under the Roupenid Levon (Leon) IJ, who was crowned on 6 January 1198. In this period the involvement of the three great Military Orders in the defence of the Kingdom of Armenia also greatly increased. Despite his attempts at annexing the Frankish Principality of Antioch, Levon had close ties with the Frankish states and granted the Military Orders lands and castles to aid in the defence of the kingdom. The Hospitallers had been established in Cilicia from 1149. Levon II strengthened their position in the region by granting them Silifke Castle as well as nearby Norpert (or Norbert, Castellum Novum) and Camardesium, thus effectively creating a Hospitaller march in the west of Cilicia which could bolster the weakening defences of his kingdom against attacks by the Seljuks. The grant was formalised in 1210. In exchange, the Hospitallers were to pay an annual tax and provide a cavalry support of 400 lancers.’ Levon also ceded castles in the Giguer and along the Antiochene frontier to the Hospitallers.””

Possibly in order to find favour in the eyes of Otto of Brunswick, Levon II decided to support the German Order of St Mary and declared himself to be a confrater of the Order. The Teutonic Knights received Cilician villages from him, including Combedefort (Cambedeford) and Heion (Ayun) which have not been identified.”* By 1211 the Order held a castle in the foothills in the north of the Amanus Mountain range, Amuda (Adamodana) on the road to Anazarbus and Sis. Levon made an important grant to the brothers throughout the kingdom by exempting them from sales and purchase taxes on victuals, various goods and horses for their own use. It is possible that the Teutonic Grand Master, Hermon von Salza, who visited the region in 1212, resided in Cilicia for a period.’ After Levon’s death relationships remained close and Hetoum I, king of Cilician Armenia (1226-69), appears to have supported Frederick I against the barons in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In January 1236 he gave the Teutonic Knights their second castle, Harunia (Haruniye). Hetoum also became a confrater and enhanced the relationship between the Order and the kingdom.

The armies of the Military Orders

The Military Order was a highly efficient institution for the organisation and training of fighting men. Its wealth ensured that its knights were well equipped. The monastic lifestyle was ideally suited to promote discipline and a high level of training. The outcome was that both the Templars and the Hospitallers gained a well-deserved reputation as the best-disciplined and bravest fighting element in the Crusading army. The organisation of the troops of the Military Orders was under the control of the Master, who was dependent on the Chapter in declaring war, arranging a truce, alienating land, taking over the defence of castles and appointing commanders and chief officers, but had sole responsibility for strategy.”? The Marshal commanded the castellans and, in times of war, the Turcopolier (commander of the Turcopoles, an office held by a brother under the orders of the Master, first recorded in the Hospitaller Order in 1203) and the Admiral, and had command over all the knights and sergeants of the Order. He was in charge of discipline in the auberge (knights’ residence).*° He controlled the acquisition and distribution of military equipment for the knights and sergeants and horses for the knights.

The Marshalsy of the Hospital (and probably that of the Templars on which it was largely based) contained two sub-departments: the arsenal and the stables.’’ The arsenal stored, issued and repaired armour and weapons (except for crossbows, which were in a separate department known as the arbalestry which was under the control of the Grand Commander). The stables issued horses, replaced at royal expense horses that were killed or injured in battle, a practice known as restor, and probably supplied saddlery as well. The Ordenbiich (containing the statutes of the Teutonic Order) records the Marshal’s responsibilities to include horses, mules, weapons, tents, the saddlery and the forge.”®

The Rules of the two major Orders, which throw a good deal of light on conventual life in general, are remarkably reticent on the training of knights and sergeants. In the Hospitaller establishments the afternoon was generally given over to military exercises. Although we learn little from the contemporary statutes, later statutes in the Rule give us some information on this. According to these, on three afternoons a week the knight brothers were required to attend gymnastics, wrestling, drill exercises in arms and shooting with the arbalest.” To encourage the archers a prize was given for marksmanship every two months.® Much of the training probably took place within the castle walls and, in the case of urban centres, within or near the Order’s compound. Thus alIdrisi mentions the archery grounds outside the compound, which apparently reached the church at Gethsemane.“!

The Rules are much more informative with regard to the arms and equipment used by the knights and sergeants.” Of particular value is the Rule of the Temple, which gives a detailed list of the knight’s and sergeant’s equipment. Statutes 138-41 (from the Hierarchial Statutes dating to around 1165) give a detailed list of items in the possession of knight brothers. These included three horses and one squire, and a fourth horse and second squire. A knight wore a hauberk (suit of chain mail), iron hose and mail shoes and had a shield. He wore a white surcoat over the armour and an arming jacket (a padded jerkin) under the armour, and he had a chapeau de fer (helmet). His arms included a sword, a lance and a Turkish mace. Other equipment included three knives (a dagger, a bread knife and a pocket knife), a caparison (cloth cover for a horse),  two shirts, two pairs of breeches, two pairs of hose, a small belt, a jerkin with tails in the front and back, a fur jacket, a white mantle and in winter a second one with fur, a cope, a tunic, a leather belt, three pieces of bed linen (a mattress bag, a sheet and a light blanket), a rug (white, black or striped, to be used to cover the bed or his hauberk when he is riding), two small bags (one for his nightshirt and one for his surcoat and arming jacket), a leather or wire mesh bag for the hauberk, a cloth for eating, a washcloth, a rug for sifting barley, a blanket for his horse, a cauldron, a measuring bowl for barley, an axe and grinder, three saddle bags, two drinking cups, two flasks, a strap, a buckled girdle, a second girdle without a buckle, a horn bowl and spoon, a cloth cap, a felt hat, a tent and a tent peg.

A sergeant had the same, except for the equine equipment (he had no horses or squires), the tent and the cauldron. His surcoat was black with a red cross on the front and the back and his mantle was black or brown. He had a chapeau de fer and could have sleeveless chain mail, though without mail hose.”

Contemporary sources

The archive of the Order of the Hospitallers of St John is an invaluable source of information on the possessions of the Order. The Cartulaire général de l’ordre des Hospitaliers de St. Jean de Jerusalem, which was published by Joseph Delaville Le Roulx in four volumes from 1894 to 1906, is a mine of information on the possessions of the Hospitaller Order. Another useful source which throws much light on the workings of the Order of the Hospitallers is the Rule of the Hospitallers.~ This is a collection of works beginning with the Rule of Raymond du Puy (1120-60), to which a series of compilations of statutes, judgements and customs were added by the subsequent Masters of the Order throughout the later twelfth century and the entire thirteenth century and into the early fourteenth. The information in this work covers most aspects of conventual life, including daily requirements in prayer and during campaigns, conduct within and outside the convent, food, dress, required equipment and the possession of property, finances, privileges and care of the sick in the hospital of Jerusalem and elsewhere, the holding of chapters and punishments for breaches of the Rule.

The archives of the Templars did not survive the persecution and suppression of the Order in the early fourteenth century, but information can be gained from other sources which include charters or other material relating to the Templars. The most valuable surviving contemporary source on the Templars is the Rule of the Temple; a compilation composed of six sections: the Primitive Rule, the Hierarchical Statutes, Penances, Conventual Life, the Holding of Ordinary Chapters, an additional section on Penances and a section entitled Reception into the Order.” The Primitive Rule was a Latin text drawn up following the Council of Troyes in 1129, which was later translated into French. It contains an introduction to the foundation of the Order and the Council of Troyes and discusses in broad terms the requirements and duties of brothers. The Hierarchical Statutes, which date to around 1165, discuss the hierarchy of the Order and other aspects of conventual life and of military matters. The section on penances describes the infringements which could result in expulsion from the Order, or the less drastic but none the less severe penalty of the temporary loss of the habit. The section entitled Conventual Life deals with the basic requirements concerning behaviour in the convent and during campaigns. The next section, the Holding of Ordinary Chapters, relates to the appropriate sentences to be given to brothers who are accused of or who confess in chapter to breaches of the Rule. The final section, Reception into the Order, details the stages of the ceremony which a candidate underwent in order to be admitted to the Order.

A collection of documents based on the Cartulary of the Teutonic Order, the Tabulae ordinis theutonici ex tabularii regii Berolinensis codice, edited by Ernst Strehlke, was published in 1869.°° A compilation of the statutes of the Order, known as the Ordenbiich, was published in 1890 and was translated into English in 1969.°’ A few fragments have survived from archives of the Leper Knights of St Lazarus.

Narrative accounts are another valuable contemporary source on the properties of the Military Orders. Travel accounts (itineraria) were written by pilgrims who passed through the Crusader states and visited the holy sites. They sometimes wrote detailed reports, which include descriptions of the urban possessions and castles of the Military Orders.“ An important and unique source which records the reconstruction of the castle of Saphet by the Templars from 1240 is the short tract known as De comstructione castri Saphet.® This text discusses why, when and how the building of the castle began, the nature of the water supply (always an important factor in castle planning), the nature of the construction, the qualities of the castle and its location.

Archaeological research of the Military Orders

The awakening of interest in the history of the Crusader period that occurred in the mid-nineteenth century has gone hand in hand with an interest in its monumental archaeological remains. A considerable amount of archaeological research has been carried out at sites associated with the Military Orders. Important early surveys were carried out by Emmanuel Guillaume Rey (1837-1916) and the Survey of Western Palestine headed by C. Conder and H. Kitchener. Rey made three expeditions to Syria between 1857 and 1864, and in 1871 published his Etudes sur les monuments de l'architecture militaire des Croisés en Syrie et dans Vile de Chypre.”” The Survey of Western Palestine studied and recorded remains from a number of sites, including the major castles of Montfort, Chateau Pelerin (‘Atlit), Toron (Tibnin), of which not very much survives, and Saphet.’’ These works are still useful, although the descriptions are often out of date and many sites that received only minor mention or no mention at all have been surveyed or excavated in more recent times.

In 1899 Conrad Schick made a detailed study of the remains of the vast Hospitaller complex in Jerusalem shortly before it was dismantled in 1905.’* Subsequent sporadic work carried out over the years in this area has rarely been published. In 1926 a brief season of excavations was carried out by a team from the Metropolitan Museum of New York at the Teutonic castle of Montfort. This excavation, headed by Bashford Dean, was the subject of a small publication in 1927.”? An updated survey carried out in 1984 was able to trace the position of the outer enceinte.’4 From 1927 to 1929 Paul Deschamps began to clear the village houses that had been built within the castle of Crac des Chevaliers in Syria, and in 1932/33 he headed a team that carried out restoration and conservation of the site. This work was published by Deschamps in 1934 in what Kennedy justifiably described as ‘perhaps the finest account of the archaeology and history of a single medieval castle ever written’.’”” Deschamps also surveyed Beaufort Castle above the River Litani.

The excavations of Chateau Pelerin (‘Atlit), carried out by British archaeologist Cedric N. Johns on behalf of the Palestine Archaeological Museum, took place in a series of short annual seasons between 1930 and 1934. Johns excavated the castle and its faubourg and published the results in a series of informative papers in the Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine (QDAP).”

The Hospitaller castle of Belvoir, located above the Jordan Valley south of the Sea of Galilee, was surveyed and entirely excavated in the 1960s, but a full account of the excavations has never been published.’* Here, as elsewhere, excavations revealed that the castle was of a far more complex and remarkable design than had been believed.” Though it was previously thought to be a typical basic enclosure castle with a central keep, it proved to be of a superbly compact design with two enclosure castles, one within the other, unique in the Latin East except for the smaller and later castle of Saranda Kolones in Paphos, western Cyprus.*”

Since 1992 extensive excavations have been carried out at the Hospitaller castle of Bethgibelin.* The excavations have exposed the castle, the adjacent church and a series of outer fortifications, and showed that the defences were considerably more complex than they were previously believed to be. A short description of the castle and its components has recently been published.’ It shows for the first time the intricate gate system leading from the outer fortifications to the inner castle. This system was perhaps the prototype for the more advanced gates at Belvoir and Crac des Chevaliers.

In 1993 excavations began at the Templar castle of Vadum Jacob; they have continued on a small scale ever since. Here as well archaeology has revealed a very different structure from what had been believed prior to the excavations. In this case, not only was the form of the castle different but, of more consequence to the study of medieval castles, the excavations showed that the construction of the castle was never completed. Thus this site affords a unique opportunity to study castle construction methods.

Excavations of the Hospitaller castle of Belmont west of Jerusalem were carried out in the years 1986 to 1988." The nearby rural Hospitaller courtyard building known as Aqua Bella has been partially restored by the National Parks Authority.” As in other projects carried out primarily in order to develop sites for tourism, little attention was paid to the archaeological evidence, publication was minimal and consequently much information has been lost. Surveys by the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (BSAJ) include that of Qalansuwa in the Sharon Plain, which was carried out in 1983 as part of a regional survey of medieval settlements in the Sharon Plain.*° The Red Tower (Turris Rubea, Burj al-Ahmar) was excavated by Pringle in 1983 and a detailed excavation report was published in 1986.8’ The BSAJ carried out a survey of the Teutonic castle of Judyn in the western Galilee from 1990 to 1992.°*

In urban sites the quality of recent work varies greatly. In Jerusalem sporadic smallscale excavations have revealed fragments of the buildings of the Military Orders. Excavations in the Hospitallers’ Quarter have added nothing new to the detailed descriptions of Schick. Now and then fragments of this monumental complex have come to light. In 1999 the foundations of the central apse of the Church of St Mary Major in the Hospitallers’ Quarter in Jerusalem were re-exposed during renovations carried out in a shop ina street in the Muristan south-west of St Mary Latin.*” Because of the sensitivity of their location, the remains of the Templar headquarters on the Temple Mount have not been the subject of archaeological study apart from the work carried by R.W. Hamilton in the al-Aqsa Mosque,” although the numerous examples of architectural sculpture which may have once decorated the buildings of this complex have been examined by various art historians, notably Helmut Buschhausen, Jaroslav Folda and Zehava Jacoby.”! The so-called ‘Templar Wall’, a barbican wall extending from the south-east corner of the Temple Mount in a south-westerly direction and providing a forward line of defence to the southern entrances to the Templar Quarter, was exposed during excavations in the Ophel in the early 1970s.”

Archaeological research in Akko (Acre) began during the period of the British mandatory government in Palestine. An examination of Frankish and Turkish structures and ruins, known as the Winter Report, was carried out in 1942.°? Between 1958 and 1963 archaeological excavations were carried out in the Hospitallers’ compound in the north of the Turkish city, exposing three vaulted halls (part of the so-called ‘Knights’ Halls’ complex), a narrow passage and the refectory (known as the ‘Crypt’).”* Intensive excavations in the city have been carried out continuously since 1992.” These have concentrated on the Hospitallers’ compound, which was largely well-preserved beneath the late eighteenth-century citadel of the governor of Akko, al-Jazzar. Several additional sites relating to the Military Orders have been excavated in and around the walls of the town. They include the subterranean passage leading east from the Templar palace and part of the city walls which may have been held by the Hospitallers. A joint team from Haifa University and the Deutcher Orden recently carried out two seasons of excavations (1999 and 2000) on a site to the east of the Turkish fortifications of Akko, but within the walls of Frankish Acre which may have been the Quarter of the Teutonic Knights from the end of the twelfth century.”°

Several seasons of excavations have been carried out in the Crusader town of Arsuf (ancient Apollonia) since 1977. Large-scale excavations commenced in the citadel in 1999.°’ These excavations have uncovered remains of the city fortifications and domestic buildings, as well as considerable remains of the remarkable castle in the north-west of the town.

In Cyprus Camile Enlart carried out a monumental survey of Frankish architecture which includes descriptions of the few buildings of the Military Orders on the island.” A.H.S. Megaw refers to the ‘scant remains’ of fortresses of the Military Orders in Cyprus.” These include the Templar castle of Gastria on the north side of Famagusta Bay, of which only the rock-cut ditch survives, fragmentary remains of the tower at Khirokitia and the rebuilt Hospitaller tower at Kolossi.'°°

Robert W. Edwards’s extensive survey of the castles of Armenian Cilicia, published in 1987, includes a number of castles built or possessed by the Military Orders.'' The most important of these are the Templar castles of Baghras, La Roche de Roissol (Chivlan) and Trapesac in their march in the Amanus Mountains; two Teutonic castles, Amuda and Harouniya north of the Cilician Plain; and Silifke of the Hospitallers in the West.

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