A Templar location at Chaam, The Netherlands

The Templar Order owned a farmstead and a right to tithes at Chaam. This property was administered from the Ter Brake commandery in Alpen.

Chaam is probably one of the corn grinding towns of the Franks. It is said to appear on a list from 422. Chaam in the 13th century was owned by the Duke of Brabant, who had to share it with the abbeys of Tongerloo and Thorn and the Knights Templar. After 1313 the latter were replaced by the Order of St John, the Hospitallers.

As to the Abbey of Tongerloo: at the request of Lord Giselbert, a wealthy landowner, several Norbertines from the St. Michael's Abbey in Antwerp settled on his estate in Tongerlo around 1130. This young monastery foundation arose in the context of the ecclesiastical renewal movement around Norbert van Gennep, who had started a community of regular canons in Prémontré (France) around 1121.

In 1422, the manual of the Johannites (the Hospitaller successors of the Knights Templar at Hof ter Brake in Alphen) mentions a farmstead in Chaam. The owner of this had to perform work at Hof ter Brake for three days a year with horses and wagons. Thonys van Bedaf owned this farmstead and also had to pay annual cijns. The service cijns indicates an older ownership.

It is believed that an earlier farm on the site of the present day 18th century Pelikaan Hoeve (Pelican Farm) at Chaam, also called an abbey farm, was owned by the Templar order. The present day farm, a long-gabled farmhouse with barn and bakery/brewhouse on Kerkdreef in Chaam, is a municipal monument. 

Although some sources suggest that it was the Norbertine Order from the Tongeloo Abbey that operated the medieval Pelikaen Farm, the fact that in the 15th century the Hospitallers owned the place, makes it most probable that before 1313 the farm belonged to the Templars. 

Find all the proven, probable and possible Templar sites defined bij Dr Brus in The Netherlands on this map.

This blog quotes, with permission, and some adaptations most of the entry on Chaam on the valuable website on the Templars in the Netherlands by Dr Brus. Additional information was derived from heraldry-wiki.com, alphenserfgoed.nl, alphenserfgoed.nl_2 en Tempeliers in Brabant. The illustration shows the side and front façade of the Pelikaan Farm at Chaam, picture taken in 1972, Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, source Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

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