A Templar Location at Chaam, the Netherlands

Chaam, near Breda, lies only a few kilometres from Ter Brake, the one Dutch Templar commandery whose existence is undisputed. What do the documents allow us to say about the Templars at Chaam, and where did their farm stand?

Close to Ter Brake
Chaam belonged to the parish and the secular court of Alphen, where the lords of Breda founded Ter Brake; later traditions date the foundation to about 1144, and the oldest charters naming Templars at Alphen date from 1236 and 1245 [1][2]. After 1312 Ter Brake passed to the Hospitallers [1].

The inquest of 1312
The decisive document is a judicial inquest held at Ter Brake in 1312, dated 1311 in older literature, when Philip of Liedekerke, lord of Alphen, had his rights recorded against those of the order. Fifteen sworn elders of Alphen declared that two thirds of the waste land of Chaam belonged to the lord of Breda and one third to the Templars, who themselves claimed half [2]. Another reading of the same evidence gives the Templars half of the Chaam waste land, more than their third in Alphen [3]. Either way, the order held a share of the lordship over the Chaam heath before its suppression.

A farm and its tithes
Hospitaller registers of 1422 show that the commandery levied the tithes of its farm at Chaam, while the abbey of Tongerlo received only the tithes of newly reclaimed land there [4]. The farm owed three days of service a year met waghenen ende peerden (with wagons and horses), and 37 entries of cijns (annual ground rent) were collected at Chaam [4]. Such service farms derive, according to [4], from an older manorial structure, and the rights of the commandery go back to the Templars [4]. The exact site of the farm is not known [4].

The Pelikaan farm
According to the late Ben Brus, the Templars owned a farmstead and tithes at Chaam, managed from Ter Brake; he does not name the Pelikaan farm [5]. Omroep Brabant (2012) describes the Pelicaenhoeve as a former monastery farm worked by Norbertines of the abbey of Tongerlo, with an eighteenth century beam structure supporting the barn roof [6]. Tongerlo received the tithes of newly reclaimed land at Chaam [4]. Because the site of the Templar farm is unknown, the identification with the Pelikaan farm remains unproven.

Chaam is a documented Templar location in a precise sense: the inquest of 1312 records Templar rights on its heath, and later registers show a farm and tithes that the Hospitallers inherited from the Templars. Which building stood on the Templar farm is a question still open.

This blog, an improved version of an earlier one, is original work by TemplarsNow^TM based on an AI-assisted quick scan on the topic. References and further reading, Open Access if available, all links verified November 3, 2026 and all sources checked but not all studied in detail: [1] TemplarsNow (2024) The Templar Commandery at Alphen, the Netherlands; [2] Bijsterveld, A.J. (1991) Alphen, van Echternachs domein tot Bredase heerlijkheid, 1175-1312 (II), Jaarboek De Oranjeboom 44, pp. 115, 119-120; [3] Streefland, A.A. (1980) Tempeliers in Brabant. De commanderij Ter Brake bij Alphen, Jaarboek De Oranjeboom 33, n. 54 (p. 165); [4] Bijsterveld, A.J. (1990) Alphen, van Echternachs domein tot Bredase heerlijkheid, 1175-1312 (I), Jaarboek De Oranjeboom 43, pp. 89-91; [5] Brus, B.Th. (n.d.) Chaam, Sporen van de Tempelieren in Nederland, tempelieren.nl; [6] Omroep Brabant (2012) Kunstenaars maken film over Norbertijns verleden van Chaam: De Pauw en de Pelikaan, October 4, 2012.

Illustration: Pelikaan farm, Chaam, photo Heemkundekring Ledevaert (1972), Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Its link with the Templar farm is unproven.

Support TemplarsNow™ by becoming a Patron, tipping us or buying one of our Reliable Books 
or other products at Amazon or Bol via our affiliate links amazon.com and bol.com