Monks, Farmers and Neighbours - Everyday Life at a Templar House

The Templars are usually imagined as secretive warrior monks guarding crusader treasure. The records made when their houses were seized, in France in 1307 and in England in 1308, tell a far more ordinary story of farms, mills, hired hands and neighbours. What was daily life like in a Templar house, a commanderie, in England or Normandy?

Farms, not fortresses
When Edward II, king of England since 1307, had the Templars arrested in January 1308, his officials inventoried every estate. A leading British historian of the Order has used these unpublished records to show that the median English house held just two brothers, who grew wheat, raised sheep and ran mills [1]. French archaeology tells the same story: at sites such as Fontsèche and La Salvetat excavators found bread ovens, forges, tanning pits, water works and grain silos, while most heavy fortifications date from after the Hundred Years War [2].

How many brothers?
In Normandy the six houses whose members are known at the trial averaged three brothers each [3]. For the whole kingdom of France the trial records name 2,336 Templars, of whom 1,135 appear in person in at least one procedure between 1307 and 1312; that is a minimum, as some fled or were never questioned [4]. England and Wales counted about 150 brothers [5]. In both kingdoms the great majority were sergeants, not knights [4][5].

Outnumbered at home
The brothers were a minority in their own houses. New Temple in London housed eight brothers alongside six chaplains, a gardener, a porter and 31 or 32 corrodians, people who had bought board and lodging for life, among them a notary, two married couples and several clerks [1]. At Baugy in Normandy some twenty seven people lived with the brothers [3]. At Payns in Champagne, home of the first master Hugues de Payns, the farm depended on a staff of salaried workers, day labourers and craftsmen [6].

Wages, credit and kin
English debt records show ordinary commerce: livestock sold on credit, unpaid grain, small loans. At Faxfleet in Yorkshire the custodian paid a reeve, a carpenter, a smith, eight shepherds, fourteen ploughmen, a cook and twelve women hired each season to milk the ewes. Workers received better grain than was customary, gloves in autumn and tallow for winter lamps; in Herefordshire the sheriff noted that without such terms they "did not wish to remain" [1]. In France, noble and knightly families of Burgundy, Champagne and Languedoc founded and supported Templar houses out of religious hope, binding the Order to their kinship networks [7].

The records of 1307 and 1308 correct the stereotype. A Templar house was a busy, largely lay farming community, woven into the local economy. Its few brothers worried less about the Holy Land than about the price of wheat, the mill pond and whether the harvest workers would turn up in the morning.

This blog 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 October 3, 2026 but not all sources studied in detail: [1] Nicholson, H.J. (2025) The Inventories, Accounts, and Records of Debts for the Templars' Estates in England and Wales, 1308-1313, as a Source for the Everyday Lives of the Templars, Ordines Militares, 30, pp. 7-60; [2] Carraz, D. (2008) Archéologie des commanderies de l'Hôpital et du Temple en France (1977-2007), Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes, 15, pp. 175-202; [3] Josserand, P. (2015) The Templars in France: Between History, Heritage, and Memory, Mirabilia, 21, pp. 446-473; [4] Demurger, A. (2019) Le peuple templier, 1307-1312, Paris: CNRS Éditions; [5] Nicholson, H.J. (2009) The Knights Templar on Trial: The Trial of the Templars in the British Isles, 1308-1311, Stroud: The History Press, p. 49; [6] Wilmart, M. (2013) Salariés, journaliers et artisans au service d'une exploitation agricole templière. La commanderie de Payns au début du XIVe siècle, in A. Baudin, G. Brunel and N. Dohrmann (eds), L'économie templière en Occident, Langres: Guéniot, pp. 273-293; [7] Schenk, J. (2012) Templar Families: Landowning Families and the Order of the Temple in France, c. 1120-1307, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The illustration shows a courtyard at the Commandery in Sainte-Eulalie-de-Cernon‎, Aveyron, France. Picture by Krzysztof Golik - Own work, source Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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