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.

A Templar location at Breda, The Netherlands

In the town of Breda, the Netherlands, the Templars are said to have built a chapel on the corner of what are now the Halstraat and the St. Jansstraat. Only limited information is available. 

Templar and Hospitaller governance and personnel around the year 1300

The Templar Order is frequently scrutinized for its role and operations, particularly when compared to the Hospitaller Order. What was the internal dynamics of the Templars during the turn of the 13th century, a critical period?

Services by the military Orders to Western monarchial powers

The issue of military orders in the service of Western monarchies is a vast, important and still little studied theme. Kirstjan Toomaspoeg elaborates on few main issues. In this blog we focus on the services the Military Orders provided to the Western princess.

Relics of the Knights Templar - character and objective

A serie of three blogs, quoting freely from Gerrard and Borowski (2017), considers the extensive collections of religious relics accumulated by the military orders in general and the Knights Templar in particular

"Singled out by Jacques de Molay as a significant component of his order’s religious heritage, the last grand master of the Templars claimed that he did not know of “any other Order in which the chapels and churches had better or more beautiful ornaments and reliquaries relating to the divine cult and in which the divine service was better performed by its priests and clerics, except for cathedral churches.” (...)

Depictions of the Military Orders’ Martyrs in the Holy Land

"The military religious orders were founded to fight on behalf of their fellow Christians, in defence of pilgrims and Christian territory. They fought alongside and supported the crusaders in the Holy Land. (...)  In an era in which warriors who died fighting non-Christians were increasingly depicted as martyrs, it is not surprising that writers of the 1120s and 1130s associated the first knight-brothers with martyrdom. But as the Franks of the Holy Land met with division and defeat, how far did this imagery continue? Did outsiders continue to depict the brothers of the military orders in this way?

The militarisation of the Hospitallers, mid 12th century

"Gerard, a native of Provence, was at this period (start of the 12th century; TN) at the head of the society (of the Hospital of St. John; TN), with the title of “Guardian of the Poor.” He was succeeded (A.D. 1118) by Raymond Dupuy, a knight of Dauphiné, who drew up a series of rules for the direction and government of his brethren. In these rules *) no traces are discoverable of the military spirit which afterwards animated the order of the Hospital of St. John. That changed.

Foundation of the Hospitallers of Saint John at the end of the 11th century

In the eleventh century, when pilgrimages to Jerusalem had greatly increased, some Italian merchants of Amalfi, who carried on a lucrative trade with Palestine, purchased of the Caliph Monstasser-billah, a piece of ground in the christian quarter of the Holy City, near the Church of the Resurrection, whereon two hospitals were constructed, the one being appropriated for the reception of male pilgrims, and the other for females.

Origin and remains of the Hospitaller Hospital at Jerusalem

"As early as 603 AD, Pope Gregory I commissioned the Ravennate Abbot Probus, who was previously Gregory's emissary at the Lombard court, to build a hospital in Jerusalem to treat and care for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. After that developments continued. 

Arab and Templar alliances, early 13th century.

Following Salladin's great victory at Hattin (July 4, 1187) and his conquest of Jerusalem (October 2, 1187), Arab relations with the Military Orders began to change. How did the relationship between victors and vanquished develop?

 

The different profiles of Templars and Hospitallers

When were the Orders of Hospitallers and Templars born? What was their original purpose and how did this develop?  Medievalist Alain Demurger elaborates on the different profiles of the Templars and the Hospitallers.

The Templar's First Task - Highway Police in Peace Time

After the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 the Kingdom of the Franks did not endure a perpetual state of emergency, as the chroniclers and many historians wanted us to believe. What was in those relatively quiet days the role of the Knights Templar?

The first Order of Jerusalem: the Hospitaller Order of St John

Around 1050 the Amalfi merchant family De Pantaleon opened a hospital under the protection of St. John the Baptist in Jerusalem, close to the Holy Sepulchre. That is almost half a century before the first Crusade. An even earlier origin has been proposed. After the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, this hospital developed further and the organisation was ultimately recognized as an independent Order by the Pope.