1st Edition
The Templars and their Sources
Even 700 years after the suppression of the Order of the Temple and the execution of the last grandmaster, Jacques de Molay, there is no shortage of publications on this influential military order. Yet unlike other medieval institutions the Templars are subject to speculative fiction and popular myth which threaten to swamp the fruits of scholarly endeavour. Fortunately, recent years have produced a thriving academic scholarship which is challenging these myths. More and more sources are currently being edited, particularly those for the trial of the Templars (1307–1312). Others are still awaiting indepth study, among them, surprisingly, the greater part of the charters that cover more than 150 years of the Order’s history.
The papers in this volume step into this gap and critically evaluate new directions in Templar studies on the basis of as-yet unedited source material. Open issues and desiderata regarding the sources are discussed and from a range of inspiring results a new status quaestionis is proposed that will not only provide a better understanding of the Order’s archaeological, economical, religious, administrative and military history, but also set new points of departure for the editing of charters and administrative documents. The papers here are grouped into six sections, focusing on the headquarters of the Order, its charters, manpower and finance, religious life and finally the suppression and the Order’s afterlife.
Notes on Contributors
List of Abbreviations
List of Illustrations
Preface
Section One: Headquarters
- Benjamin Z. Kedar, ‘Vestiges of Templar Presence in the Aqsa Mosque’
- Jochen Burgtorf, ‘The Templars and the Kings of Jerusalem’
- Anthony Luttrell, ‘The Templars’ Archives in Syria and Cyprus’
- Karl Borchardt, ‘Templar Charters and Charters for the Templars: Self-Promotion versus the Image of the Order’
- Michael J. Peixoto, ‘Copies and Cartularies: Modernizing Templar Documents in Mid-Thirteenth Century Champagne’
- Damien Carraz, ‘Private Charters and other Family Documents in the Templar Archives: Commanderies in Southern France’
- Philippe Josserand, ‘Editing Templar Charters in the Iberian Peninsula at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century’
- Kristjan Toomaspoeg, ‘The Marquis of Albon, Carl Erdmann and the Templar Sources in Portugal’
- Alan Forey, The Office of Master deça mer in Military Orders
- Christian Vogel, ‘Die Prokuratoren der Templer: Diplomatische und rechtliche Aspekte ihrer Einsetzung und ihrer Aufgaben’
- John France, ‘Templar Tactics: The Order on the Battlefield’
- Alain Demurger, ‘Les ordres religieux-militaires et l’argent: sources et pratiques’
- Simonetta Cerrini, ‘Les Templiers et le progressif évanouissement de leur règle’
- Jochen Schenk, ‘The Documentary Evidence for Templar Religion’
- Arno Mentzel-Reuters, ‘Gab es eine Spir
Section Two: Charters
Section Three: Constitution, Structure and Finance
English summary
English summary
Section Four: Spiritual Character
English summary
Biography
Karl Borchardt is a Senior Researcher at Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Munich, and Assistant Professor of Medieval History at Universität Würzburg. He has published numerous articles and edited volumes on the Knights Hospitaller and Knights Templar including Comptes de la commanderie de l’Hôpital de Manosque pour les années 1283 à 1290 (2015 with D. Carraz and A. Venturini), Documents concerning Cyprus from the Hospital’s Rhodian Archives: 1409–1459 (2011 with A. Luttrell and E. Schöffer) and The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean and Europe (2007 with H. Nicholson and N. Jaspert).
Karoline Döring is working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich on the networks of the military orders at the papal curia in the thirteenth century. Her PhD was entitled Türkenkrieg und Medienwandel im 15. Jahrhundert (2013), and she has recently finished another monograph on fictitious correspondences between Ottoman sultans and Christian princes from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries.
Philippe Josserand is a Senior Researcher in medieval history at the Université de Nantes. He has published various studies on the Iberian Templars and other Spanish brethren such as Église et pouvoir dans la péninsule Ibérique. Les ordres militaires dans le royaume de Castille (1252–1369) (2004), and co-edited the reference work Prier et combattre. Dictionnaire européen des ordres militaires au Moyen Âge (2009) and Élites et ordres militaires au Moyen Âge. Rencontre autour d’Alain Demurger (2015).
Helen J. Nicholson is Professor of Medieval History at the School of History, Archaeology and Religion at Cardiff University. Her publications on the Templars include The Proceedings against the Templars in the British Isles (2011), The Debate on the Trial of the Templars(1307–1314) (2010 with J. Burgtorf and P.F. Crawford) and The Kn
