The Medieval Military Orders

1120-1314

Nicholas Morton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317861461
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

This new addition to the popular Seminar Studies series looks at the origins, development and organisation of the Military Orders during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, showing how they functioned as a form of religious life and concentrating on their role in the Crusades and in the government and defence of the Christian kingdoms in the Holy Land. Dr Nicholas Morton offers coverage of the Templars, Hospitalers and Teutonic Knights, as well as various smaller orders.

Perfect for undergraduate students studying the Crusades, and for anyone with an interest in this popular topic, this concise and useful history contains numerous primary source materials as well as features to aid understanding.

Part 1

ANALYSIS

Introduction

At times of danger it is natural for human beings to band together for mutual protection. For those exposed on embattled frontiers, living constant danger, the need for co-operation can be particularly acute. Throughout the medieval period Western Christendom (made up of the countries which acknowledged the authority of the papacy) was engaged in prolonged wars, both of defence and expansion, against a bewildering array of foes. Its opponents varied from the Turkish horse archers of the Holy Land to the pagan raiders of the Baltic. These conflicts were fought for many reasons, but in all cases religious adherence was a crucial factor that defined the identity of all sides. Christendom’s warriors were not merely fighting for land or money, but to protect their faith and for many groups of knights this quest became a lifetime’s commitment. Theirs were the frontier societies in which the idea of an institution which was simultaneously an order of the Church and a fraternity of knights took root and spread until these ‘military orders’ became Catholicism’s frontline against its enemies. This book is a history of these unique organisations.

By the mid-tenth century, Christendom had long been under assault on multiple fronts: in the north by the Vikings; in the east by the Slavs and the Magyars; and in the south by Islam. Many frontier rulers were forced to fight for their very existence in the face of overwhelming enemy attacks. Few regions were safe and one community of monks, fleeing out of fear of Viking raids from their monastery of Noirmoutier (west coast of France), was forced progressively eastwards only to be attacked by the Magyars invading from the other direction (Davis, 1958: 169). This besieged land was weakened further by internal squabbles as kings and princes vied with one another for supremacy. Some semblance of shared purpose was provided by their common adherence to the Catholic Church. Royal families were also bound to one another by marriage and in some cases by common descent from Charlemagne, the renowned emperor who had once proclaimed a revival of the now long-lost Western Roman Empire. Even so, in the ninth century, Rome itself was under direct threat from Muslim attack and communications between all Christendom’s defenders were problematic at best.

By the eleventh century, however, the tide was perceptibly changing. Europe’s population began to grow; the Viking attacks slowly faded as Scandinavia embraced Christianity; Spanish lords began to push their way south against Muslim rulers preoccupied by their internal quarrels; and the German Emperors gradually established control over their eastern frontiers. In this more positive climate the papacy was able to assert its authority, seeking to improve the conduct and education of its clergy. As the frontiers began to expand through conversion and conquest, new bishoprics were created whilst newly won lands were divided into dioceses and parishes, becoming functional parts of Christendom. Europe was reviving and facing its future with growing confidence. This process did not take place without internal conflict, however, and while the papacy’s reforms were broadly welcomed they met resistance when attempts were made to control the appointment of senior churchmen. Secular rulers did not care to yield their ability to choose successors to highly lucrative bishoprics and archbishoprics – money and power were at stake – and they were prepared to fight to retain this privilege.

Amidst these great upheavals, concerning news arrived from the east. During the eleventh century a confederation of Turkish tribes swept into Islamic Iran and later Iraq. Overcoming the Muslim forces sent against them, they advanced rapidly and in 1055 sacked Baghdad. As their conquests mounted, they continued to expand into Syria and Palestine, destroying the local Arab and Kurdish potentates. During this process the Turks gradually adopted Islam, although they still retained much of their original shamanistic identity. In 1071 they invaded Anatolia (modern day Turkey), part of the Christian Byzantine Empire (the continuator of the former Eastern Roman Empire), where they won a major victory at the battle of Manzikert. Following this reverse the Byzantine position in Anatolia collapsed and fears abounded that the capital, Constantinople, was threatened. Aware of their need, emissaries were sent to the papacy in Rome appealing for help.

Wars within Christendom prevented the immediate despatch of reinforcements to the east, but finally in 1095 Pope Urban II launched the long-desired expedition: the First Crusade. This campaign was not merely designed to support the Byzantines against the Turks but was intended to march deep inside Turkish-held territory and to retake the holy city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was – and is – a city of immense importance to the Christian religion, being the site of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. By the eleventh century it had long been lost to Christian control, having fallen to Islam in AD 638. During the intervening period many pilgrims had visited the holy city – a process fully accepted by the Arab Muslim authorities – although the recent Turkish invasions rendered the overland routes through Anatolia increasingly dangerous. In 1095 Urban harnessed this pilgrim tradition and presented the crusade as a military pilgrimage conducted as an expression of God’s will. The response to his call was overwhelming.

By launching the crusade, Urban initiated a new phase in Christian holy war. The compatibility of Christianity with lethal violence has always been a subject of intense debate. The fundamental precepts of Christ’s teaching, as outlined in the New Testament, are to live in such a way that you show compassionate love to those around you, even your enemies. Even so, as Christianity took root across the Roman Empire, it became spliced with a political system that had always put its faith in its armed might. Compromises were made and thinkers, such as St Augustine, considered how war might legitimately be waged by the Christian faithful in defence of Rome.

In time the Western Roman Empire fell to tribal peoples who then inter-married and mixed with the surviving Roman populace and subsequently came to embrace both its values and religion. Their leaders’ adoption of Christianity was, in most cases, both voluntary and sincere, and lessons of charity, commitment and piety were often well taken. Even so, these tribes were governed by military elites for whom pacifism would have been out of the question. Indeed, many converted precisely because they felt that God had brought them victory in battle. By the eleventh century, these groups had developed considerably, transforming themselves from migratory tribes into permanent territorial kingdoms. Ideas of warfare had also evolved with renewed attempts to differentiate legitimate bloodshed from illegitimate. Medieval writers, in search of biblical authority for their masters’ battles, generally turned to the Old – rather than the New – Testament, drawing upon the stories of God-led warfare surrounding warriors like King David, Joshua and Judas Maccabaeus.

Thus, at the dawn of the Crusades, attitudes towards killing had passed through a long period of gestation in which Christian, Roman and ancient tribal practices had been fused into a philosophy that accepted that it could take place provided that certain conditions were met. Broadly speaking these were the principles laid down by Augustine: that wars must be defensive (or at least aimed at the reconquest of lost lands), launched by a legitimate authority and conducted by warriors whose motives were righteous, not acquisitive or bloodthirsty.

The First Crusade marked an important phase in Christian thinking on war. Pope Urban offered Christendom’s knights – spiritually stained by a lifetime of feuds and petty wars between rival families – the opportunity to cleanse themselves of their sins through participation in an expedition that was presented as a direct extension of God’s will. By 1099, after four years of war and suffering, these forces had marched hundreds of miles into Turkish-held territory and achieved their wildly improbable objective. Their victories had been enabled in part by rivalries between leading Turkish families and ongoing Arab resistance to Turkish control. The continuation of these disputes in later years created enough chaos for the remaining cru saders to establish a series of Christian territories within the Middle East (the county of Edessa in 1097, the principality of Antioch in 1098, the kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099 and the county of Tripoli in 1102). These are commonly referred to collectively as the ‘Latin East’.

Latin East: A collective term for the Catholic Christian territories established in the Levant, the earliest of which were founded during the First Crusade.

When news arrived of Jerusalem’s fall, a wave of celebration broke across Christendom and for many contemporaries this fact alone was sufficient proof that the venture had received God’s blessing. The challenge now was to secure and defend these distant lands. This imperative – like the crusade itself – was considered a sacred task, requiring skilled and devout warriors and in this environment a group of knights banded together to provide escorts for pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem. It so happened that they lived near to the Temple of Solomon (the Aqsa Mosque) provoking the nickname ‘Templars’. In time this small confraternity decided to take the monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience – a symbol of their spiritual dedication – and were later endorsed in this role by the papacy. In doing so they formed the first military order: a religious order which performed a military function. Under the dynamic leadership of Master Hugh of Payns this institution came to the attention of Western Christendom and quickly proved a massive success.

In time, the Templars also inspired the establishment of new military orders and the militarisation of existing monastic institutions. Some of these were, like the Templars, dedicated to the defence of the east, including the Hospitallers, Teutonic Knights and the Order of St Lazarus, but others were created to protect other frontlines. During the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries crusading ideology spread to encompass all Catholic frontiers. The defenders of the Baltic and Iberia argued that, like the First Crusaders, their struggles were also God-led endeavours waged in the name of the cross and they demanded the extension of crusading privileges for their own wars. The ongoing dissemination of crusading ideas to such areas led many rulers likewise to consider either the establishment of their own military order or the introduction of an existing institution. New orders included those of Alcántara, Calatrava, Santiago and Avis in Iberia and the Swordbrethren and the order of Dobrin in the Baltic. The military orders then were an aspect of the crusading movement which swept across Western Christendom, reshaping the nature of Christian conflict.

The brother knights of the military orders were not simply fighting monks as is often claimed. As their statutes make clear, theirs was a new kind of religious observance drawing upon a range of influences in its formation. Like monks they were professed religious, taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and living according to a monastic rule. They also joined monks, hermits and other members of the Church in the struggle against the devil through prayer and moral conduct. Even so, they did not spend their days within a monastic cloister but in the field waging war, performing a role previously forbidden to either priests or monks. In this capacity their inspiration was the crusader, who took a temporary pilgrim’s vow to visit and defend Jerusalem, before returning home to ordin ary life. The authorisation granted to a crusader to combine bloodshed with a formal religious role – albeit temporary – was the crucial link that later allowed the Templars to splice the vocation of a monk to that of a knight. Thus, fully fledged members of the military orders represented a new form of religious life that formed its identity from all these groups.

Brother knights: These were fully professed members of a military order who could perform a combat role. Many orders insisted that brother knights should originate from a knightly or noble family.

Rule: A document outlining the structure by which the members of a religious order should organise their community and live their lives.

As historians, we can learn about the deeds of these pious knights through the sources which have survived from this period. These take many forms, from the remains of mighty fortresses such as Crac des Chevaliers to the contents of ancient latrines. Seals, coins and other items can also give us an insight into their lives. Many of the most informative sources, however, are textual. These include written histories, poems, letters, administrative records and legal documents. By drawing together the available materials from all the cultures and religions with which the orders had contact, it is possible to begin to frame their history. Even so there are many challenges. Sometimes the evidence is incomplete and the sources one-sided. We know, for example, very little about the pagan enemies who opposed the military orders in the wars in the Baltic. Written evidence from these peoples has not survived and historians must rely almost entirely on Catholic accounts. In other cases documents have been: forged; written a long time after the event; or are based on second- or third-hand information. Confronted with these issues, historians have frequently disagreed over their interpretations of the sources, creating important areas of debate which will be covered in this study.

Our predicament as historians is complicated further by those who have brought other agendas to the history of the military orders. To take one example, during the World Wars, German commentators drew parallels between their own campaigns and those of the Teutonic Order (a military order established in 1190). Such comparisons have affected the way in which the order’s medieval exploits are viewed by historians in many countries. More recently writers have capitalised on the many myths surrounding the Templars to create colourful – if outlandish – conspiracy theories involving the order. The best known of these is Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, although he is by no means alone in this respect. Both the Templars and Hospitallers have also featured in films, television series and, more recently, computer games. The images of the military orders propagated through such media have done much to keep them in the public eye, but too often they have also embedded preconceptions concerning the orders’ purpose and conduct that bear little resemblance to the contemporary sources.

The purpose of this work is to provide a brief history of the orders based on the information that has survived and to introduce them as religious-military institutions in the context of their period. To this end, this study reflects and incorporates the most recent work of historians in this area and aims to provide a starting point for research. In most cases works written in English have been suggested for further reading and discussed in the sections that deal with key historical debates, to make them more accessible to an English-speaking audience; however, it should be noted that a huge quantity of important material on the orders has been written in many languages.

This work covers, at least briefly, the history of all the major orders and their roles on a number of frontiers, between the twelfth and early fourteenth century. There are also thematic sections in each chapter covering important topics, such as: ‘competition between orders’ and ‘women in the military orders’. For the four most important of these topics (patrons, finances, military activities and contemporary attitudes) discussion is developed in a series of sections spread over a number of chapters. These sections have been designed so that they can be read in two ways; either as part of the chapter in which they are found, or sequentially (i.e. finances 1, 2, 3), to acquire a deeper knowledge of a particular topic.

The time span covered by this work does not encompass the entire period in which the military orders operated. The Hospitaller order, for example, was to enjoy a long history which would include famous episodes such as its defence of Malta in 1565 against the armies of the Ottoman Empire. Likewise, many of the Teutonic Knights’ most important battles were fought in the fifteenth century. Nevertheless, the period under discussion here marks the crucial formative phase in which the idea of the military order was created, flourished and came to maturity. At the end of our period the Templars, the original military order and the template for many imitators, was suppressed and therefore within this time span we have the opportunity to explore orders at different stages in their life cycle, from creation to dissolution.

Academic introductory works on the military orders

Barber, M. (1994) The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Forey, A.J. (1992) The Military Orders: From the Twelfth to the Early Fourteenth Centuries. Toronto: Toronto University Press.

Nicholson, H. (2001) The Knights Hospitaller. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer.

Nicholson, H. (2004) The Knights Templar. Stroud: Sutton Publishing Ltd.

Riley-Smith, J. (1967) The Knights of St John in Jerusalem and Cyprus, 1050 – 1310. London: Macmillan.

Riley-Sm...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Series Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Glossary
• Part One Analysis
• Part Two Documents
• Sources for the military orders
• References
• Index