1As Alain Demurger has noted, the military religious orders in Prussia and Rhodes were themselves states, «dont une bonne partie des ressources provient des domaines possédés et exploités dans d’autres États souverains1» («a good part of whose resources came from properties owned and exploited within other sovereign states»)—and, as he went on to add, it was hardly surprising that the kings of modern states reacted against these orders: «Comment un roi de France […] pouvait-il accepter la présence d’un ordre international, soumis au pape mais indépendant de fait?2» («How could the king of France accept the presence of an international order, subject to the pope but de facto independent?»). Yet, whatever their privileges in theory, in practice the military religious orders were not independent of secular powers, nor of the local ecclesiastical authorities, the bishops and archbishops. In order to survive and to pursue their vocation of the defence of Christendom, they had to negotiate with those who held power, to protect their lands and their incomes and to ensure that they could export resources and personnel to the East. They relied on the powerful elites of Christendom to assist them in their work. However, those in power generally expected some return for their assistance, and not simply the spiritual reward of prayer. Sometimes the cost of trusting in princes appeared to outstrip the returns.

2In the Holy Land, the Military Orders were clearly very close to the king. Charters and chronicles show the masters of the Military Orders present in the king’s council, giving advice. The master of the Hospital was present at the siege of Ascalon in 1153, even though his forces were not apparently fighting. It was the master of the Hospital who advised the king of Jerusalem to invade Egypt in 1168—and the master of the Temple who advised against it3. William of Tyre wrote that the Templars did not accompany that expedition, but Lambert of Wattrelos, writing his annals of Cambrai, recorded that they did. In fact they could hardly stay behind—the king would have demanded that they go.

3Two masters of the Temple before 1187 had served as royal ministers in Jerusalem before becoming Templars: Eudes de Saint-Amand (master 1171-1179) and Gerard de Ridefort (1185-1189)4. The account of the events of 1187 told by Ernoul the squire indicates that the masters of the Temple and Hospital held the keys to the royal treasury, where the royal crown was kept. When a king of Jerusalem was crowned, the feast which followed took place in the Templar’s hall. According to the chronicle attributed to Ernoul, the Templars’house had been a royal palace before King Baldwin II gave it to the Templars5.

4All this makes the Templars appear very similar to a royal militia. And certainly in Spain they were treated as a royal militia, as were the Hospitallers6. The Hospitallers in the Holy Land acted less like a royal militia than did the Templars—but then the Hospitallers had close links with the counts of Tripoli, who gave them so much border territory in the county of Tripoli that they virtually had their own principality there, and they ransomed Count Raymond III of Tripoli from the Muslims7.

5In France and England we see the same pattern. The Templars were closely associated with the kings of France and of England from the mid-12^th century, with members of their Order in the royal entourage. For example, in France, Thierry Galeran, servant of Louis VII of France, joined the Order of the Temple in around 1163 and continued in the king’s service8. In 1164, Brother Geoffroy Foucher of the Order of the Temple wrote to Louis VII of France, addressing him as «his dearest lord» and reporting that he had faithfully discharged a mission which Louis had given him when he left France for the East9. Fulk of Anjou, grandfather of King Henry II of England, had served with the Templars for a year in the East10. Henry II had Templars at his court, notably Oste de Saint-Omer and Richard d’Hastings11. Over time, the Hospitallers became more prominent at both the French and English royal courts: Brother Guérin the Hospitaller, later bishop of Senlis, was a trusted official of King Philip Augustus of France, while in the 1270s the Hospitaller Joseph de Chauncy was royal treasurer of King Edward I of England12.

6In short, although the Military Orders were theoretically independent from all forms of authority excluding papal authority, in fact they had close relations with kings—as we would expect for knights. Their relationship to kings was very like that of knights to kings; they served them as their faithful men.

7Relations between the military religious orders and the elites of power were bound to be complex because whatever exemptions the military religious orders might have received from the papacy13, the monarchies and high nobility of Christendom were their most valued patrons, who had given them their most valuable estates and founded their leading houses. So, for example, in Aragon in 1188 Queen Sancha founded the house of Sigena as a house of Hospitaller women, which became (in the words of Luis García-Guijarro Ramos) «one of the most important Hospitaller female communities in Europe from both quantitative and qualitative standpoints14». Sancha was «the real head of the house15», who acted on behalf of the house and introduced new members. She, her son and one of her daughters were buried there after their deaths, and Sigena acted as a royal archive. The Aragonese monarchy continued to intervene directly in its affairs16.

8Again, much of the Templars’ property in the British Isles was given to them by the monarch. In England in 1137 Countess Matilda of Boulogne, niece of the first two rulers of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, gave the Templars extensive estates in Essex. She and her husband, King Stephen, also gave them estates at Cowley in Oxfordshire17. Stephen gave the Templars their estates at Eagle in Lincolnshire, while his rival and successor on the English throne, Henry II, gave the Templars land at Garway on the Welsh/English border, and at Keele in Staffordshire18. He also gave them estates in Ireland19. His son and heir, Richard the Lionheart, confirmed his father’s gifts and also gave some land in the English/Welsh border country to the Hospitallers. The English Hospitaller historian John Stillingflete, writing in the 1420s, recorded that Richard had been a very great friend of the Hospitallers, holding its brothers in specialem amorem20. In January 1194, from Speyer, at the time of his release from prison, Richard issued the Hospitallers with an impressive confirmation charter in which he declared his immense gratitude to the Order for all that they had done for him «both while I was beyond the sea and on this side of the sea21» (that is, while he was on crusade and since he had been in prison).

9Arguably the gifts of Henry II and Richard the Lionheart at Garway and at Dinmore were to establish the Templars and Hospitallers in frontier territory, in regions where monarchical authority required support, as representatives of the monarch. Recently Luis García-Guijarro Ramos has argued that the Templars’ acquisition of property in the northern part of the kingdom of Valencia between 1293 and 1303—where their landholdings doubled in the space of a decade—was promoted by King Jaime II of Aragon, to strengthen «the position of the Temple in a geostrategic area vital for the monarchy: the point where Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia had common boundaries22». Hence, when the Templars in France were arrested in October 1307, Jaime acted to protect these Valencian estates. He set up the Order of Montesa to hold the Templars’ and Hospitallers’ Valencian estates, instead of allowing these strategically important strongholds to pass to the Hospitallers. It was not that he did not trust the Hospitallers, and he was happy for them to acquire the former Templar estates in Aragon and Catalonia, but he wanted to maintain close control over the Valencian strongholds23.

10In Valencia, unlike in England and Wales, the Templars had originally been established because of their military capabilities. Sometimes they were entrusted with fortresses elsewhere in Europe. The «History of the bishops of Salona and Split» by Archdeacon Thomas of Split mentions that in 1217 King Andrew II of Hungary came to Split and entrusted the castle of Klis to Pontius de Cruce, master of the Temple in Hungary and Slavonia, because none of the citizens of Split were prepared to garrison it24.

11The Teutonic Order’s links with the Hohenstaufen have been studied in detail by scholars. Although the Order was not founded by the Staufen, even during the Third Crusade it received support from Duke Frederick V of Swabia, son of the Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa. From the first decade of the thirteenth century it was the recipient of patronage from his nephew, Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, king of Sicily, and its fourth master, Hermann von Salza (1210-1239), strove to maintain good relations with both the Staufen dynasty and the papacy. The Order’s establishment in Prussia was in the interests of Frederick II: in the Golden Bull of Rimini he approved the Order’s activities there, although in fact he had no right to jurisdiction in the region25.

12In these cases, the development of individual orders was dependent on the patronage of the monarchy. Some military religious orders were actually founded by monarchs, most significantly several in the Iberian peninsula26. However, the Iberian orders were also supported by the ecclesiastical elites. In 1187 the Order of Calatrava was placed under the oversight of the abbey of Morimond, one of the four daughter-houses of Cîteaux. Although the knight-brothers did not have equal status with the professed monks and were not permitted to enter the choir of a Cistercian abbey—they had the status of lay-brothers—nevertheless this particular religious elite effectively acknowledged the value of their work for Christendom27. A knightly confraternity founded at Cáceres, a fortress conquered by King Ferdinand II of León in 1169, became the Order of Santiago after the brothers reached an agreement with the archbishop of Santiago de Compostella in 117128.

13In the Baltic region, where holy war was being conducted against the pagan Prussians, Lithuanians and their neighbours, the military religious orders were set up by the local ecclesiastical elite: the knights of Christ of Livonia or Swordbrothers were founded by Bishop Albrecht of Riga in 1202, while the Knights of Christ of Prussia, whose base was at Dobrin, were founded by Bishop Christian of Prussia. In contrast, the secular elite power, Duke Conrad of Masovia-Cujavia, invited the internationally-based Teutonic Order to the Prussian frontier and established them at Kulm (Chelmno). He discovered both the advantages and disadvantages of using an order with an international base and international influence: the advantage was that the Teutonic Order had the resources and skills to wage a successful campaign against the Prussians, but the disadvantage was that the brothers quickly moved out of his control and set up their own Ordensstaat29.

14The motivations which these powerful patrons gave in their charters for supporting the military religious orders was that they were acting for the benefit of their soul and their family’s souls, and to help the Holy Land. However, to judge by the location of their gifts, many also wanted to establish reliable men, on whose support they could rely, in a disputed area. By giving disputed territory to a religious order they in effect removed that territory from dispute—it was now in neutral hands. At the same time, as patrons of the religious order they still had some influence over that territory.

15All religious orders received gifts for this reason. We can see these concerns in the gifts of the de Lacys, the de Clares and William Marshal to the Hospitallers in Ireland, the gifts of the de Lacys to the Templars in Ireland, and gifts by Roger de Clare and Prince Rhys of Deheubarth to the Hospitallers in south Wales30. The same concerns were evident in north-eastern Europe. From the mid-twelfth century, the Hospitallers received gifts in the east German and Polish lands31, while in the first half of the thirteenth century the margraves of Brandenburg (the Ascanier family), and the dukes of Silesia gave the Templars property on their mutual frontier32. These donations in north-eastern Europe tailed off after 1250, when all religious orders, including the Templars and Hospitallers, had to renew many of the agreements by which they held their land, and give up some of their territory. Scholars have argued that the religious Orders suffered because of their success in settling the area and setting down frontiers; in effect, their presence was no longer needed. Donations continued to be given in areas where the land remained unsettled and frontiers were disputed33.

16The military religious orders were bound to give their support to these elites of power, because they relied on them for the bulk of their landholdings. They also received from these powerful men and women charters of exemption, allowing them not to pay certain dues and not to perform certain duties, to enable them to perform their vocation of defending Christendom more efficiently. So in November 1208 Pere II of Aragon exempted the Templars from paying taxes, tolls and other dues, the right to judge homicide, theft and kidnapping, and to receive legal fines34. In 1189 King Richard the Lionheart of England exempted the Templars from a multiplicity of feudal dues and tolls and gave them the right to try certain legal cases, while his nephew Henry III of England did the same for the Hospitallers in February 122735. In 1285 Bishop Hermann of Kammin exempted the Templars of Quartschen (now Chwarszczany, Poland) from most of the dues which they owed him and his canons, so that they could be as generous with their alms to the poor as possible36. Without such exemptions, the military religious orders would lose a great deal of their income to the local powerful elites.

17The alternative was to spend valuable income in defending themselves against those elites. Successive papal privileges allowed the military religious orders to defend themselves against those who would do them harm, but away from the frontiers of Christendom, the military religious orders did not normally engage in warfare or have weapons to hand37. Besides, not all of the attacks on the military religious orders’ resources were physical in nature; many were cases brought through the courts, or customary demands. Rather than attempt to meet every threat, it was easier for the brothers to pay local lords to leave them alone or to protect them. In 1338 the Hospitallers of Halston in Shropshire, on the Welsh/English border, recorded that they were incurring a cost of 100 shillings a year (£5) giving «to various lords there and to their seneschals and confidential officials, in order to ensure and maintain the Hospital’s liberties and to have their aid and favour and to have and expedite their friendship38». Again, at Slebech in south-west Wales, near the frontier of Welsh and Anglo-Norman lordship, the Hospitallers were paying four pounds a year to «two magnates of Wales to maintain and protect the bailie, because of the highwaymen and evildoers in Welsh parts, who are bold there: i.e., 40 s. to Richard Penres and 40 s. to Stephen Perot39». The military historian Roger Turvey has pointed out that 40 shillings a year would have been a welcome addition to the Perot family income, as would the prestige of being appointed protector of this wealthy commandery of an influential supra-national religious order40.

18The military-religious orders seem to have endeavoured to appoint as officials in each realm brothers who were acceptable to the ruling monarch and other elites. King Jaime I of Aragon claimed in his autobiography that he had made Hugh of Forcalquier master of the Hospital in Aragon (Castellan of Amposta), after asking permission from the grand master overseas41. When King Louis IX of France decided to appoint Amaury de La Roche, then grand commander of the Temple in the East, as commander of the Temple in France, he enlisted the help of Pope Urban IV to persuade the Order in the East to send Amaury to him. In February 1264, Pope Urban wrote to the Templar master and convent, explaining that the king wanted the commandery of France to be committed to a man whose sincere faith and probity he could trust, and that the king believed Brother Amaury to be prudent and conspicuous for his wise advice. What was more, Brother Amaury was an old friend of the king. The Order complied42. In June 1343 King Edward III of England wrote to the Grand Master of the Hospital, Hélion de Villeneuve, that if the Order wished to retain his favour it must not demote Philip de Thame, then grand commander of England43. Again, the Order complied. The presence of such favoured men at a royal court or acting as part of a royal administration could be extremely beneficial for the Order—but compliance with such requests also limited the military religious orders’ freedom to appoint whom they wished to high office.

19The monarchs of Christendom claimed such rights not only as patrons of the military religious orders but also as part of their duty to God in governing their realm. In return for their patronage and protection, they required the military religious orders to serve them in various ways. Kings increasingly expected the leading officials of the military religious orders within their realm to perform homage to them: such was the case in the fourteenth century in both England and Aragon, for example44. The Orders were expected to put their military forces at the disposal of their monarch, even if this could involve them in fighting Christians45.

20The most famous role of the military religious orders nowadays is their financial services, often described as «banking»—although, as Alain Demurger has pointed out, although the Templars were engaged in financial operations they were not strictly bankers in the modern sense. The Templars and Hospitallers did lend money, for example to King Louis VII during the second crusade. Both the Templars and Hospitallers guaranteed loans for nobles and kings. The Temple of Paris acted as a treasury for the king of France, the New Temple at London acted as a safe-deposit for the king of England, while the Templars of Aragon also took care of royal monies; nobles, merchants and ecclesiastical officials also deposited money and valuables with them. Other examples abound: for example, Archdeacon Thomas of Split mentions that in 1203 the king of Hungary had deposited a quantity of silver with the Templars of Vrána in Croatia46.

21The kings of France, England and Aragon also borrowed from the Templars, although by the end of the thirteenth century they were borrowing the bulk of their financial needs from the Italian merchants. The military religious orders did not have the extensive credit facilities to which a bank would have access47. Yet the kings continued to use the Temple as a place to deposit treasure—and as a source of treasure. Nearly a month before King Philip IV of France had the Templars arrested and their property confiscated, on 20 September 1307 King Edward II of England broke into the New Temple of London and confiscated 50,000 pounds sterling and many jewels which had been deposited there by the disgraced Walter Langton, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. He passed this money to his comrade Piers Gaveston, who could ensure that it would be kept out of the hands of the king’s many creditors48. This was not the first time that a member of the English royal family had «raided» the New Temple when they were in need of money: in May 1262 Edward’s father, then the Lord Edward, had broken into chests in the New Temple treasury and stolen around a thousand pounds49. Whereas the king of France used the machinery of a heresy trial to get money from the Templars, the kings of England simply by-passed the law.

22To judge by the offices that they held in papal, royal and noble courts, the Templars, the Hospitallers and the Teutonic knights were well trusted by the powerful elites of Christendom. Under Pope Alexander III, three brothers of the Order of the Temple held the posts of papal almoner and chamberlains: Brothers Petrus, Franco and Bernardus50. A Templar and a Hospitaller often appear in the records as papal chamberlains; Brother Giovanni de Capua of the Teutonic Order appears as papal notary under Alexander IV and Urban IV, while Brother Wultard of the Teutonic Order was Urban’s chaplain and penitentiary, and Brother Hermann von Livland, of the same Order, was his porter51. These three won a number of concessions for their Order from the popes they served. Other offices filled by members of the orders include that of marshal under Urban IV, filled by successive Templars; chaplain, held by the prior of the Hospital in Acre under Urban IV; and ostarius or doorman, held by a Templar under Nicholas III, and by a Hospitaller under Martin IV52.

23Popes also employed the knight-brothers in a variety of other duties suited only to men of the utmost fidelity. Following the treaty of San Germano between Pope Gregory IX and the emperor Frederick II in 1230, Hermann von Salza, master of the Teutonic Order, was entrusted with a number of properties by the emperor which he was to retain, as a neutral party, until the treaty was carried out53. A similar arrangement was agreed between King Louis VII of France and King Henry II of England in 1160 over castles in the Vexin, entrusted to the Templars as neutral parties; in the event, the Templars turned out to be not so neutral as the king of France believed, as they surrendered the castles to Henry II54. Pope Urban IV appointed Brothers Raymundus, Berardus de Gallerceto and Martinus, of the Order of the Temple, as custodians of the castle of Perrochio, near Spoleto, Rocca Caesis, Spoleto diocese, and Trebis respectively55. Gregory X appointed Brother Guillaume de Villaret of the Hospital as vicar of the county of Venaissin in 1274; this appointment was renewed by Nicholas III and Martin IV56. Members of the military orders were also used by successive popes as messengers, treasurers and judge-delegates57. In July 1220 Honorius III explained to his legate, Pelagius, that he had entrusted the transportation of a large volume of cash to the Templars and Hospitallers because he had no other messengers whom he could trust better58. However, not all the brothers were as trustworthy as the pope hoped: for example, one of Villaret’s successors in the Venaissin, Brother Raymond de Grasse, was later convicted of adjudging to his Order some castles and villages within his county to which his Order had no right59.

24The monarchs of Europe also appointed the knight-brothers to positions of responsibility. They served as procurators and messengers60, and financial officers. Templars in particular acted as royal almoners: King David of Scotland had a Templar as his almoner, as did James II of Aragon—one Pere Peyronet, who also acted as a crown agent—while the Templars acted as royal almoners in England from 1177 to 125561. Members of the military orders also acted as royal ministers, often with great authority and influence62. In England from the late thirteenth century, the masters of the Temple and Hospital were summoned to Parliament with other leading religious officials, and from the second half of the fourteenth century the Prior of the Hospital in England regularly held government office63.

25Nobles also employed the brothers in trusted positions. At his death in 1219 William Marshal, count of Striguil and Pembroke, had a Templar, Brother Geoffroy, as his almoner, while his biographer commented on the great friendship which existed between Marshal and the master of the Temple in England, Aimery de Saint-Maur. Thierry de Nusa, prior of the Hospital in England from 1236, was a friend of Richard, earl of Cornwall, and Simon of Montfort, earl of Leicester. According to charter evidence, in the 1250s Brother Heidenreich, of the Teutonic Order, commander of Zwatzen, was a close friend of Dietrich, burgrave of Kirchberg64.

26These instances point to generally good relations between the power-elites of Christendom and the military religious orders. The papal registers may give the impression that the ecclesiastical authorities and the military religious orders were usually locked in bitter dispute, but this is a result of the nature of the source. The papal registers record disputes and papal attempts to resolve them: they do not record good relations. In fact, the episcopal registers indicate that good relations were the norm. The register of Eudes Rigord, archbishop of Rouen 1248–1269, shows him lodging with the Hospitallers or at the Paris Temple, and installing the candidates of both Templars and Hospitallers to their churches, without argument65. Although Matthew Paris depicted the saintly Bishop Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln in lengthy and fruitless dispute with the Templars, Hospitallers and other exempt orders over their privileges, Bishop Robert not only instituted the Templars’ and Hospitallers’ presentees to their churches without objection, but also allowed the Order of the Temple to have the parish church of Rothley in Leicestershire, under certain conditions. In 1279, Walter Giffard, archbishop of York, gave the Hospital the church of St Felix, referring to the brothers’ hospitality, honour and support for the downtrodden poor, and their constant and generous liberality66.

27In the Holy Land, the orders won the praise of some of the higher clergy who worked alongside them. Jacques de Vitry, an Augustinian canon and bishop of Acre from 1216 to around 1228, praised the Templars’ hard work and expense in building Castle Pilgrim, and their courage during the siege of Damietta. He praised the Teutonic Order as still free from the faults of pride, wealth and litigation. Fidenzio de Padua, provincial vicar of the Franciscans in the Holy Land from around 1266 to 1291, had friendly relations with the Order of the Temple, giving a long and sympathetic account of the loss of the Templars’ castle of Saphet in 1266, in which he depicted the executed defenders as martyrs67. Both these ecclesiastical dignitaries were aware that the Hospitallers and Templars were not perfect, but Jacques de Vitry argued that they were necessary for the defence of Christendom, and should be encouraged to reform themselves.

28The documents from the trial of the Templars give us a «snap shot» of relations between the Templars and the ecclesiastical elites, and show a variety of differing views. The attitude of Pope Clement V towards the trial is still a subject of debate among scholars. Sophia Menache has argued that Clement V did not necessarily believe the charges against the Templars and that he wanted «to find a suitable solution to the fait accompli with which the king of France had confronted him68». Despite the doubts of Philip IV, he insisted that the former property of the Templars should pass to the Hospital of St John. In effect, Clement realised that he could not save the Templars, but he ensured that their property was kept for the Church, for its original purpose69. Jean Coste—and Alain Demurger agrees—has argued that Pope Clement V sacrificed the Templars in return for the king of France allowing him to abandon the investigation into the alleged heresy of Pope Boniface VIII70. Demurger concluded: «Le Temple est mort victime d’une double raison d’État; celle de l’Église; celle de la variante totalitaire de l’État moderne en gestation71» («The Order of the Temple perished, victim of a doublé “reason of state”: of the Church and of a modern totalitarian state in gestation»).

29Turning to those members of the ecclesiastical elite below the pope, the comments of the Cistercian abbot and scholar Jacques de Thérines on the Templars’trial have been discussed by scholars, most recently by William Jordan. Thérines defended the Templars, but his views of the trial of the Templars were coloured by his concern to protect exempt orders of the Church—as the Cistercians were, like the Templars, an exempt Order72. Not all Cistercians were so favourable to the Templars, but the hostility of the chronicler of the Cisterican abbey of Tintern towards the Templars at Garway was probably the result of a local dispute73. Among the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the English, Irish and Scottish higher clergy proceeded with the trial of the Templars without enthusiasm, not going ahead with the trial before the arrival of the papal inquisitors in England in September 1309, but not acting to protect the Templars. The Provincial Church Council of Canterbury urged King Edward II to allow the use of torture against the Templars, although the Provincial Council of York apparently rejected its use74. In contrast, in Italy, Elena Bellomo has recently studied how Rinaldo da Concorezzo, archbishop of Ravenna, organised the trial of the Templars in northern Italy: following the correct procedure, but not using torture. Rinaldo summoned a Church Council at Ravenna to discuss the Templars’ case in June 1311: Bellomo argues that this council essentially acquitted the Templars, allowing them to make a public statement of their innocence75.

30So far it appears that the military religious orders’ relations with the elites of power within Christendom were to the equal benefit of both parties, and that the military religious orders could only gain from them. In fact, relations with powerful elites had their disadvantages for the orders. Disputes arose, which damaged the orders’ reputations and/or led to the loss of property and privileges. Rulers asked for more than the orders could supply, or prevented the orders from carrying out their vocation effectively. The powerful elites could even bring about the end of the military religious orders.

31Some of the disputes which arose occurred simply because of differences in priorities. When in the 1260s to 1280s Charles of Anjou, king of Naples and Sicily, was issuing instructions to his officials to allow the Hospitallers, Templars and Teutonic Knights to export foodstuffs to the Holy Land, there is no reference to previous disputes, but clearly export was not carried on freely76. Charles wished to protect the resources of his kingdom, while the military orders wished to supply their garrisons and fortifications in the East. During time of war, kings of England would not allow religious houses whose mother-houses were based overseas to export resources, and this applied equally to the Hospitallers and Templars in England77. Again, the king wished to protect the resources of his kingdom and wanted to prevent his enemy benefiting from those resources.

32The brothers of the military religious orders sometimes incurred the wrath of powerful elites because they also had to maintain good relations with those whom these elites regarded as their enemies. In 1239 Pope Gregory IX wrote to the master and brothers of the Teutonic Order, rebuking them for supporting the excommunicated emperor, «that Sathenas». He also wrote several other critical letters to the Order in this and the following year, reversing a donation made to the Order in the Morea, rebuking the brothers for their oppression of the Prussians, and complaining that they had thrown off the authority of the Hospital of St John. The Order’s relations with Emperor Frederick II seem to have cost it dear in terms of papal support, at least for a short period, although the brothers were also striving to maintain good relations with the papacy78. The monastic commentator Matthew Paris recorded under 1252 that King Henry III of England had complained that the Templars and Hospitallers were so obsessed with maintaining their privileges that he was going to revoke all of them—as in any case they had far too many privileges and exemptions. The prior of the Hospital in England in response criticised Henry III’s arbitrary policies, reminding him that he would only be king as long as he acted justly. Matthew may have been putting his own views into the prior’s mouth, but his comments did reflect both Henry’s expressed views and the Hospitallers’ subsequent actions. Between 1264 and 1265 the Hospitallers and Templars in England, along with many of the leading churchmen of the realm, acted as negotiators between Simon de Montfort, who had taken over the reins of government from King Henry III, and King Louis IX of France. Although previous to de Montfort’s rebellion, Templars and Hospitallers had frequently been employed as ambassadors by English kings, after Montfort’s defeat and death at the battle of Evesham on 4 August 1265 the brothers of the military orders were not used in this role by English kings again until late in the next century; nor were they used to carry the king’s money abroad any longer79. Apparently, after de Montfort’s rebellion, they were no longer trusted in these tasks.

33In June 1288 King Alphonso III of Aragon complained to the marshal and convent of the Hospital that the Hospitallers had betrayed him during the recent French crusade against Aragon (1285), in which French Hospitallers had fought against the Aragonese. He reminded them that he and his predecessors had given the Order preferential treatment and affection and promoted them in the kingdom of Aragon and elsewhere, hoping to win divine reward and the Order’s gratitude. He complained that since the crusade two Hospitallers, one a relative of his and the other a dear friend, had been mistreated by the Order: his relative had been sent to Armenia, where, the king claimed, he was sure to die quickly because of the unhealthy air, while the other had been dishonoured by being sent to Aragon on a frivolous mission. He threatened to take revenge on the Order if these wrongs were not quickly righted80. In contrast, when the Hospitallers were planning their crusade in the early fourteenth century, to begin with an attack on Rhodes, King Philip IV of France refused to support the campaign because, he said, the French Hospitallers were not given sufficient influence81. Such conflicts were bound to occur when an institution had property and interests within the realms of several different powerful lords who were in conflict with each other.

34The military religious orders appear to have attempted to minimise the possibility of conflict by acknowledging that members would naturally remain loyal to the ruler of their home country, and maintaining most of their members in the land of their birth. For international institutions, it is remarkable how few of the members moved around Christendom82. The majority of brothers and all sisters moved only within their own homeland. A minority, the fighting men, went to the East, and most did not return. This meant that within a single realm, most members of an order would be naturally loyal to the local power elites and conflict would be kept to a minimum.

35Nevertheless, conflicts did arise between the different language groups within the Hospitallers83. This was less of a problem for the Teutonic Order, which had few members from outside German-speaking lands, but there is some indication from evidence given in Ireland during the trial of the Templars that there may have been conflict between different language-groups within the Templars on Cyprus. Henry Danet, grand commander of Ireland, made baseless accusations against the Portuguese and Catalan brothers of the Order, which might have been based on conflict between the linguistic groups within the Order84.

36Some of the disputes which arose between the powerful elites of Christendom and the military-religious orders are less easily explained and could not easily be resolved. Bernard Schotte has drawn attention to documents in the archives of Bruges which indicate that Templars and Hospitallers were among the troops sent by the town to fight the king of France and his army in 130285. It is difficult to see how this involvement could have assisted them in defending Christendom, unless the Flemish saw the war against the French as a type of holy war—which, Schotte has argued, may well have been the case. Given the Templars’ and Hospitallers’ reliance on the king of France’s aid for their military operations in the East, however, it was a risky action, and may even have given King Philip IV of France an additional pretext for attacking the Templars in 1307.

37Peter Edbury has argued that on Cyprus in 1306, during Lord Amaury of Tyre’s coup against his brother King Henry II, the Hospitallers remained neutral while the Templars gave peaceful support to Amaury—not, however, military assistance. Perhaps the Templars believed that Amaury was more likely than his brother to assist a new crusade to recover the Holy Land. However, no crusade took place, and when King Henry returned to power in 1310 he had the leading Templars and the remaining leaders of the coup imprisoned, where they died in around 131686. The Hospitallers meanwhile proceeded with their invasion of Rhodes without the help or hindrance of the king of Cyprus. Again, on this occasion the Templars’ involvement with the elites of power may have appeared to give them short-term advantage, but certainly not in the longer term.

38Nolite confidere in principibus («Put not your trust in princes»): the words appear in Psalm 145, v. 2 in the Vulgate Bible, Ps. 146:3 in the modern English Bible. Yet the military religious orders were forced to trust princes and popes: they relied on them for their possessions, for exemptions and privileges and for protection. They served kings as their natural lords and popes as Christ’s representatives on Earth. In return, popes, kings and princes endowed the military orders generously, intervened to protect them, and gave their brothers important responsibilities within their realms. They also expected the military religious orders to promote their interests, obey their orders and supply them with military forces as required. As the concept developed that any war against the enemies of the realm could be a holy war87, so the military religious orders could be expected to assist in the defence of their realm just as much as in the defence of Christendom. This was not possible for the supranational military religious orders, whose ultimate vocation spanned the whole of Christendom; they could have found themselves fighting their own brothers. The Templars, perhaps the closest to kings, were destroyed through the actions of King Philip IV of France88. The Hospitallers, less reliant on kings for support, survived but continued to be bedevilled by demands from rival monarchs and «national» conflicts within the Order. The Teutonic Order, more limited in its geographical extent than the Temple and Hospital, suffered less from the demands of princes. The military religious orders must always balance the demands of the powerful elites against the defence of Christendom, and sometimes balance was impossible to achieve.