The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, c.1070–1309 IN PARENTUM MEORUM PIAM MEMORIAM Also by Jonathan Riley-Smith The Knights of St John in Jerusalem and Cyprus, c.1050–1310 The Feudal Nobility and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1174–1277 What Were the Crusades? The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading The Crusades: A Short History The First Crusaders, 1095–1131 Hospitallers: The History of the Order of St John The Crusades, Christianity and Islam Crusaders and Settlers in the Latin East Templars and Hospitallers as Professed Religious in the Holy Land The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, c.1070–1309 Jonathan Riley-Smith Palgrave macmillan © Jonathan Riley-Smith 2012 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-0-230-29083-9 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. 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A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 Contents Explication and Acknowledgements viii Abbreviations xi Maps xv Prologue 1 An Authentic Religious Order 1 Background 4 Part I Inception 1 Origins, c.1070–1160 15 A Voice from the Past 15 Foundation 16 Gerard 18 Independence 20 The Care of Pilgrims 22 Who Succeeded Gerard? 23 Raymond of Puy 23 The Rule 24 2 Militarization, 1126–1182 27 Milites ad terminum 27 The First Stage 28 Crisis 32 Resolution 36 3 Reaching Maturity, 1177–1206 38 The Order and the Settlements in the Levant 38 Hattin 41 The Aftermath 43 The Third Crusade 45 The Order in Disarray 47 The Statutes of Margat 50 4 The Order and the Politics of the Latin East, 1201–1244 52 Responsibility without Power 52 Taking Sides 53 The Barons’ Crusade and the Battle of la Forbie 62 v vi Contents Part II The Mission 5 Nursing the Sick and Burying the Dead 69 Servitude 69 Nursing 70 Burials 76 The Cost of Ambivalence 78 6 Defending Christians 81 Caravans 81 The Components of a Hospitaller Force 82 Advice 85 Castles 89 Turning to the Sea 92 Part III The Order 7 Members 97 Reception 98 Brother Priests 99 Brother Knights 101 Brother Sergeants 104 Sisters of St John 105 Confratres 107 8 Conventual Life 110 Levantine Communities 110 Buildings 111 Living Conditions 114 Justice 119 9 The Master, His Convent and the Chapter General 126 The Master 126 The Master’s Convent 128 Tongues 128 Chapters and the Chapter General 129 Constitutional Conflict 133 10 The Conventual Bailiffs and Their Departments 140 The Cure of Souls 141 The Providers 142 The Functionaries 145 Part IV Assets 11 An Exempt Order of the Church 155 Exemptions 155 Reaction 157 The Latin East 161 Some Case Studies 163 Contents vii 12 The Estate in the Levant 171 The Estate 171 Exploitation 174 Management 178 Competition 180 13 Provincial Government and the Estate in Europe 185 Necessity 185 The Origins of the Provincial Structure 187 Hospitaller Officers 189 Commanderies 191 Priories, Capitular Commanderies and Capitular Castellanies 193 Grand Commanderies 199 Part V The End of the Beginning 14 The Loss of the Mainland, 1244–1291 205 After La Forbie 205 The Defence of the South-Eastern Frontier 207 Hugh Revel 208 The Last Years of the Settlement 210 Roger of Stanegrave 213 15 Interlude on Cyprus, 1291–1309 215 After the Fall of Acre 215 Criticism and the Projected Union of the Orders 216 Internal Trouble 218 Constitutional Conflict in the Kingdom of Cyprus 220 The Fall of the Templars 222 Rhodes 223 The Crusade of 1310 224 Epilogue 229 Appendix: Masters of the Hospital 233 Notes 234 Bibliography 302 Index 318 Explication and Acknowledgements When I began research 50 years ago, the early history of the Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem had not been seriously considered since the turn of the nine- teenth and twentieth centuries.1 My book2 was intended to be the first in a series of volumes, each by a different author, covering the history of the Hospital from the eleventh century to the present. The other contributions were never written, but a revival of interest has led to more being published on the military orders in the last 25 years than had been in the previous 70. We are now better informed about the Order’s origins3 and its roles as a military phenomenon, an international corporation, an economic powerhouse and a landowner in the West.4 Some atten- tion has been paid to its nature as a religious institution5 and the re-editing of the charters of the kings of Jerusalem and the letters of the twelfth-century popes has refined our understanding of its privileges.6 New material has come to light on the conventual hospital.7 The castles of Belmont, Bethgibelin and Margat have been excavated and Crac des Chevaliers has been re-surveyed.8 We know much more than we did about the Order’s headquarters in Jerusalem and in Acre, where a spectacular programme of excavation has revealed the central compound.9 After working for many years on other aspects of the histories of the crusades and the Latin East, I view the Hospital from a somewhat different standpoint than I did. I have decided, therefore, to reorganize my original book radically and to rewrite large parts of it. I have given it a new title, because I am offering more than a second edition. Two major themes run through this account of the Order’s history in the cen- tral middle ages. The first is a tension, which was never resolved, between its com- mitments to nursing and to warfare. The Hospital was founded by Benedictines or their associates to care for the poor. Many of the brothers, who expressed very radical ideas about their relationship to their patients, found it hard to come to terms with the adoption of military functions and an internal crisis in 1171 was resolved only by linking nursing conceptually to warfare. This meant that the Hospitallers never embraced their military role as single-mindedly as did the Templars and the Hospital continued to share many features with more conven- tional religious institutes. The second is the effect on the Order of its development into a wealthy and powerful international corporation. Some contemporaries con- sidered that it had betrayed its original ideals, but it showed itself to be innovative and adaptable, and it would never have been able to create its own state in the Aegean in the fourteenth century without the experience its brothers had gained of large-scale management. I cannot avoid occasionally referring to sums of money, usually expressed in Saracen besants. The figures I give have some comparative value, but I recognize that without a means of conversion they are otherwise meaningless. Only a few examples of exchange rates survive,10 but it may be helpful to draw attention to viii Explication and Acknowledgements ix the fact that in the middle of the thirteenth century, after a period of inflation, a mercenary knight in Acre had a basic stipend of c.120 besants a year.11 I have tried to be consistent in my use of titles. The Hospitallers were not very systematic in this respect. They used the title of prior when referring to priests, local commanders and provincials. Capitular bailiffs could be entitled priors, castellans or commanders. It is noticeable, however, that the titles of officers fall into two categories, interchangeably applied to the same brethren. The first group – servus, minister, prior, magister, gubernator and preceptor or comandour or comendator – denoted the government of people and the second – procurator or procurator domus, dominus, bajulus, provisor – the management of property. I distinguish the unavoidable use of ‘Hospital’, with reference to the Order, from ‘hospital’, with reference to the great hospital for the care of the sick poor, by employing a capital H in the first instance and a lower case h in the second. I have used the English form of Christian names and I have replaced the preposition ‘de’ or ‘von’ with ‘of’.