[1] In the same year [1118], certain noble men of knightly rank, devoted to God, pious and God-fearing, made a profession before the lord patriarch to live perpetually in chastity and obedience and without property, in the manner of the regular canons, giving themselves up to the service of Christ. The first and foremost among them were the venerable men Hugh of Payns and Godfrey of St. Omer. As they had neither church nor anywhere to live the king [Baldwin II] gave them a temporary dwelling in the palace which he had, adjoining the Temple of the Lord on the north side. The canons of the Temple of the Lord further granted under certain fixed conditions for domestic needs a plot of land which they had near the said palace. The lord king and his nobles, and also the lord patriarch with the prelates of churches from their own demesnes conferred benefices on them, some for a period, some in perpetuity, to provide for their food and clothing. Their first undertaking, and one which was enjoined on them by the lord patriarch and the rest of the bishops, for the remission of their sins, was that especially for the protection of pilgrims they should with all their strength guard roads and highways from the attacks of thieves and robbers.

Hugh of Payns, the founder and first master, derived his name from a village some eight miles north-west of Troyes, and he is said to have been related to the ruling house of Champagne and to St. Bernard, ⁽⁶⁾ but little is known of his early life or of when he settled in the Holy Land. ⁽⁷⁾ Nor can the observances adopted by Hugh and his followers in the period up to the Council of Troyes be fully described. A few are referred to specifically in the Templar Rule, for at the Council of Troyes Hugh gave an account of the community's customs to the assembled prelates, and the Rule was in part based on these early usages. ⁽⁸⁾ It is clear from the Rule, for example, that the community had taken its meals together in a refectory and that during meals there was no absolute rule of silence, ⁽⁹⁾ while the custom of prolonged standing during offices is also mentioned. ⁽¹⁰⁾ The Rule further suggests that women members had not at first been excluded. ⁽¹¹⁾ But it is usually difficult to determine whether in the Templar Rule an old usage was being preserved or a new one introduced. ⁽¹²⁾ Some recent writers have seen the early community as a kind of Third Order attached to the canons of the Holy Sepulchre, but as its members took the normal monastic vows and lived a common life, this is not a very helpful description. ⁽¹³⁾

If little is known about their early observances, there is more certainty about the original function of the Templars. William of Tyre's statement that their first duty was to guard roads and protect pilgrims finds support in several other twelfth-century sources. ⁽¹⁴⁾ In undertaking this task they were answering an obvious need: descriptions of the dangers of the journey along the roads to Jerusalem are a common feature of early twelfth-century pilgrim narratives. ⁽¹⁵⁾ The welfare of pilgrims was thus the first concern the Templars, as it was of the Hospitallers. By the time of the Council of Troyes, however, the Templars had become involved in the defence of the kingdom of Jerusalem and fighting against the infidel had become their main function.

It has been asserted by some writers that the Christian military order, which devoted itself to fighting the infidel, emerged in [3] imitation of the Islamic institution of the ribat, which was a fortified convent whose inmates combined a religious way of life with fighting against the enemies of Islam. ⁽¹⁶⁾ This argument is based on no direct evidence of borrowing. It rests on the similarities between the Christian and Islamic institutions and on the claim that the combining of a religious and a military way of life was alien to Christian traditions, which forbade clerics to bear arms or shed blood: St. Bernard's hesitancy in writing in support of the Templars when requested to do so by Hugh of Payns is taken by Castro as giving 'a measure of the great distance that separated the new military orders from the Christian conception of life'. ⁽¹⁷⁾

In order to assess the validity of this argument it would be helpful in the first place to ascertain whether the Franks settled in the East after the First Crusade had contact with, and knowledge of, the Muslim institution; but because of the paucity of evidence and because the word ribat could be used to describe buildings which were not military strongholds but served other purposes,⁽¹⁸⁾ this cannot be stated with certainty. ⁽¹⁹⁾ But even if it were assumed that the Franks were in a position to borrow from the Muslims, it may be doubted whether they did so. Although little information survives about the organization of and life within the ribats, it is obvious that the Temple and the other military orders were in form based on Christian monasteries and monastic orders, especially Citeaux. It cannot be maintained that in this respect there was a borrowing from the ribat, most of whose occupants apparently served only temporarily, as a kind of retreat, particularly during Ramadan. ⁽²⁰⁾ But if it can be accepted that the Christian military orders derived their organization from Christian institutions there remains the question whether the idea of combining the religious and the military way of life could have been taken from Islam. Certainly the military order was looked upon in Christendom as something quite new: St. Bernard wrote that 'a new kind of militia is reported to have arisen... a new kind of militia, I say, and unknown to the world', ⁽²¹⁾ and Peter the Venerable admitted that he had been amazed on hearing of the Temple. ⁽²²⁾ But although the military order was considered quite new, it was quickly accepted by the Church. Peter the Venerable stated that he had rejoiced on learning of the Temple and had venerated it from the time of its foundation. ⁽²³⁾ St. Bernard, besides playing an [4] important role in the composition of the Templar Rule, ⁽²⁴⁾ gave his encouragement to the Order in his De Laude Novae Militiae; ⁽²⁵⁾ and although he delayed before writing this work, the reason that he gave for the delay was not that he questioned the validity of the Templars' activities but he feared

lest a lightly-given and hasty assent should be criticized, if I though ignorant should presume to undertake a task which a better person could fulfil better, and something which is so necessary should be rendered less agreeable through me. ⁽²⁶⁾

Nevertheless in the years immediately following its foundation the Temple appears to have made little mark. It is not, for example, mentioned in Fulcher of Chartres's Gesta Francorum Iherusalem Peregrinantium, which covers the period up to 1127. ⁽²⁹⁾ William of Tyre's remark that after nine years there were still only nine members can probably be taken as a play on numbers, ⁽³⁰⁾ but it does suggest that in the beginning there was no marked increase in membership. In the West the community appears to have been little known. ⁽³¹⁾ Certainly there is little record of patronage in western Europe in the early and middle 1120s. Ordericus Vitalis reports that when Fulk of Anjou returned from the pilgrimage on which he had embarked in 1120 he promised to make an annual benefaction to the Templars, ⁽³²⁾ but the only indication of Templar acquisitions in the West at this time among the documents published by Albon is a reference in a charter, drawn up in the year 1124, to Templar rights in a church near Marseilles. ⁽³³⁾ But as Fulk had been to the East, and as Marseilles was an obvious point of contact between East and West, these donations should not be taken as evidence of any widespread knowledge of the Templars in the West. This lack of support appears in fact to have demoralized some Templars. In a letter written at about the time of the Council of Troyes Hugh of Payns represents Satan as tempting them by saying

Why do you labour in vain? Why do you expend so much effort to no purpose? Those men, whom you serve, acknowledge you as partners in labour but are unwilling to share in brotherhood. When do the benefactions of the faithful come to the knights of the Temple? When are prayers said for the knights of the Temple by the faithful throughout the whole world? ⁽³⁴⁾

If the Templars had reached Portugal by March 1128, they must presumably have arrived earlier in the north-east of the Peninsula, but it is not until 1131 that they are mentioned there in dated documents which are altogether reliable. Certainly all the supposed references to the Templars in the north-east of Spain before 1128 must be rejected or at least very seriously questioned. There are no grounds for assuming, as some historians have done, that the fratres de palmis mentioned in Ordericus Vitalis's account of the attack on Benicadell in 1124 were Templars; ⁽⁴²⁾ as they are linked in the narrative with the bishop of Zaragoza and the lord of Belchite they may have been members of the military confraternity founded at Belchite two years earlier. ⁽⁴³⁾ Further, the dating must be questioned of all Templar documents which Miret y Sans assigns to the years before 1128. ⁽⁴⁴⁾ The first is a decree concerning those who had claims against the Order; it bears the date '1125' and was issued by the count of Barcelona from the Aragonese town of Ejea. ⁽⁴⁵⁾ As the count at that time had no authority in Aragon, and as in the document he is given the title Princeps Aragonensis, which did not come into use until 1137, the date must be inaccurate. ⁽⁴⁶⁾ Secondly, Miret y Sans assumes that a charter recording a grant by Peter of Malán in Vallespirans, dated '24 February in the eighteenth year of Louis', belongs to the reign of Louis VI; he assigns it to the year 1126. ⁽⁴⁷⁾ Yet in another charter concerning property at Vallespirans, which is dated 'in the seventeenth year of Louis the Younger' -- that is 1154 -- the scribe and witnesses mentioned are the same as those named in [7] the other document. ⁽⁴⁸⁾ Peter of Malán's grant was therefore most certainly made in the reign of Louis VII and his charter is to be assigned to the year 1155. Thirdly, Miret y Sans gives '1127' as the date of a donation to the Temple made by Titborgs, the daughter of Berenguer of Sta. Coloma; this, however, is a misreading of the document, and Miret y Sans himself later gives the correct date, which is 1197. ⁽⁴⁹⁾ Finally, like Garcia Larragueta, he follows Zurita in placing in the year 1127 Alfonso I's gift of Mallen, made jointly to the Temple and Hospital. ⁽⁵⁰⁾ Yet it was pointed out by Fernández that the date given in the Anales is a misprint, ⁽⁵¹⁾ as is clear from its place in the text: 'V' has been printed for 'X', and the date should read '1132', as is given in Zurita's Indices. ⁽⁵²⁾ It is perhaps also significant that a royal grant of privileges to the Mozarabs of Mallén, issued in the middle of 1132, makes no reference to the military orders, who may therefore not have gained Mallén until the second half of that year. ⁽⁵³⁾ García Larragueta further accepts the date of 1125 for a primitive fuero issued jointly by the Hospital and Temple to the inhabitants of Novillas, which lies on the Ebro near Mallén. ⁽⁵⁴⁾ But this document exists only in a suspect transcript made in the year 1271, ⁽⁵⁵⁾ and the Navarrese ruler García Ramírez in 1135 issued a charter granting Novillas jointly to the two Orders. ⁽⁵⁶⁾ The grant made in 1135 could, of course, have been merely a confirmation of an earlier gift; the document issued by García Ramírez was called a charter of donation and confirmation. But this was a formula often used when new grants were being made, and in view of the lack of evidence about the Templars in Europe generally as early as 1125 it seems probable that -- if the transcript of the fuero is authentic -- the transcriber omitted an 'X' when copying the date; this would bring the date of the fuero into line with that of the royal grant.

If the dating of all documents referring to the Temple which have been assigned to the years before 1128 must be rejected, or at least seriously questioned, the dates of those which have been attributed to the years 1128-30 are not altogether free from doubt. Among the documents published in the Cartulario de 'Sant Cugat' del Vallés is the will of Raymond Hugh, who held the castle of Tona, south of Vich; this document, which includes a bequest of a mule to the Temple and the Holy Sepulchre, is assigned by its editor to the year 1128. ⁽⁵⁷⁾ The date of the will is given merely as [8] 28 March in the twentieth year of Louis and the date of its execution as 29 June in the twenty-first year. ⁽⁵⁸⁾ But a transcript of the instrument of execution was made on 6 February in the twenty-first year of Louis the Younger. Therefore, provided that the dating is accurate, the will must be attributed to the reign of Louis VI and must be dated 28 March 1128. But this would mean that the instrument of execution was drawn up in the twenty-first year of Louis VI and the transcript in the twenty-first year of Louis VII, and this coincidence suggests that in fact a mistake was made about the beginning of the regnal year and that the will itself as well as the transcript of the instrument of execution should be assigned to the reign of Louis the Younger.

Doubts must also be voiced about Albon's attribution to the year 1129 of a grant which was made to the Templars by Miro Peter and which consisted of rights in the churches of Razazol and Boquiñeni, villages on the Ebro above Zaragoza. ⁽⁵⁹⁾ This donation was inserted in a charter recording the gift of these rights to Miro Peter by the Aragonese king Alfonso I, and the date given appears to refer to the royal grant. ⁽⁶⁰⁾ It is not known when the donation to the Temple was made.

Lastly the date must be discussed of the charter in which Raymond Berenguer III of Barcelona granted the castle of Grañena to the Templars and also gave himself 'in obedience to them, without property, a knight of God, wherever they wish, for the rest of my life'. ⁽⁶¹⁾ The date of this document has usually been accepted as 14 July 1130, and it is argued that the count did not fulfil his promise. ⁽⁶²⁾ He continued to govern his territories and drew up his will on 8 July 1131 'lying in his palace in Barcelona, stricken by the illness from which he died'. ⁽⁶³⁾ The clause 'if meanwhile I happen to die', which appears in the charter, might therefore be taken to indicate that the count was expressing a future intention, which he did not in fact fulfil. But it is possible that the charter should be assigned to the year 1131. Miret y Sans discovered in the Catalan Hospitaller archive, then housed in the convent of San Gervasio, a transcript which gave this date, ⁽⁶⁴⁾ while Rodriguez Campomanes, writing in the middle of the eighteenth century, stated that the date is given as 1131 in several (aliquot) manuscripts. ⁽⁶⁵⁾ Admittedly all the copies of the document on which Albon bases his text give '1130', but none of these versions can be dated earlier than the second half of the thirteenth [9] century, and most of them appear to be derived from the late thirteenth-century Templar cartulary now known as register 310 in the Crown archive in Barcelona. If the charter was issued in 1131, it was drawn up after the count had made his will and only very shortly before his death, which according to the necrologium of Ripoll occurred on 19 July. ⁽⁶⁶⁾ It would follow that right at the end of his life the count probably did enter the Temple, and support for this contention is found not only in a claim made by Raymond Berenguer IV in 1143 that his father had been a brother of the Temple, 'in whose Rule and habit he gloriously ended his life', ⁽⁶⁷⁾ but also in the comment in the Gesta Comitum Barcinonensium that

at the end, offering himself to God and to the militia of Jerusalem, he ended his life very religiously in the house of the poor at Barcelona without property. ⁽⁶⁸⁾

It is not until 1131 that the Templars are mentioned in dated documents of a reliable character in north-eastern Spain. Nevertheless, there appears to be an earlier reference to them in Aragon in an undated letter written apparently not later than 1130 by William, archbishop of Auch. ⁽⁶⁹⁾ The letter concerns the militia which Alfonso I of Aragon had established at Monreal del Campo and mentions that this militia had been freed by Alfonso from paying the royal tax of a fifth of booty captured from the Moors 'like the militia of Jerusalem'. The Temple therefore appears to have been receiving privileges from Alfonso I by 1130.

1. xii. 7, in Recueil des historiens des croisades: historiens occidentaux, i (Paris, 1844), 520. Other twelfth-century accounts of the foundation of the Temple are contained in the Chronique de Michel le Syrien, xv. ii, trans. J. B. Chabot, iii (Paris, 1905-10), 201-3, and Walter Map, De nugis curialium, i. 18, ed. T. Wright (Camden Society, 1850), pp. 29 ff.

2. Op. cit. xii. 7, in Recueil, i. 520. The date of the Council is discussed by G. Schnürer, Die ursprüngliche Templerregel (Freiburg, 1903), p. 113. The Rule of the Temple was not completed at the Council: certain points were left for the decision of the pope and the patriarch of Jerusalem, and the latter appears to have made some additions about the year 1130: ibid., passim.

3. Règle, p. 14.

4. Albon, Cartulaire, pp. 10-11, doc. 16.

5. V. Carrière, 'Les Débuts de l'Ordre du Temple en France', Le Moyen Âge, xxvii (1914), 309, note 2, and Histoire et cartulaire des Templiers de Provins, avec une introduction sur les debuts du Temple en France (Paris, 1919), p. xvi, note 2, argues that a document, which is published ibid., p. 111, doc. 93, and by Albon, Cartulaire, p. 6, doc. 9, dated 31 October in the eighth year of the Temple, must belong to the year 1127 and that therefore the Order could not have been founded before the beginning of November 1119. Although 1127 is the most likely date for this document, it cannot be definitely assigned to that year.

6. L'Art de vérifier les dates, i (Paris, 1783 edn.), 513 ;J. Richard in Saint Bernard de Clairvaux (Paris, 1953), pp. 13-14.

7. Carrière, 'Les Débuts', p. 308, note 1, suggests that he may have accompanied count Hugh of Troyes to the Holy Land in 1104; but according to Michael the Syrian he did not arrive in the East until the beginning of Baldwin II's reign: Chronique, xv. 11, trans. Chabot, iii. 201; and he was in the West in 1113: M. Barber, 'The Origins of the Order of the Temple', Studio monastica, xii (1970), 222.

8. Règle, p. 14.

9. Ibid., pp. 33-4, art. 8.

10. Ibid., p. 26, art. 7.

11. Ibid., p. 69, art. 56.

12. It has been argued that the verbs collaudamus and preoptamus were used in the text of the Rule when an earlier usage was being confirmed, and that the use of vetamus and contradicimus signified the rejection of an earlier custom: G. de Valous, 'Quelques observations sur la toute primitive observance des Templiers et la Regula pauperum commilitonum Christi', Mélanges Saint Bernard (Dijon, 1954), p. 35; see also Schnürer, op. cit., pp. 95-9. But it may be doubted whether the compilers of the Rule were always as precise and careful as this in their choice of words.

13. J. Leclerq, 'Un document sur les debuts des Templiers', Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, lii (1957), 85; C. Dereine in Le Moyen Âge, lix (1953), 197.

14. Chronique de Michel le Syrien, xv. 11, trans. Chabot, iii. 203; Walter Map, op. cit. i. 18, ed. Wright, p. 29.

15. The Pilgrimage of the Russian Abbot Daniel in the Holy Land, ed. C. W. Wilson (Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, 1888), p. 9; An Account of the Pilgrimage of Saewulf to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, trans. W. Brownlow (Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, 1892), pp. 8-9.

16. J.A. Conde, Historia de la dominación de los árabes en España (Madrid, 1820), i. 619, note 1; J. Oliver Asín, 'Origen árabe de "rebato", "arrobda" y sus homónimos', Boletín de Ia Real Academia Española, xv (1928), 540-1; M. Asín Palacios, El Islam cristianizado (Madrid, 1931), p. 138, note 2; A. Castro, The Structure of Spanish History (Princeton, 1954), pp. 203-7. That the Spanish military orders were derived in part from Islamic institutions has also been argued by M. Cocheril, 'Essai sur l'origine des ordres militaires dans la péninsule iberique', Collectanea Ordinis Cisterciensium Reformatorum, xxi (1959), 247-8, and E. Lourie, 'A Society Organised for War: Medieval Spain', Past and Present, xxxv (1966), 67-8, although I have not been able to follow the latter's argument that 'the influence of the ribat on these orders is apparent in the fact that except, and then only initially, for Santiago, the Orders of Spain... were never Hospitaller foundations, unlike either the Temple or Hospital'. Islamic influence on the Spanish military orders has been questioned by the most recent writers on these Orders: J.F. O'Callaghan, 'The Affiliation of the Order of Calatrava with the Order of Cîteaux', Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis, xv 176-8; D.W. Lomax, La Orden de Santiago (Madrid, 1965), pp. 3-4.

17. Castro, op. cit., p. 207.

18. A. Noth, Heiliger Krieg und Heiliger Kampf in Islam und Christentum (Bonn, 1965), pp. 72-6.

19. G. Marçais, 'Ribat', Encyclopedia of Islam, iii (London, 1936), 1152, argues that by the twelfth century the ribats were losing their military character and were becoming purely monastic establishments, but that there was a general development of this kind has been doubted by Noth, op. cit., p. 83. In maintaining that the ribat did not exist in Syria as a fortified convent and that the word was used there to refer simply to watchtowers, Lomax, op. cit., p. 3, seems to be reading too much into a statement by Mukaddasi, Description of Syria, including Palestine, trans. G. Le Strange (Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, 1886), p. 61.

20. Noth, op. cit., pp. 78-80, 86-7; G. Marçais, 'Note sur les ribâts en Berbérie', Mélanges René Basset, ii (Publications de l'Institut des Hautes-Études Marocaines, vol. xi, 1925), 418-21. Marçais also doubts whether there were any links between ribats.

21. Migne, PL, clxxxii. 921; St. Bernard, Opera Omnia, ed. J. Leclerq and H.M. Rochais, iii (Rome, 1963), 214.

22. Migne, PL, clxxxix. 434; The Letters of Peter the Venerable, ed. G. Constable (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), i. 407, no. 172.

23. Ibid.

24. This seems to be the implication of the clause 'cui creditum ac debitum hoc erat' in the Prologue of the Templar Rule: Règle, p. 16.

25. Migne, PL, clxxxii. 921-40; St. Bernard, Opera Omnia, iii. 213-39.

26. When suggesting that St. Bernard may not at first have given his full approval to the Temple, F. Vacandard, Vie de Saint Bernard (Paris, 1927), i. 236-7, refers to a letter which St. Bernard wrote to Hugh, count of Champagne, when the latter joined the Temple: Migne, PL, clxxxii. 135-6; Albon, Cartulaire, p. 3, doc. 5. But in this letter St. Bernard is not obviously doing anything more than mourning the absence of a friend.

27. The De Laude can of course be looked upon partly as a justification or apology for the Temple, but what it sought to justify primarily was the use of force against the infidel rather than the combining of the military and religious ways of life. The justness of the use of force against the infidel was similarly the point at issue when Hugh of Payns wrote to members of the Order that 'certain of you have been confused by some less prudent people, as if your profession, by which you have dedicated your life to bearing arms against the enemies of the faith and of peace for the defence of Christians, as if, I say, that profession were illicit or wicked': Leclerq, loc. cit., p. 87. In so far as these writings reveal criticism of the Temple, therefore, it is criticism of the use of force rather than of the particular character of the Temple.

28. ___ . Cirot de la Ville, Histoire de l'abbaye et congrégation de Notre-Dame de Ia Grande-Sauve, i (Paris, 1844), 297-9, 497-8; C. Erdmann, Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedankens (Stuttgart, 1935), p. 253.

29. Ed. H. Hagenmeyer (Heidelberg, 1913).

30. Op. cit. xii. 7, in Recueil, i.521; cf. F. Lundgreen, Wilhelm von Tyrus und der Templerorden (Historische Studien, vol. xcvii, 1911), p. 59. According to Michael the Syrian there were originally thirty members: Chronique, xv. 11, trans. Chabot, iii. 201.

31. A letter in which Baldwin II informed St. Bernard that he was sending two Templars, Andrew and Gundemar, to gain papal approval for the Order, has been assigned by some writers to the period 1119-26: Albon, Cartulaire, p. 1, doc. 1; R. Röhuicht, Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani (New York edn., n.d.), i. 28, no. 116. But its authenticity has been questioned: Carrière, Histoire et cartulaire, p. xxv; M. Melville, La Vie des Templiers (Paris, 1951), p. 272.

32. Historia Ecclesiastica, xii. 29, ed. A. le Prevost, iv (Société de l'Histoire de France, 1852), 423.

33. Albon, Cartulaire, pp. 1-2, doc. 2. On the date of this document, see Cartulaire de la commanderie de Richerenches de l'Ordre du Temple (1136-1214), ed. Marquis de Ripert-Monclar (Avignon, 1907), p. xxxiii, note 4.

34. Leclerq, loc. cit., p. 89.

35. Albon, Cartulaire, p. 16, doc. 22; p. 6, doc. 9. On this early expansion in France, see Carrière, 'Les Débuts', pp. 311-21.

36. Albon, Cartulaire, p. 5, doc. 7.

37. Ibid., pp. 10-12, docs. 16, 17.

38. Cf. Melville, op. cit., p. 25.

39. Albon, Cartulaire, pp. 5-6, doc. 8; pp. 8-10, docs. 12-15.

40. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, sub anno 1128, ed. D. Whitelock (London, 1961), p. 194; Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, vii. 39, ed. T. Arnold (London, 1879), p. 250; Annales de Waverleia, in Annales Monastici, ed. H. R. Luard, ii (London, 1865), 221.

41. Albon, Cartulaire, p. 7, doc. 10. C. Erdmann, 'Der Kreuzzugsgedanke in Portugal', Historische Zeitschrift, cxli (1929), 38, rejects the claim that the Templars had possessions in Portugal by 1126.

42. Op. cit. xiii. 4, ed. le Prevost, v (1855), 5-7; cf. M. Gual Camarena, Precedentes de Ia reconquista valenciana (Valencia, 1952), p. 12.

43. On this confraternity, see P. Rassow, 'La cofradía de Belchite', AHDE, iii (1926), 200-26; A. Ubieto Arreta, 'La creación de la cofradía de Belchite', EEMCA, v (1952), 427-34. The nature of this confraternity, which is known only through a confirmation issued in 1136, is obscure. While it was possible to serve in it for a short period, it was also envisaged that there would be life-members; but in the surviving confirmation there is no reference to the taking of monastic vows, as members of military orders did, and the wording of the confirmation seems to imply that private property was allowed. It seems to have been essentially a lay institution, whose members, however, like crusaders received indulgences.

44. Miret y Sans, Les Cases, p. 16.

45. AHN, cód. 471, p. 155, doc. 157.

46. Miret y Sans, Les Cases, p. 16, note 2, does, however, rightly reject another document supposedly issued by the count of Barcelona at Ejea in 1125: AHN, cód. 467, p. 170, doc. 183. The date must also be rejected of another charter recording a grant supposedly made by Raymond Berenguer IV in 1126: AHN, San Juan, leg. 333, doc. 1. Miret y Sans, Les Cases, pp. 15-16, further questions the date of a grant apparently made by the count of Urgel in 1123. The Templar named in the charter of donation -- Gerald of Nocura -- is mentioned in other documents drawn up between 1134 and 1137: Albon, Cartulaire, p. 57, doc. 73; p. 101, doc. 144.

47. AGP, parch. Cervera, no. 325.

48. Ibid., no. 374.

49. Miret y Sans, Les Cases, pp. 222-3.

50. Zurita, Anales, i. 51; García Larragueta, Gran priorado, i. 38, note 17; 54, note 110.

51. AHN, cód. 502, pp. 4-5.

52. J. Zurita, Indices rerum ab Aragoniae regibus gestarum ab minis regni ad annum MCDX (Zaragoza, 1587), p. 59.

53. T. Muñoz y Romero, Colección de fueros municipales y cartas pueblos de los reinos de Castilla, León, Corona de Aragón y Navarra (Madrid, 1847), pp. 503-4.

54. Gran priorado, i. 38, 54; cf. M.L. Ledesma Rubio, La encomienda de Zaragoza de Ia Orden de San Juan de Jerusalén en los siglos XII y XIII (Zaragoza, 1967), p. 27.

55. AHN, San Juan, leg. 340, doc. 1. The hand in which the transcript is written is not characteristic of the later thirteenth century; it seems rather to be an imitation of a twelfth-century script.

56. Albon, Cartulaire, p. 73, doc. 100.

57. Cartulario de 'Sant Cugat' del Vallés, ed. J. Rius Serra, iii (Barcelona, 1947), 84-5, doc. 892.

58. Ibid. iii. 87-8, doc. 896.

59. Albon, Cartulaire, p. 18, doc. 26.

60. The document, of which only a late twelfth-century copy is known, is published in full by Lacarra, 'Documentos', no. 150 (iii. 548-9). It appears to bear the date December, Era 1167; Lacarra, however, assigns it to the year 1128, not 1129, because it was confirmed by Peter, bishop of Zaragoza, whom Lacarra identifies with Peter of Librana, who was dead by December 1129. But as Peter's confirmation immediately precedes that of Raymond Berenguer IV, which must have been made between 1137 and 1162, it is possible that the bishop in question is in fact Peter of Torroja (1153-84).

61. Albon, Cartulaire, p. 25, doc. 33.

62. e.g. A. de Bofarull y Broca, Historia de Cataluña, ii (Barcelona, 1876), 425; Miret y Sans, Les Cases, pp. 23-4; S. Sobrequés Vidal, Els grans comtes de Barcelona (Barcelona, 1961), pp. 199-200; F. Soldevila, Història de Catalunya (Barcelona, 1963), p. 134.

63. Albon, Cartulaire, pp. 28-9, doc. 38; LFM, i. 527, doc. 493.

64. Miret y Sans, Les Cases, p. 16.

65. P. Rodríguez Campomanes, Dissertaciones históricas del Orden y Cavallería de los Templarios (Madrid, 1747), p. 220.

66. Bofarull y Broca, op. cit. ii. 425.

67. Albon, Cartalaire, p. 204, doc. 314; CDI, iv. 94, doc. 43.

68. Ed. L. Barrau Dihigo and J. Massó Torrents (Barcelona, 1925), p. 38.

69. Albon, Cartulaire, pp. 3-4, doc. 6; Lacarra, 'Documentos', no. 151 (iii. 549-50). On the relations of the archbishop of Auch with Aragon at this time, see J. M. Lacarra, 'La restauración eclesiástica en las tierras conquistadas por Alfonso el Batallador (1118-1134)', Revista portuguesa di história, iv (1949), 267.