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TEMPLAR GENERAL CHAPTERS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2025

ALAN FOREY*
Affiliation:
Independent Scholar

Abstract

This paper seeks to examine various aspects of Templar general chapters and also to draw some comparisons with the general chapters of other orders. Origins, frequency, length, and location are discussed, together with the size and composition of the chapter. The functions of chapters, including legislation, appointments to leading offices, alienation of property, and justice, are considered. The question of capitular seals is also investigated. For many topics the surviving evidence is limited, but some claims that have been made about Templar general chapters are challenged. The evidence about alleged early chapters is not convincing. It seems that chapters were expected to be held annually and not at intervals of five years. There is evidence to show that chapters were occasionally held in western Europe as well as at the Order’s headquarters and other places in the East. Lastly, the assertion that Hospitaller general chapters were more representative than those of the Temple is questioned.

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Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fordham University

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Footnotes

I am very grateful to Jochen Burgtorf for his comments on an earlier version of this paper. The following abbreviations will be used throughout: ACA = Barcelona, Archivo de la Corona de Aragón; AHN = Madrid, Archivo Histórico Nacional; CH = Cartulaire général de l’ordre des Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem, ed. Joseph Delaville Le Roulx, 4 vols. (Paris, 1894–1906); CN = Il corpus normativo templare: Edizione dei testi romanzi con traduzione e commento in italiano, ed. Giovanni Amatuccio (Galatina, 2009); CR = Cancillería Real; CRT = The Catalan Rule of the Templars: A Critical Edition and English Translation from Barcelona, Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, Cartas Reales, MS 3344, ed. and trans. Judi Upton-Ward (Woodbridge, 2003); FL = Alan Forey, “Letters of the Last Two Templar Masters,” Nottingham Medieval Studies 45 (2001): 145–71; PT = Procès des Templiers, ed. Jules Michelet, 2 vols. (Paris, 1841–1851); PTF = Processus contra Templarios in Francia: Procès-verbaux de la procédure menée par la commission pontificale à Paris (1309–1311), ed. Magdalena Satora, 2 vols. (Leiden, 2020); and RT = La règle du Temple, ed. Henri de Curzon (Paris, 1886).

References

1 Conciliorum oecumenicorum generaliumque decreta, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo et al., 4 vols. (Turnhout, 2006–2016), 2.1:174.

2 For preceptors of sheep, pigs and other animals, see Col·lecció diplomàtica de la casa del Temple de Gardeny (1070–1200), ed. Ramon Sarobe i Huesca, 2 vols. (Barcelona, 1998), 2:632–33 (doc. 422); Antonio Benavides, Memorias de D. Fernando IV de Castilla, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1860), 2:728; RT, 307 § 591; and CN, 322–24 § 41.

3 PT, 1:506 and 588; 2:34, 119, and 135; PTF, 1:654, 740, 816, and 831; The Proceedings against the Templars in the British Isles, ed. Helen J. Nicholson, 2 vols. (Farnham, 2011), 1:128, 134, and 179; and Konrad Schottmüller, Der Untergang des Templer-Ordens, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1887), 2:16.

4 Francesco Tommasi, “Interrogatorio di Templari a Cesena (1310),” in Acri 1291: La fine della presenza degli ordini militari in Terra Santa e i nuovi orientamenti nel XIV secolo, ed. Francesco Tommasi (Perugia, 1996), 265–300, at 288; Léon Ménard, Histoire civile, ecclésiastique et littéraire de la ville de Nismes avec des notes et les preuves, 7 vols. (Paris, 1750–1758), 1, Preuves, 176, 177, 179, 180, 185, 187, 191, 192, 194, 203, 211, and 212; Telesforo Bini, “Dei Tempieri e del loro processo in Toscana,” Atti della Reale Accademia Lucchese di Scienze, Lettere, ed Arti 13 (1845): 395–506, at 463–64, 472–73, and 495; The Proceedings against the Templars, ed. Nicholson, 1:105 and 170; PT, 2:36, 135, 167, 169, 207, 235, and 279; PTF, 1:741, 831, 863–64, 900, and 926; and Jochen Burgtorf, The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars: History, Organization, and Personnel (1099/1120–1310) (Leiden, 2008), 183.

5 The Hospitaller Usances were compiled by prodomes of that order: CH, 2:548 (doc. 2213).

6 Christian Vogel, Das Recht der Templer (Berlin, 2007), 125–27.

7 Rudolf Hiestand, “Zum Problem des Templerzentralarchivs,” Archivalische Zeitschrift 76 (1980): 17–38; and Anthony Luttrell, “The Templars’ Archives in Syria and Cyprus,” in The Templars and their Sources, ed. Karl Borchardt et al. (Abingdon, 2017), 38–45. A general chapter of the order of St. Thomas of Acre is mentioned only once in thirteenth-century documentation, while the only possible reference to a general chapter of the order of Mountjoy is in a document in which the master, with the counsel of twenty-one named brothers, including seven commanders, “totiusque capituli eiusdem domus”, sought an amalgamation with the Templars in 1196: London, National Archives, SC 8/331/15661; Fuero de Alfambra, ed. Manuel Albareda y Herrera (Madrid, 1926), 101–102; and F. D. Gazulla, “La orden del Santo Redentor,” Boletín de la Sociedad Castellonense de Cultura 10 (1929): 98–101, at 100–101.

8 Jean-Berthold Mahn, L’ordre cistercien et son gouvernement des origines au milieu du XIIIe siècle (1098–1265) (Paris, 1951), 60–61; Florent Cygler, Das Generalkapitel im hohen Mittelalter: Cisterzienser, Prämonstratenser, Kartäuser und Cluniazenser (Münster, 2002), 24–25; and José L. Martín, Orígenes de la orden militar de Santiago (1170–1195) (Barcelona, 1974), 248–54 (doc. 73).

9 Jonathan Riley-Smith, “The Structures of the Orders of the Temple and the Hospital in c.1291,” in The Medieval Crusade, ed. Susan J. Ridyard (Woodbridge, 2004), 125–43, at 136; Vogel, Recht der Templer, 305; and Cartulaire général de l’ordre du Temple, 1119?–1150, ed. Marquis d’Albon (Paris, 1913), 279–80 (doc. 448).

10 Cartulaire général du Temple, ed. Albon, 362 (doc. 589). A chapter held by the Templar master Bertrand of Blanchefort in Jerusalem in 1167 has also been referred to as a “capitulum commune,” but it has been pointed out that this claim is based on a misunderstanding of the Latin text: H. H. Grauert, “Eine Tempelherrenurkunde von 1167,” Archivalische Zeitschrift 3 (1878): 294–309, at 294–95; Riley-Smith, “The Structures of the Orders,” 136; and Burgtorf, The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars, 52 n. 288.

11 RT, 83 § 93; CN, 54 § 18; Vogel, Recht der Templer, 104–107; Burgtorf, The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars, 10–11 and 52; and CH, 1:339–40 (doc. 494). Several references to a Hospitaller capitulum were made in a letter of Alexander III in 1170, but the nature of the assembly is not explained: CH, 1:276–79 (doc. 403); and Papsturkunden für Templer und Johanniter: Neue Folge, ed. Rudolf Hiestand (Göttingen, 1984), 222–27 (doc. 19).

12 Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, c.1070–1309 (Basingstoke, 2012), 194.

13 Alain Demurger, Les Templiers: Une chevalerie chrétienne au moyen âge (Paris, 2005), 147; idem, Chevaliers du Christ: Les ordres religieux-militaires au moyen âge, XIe–XVIe siècle (Paris, 2002), 115; and Pierre-Vincent Claverie, L’ordre du Temple en Terre Sainte et à Chypre au XIIIe siècle, 3 vols. (Nicosia, 2005), 1:136–37 and 139. Claverie, L’ordre du Temple, 1:136, asserts that Marie L. Bulst-Thiele, “Der Prozess gegen den Templerorden,” in Die geistlichen Ritterorden Europas, ed. Josef Fleckenstein and Manfred Hellmann (Sigmaringen, 1980), 375–402, at 375, maintains that general chapters were held every five or six years, but she merely states that the Aragonese provincial master had to attend the chapter every five or six years.

14 Claverie, L’ordre du Temple, 1:139.

15 It may also be pointed out that a chapter general in 1300 is mentioned in Pierre-Vincent Claverie, “‘Contra soldanum de Coine’ ou la contribution des templiers portugais à la défense de la Syrie franque,” in As ordens militares e as ordens de cavalaria entre o ocidente e o oriente, ed. Isabel Cristina F. Fernandes (Palmela, 2009), 399–412, at 407.

16 RT, 304 § 585; and CN, 312–14 § 34.

17 ACA, CR, Registro 309, fols. 22v–23v; Registro 310, fol. 47r–v; AHN, Códices, L. 470, 118 (doc. 147); and Laureà Pagarolas i Sabaté, Els Templers de les terres de l’Ebre (Tortosa): De Jaume I fins a l’abolició de l’orde (1213-1312), 2 vols. (Tarragona, 1999), 2:55–57 (doc. 45).

18 Burgtorf, The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars, 566, suggests that the chapter took place while Hugh held the post of marshal (1242–44). See also Vogel, Recht der Templer, 111.

19 Claverie, L’ordre du Temple, 1:139 n. 87, states that the only information about this chapter is an unsubstantiated comment by Laurent Dailliez, Les Templiers: Ces inconnus (Paris, 1972), 110. Dailliez assigns the assembly to the year 1247. Later, Claverie, L’ordre du Temple, 1:178, links the case of a Templar, who appeared before a general chapter after claiming to have been forced to convert while in Muslim captivity, with the supposed chapter of 1246/47, although the report in the Templar customs gives no indication of date: RT, 296–97 § 569; and CN, 304 § 21.

20 Claverie, L’ordre du Temple, 1:138.

21 CRT, 78 § 176. On the date, see Burgtorf, The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars, 638.

22 RT, 317–18 § 616; and CN, 346 § 78.

23 Claverie, L’ordre du Temple, 1:140.

24 Projets de croisade (v.1290–v.1330), ed. Jacques Paviot (Paris, 2008), 328 with n. 99.

25 PT, 2:139; and PTF, 1:836.

26 Alain Demurger, Jacques de Molay: Le crépuscule des Templiers (Paris, 2002), 95–96; Anthony Luttrell, “The Election of the Templar Master Jacques de Molay,” in The Debate on the Trial of the Templars (1307–1314), ed. Jochen Burgtorf, Paul F. Crawford, and Helen J. Nicholson (Farnham, 2010), 21–31; Burgtorf, The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars, 133 and 148 n. 137; and Philippe Josserand, Jacques de Molay: Le dernier grand-maître des Templiers (Paris, 2019), 105.

27 Acta Aragonensia, ed. Heinrich Finke, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1908–1922), 3:10 (doc. 5); Diplomatari de Pere el Gran 1: Cartes i pergamins, 1258–1285, ed. Stefano M. Cingolani (Barcelona, 2011), 808–809 (doc. 459); and Elena Bellomo, “Mobility of Templar Brothers and Dignitaries: The Case of North-Western Italy,” in International Mobility in the Military Orders (Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries): Travelling on Christ’s Business, ed. Jochen Burgtorf and Helen Nicholson (Cardiff, 2006), 102–13, at 106.

28 Jacques Hourlier, Le chapitre général jusqu’au moment du grande schisme: Origines-développement-étude juridique (Paris, 1936), 145 and 152; C. H. Lawrence, The Friars: The Impact of the Early Mendicant Movement on Western Society (London, 1994), 51; and Frances Andrews, The Other Friars: The Carmelite, Augustinian, Sack and Pied Friars in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 2008), 22.

29 Martín, Orígenes de la orden militar de Santiago, 248–54 (doc. 73); and Die Statuten des Deutschen Ordens nach den ältesten Handschriften, ed. Max Perlbach (Halle, 1890), 102 (Gewohnheiten 18).

30 Bullarium equestris ordinis sancti Iacobi de Spatha, ed. A. F. Aguado de Córdova, A. A. Alemán y Rosales, and J. López Agurleta (Madrid, 1719), 202–203; La documentación pontificia de Urbano IV (1261–1264), ed. Ildefonso Rodríguez de Lama (Rome, 1981), 244–45 (doc. 165); and Manuel López Fernández, Pelay Pérez Correa: Historia y leyenda de un maestre santiaguista (Badajoz, 2010), 609–10 (doc. 27).

31 Philippe Josserand, Église et pouvoir dans la Péninsule Ibérique: Les ordres militaires dans le royaume de Castille (1252–1369) (Madrid, 2004), 841; and López Fernández, Pelay Pérez Correa, 574.

32 Josserand, Église et pouvoir dans la Péninsule Ibérique, 848 and 849; and López Fernández, Pelay Pérez Correa, 565 and 576.

33 Josserand, Église et pouvoir dans la Péninsule Ibérique, 440.

34 Alain Demurger, Les Hospitaliers: De Jérusalem à Rhodes, 1050–1317 (Paris, 2013), 540–41.

35 CH, 3:45055 (doc. 3844 § 26); and 4:9399 (doc. 4672 § 11).

36 CH, 3:76976 (doc. 4462); and 4:1423 (doc. 4549 § 12).

37 CRT, 22 § 44; and CN, 358.

38 Die Statuten des Deutschen Ordens, ed. Perlbach, 102 § 18.

39 On the journeys to the East of the Aragonese Templar master in 13001301 and 13061307, see Alain Demurger, “Between Barcelona and Cyprus: The Travels of Berenguer of Cardona, Templar Master of Aragon and Catalonia (13001),” in International Mobility in the Military Orders, ed. Burgtorf and Nicholson, 6574; and FL, 15354.

40 The Proceedings against the Templars, ed. Nicholson, 1:12526. Some Cistercian abbots, for example, were for reasons of distance not required to attend every general chapter. See Mahn, L’ordre cistercien et son gouvernement, 179; and Cygler, Das Generalkapitel im hohen Mittelalter, 53.

41 CH, 2:85963 (doc. 2902); and Tabulae ordinis theutonici, ed. Ernst Strehlke (Berlin, 1869), 98103 (doc. 116).

42 Jonathan Riley-Smith, Templars and Hospitallers as Professed Religious in the Holy Land (Notre Dame, 2010), 52; and idem, The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, 133.

43 In 1215, for example, the English Hospitaller prior was granted a safe-conduct “in travelling overseas to their chapter with his payments” (in eundo in partes transmarinas cum elemosinis suis versus capitulum eorum): Rotuli litterarum patentium in Turri Londinensi asservati, ed. Thomas D. Hardy (London, 1835), 138. Apparently, no other reference to this chapter survives. See also Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, Henry III, A.D. 12471258 (London, 1908), 561.

44 Patent Rolls of the Reign of Henry III Preserved in the Public Record Office, A.D. 12251232 (London, 1903), 433.

45 Close Rolls of the Reign of Henry III Preserved in the Public Record Office, A. D. 1242–1247 (London, 1916), 19.

46 Calendar of the Close Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, Edward I, A. D. 1272–1279 (London, 1901), 124; Evelyn Lord, The Knights Templar in Britain (Harlow, 2002), 21; and Burgtorf, The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars, 553.

47 ACA, CR, Registro 81, fol. 81r. He was comandor de la terre in Cyprus in 1292: Alan Forey, The Templars in the Corona de Aragón (London, 1973), 405–406 (doc. 36); and Burgtorf, The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars, 49596.

48 Demurger, “Between Barcelona and Cyprus,” 65–74; FL, 15354; Forey, The Templars in the Corona de Aragón, 41415 (doc. 44); Calendar of the Close Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, Edward I, Vol. 5, A. D. 1302–1307 (London, 1908), 13738, 172, and 208; Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, Edward I, A. D. 1301–1307 (London, 1898), 222; Marie L. Bulst-Thiele, Sacrae domus militiae Templi Hierosolymitani magistri: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Templerordens 1118/19–1314 (Göttingen, 1974), 366–67 (doc. 8); Josserand, Église et pouvoir dans la Péninsule Ibérique, 597; Schottmüller, Der Untergang des Templer-Ordens, 2:208; and The Trial of the Templars in Cyprus: A Complete English Edition, ed. Anne Gilmour-Bryson (Leiden, 1998), 138.

49 In 1306 the Aragonese master Berenguer of Cardona informed the commander of Peñíscola that he had received a letter from James of Molay in which the latter stated that he had had a communication from the pope and wanted the provincial master to go to the East in August for discussions. A letter from James of Molay to the Aragonese king James II also mentions that Berenguer of Cardona had been instructed to go “ad conventum” on the passage in September. Berenguer himself later reported that he had arrived at Limassol on 8 October, but he was with the grand master for only three days before the latter departed for the West. Berenguer did not allude to a general chapter, and it would be rather surprising if the three days had happened to coincide with a meeting of the chapter, although his journey may have taken longer than anticipated: ACA, CR, Cartas Reales Diplomáticas, Jaime II, Templarios (cajas 137–42), 142 and 247; and FL, 164–65 (doc. 11).

50 Documents Illustrative of English History in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, ed. Henry Cole (London, 1844), 139–230; and Alan Forey, “Templar Provincial Chapters in the Later Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries,” Ordines Militares 23 (2018): 275–99, at 277.

51 G. R. Galbraith, The Constitution of the Dominican Order, 1216–1360 (Manchester, 1925), 87.

52 PT, 1:475 and 627–28; PTF, 1:552 and 690; The Proceedings against the Templars, ed. Nicholson, 1:133, 140, 192, and 251; Pagarolas i Sabaté, Els Templers de les terres de l’Ebre, 2:197–98 (doc. 171); and FL, 161–62 (doc. 4). In 1294, the English provincial chapter took place at Dinsley in June and that of the Aragonese province had met in May: Documents Illustrative of English History, ed. Cole, 175; and Diplomatari del Masdéu, ed. Rodrigue Tréton, 5 vols. (Barcelona, 2010), 5:2699 (doc. 71 sexto, where the date is given incorrectly).

53 This is apparent from CH, 3:769–79 (docs. 4462–63).

54 See the lists in Claverie, L’ordre du Temple,1:139; and Demurger, Les Hospitaliers, 54041.

55 CH, 2:3140 (doc. 1193); and 3:4354 (doc. 3039). The suggestion that a Hospitaller general chapter was held at Tarsus in 1225 has been shown to be incorrect: Judith Bronstein, The Hospitallers and the Holy Land: Financing the Latin East, 1187–1274 (Woodbridge, 2005), 79; and Demurger, Les Hospitaliers, 255.

56 PT, 1:458; PTF, 1:537; and Rudolf Hiestand, “Castrum Peregrinorum e la fine del dominio crociato in Siria,” in Acri 1291, ed. Tommasi, 2341, at 33.

57 F. J. M. Raynouard, Monuments historiques, rélatifs à la condamnation des chevaliers du Temple et à l’abolition de leur ordre (Paris, 1813), 282–83.

58 Riley-Smith, The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, 137.

59 Burgtorf, The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars, 114 n. 225; Laureà Pagarolas i Sabaté, “La fi del domini de l’orde del Temple a Tortosa: La permuta de 1294,” Anuario de estudios medievales 28 (1998): 269–92, at 279; and Forey, “Templar Provincial Chapters,” 280.

60 Joseph Kervyn de Lettenhove, “Deux lettres inédites de Jacques de Molay,” Bulletin de l’Academie royale des sciences, des lettres, et des beaux-arts de Belgique 38 (1874): 226–35, at 234–35; and Josserand, Jacques de Molay, 458–59 (doc. 5).

61 Documentos pontificios referentes a la diócesis de León (siglos XI–XIII), ed. Santiago Domínguez Sánchez (León, 2003), 592–93 (doc. 623).

62 Josserand, Jacques de Molay, 458–59 (doc. 5).

63 Francesch Carreras y Candi, “Entences y Templers en les Montanyes de Prades (1279 á 1300),” Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona 2 (1903–1904): 217–57, at 249. James of Molay was intending to go from Montpellier to Aragon immediately, but the visit did not occur until a year later: FL, 156; and Carreras y Candi, “Entences y Templers,” 250.

64 PT, 1:503; and PTF, 1:577.

65 Documentos pontificios, ed. Domínguez Sánchez, 592–93 (doc. 623).

66 Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, Edward I, A. D. 1292–1301 (London, 1895), 22; and ACA, CR, Registro 98, fol. 218r.

67 Documentos pontificios, ed. Domínguez Sánchez, 592–93 (doc. 623).

68 Calendar of the Close Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, Edward I, Vol. 3, A.D. 1288–1296 (London, 1904), 511. In January 1296, James of Molay had made known his intention to hold a chapter at Arles: Josserand, Jacques de Molay, 461–62 (doc. 7).

69 CH, 2:31–40 (doc. 1193).

70 He was interrogated in Paris in 1307: PT, 2:374–75.

71 Documentos pontificios, ed. Domínguez Sánchez, 592–93 (doc. 623).

72 Pagarolas i Sabaté, Els Templers de les terres de l’Ebre, 2:197–98 (doc. 171); and FL, 161–62 (doc. 4).

73 Klaus Militzer, Von Akkon zur Marienburg: Verfassung, Verwaltung und Sozialstruktur des Deutschen Ordens, 1190–1309 (Marburg, 1999), 134–35.

74 Galbraith, The Constitution of the Dominican Order, 85 and 242; Hourlier, Le chapitre général jusqu’au moment du grande schisme, 145 and 152; Carole A. Hutchinson, The Hermit Monks of Grandmont (Kalamazoo, 1989), 108; Mahn, L’ordre cistercien et son gouvernement, 174; and Cygler, Das Generalkapitel im hohen Mittelalter, 51.

75 Die Statuten des Deutschen Ordens, ed. Perlbach, 102 (Gewohnheiten 18).

76 Demurger, Les Hospitaliers, 54041. In 1270, however, the chapter was convened in mid-June and in 1278 it was held in early August.

77 Forey, The Templars in the Corona de Aragón, 32627 and 41415 (doc. 44). See also Burgtorf, The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars, 114. The list of witnesses in 1300 includes the provincial master of Portugal as well as central officials. Demurger, “Between Barcelona and Cyprus,” 67, states that All Saints’ Day was the customary date for the Templar general chapter but does not substantiate this assertion. The document naming Berenguer of Cardona as visitor was written on 10 November.

78 Claverie, L’ordre du Temple, 1:140.

79 Cygler, Das Generalkapitel im hohen Mittelalter, 56, 6061, and 15355; Mahn, L’ordre cistercien et son gouvernement, 19495; Rose Graham, St. Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines (London, 1901), 49; and Galbraith, The Constitution of the Dominican Order, 86 and 244.

80 CH, 3:81016 (doc. 4515 § 12); and 4:9399 (doc. 4672 § 16).

81 Laurent Dailliez, Les Templiers: Gouvernement et institutions (Nice, 1980), 267.

82 Forey, “Templar Provincial Chapters,” 29394.

83 Mahn, L’ordre cistercien et son gouvernement, 178; Cygler, Das Generalkapitel im hohen Mittelalter, 25; Galbraith, The Constitution of the Dominican Order, 8991; Hourlier, Le chapitre général jusqu’au moment du grande schisme, 146; and John R. H. Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order: From its Origins to the Year 1517 (Oxford, 1968), 98.

84 It has been claimed that in the Hospital all available brothers in the East participated in general chapters: Riley-Smith, The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, 130. Statutes issued at Margat certainly decree that “all the brothers on this side of the sea—the bailiffs, and the most wise and discreet of the others—should be summoned to the general chapter” (au general chapistre doivent estre apelez tous les freres deça mer, les bailliz et les autres plus sages et plus discrez): CH, 2:3140 (doc. 1193), but this ruling, which does not cover all brothers, refers to a special general chapter for the election of a new master. It would have been militarily unwise to remove a large portion of the garrisons from Hospitaller castles.

85 Riley-Smith, “The Structures of the Orders,” 137. This claim was later modified to state that they did not come “as a matter of course to the chapters-general in the East”: Riley-Smith, Templars and Hospitallers, 51; and idem, The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, 133.

86 ACA, CR, Registro 66, fol. 61v; and Registro 81, fol. 81r.

87 Demurger, “Between Barcelona and Cyprus,” 65–74; and FL, 153–54.

88 In 1286 Berenguer of Cardona travelled to the East with Berenguer of Santjust: ACA, CR, Registro 66, fols. 57v and 61v; and Forey, The Templars in the Corona de Aragón, 402 (doc. 30). When Berenguer of Cardona journeyed to Cyprus in 1306, he was accompanied by several Templars: ACA, CR, Cartas Reales Diplomáticas, Jaime II, Templarios 143.

89 These responsions were the annual payments made by provinces to the Order’s headquarters.

90 ACA, CR, Pergaminos, Jaime II 2071 and 2073.

91 PT, 2:139; and PTF, 1:836.

92 Demurger, Jacques de Molay, 95–96. See also Marie-Anna Chevalier, “L’ordre du Temple en Méditerranée orientale autour de 1300,” in Entre Deus e o rei: O mundo das ordens militares, ed. Isabel Cristina F. Fernandes, 2 vols. (Palmela, 2018), 2:599–622, at 601.

93 Luttrell, “The Election of the Templar Master Jacques de Molay,” 23.

94 Alan Forey, “Rank and Authority in the Military Orders during the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” Studia monastica 40 (1998): 291–327, at 312–14.

95 Alan Forey, “Recruitment to the Military Orders (Twelfth to Mid-Fourteenth Centuries),” Viator 17 (1986): 139–71, at 144.

96 Thomas Wright, Early Travels in Palestine (London, 1848), 83; and Jacques de Vitry, Historia orientalis 65, ed. Jean Donnadieu (Turnhout, 2008), 266–67. One version of a letter sent by the Templar grand preceptor Thierry after the battle of Hattin stated that the convent had been almost annihilated in 1187, and that sixty brothers were lost at Cresson and 230 at Hattin, but it is not known how many of these belonged to the central convent: John H. Pryor, “Two excitationes from the Third Crusade: The Letters of Brother Thierry of the Temple,” Mediterranean Historical Review 25 (2010): 147–68, at 148 and 156.

97 Heinrich Finke, Papsttum und Untergang des Templerordens, 2 vols. (Münster, 1907), 2:352 (doc. 156); and Barbara Frale, “L’interrogatorio ai Templari nella provincia di Bernardo Gui: Un’ipotesi per il frammento del registro avignonese 305,” Dall’Archivio Segreto Vaticano: Miscellanea di testi, saggi, e inventari 1 (2006): 199–272, at 257.

98 PT, 1:562; and PTF, 1:632.

99 The statement by Jean-Marie Allard, “Templar Mobility in the Diocese of Limoges according to the Order’s Trial Records,” in International Mobility in the Military Orders, ed. Burgtorf and Nicholson, 130–41, at 135, that the second was “undoubtedly” referring to a general chapter seems rather overconfident.

100 Chevalier, “L’ordre du Temple,” in Entre Deus e o rei, ed. Fernandes, 601–602, states that in 1300, when the central convent was on the island of Ruad, there were 520 brothers there (120 knights and 400 sergeants). Yet the sources quoted do not indicate how many of this force were Templars: Cronaca del Templare di Tiro (1243–1314): La caduta degli stati crociati nel raconto di un testimone oculare 402, ed. Laura Minervini (Naples, 2000), 310; and Chroniques d’Amadi et de Strambaldi, ed. René de Mas Latrie (Paris, 1891), 239. A Templar interrogated at Poitiers in 1308 stated that he had been among 300 brothers dispatched to the East some ten years earlier following a decision by a provincial chapter in Paris: Finke, Papsttum und Untergang des Templerordens, 2:335 (doc. 155). Yet it is not clear why reinforcements on that scale would have been needed about the year 1298. The number is probably an overestimate.

101 Chroniques d’Amadi et de Strambaldi, ed. de Mas Latrie, 286; “Chronique de l’île de Chypre par Florio Bustron,” ed. René de Mas Latrie, in Mélanges historiques: Choix de documents 5 (Paris, 1886), 1–531, at 167; Schottmüller, Der Untergang des Templer-Ordens, 2:143–400; and The Trial of the Templars in Cyprus, ed. Gilmour-Bryson.

102 Anthony Luttrell, “Gli Ospitalieri di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme dal continente alle isole,” in Acri 1291, ed. Tommasi, 75–91, at 80; and CH, 4:14–23 and 36–41 (docs. 4549 § 5 and 4574 § 14).

103 See, for example, Mahn, L’ordre cistercien et son gouvernement, 190–93; Ludo Milis, L’ordre des chanoines réguliers d’Arrouaise: Son histoire et son organisation, de la fondation de l’abbaye-mère (vers 1090) à la fin des chapitres annuels (1471) (Bruges, 1969), 565–73; and Galbraith, The Constitution of the Dominican Order, 92.

104 Derek W. Lomax, “Algunos estatutos primitivos de la orden de Calatrava,” Hispania 21 (1961): 483–94; Luís F. Oliveira, “Em torno da normativa de Calatrava: Umas Definições inéditas de finais do século XIII,” in Cister e as ordens militares na idade média: Guerra, igreja e vida religiosa, ed. José Albuquerque Carreiras and Carlos de Ayala Martínez (Tomar, 2015), 103–36; idem, “De volta à normativa da ordem de Calatrava: Novo testemunho das Definições de finais do século XIII,” En la España medieval 43 (2020): 9–26; Philippe Josserand, “Pour une étude systématique de la documentacion statutaire des ordres militaires: Deux manuscrits des ‘definiciones’ inédites d’Alcántara de 1306,” En la España medieval 20 (1997): 321–38; Joseph F. O’Callaghan, “The Earliest Difiniciones of the Order of Calatrava (1304–1383),” Traditio 17 (1962): 225–84; and Aurea L. Javierre Mur, La orden de Calatrava en Portugal (Madrid, 1952), 45–46 (doc. 1).

105 Those for the Hospital have been published in the volumes of CH, and in translation in E. J. King, The Rule, Statutes and Customs of the Hospitallers, 1099–1310 (London, 1934). For Santiago, see Josserand, Église et pouvoir dans la Péninsule Ibérique, 835–50; and López Fernández, Pelay Pérez Correa, 561–77.

106 Raynouard, Monumens historiques, 283.

107 PT, 1:458; and PTF, 1:537.

108 The Proceedings against the Templars, ed. Nicholson, 1:121, 289, and 339.

109 The Proceedings against the Templars, ed. Nicholson, 1:131, 145–47, 149, 151, 153, 155, and 259.

110 The Proceedings against the Templars, ed. Nicholson, 1:139, 245–46, and 254.

111 PT, 1:186; and PTF, 1:267. The statement made by another Templar that brothers were ordered not to eat fish on Fridays and that only one dish of meat should be provided on days when that was eaten could be referring to the decrees made in 1293: PT, 1:269; and PTF, 1:350–51. See also PT, 2:112; and PTF, 1:810.

112 Le procès des Templiers d’Auvergne, 1309–1311, ed. Roger Sève and Anne-Marie Chagny-Sève (Paris, 1986), 120.

113 CRT, 38 § 72; and CN, 38. Vogel, Recht der Templer, 139, argues that this ruling applies only to the regulations mentioned up to that point, but it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between these and later sections, which include regulations as well as examples of their implementation.

114 Riley-Smith, “The Structures of the Orders,” 135 and 139; idem, Templars and Hospitallers, 51 and 53; and idem, The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, 132.

115 PT, passim; PTF, 1, passim; Tommasi, “Interrogatorio di Templari a Cesena,” in Acri 1291, ed. Tommasi, 292 and 297; and The Proceedings against the Templars, ed. Nicholson, 1:123, 133, and 314.

116 PT, 1:95; and PTF, 1:168.

117 RT, 292–93 § 560; and CN, 296 § 12.

118 CRT, 56 § 133.

119 RT, 292 § 559; and CN, 294 § 11.

120 CH, 4:14–23 and 93–99 (docs. 4549 § 12 and 4672 § 17).

121 CH, 3:769–76 (doc. 4462).

122 Diplomatari de Pere el Gran 2: Relacions internacionals i política exterior (1260–1285), ed. Stefano M. Cingolani (Barcelona, 2015), 161 (doc. 47).

123 For journeys to the East by Hospitaller priors, see Rotuli Litterarum Patentium, ed. Hardy, 138; Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, Henry III, A. D. 1232–1247 (London, 1906), 208; Calendar of the Patent Rolls, A. D. 1247–1258, 561; Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, Henry III, A. D. 1266–1272 (London, 1913), 348; and Calendar of the Close Rolls, A.D. 1272–1279, 50.

124 Alois Knöpfler, “Die Ordensregel der Tempelherren,” Historisches Jahrbuch 8 (1887): 691–95; CN, 396–402; and Forey, “Templar Provincial Chapters,” 290–91. On the dating, see Simonetta Cerrini, “Nuovi percorsi templari tra i manoscritti latini e francesi della Regola,” in Atti del Convegno i Templari in Piemonte: Dalla storia al mito, ed. Renato Bordone (Turin, 1995), 35–51, at 40–41; and eadem, “La tradition manuscrite de la règle du Temple: Études pour une nouvelle édition des versions latine et française,” in Autour de la première croisade, ed. Michel Balard (Paris, 1996), 203–19, at 209–10.

125 See, for example, The Proceedings against the Templars, ed. Nicholson, 1:240, 245, 249–50, and 256–58.

126 See, for example, CH, 2:31–40 (doc.1193) and 536–61 (doc. 2213 § 90 and 109); and Die Statuten des Deutschen Ordens, ed. Perlbach, 97 § 8.

127 The procedure for the election of a new grand master will not be considered here, as I have sought to discuss this in “The Election of Heads of Military Orders in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” in The Military Orders, Volume VIII: In a Wider World, ed. Emanuel Buttigieg and Clara Almagro Vidal (Abingdon, 2025), 95–104.

128 RT, 80–81 § 87–88; and CN, 52 § 10–11. Clause 88 is absent from the Dijon and Baltimore manuscripts.

129 CRT, 56 § 136. See also CRT, 2, 22 § 3 and 43. A letter sent by James of Molay to the Aragonese king James II implies that the advice of brothers in a province was also sought before the appointment of a new provincial master: FL, 166–67 (doc. 14).

130 Forey, The Templars in the Corona de Aragón, 414 (doc. 44).

131 Bini, “Dei Tempieri e del loro processo,” 452–55; Hans Prutz, Entwicklung und Untergang des Tempelherrenordens (Berlin, 1888), 290–91 (doc. 18); and Les registres de Clément IV, ed. Edouard Jordan (Paris, 1893–1945), 326–27 (doc. 836).

132 Acta Aragonensia, ed. Finke, 1:122–23 (doc. 85).

133 Finke, Papsttum und Untergang des Templerordens, 2:43 (doc. 28); and FL, 167–71 (docs. 15–19).

134 CRT, 27 § 43.

135 Benavides, Memorias de D. Fernando IV, 2:170–71 (doc. 123).

136 Vitae paparum Avenionensium, ed. Guillaume Mollat, 4 vols. (Paris, 1914–1928), 3:58–60. As has been mentioned, commanderies in Portugal were granted at the chapter held at Arles in 1296, but this was unusual. Commanders of convents were normally appointed locally, although the grand master did at times assign commanderies in the West to brothers, especially to those who were returning to western Europe after serving in the East: Documentos pontificios, ed. Domínguez Sánchez, 592–93 (doc. 623); and FL, 168–70 (doc. 17).

137 RT, 80 § 87; and CN, 52 § 10.

138 CRT, 56 § 136.

139 RT, 81 § 88; CN, 52 § 11; and CRT, 22 § 43.

140 CRT, 22–24 § 44.

141 Hospitaller statutes allude to the recalling of western officials by the chapter general: CH, 2:31–40 (doc. 1193); and 3:450–55 and 769–76 (docs. 3844 § 18 and 4462). But a list of grievances drawn up in 1296 mentions untimely recalls by the master: CH, 3:681–83 (doc. 4310).

142 CH, 2:31–40 and 536–61 (docs. 1193 and 2213 § 109); 3:225–29 (doc. 3396 § 18); and Die Statuten des Deutschen Ordens, ed. Perlbach, 59–60 § II.

143 Acta Aragonensia, ed. Finke, 3:10 (doc. 5); and Diplomatari de Pere el Gran 1: Cartes i pergamins, 808–809 (doc. 459).

144 Forey, “Templar Provincial Chapters,” 289–90.

145 This might seem to be contradicted by the report about the replaced Castilian provincial master who was criticized for travelling to the East without being summoned: CRT, 22–24 § 44. But further detail is lacking. He may have journeyed to the East before he received a summons to a general chapter.

146 Forey, The Templars in the Corona de Aragón, 313, 405–406 (doc. 36), and 421; and Burgtorf, The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars, 495–96.

147 In a mid-thirteenth-century ruling relating to the Teutonic Order in Prussia, it was decreed that “letters are to be dispatched to the East every year, and in the second or third year a brother is to be sent in person to report on the state of the land and the community of the convent” (omni anno mittantur littere ad partes transmarinas, et in secundo vel tercio anno mittatur frater personaliter de statu terre et communitate conventus): Die Statuten des Deutschen Ordens, ed. Perlbach, 161–62; and Visitationen im Deutschen Orden im Mittelalter, ed. Marian Biskup and Irena Janosz-Biskupova, 3 vols. (Marburg, 2002–2008), 1:3–5 (doc. 2).

148 Forey, “Templar Provincial Chapters,” 288.

149 See, for example, Forey, The Templars in the Corona de Aragón, 326–27.

150 RT, 78, 92–95, 105 § 83–84, 107, 111, 130; and CN, 50, 66, 68, 78 § 6–7, 46, 52, 83.

151 Forey, The Templars in the Corona de Aragón, 326–27.

152 ACA, CR, Pergaminos, Jaime II 2071–73.

153 RT, 83 § 93; and CN, 54 § 18.

154 CRT, 24 § 45; and CN, 358.

155 Finke, Papsttum und Untergang des Templerordens, 1:21 n. 3; and FL, 160 (doc. 1).

156 FL, 160–61 and 164 (docs. 2, 3, and 9).

157 FL, 164 (doc. 10); ACA, CR, Cartas Reales Diplomáticas, Jaime II, Templarios, 334 and 363; and Alan Forey, “The Career of a Templar: Peter of St Just,” in Knighthoods of Christ: Essays on the History of the Crusades and the Knights Templar, Presented to Malcolm Barber, ed. Norman Housley (Aldershot, 2007), 183–94, at 188. Compare CH, 2:536–61 (doc. 2213 § 89).

158 CH, 2:31–40 (doc. 1193); Lomax, “Algunos estatutos primitivos,” 493; and Carlos de Ayala Martínez, Las órdenes militares hispánicas en la edad media (siglos XII–XV) (Madrid, 2003), 303 and 309.

159 RT, 79 § 85; and CN, 50 § 8.

160 Forey, The Templars in the Corona de Aragón, 405–406 (doc. 36).

161 Pagarolas i Sabaté, Els Templers de les terres de l’Ebre, 2:197–98 (doc. 171); and FL, 161–62 (doc. 4).

162 Forey, The Templars in the Corona de Aragón, 414–15 (doc. 44).

163 Forey, “Templar Provincial Chapters,” 291.

164 CRT, 76–78 § 174; and CN, 302–304.

165 CRT, 68–70, 88 § 163, and 186; RT, 296–97, 313–14 § 569, and 606; and CN, 304 § 21 and 338 § 69.

166 RT, 289–90 § 554; CN, 290 § 6; and CRT, 55 § 129.

167 Die Statuten des Deutschen Ordens, ed. Perlbach, 103 (Gewohnheiten 18); Tabulae ordinis theutonici, ed. Strehlke, 58–60 and 68–69 (docs. 74 and 86); Derek W. Lomax, La orden de Santiago (1170–1275) (Madrid, 1965), 64–65; Benavides, Memorias de D. Fernando IV, 2:730; Josserand, Église et pouvoir dans la Péninsule Ibérique, 845 § 5 and 849 § 1; López Fernández, Pelay Pérez Correa, 562, 576, 590–93, 599–600, 617–19, and 632–33 (docs. 14, 19, 34, and 41); María Carmona de los Santos, “Sellos de la orden militar de Santiago: Fuentes y datos para su estudio,” in Las órdenes militares en la Península Ibérica, 1: Edad Media, ed. Ricardo Izquierdo Benito and Francisco Ruiz Gómez (Cuenca, 2000), 59–86, at 68; and Juan Torres Fontes, “La orden de Santa María de España,” Miscelánea medieval murciana 3 (1977): 73–118, at 86.

168 CH, 3:368–70 (doc. 3670 § 1–2); FL, 161–62 (doc. 4); and Pagarolas i Sabaté, Els Templers de les terres de l’Ebre, 2:197–98 (doc. 171). A document issued by the Hospitaller master in 1239 was sealed with the “lead seal of the chapter of our house” (seel de plum deu chapitre de nostre mayson), but this was probably an earlier version of the conventual seal rather than a seal of the general chapter: CH, 2:565 (doc. 2224); and Burgtorf, The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars, 111.

169 Gustave Schlumberger, Ferdinand Chalandon, and Adrien Blanchet, Sigillographie de l’Orient latin (Paris, 1943), 244; E. J. King, The Seals of the Order of St John of Jerusalem (London, 1932), 23–24; and CH, 3:769–79 (docs. 4462–63).

170 ACA, Órdenes religiosas y militares, San Juan de Jerusalén, Pergaminos, Cervera 486. See also Schlumberger, Chalandon, and Blanchet, Sigillographie, 249–50; and Paul de Saint-Hilaire, Les sceaux templiers (Puiseaux, 1991), 61.

171 Josserand, Église et pouvoir dans la Péninsule Ibérique, 845 § 5 and 849 § 1; and López Fernández, Pelay Pérez Correa, 562 and 576.

172 CH, 3:368–70 (doc. 3670 § 2).

173 CH, 3:782–84 (doc. 4468).

174 It is claimed in The Rule of the Templars: The French Text of the Rule of the Order of the Knights Templar, trans. J. M. Upton-Ward (Woodbridge, 1992), 41 n. 88.1, that the Order’s lead or silver seal was kept under the keys of the master and two leading officials, but no source is quoted.

175 Documentos pontificios, ed. Domínguez Sánchez, 592–93 (doc. 623).