The Military Orders: Fighting for the Faith and Caring for the Sick ed. by Malcolm Barber (review)

324BOOK REVIEWS hout,"A. R. Gibbs" (p. 18) is H. A. R. Gibb; Eustace of "Bologne" (p. 139) was Eustace of Boulogne; Antioch was situated on the Orontes, not on the "Pharphar" ("Pharfar" p. 95); "Alexandriola" (p. 104) is Alexandretta; Raymond, vicomte of Turenne is identified mystifyingly as "Viscount of Torena" (p. 119 n. 192); and Geoffrey of Montescaglioso is rendered meaninglessly as "Geoffrey of Mont Scabieuse" (p. 68) and "Godfrey of Mount-Scabieuse" (p. 102). The errors are too numerous to list, but these should suffice to warn readers to approach this translation with circumspection, and preferably with a reUable gazeteer and a copy of Rosalind HUl's splendid edition, translation and annotation ofthe Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum (Oxford, 1962). There is no index. Penny J. Cole Trinity College University ofToronto The Military Orders:Fightingfor the Faith and Caringfor the Sick. Edited by Malcolm Barber. (Brookfield,Vermont: Variorum, Ashgate PubUshing Company . 1994. Pp. xxviii, 399. $99.50.) This volume is made up of forty-one papers read at a conference on the MUitary Orders held at St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell, London, in September, 1992. The editor, Malcolm Barber, is to be congratulated for the way in which he has given to this collection a coherence rarely achieved Ln works of this kind. Fourteen contributions relate to the Knights of St.John, eight to the Templars, seven to the Teutonic Order, four to the Spanish Orders,whUe the remaining eight approach the topic in a more general way. Jean Richard, the doyen of Crusading studies, has written an introduction to the book in which he succeeds in assigning to each contribution its place in the wider context of crusading history. In the studies of all the Orders there is a strong emphasis on regional history and this reflects a general trend in crusading studies. The volume opens with a magisterial essay by Michael Gervers about the estate management of the HospitaUers in Essex, and Enrique Rodriguez-Picavea MatUla has produced an impressive account of the agricultural exploitation by the Order of Calatrava of its estates in the Tagus vaUey. The medical work of the Orders was one of the main themes of the conference , and Anthony LuttreU has written an outstanding survey of the hospitaUer activities of the Knights of St. John on Rhodes, where "the sick were served their meals on silver dishes and drank from sUver spoons" (p. 71). Susan Edgington has contributed an interesting background paper on the state ofmedical knowledge among the first Crusaders and has drawn attention to an early example of the use of animals (in this case a bear) to test the efficacy of medical treatment. BOOK REVIEWS325 Archaeological evidence is of central importance in studying the early history of the Orders. Peter Megaw has written about the castle of Paphos in Cyprus, which he has spent a lifetime excavating, and which he argues is an Hospitaller foundation closely resembling Belvoir in Galilee. Denys Pringle has produced a survey of the towers on the Jerusalem-Jericho road which were almost certainly buUt and manned by the Templars for the protection ofpilgrims. A good deal of new Ught is shed on the Templars by the contributors to this volume.Jonathan PhilUps argues cogently that their licensing as an Order at the Council ofTroyes in 1 128 was closely linked to an attempt to launch a new crusade against Damascus. Peter Lock has found evidence that the Order had a more proactive role in the Fourth Crusade and the setting up of the Latin Empire than it is normaUy credited with. WhUe Helen Nicholson, in a paper on the image of the Military Orders in medieval romances, has shown that the Templars were regarded as particularly weU disposed to lovers in difficulties, perhaps , as she suggests, because it was a topos that young men crossed in love became Templars, just as simUarly circumstanced young men in nineteenthcentury novels joined the Foreign Legion. This volume is not designed for specialists alone but also has much to offer to those with a more general interest in Crusading studies. James Brundage has written a very wide-ranging essay on the response of the MiUtary Orders to...