La Commanderie, institution des ordres militaires dans l'Occident medieval (review)

All military orders relied on incomes raised in the European heartland to support their activities on the frontiers of Christendom. It was impractical to expect that contributions alone would cover expenses, especially during the long truces when public enthusiasm for crusading was minimal. Moreover, several military orders provided services such as hospitals for the general public that had to be supported no matter what the condition of the local economy was, but especially in difficult years. The logical source of the incomes was clear—the estates given by pious donors or offered by knights as a "dowry" upon entry into the order. The problem was how to supervise these estates so as to guarantee honest stewardship of the resources and support a reserve army that could be called upon in moments of crisis. The high officers of the order, who lived at a great distance from the scattered estates, could not rely on local clergy, much less on local nobles (not even the heirs of the donors), though the most powerful families made efforts to control these estates for their own benefit, usually by having some relative enter the order with the understanding that he would be assigned to the local commandery.

The answer was to reproduce in the heartland an hierarchical organization that had worked well on the endangered borderlands—to entrust the command of a castle and its surrounding lands to an officer who would be responsible to a provincial supervisor and, if necessary, a nearly autonomous regional supervisor (the Teutonic Knights had masters in Germany, Prussia, and Livonia, and a grand commander in the Holy Land, all responsible to the grand master and his council). Each local commander could participate in important assemblies of the order and would supervise the minor officers responsible for military preparedness, incomes and expenses, and the priests who directed the daily round of religious services; those who were most successful would be carefully considered for promotion. This officer (commander, komtur) and his provincial superior are, therefore, extremely important for understanding more fully the function of the military orders, which until relatively recently were known only for the activities of their grand masters and regional masters.

This volume is comprised of the proceedings of the first international conference of the "Conservatoire Larzac templier et hospitalier" in October of 2000. It is very much an Anglo-French product, reflected in the publication of all papers either in French or English. The Germans, who have led the way into understanding the role of the "Balleien" (provincial districts) are represented by three scholars: Sven Ekdahl, who is Swedish but lives in Berlin, and Dieter Weiss, both writing on the Teutonic Knights, and Karl Borchardt, whose short article, "Urban Commanderies in Germany," could be read as a summation of the entire book. "Two Spaniards, Luis García-Guijarro Ramos and Carlos de Atala Martinez, and a Hungarian, Zsolt Hunyadi, make similar contributions that expand the scope of the publication beyond the Rhine and the Pyrenees.

The papers are grouped into five categories: (1) history of the institution and its typology; (2) the personnel; (3) daily life; (4) economic aspects; and (5) a study of a rural commandery, Saint-Eulalie in Larzac (where the conference was held).

Jonathan Riley-Smith introduces the subject with a short article on the twelfth-century origins of the provincial structure, when the practical problems were worked out by a process of trial and error; the Hospitallers led the way, followed by the Knights Templar. Eventually, the difficulties of managing properties at a great distance, even from a provincial center, were resolved by giving local commanderies more autonomy. The remaining papers deal with the...