International Mobility in the Military Orders (Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries): Travelling on Christ's Business (review)

This is a collection of essays by scholars on the religious orders, brought together as chapters by the editors, with the assistance of Alan Forey who wrote the Introduction and contributed to the Conclusion. In a sense the volume derives from Joshua Prawer's characterisation of the orders as an "instrument of social mobility," although physical mobility is the focus here. The editors have succeeded admirably in producing a volume with a very clear focus. They have divided the chapters into sections on "I General Aspects and Individual Cases" and "II Regional Studies."

A good range of Orders is covered: the fact that more attention is paid to the Hospital than to the Temple is a fair reflection of the survival of evidence. However, there are two chapters on the Order of St Lazarus, while attention is paid to the Teutonic Order and the Portuguese Order of Avis and its connection with Calatrava. There is some investigation of the activities of the Orders in France, England, the Hispanic kingdoms, Italy, Germany, and Hungary as well as the Holy Land, and the scholars participating are accordingly international. For the most part they focus on the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, though there are incursions into the later Middle Ages, notably by Theresa M. Vann and Jürgen Sarnowsky, who both deal with the Hospitallers in fifteenth-century Rhodes.

On the other hand, what is being attempted is a very detailed discussion of a specialised subject, and all too often the sources are simply not there. Judith Bronstein proposes what on the face of it is a very sound methodology in "The Mobilization of Hospitaller Manpower from Europe to the Holy Land in the Thirteenth Century"; to examine the western sources for names and to check for their appearance in Outremer. The results, however, are rather limited because of "the lack of specific data" (p. 30). Many of the chapters are indeed somewhat inconclusive for the same reason. However, Jochen Burgtorf contributes an impressive tabulation of the movements of the senior members of the Temple and Hospital. Helen Nicholson's chapter highlights the growing tensions between increasingly competent and ambitious government in the west and the international goal of freeing Jerusalem by examining problems over English royal permissions for members of the Orders to travel. David Marcombe touches on the same theme in discussing the Order of St Lazarus in England and the Holy Land, but focuses on the way in which the Order was becoming outmoded, partly because of the decline of leprosy in Europe. This is the only chapter which touches upon Jonathan Riley-Smith's recent suggestion that the Templars were disorganized and outmoded. In John Malkaw, Axel Ehlers has unearthed a remarkable and eccentric personality whose career illustrates the diversity of the later medieval church. Overall, the suggestion that many of the chapters are inconclusive should not be regarded as a criticism. This is a very scholarly reconnaissance of an enormous subject and it is to be hoped that it will stimulate others to further investigation.