Desertions and Transfers from Military Orders (Twelfth to Early-Fourteenth Centuries)

DESERTIONS AND TRANSFERS FROM MILITARY ORDERS (TWELFTH TO EARLY-FOURTEENTH CENTURIES) By A. J. FOREY Definitions and Regulations The taking of vows in a military order, as in other religious foundations, created a lifelong obligation.1 The phrase stabilitas loci, which is encountered in some documents relating to these orders,2 did not imply an undertaking to stay permanently in the same convent, but signified that those who had made their profession should remain in the same order for life. This requirement found expression especially in papal decrees, although orders' regulations give information about the punishment of apostates. As in other religious establishments, a transfer to another order provided the sole permitted exception, but this was allowed only under certain conditions. In the bull Omne datum optimum, addressed to the Templars in 1139, Innocent II decreed that "once they have taken their vows and been received in your sacred community, and after they have made their profes1 The following abbreviations are used throughout: BC = Bullarium ordinis militiae de Calatrava, ed. I. J. de Ortega y Cotes, J. F. Alvarez de Baquedano, and P. de Ortega Zúñiga y Aranda (Madrid, 1761). BS = Bullarium equestris ordinis S. Iacobi de Spatha, ed. A. F. Aguado de Córdoba, A. A. Alemán y Rosales, and J. López Agurleta (Madrid, 1719). CH = J. Delaville Le Roulx, Cartulaire general de Îordre des Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem, 4 vols. (Paris, 1894-1906). Concilia = David Wilkins, Concilia magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, 4 vols. (London, 1737). CR = The Catalan Rule of the Templars: A Critical Edition and English Translation from Barcelona, Archivo de la Corona de Aragon, Cartas Reales, MS 3344, ed. and trans. Judi Upton-Ward (Woodbridge, 2003). "Nouveau manuscrit" = J. Delaville Le Roulx, "Un nouveau manuscrit de la règle du Temple ," Annuaire-bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de France 26 (1889): 185-214. Procès = J. Michelet, Procès des Templiers, 2 vols. (Paris, 1841-51). PUTJ = Rudolf Hiestand, Papsturkunden für Templer und Johanniter, 2 vols. (Göttingen, 1972-84). RHC Hist. Occ. = Recueil des historiens des croisades: Historiens occidentaux, 5 vols. (Paris, 1844-95) /?G = La règle du Temple, ed. Henri de Curzon (Paris, 1886). SDO = Max Perlbach, Die Statuten des Deutschen Ordens nach den ältesten Handschriften (Halle, 1890). Tabulae = Ernestus Strehlke, Tabulae ordinis theutonici (Berlin, 1869). Untergang = Konrad Schottmüller, Der Untergang des Templer-Ordens, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1887). 2 Pt.'7'J 1:204-10, doc. 3; Tabulae 275-79, doc. 306. 144traditio sion in your knighthood and assumed the habit of your order, your brothers are to have no right to return to the world."3 Very similar wording was included in papal bulls for the Hospital in 1154, for Santiago in 1175, and for the Teutonic order in 1220.4 These decrees were supported with references to scripture, especially Luke 9:62 and 1 Corinthians 7:20, but popes were of course proclaiming a principle long established in the monastic world.3 Yet, as military orders were in the twelfth century a new kind of religious foundation, devoted to fighting and composed largely of laymen, it may have seemed appropriate to stress the permanence of obligations. Certainly Peter the Venerable, in seeking to persuade Eugenius III to acquiesce in Humbert of Beaujeu's abandonment of the Temple in the mid-twelfth century , attempted to distinguish between a military order and other religious establishments: "if he had deserted from a canonical, monastic, or eremitic institution, or any long-founded order, he [the pope] should rightly compel him by ecclesiastical censure to return to the place he had unlawfully left." Humbert of Beaujeu, however, "has merely transferred from one militia to another, now wielding the sword, which he had taken up against the Saracens , against false Christians, who are worse than Saracens."6 That military orders did not differ in this respect from other foundations was, however, quickly established,7 and in some papal decrees for military orders founded 3 "Fratres vestros semel devotos atque in sacro collegio vestro receptos, post factam in vestra militia professionem et habitum religionis assumptum, revertendi ad seculum nullam habere . . . facultatem" (PUTJ 1:204-10, doc. 3...