Jochen Schenk

Forms of lay association with the Order of the Temple

The present study investigates the development of three concepts of lay association with the Order of the Temple that have hitherto often been considered as distinctive from each other but that are, in fact, in many ways interconnected: the confrater, the donatus and the miles ad terminum. Examining the motivation of lay men and women to associate with the Temple, as well as the various implications of the forms of association they chose, the study argues that at the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the constellation of the Orders confraternities underwent drastic changes and that these had been instigated by canon lawyers and formulated in the decrees of Lateran III and IV. As a response the donats, as a particular category of confratres, established themselves as the most prominent expression of lay association with the Temple. What is more, since the concept of the donat gained prominence when that of the Templar novice was in decline, it will also be argued that, for very different reasons, the concept of the Templar donat as well as that of the ‘temporary knight’ (miles ad terminum), which was as old as the Order itself, could eventually have been conceived and employed as two forms of novitiate in disguise, which helped attract the attention of laymen who would have otherwise been reluctant to profess fully into a military order.

Some hagiographical evidence for templar spirituality, religious life and conduct

L’hagiographie des ordres militaires medievaux etant depuis longtemps consideree comme un corpus peu substantiel, les textes hagiographiques ont ete insuffisamment pris en compte dans l’examen et dans l’explication des perspectives spirituelles de ces ordres et de la conduite religieuse de leurs membres. Cela est particulierement vrai pour l’ordre des templiers, qui ne peut se prevaloir de compter dans ses rangs un seul saint du calendrier catholique. Le present article est fonde sur l’hypothese qu’un point de vue purement hagiologique sur ces textes ne permet pas de saisir la valeur historique de telles sources. Certaines histoires, en effet, sont susceptibles de receler des traces de la spiritualite et de la conduite religieuse des templiers. Deux exemples puises au Portugal et un troisieme situe en Espagne illustrent comment des vies de saints et des collections de miracles qui n’etaient pas associes aux templiers peuvent parfois suggerer d’interessantes hypotheses a propos des valeurs spirituelles de ...

Cyprus. Society and Culture 1191–1374, ed. Angel Nicolaou-Konnari and Christopher Schabel (Leiden: Brill, 2005)

This monograph approaches the subject of medieval Arabic historical writing by means of a micro-study of two historical texts written in the seventh/thirteenth century: the Kitab al-rawd _ atayn by Ab u Shama (1203–1267) and the Mufarrij by Ibn Was _ il (d. 697/1298). Both these works cover the reigns of N ur al-Din Zangi and S _ alah _ al-Din al-Ayy ubi and are thus compared as two dynastic histories focusing on the same era, which are nonetheless different in significant ways. These differences are the grist for Hirschler’s contention that such chronicles were not simply panegyrics or objective records but actually show considerable creativity and ingenuity in their careful use of existing sources to present an individual view of history. In his own words, it is a reflection of the ‘‘agency’’ which such medieval authors enjoyed in their production of texts (p. 1). Hirschler notes that both Ibn Was _ il and Ab u Shama made extensive use of existing materials but argues that a close literary analysis of the texts tells us much about the context within which these historians worked and that subtle alterations, abbreviations and comments on known materials can reveal a great deal about these historians not simply as authors but also as social actors in Ayy ubid-Maml uk Syria. After providing some historical background on the last Ayy ubid decades and the rise of the Maml uks, he explores both the social and intellectual environments in which Ab u Shama and Ibn Was _ il operated, using the historiographical works of Tarif Khalidi (1994) and Tayeb El Hibri (1999) as the starting point for his analysis. He notes in particular the relevance of recent research on social networks to understanding such writings, thereby nuancing the assumption that the relationship between writer and patron was the major determinant of a work’s content. The author of this monograph contests the superficial similarity created by describing both Ibn Was _ il and Ab u Shama as Shafi 0 i scholars from Syria and gives a convincing depiction of Ibn Was _ il as a scholar with extensive links of friendship/ patronage (s _ ubh _ a/mulazama) to Ayy ubid and then Maml uk amirs which enabled him to hold important posts in his hometown, Hama, and in Cairo, and to successfully weather the replacement of the Ayy ubids by the Maml uks. In contrast to this, Ab u Shama emerges as a marginal Damascene 0 alim who had significant connections with the Maghribi community rather than with the established