Templars and Hospitallers as Professed Religious in the Holy Land

Conway Lectures in Medieval Studies

by Jonathan Riley-Smith

The Templars and the Hospitallers were the two earliest and most famous of the major Military Orders of the Roman Catholic Church from the early twelfth to the middle of the thirteenth century. In this book, Jonathan Riley-Smith attends to the Templars' and Hospitallers' primary role as religious orders, not as military phenomena or economic powerhouses. In a prologue, four chapters, and an epilogue, Riley-Smith discusses the origins of the orders in dedication to the protection of pilgrims to the Holy Land (Templars) and to the care of the poor and the sick among them (Hospitallers). He examines their traditions and early history, the organization of their communities, modes of governance, and, in the fourth chapter, important differences between the orders and a brief account of their respective fates in the wake of the Crusades. The Templars were eventually persecuted by the Church and the order suppressed. Riley-Smith speculates that the violent end of the order was caused both by jealousy of its wealth and by internal problems of governance that left it vulnerable to accusations of conducting blasphemous rites. The Hospitallers survived in one form or another to the present day; vestiges of the original order inform the contemporary Knights of Malta.

Genres: History

146 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Jonathan Simon Christopher Riley-Smith, Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Cambridge, was educated at Eton College and Trinity College Cambridge. He received his BA (1960), MA (1964), PhD (1964) and LittD (2001) from Cambridge.

From 1964–1972 Dr. Riley-Smith taught in the Department of Medieval History at the Unversity of St Andrews, first as assistant lecturer, until 1966, then as lecturer. From 1972 until 1978, he served on the history faculty at the University of Cambridge. He was professor of history at the University of London from 1978 until 1994. Since 1994, Professor Riley-Smith has served on the faculties of history and divinity at the University of Cambridge. He is a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. From 1997 to 1999 he was chair of the faculty of history.

He was a founder member (1980), acting secretary (1980–1982) and president (1987–1995) of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East. Other positions he has held include Knight of Grace and Devotion, Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Officer of Merit, Order Pro Merito Melitens, and Knight of Justice, Most Venerable Order of St John.

Reviews

[Alexander Rolfe]

A good look at how different the orders were. I had no idea the hospital in Jerusalem was so huge, and I didn't realize how dedicated to the care of the poor sick the Hospitallers were. This book inspired the purchase of a shower curtain with a life-size picture of a charging Hospitaller. Now we jump when we walk into the bathroom, especially at night.