Part 12 (2/2)

9. The castle of Jacob's-ford, at the Jordan, built in 1178 by King Baldwin IV., to check the incursions of the roving Arabs. When Saladin took this castle, he treated the Templars whom he found in it with great cruelty.

10. The house at Jaffa.

11. The castle of a.s.sur, near this town.

12. _Gerinum parvum._

13. The castle of Beaufort, near Sidon, purchased by the order, in 1260, from Julian, the lord of that town.

We may observe that most of these abodes of the Templars were strong castles and fortresses. It was only by means of such that possession could be retained of a country like Palestine, subject to the constant inroads of the Turks and Saracens. The Templars possessed, besides these strongholds, large farms and tracts of land, of which, though their names are unknown, frequent mention is made in the history of the order.

II. Tripolis.--The princ.i.p.al houses of the order in this province were at Tripolis itself; Tortosa, the ancient Antaradus; Castel-blanc, in the same neighbourhood; Laodicea, Tyre, Sidon, and Berytus.

III. Antioch.--Of this province but little is known. There was a house at Aleppo; and the jurisdiction of the prior probably extended into Armenia[83], where the order had estates to the value of 20,000 byzants.

[Footnote 83: The Armenia of the crusades was a part of Cilicia.]

IV. Cyprus.--As long as the Templars maintained their footing on the continent, Cyprus, it would appear, formed no distinct province, but belonged either to that of Tripolis or of Antioch. At the time when Richard, King of England, made the conquest of this island, he sold the sovereignty of it for 25,000 marks of silver to the Templars, who had already extensive possessions in it. The following year, with the consent of the order, who were, of course, reimbursed, he transferred the dominion to Guy de Lusignan, King of Jerusalem. On the capture of Acre the chief seat of the order was fixed at Limesal, also called Limissa and Nemosia, in this island, which town, having an excellent harbour, they strongly fortified. They had also a house at Nicosia, and one at the ancient Paphos, named Gastira, and, at the same place, the impregnable castle of Colossa.

Some idea of the value of the possessions of the Templars in Cyprus may be formed from the circ.u.mstance, that when, in 1316, after the suppression of the order, the Pope directed the Bishop of Limissa to transfer their property there to the Hospitallers, there were found, in the house in that town, 26,000 byzants of coined money, and silver plate to the value of 1,500 marks. As the last Master, when setting out for France ten years before, had carried with him the treasure of the order, this property must have been acc.u.mulated during that time out of the surplus revenue of the possessions of the order in the island.

The Western provinces of the order were--

I. Portugal.--So early as the year 1130 (a strong proof of the rapid increase of the order) Galdin Paez, the first provincial master of the Temple in Portugal, built the castles of Tomar, Monsento, and Idanna.

The Templars had also settlements at Castromarin, Almural, and Langrovia. Tomar was the residence of the great-prior.

II. Castile and Leon.--In this province the possessions of the order were so extensive as to form twenty-four bailiwicks in Castile alone. It is needless to enumerate their names[84].

[Footnote 84: They will be found in Campomanes, p. 80, and Munter, p.

424.]

III. Aragon.--In this province, which abounded in castles, several belonged to the Templars; and the bailiwick of Majorca, where they were also settled, was under the jurisdiction of the great-prior of Aragon.

It is to be observed that most of the castles possessed by the order in Spain and Portugal were on the borders of the Moorish territory. Some of these had been given to the Templars as the inveterate foes of the infidels; others had been conquered by them from the Moors.

France, where the possessions of the order were so considerable, was divided into four provinces, namely--

IV. France and Auvergne, including Flanders and the Netherlands.

V. Normandy.

VI. Aquitaine, or Poitou.

VII. Provence.

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