Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

www.elsevier.com/locate/jmedhist

The military orders and the conversion of

Muslims in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

Alan Forey

The Bell House, Church Lane, Kirtlington, Oxon OX5 3HJ, UK

Abstract

Descriptions of the activities of military orders only rarely included any reference to the

conversion of Muslims, and in practice the orders did not seek to impose Christianity by force.
They were at times also reluctant to allow voluntary conversions among their Muslim vassals
and slaves, although claims that they sought to prevent Muslims in neighbouring Islamic terri-
tories from accepting Christianity are questionable. The explanation of the attitudes displayed
by the orders is not to be found in the fear of losing their raison d’eˆtre or in the extent of
their understanding of the Islamic faith: they were adopting current attitudes, which were based
on economic advantage and probably also on perceptions of the nature of Islamic society. As
more attention came to be devoted in the West to missionary work, some criticised the orders’
military activities for hindering peaceful missions, while it was also argued — for example
by Lull — that the orders should engage in the work of conversion, using force as well as
preaching. But the writings of theorists had little practical effect.

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2002 Elsevier Science

Keywords: Military orders; Conversion; Muslims; Slaves; Raymond Lull

The warfare to which military orders devoted themselves in Mediterranean lands

during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was seen to serve various purposes.

some documents stress was placed on fighting as a means of salvation for brethren:
‘they do not fear to shed their own blood as martyrs, and thus rejoice eventually to
end their lives for God alone’.

The practical objective was most frequently described

For a brief survey, see A.J. Forey, ‘The emergence of the military order in the twelfth century’,

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 36 (1985), 184–6.

J. Gonza´lez, El reino de Castilla en la e´poca de Alfonso VIII, 3 vols (Madrid, 1960), vol. 2, 745–

7, doc. 432.

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A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

as defence, both of territories and of the Church and the faithful: some scribes likened
the orders to a wall or a shield.

Yet military orders were also seen to be fighting

a war of vengeance and expansion. The latter task was usually said to involve the
freeing of parts of the Church from subjection and the recovery of lands which had
earlier been seized from Christians. Charters of donation not only include generalised
comments about expansion but also at times in the Iberian peninsula refer to assist-
ance given in particular campaigns and to possible conquests by the orders them-
selves.

It has been argued, however, that a handful of royal charters also envisage the

converting of non-Christians by the Templars and Hospitallers. A grant was made
to the Hospitallers in the middle of the twelfth century by Raymond Berenguer IV,
count of Barcelona, ‘for propagating (propagandam) the faith and religion of holy
Christianity’, and of the Templars it was said by Peter II of Aragon in 1208 that
‘wherever the religion of the Christian faith thrives, they devote themselves to its
propagation (propagationi) and defence’.

Similar statements may be found in the

documentation of Spanish military orders. In 1171 Fernando II of Leon asserted that
the brothers of Santiago had undertaken to fight against the infidel ‘for extending
(dilatanda) the faith of Christ’, and in the same year the archbishop of Compostela,
in favouring the same order, said that he wished ‘to propagate (propagare) … and
extend (dilatare) the faith and Church of God’, while in 1231 Gregory IX referred
to the zeal which the brothers of Calatrava ‘are known to have for the propagation
(propagationem) of the Christian cult’.

Yet it is questionable whether such statements were meant to refer to any involve-

ment of the military orders in conversion, especially as some of those making them
showed no interest themselves in winning Muslims over to Christianity. The Chris-
tian faith could be extended in various ways which did not involve conversion: it
could, for example, be a consequence of the expulsion of infidels or the removal at

Gonza´lez, El reino de Castilla, vol. 2, 331–2, 364–5, 745–7, docs 200, 220, 432; vol. 3, 139–41,

doc. 641.

See, for example, Gonza´lez, El reino de Castilla, vol. 2, 305–7, doc. 183; J. Gonza´lez, Reinado y

diplomas de Fernando III, 3 vols (Co´rdoba, 1980–6), vol. 3, 43–4, 65–7, 305–6, 314–16, 317–21, docs
531, 550, 739, 751, 753–4; Libro de privilegios de la orden de San Juan de Jerusale´n en Castilla y Leo´n
(siglos XII–XV), ed. C. de Ayala Martı´nez (Madrid, n. d.), 321–2, doc. 143.

H. Nicholson, Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights. Images of the military orders, 1128–

1291 (Leicester, 1993), 18. Although I have not accepted some of its conclusions, I have found this work
very helpful. For the texts quoted, see J. Delaville Le Roulx, Cartulaire ge´ne´ral de l’ordre des Hospitaliers
de Saint-Jean de Je´rusalem, 4 vols (Paris, 1894–1906), vol. 1, 141–3, doc. 181; A.J. Forey, The Templars
in the Corona de Arago´n (London, 1973), 377–8, doc. 12. See also Delaville Le Roulx, Cartulaire, vol.
2, 239–40, 299–301, docs 1603, 1742; Documentos de Jaime I de Arago´n, ed. A. Huici Miranda and
M.D. Caban˜es Pecourt, 5 vols (Valencia, 1976–), vol. 1, 73–5, doc. 32.

J.L. Martı´n, Orı´genes de la orden militar de Santiago (1170–1195) (Barcelona, 1974), 212–15, 224–

5 docs 42, 51; Bullarium equestris ordinis S. Iacobi de Spatha, ed. A.F. Aguado de Co´rdoba, A.A. Alema´n
y Rosales and J. Lo´pez Agurleta (Madrid, 1719), 5–6, 7–8; Bullarium ordinis militiae de Calatrava, ed.
I.J. de Ortega y Cotes, J.F. Alvarez de Baquedano and P. de Ortega Zu´n˜iga y Aranda (Madrid, 1761), 63.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

least of their rulers.

Some documents relating to military orders do in fact refer to

such expulsions: the count of Barcelona in 1143 made concessions to the Templars
partly ‘for the expelling of the race of Moors’, and when in 1172 a group of inhabi-
tants of Avila associated themselves with the order of Santiago, they proposed to
extend their activities to Morocco ‘when the Saracens have been driven from the
parts of Spain on this side of the sea’.

The exiling of Muslims in fact characterised

some conquests both in the Holy Land and in the Iberian peninsula.

Although the relevance to conversion of charters which allude to the propagation

or expansion of Christianity may be questioned, a very few twelfth- and early thir-
teenth-century sources do explicitly seek to link military orders with the converting
of Muslims. Alexander III’s confirmation of the order of Santiago issued in 1175
contains the injunction: ‘in their warfare they should devote themselves to this objec-
tive alone, namely either to protect Christians from their [the Saracens’] attacks or
to be in a position to induce them [the Saracens] to follow the Christian faith’.

This

statement was incorporated into the rule of Santiago and was also included in later
confirmations of Alexander’s bull.

In 1088 Urban II had sought to promote the

conversion of conquered Muslims in Spain ‘by word and example’,

but cardinal

Albert of Morra, who was responsible for the 1175 bull,

did not elaborate on his

precise meaning and the later sources are no more explicit.

As Humbert of Romans

pointed out a century later, force might serve in various ways to further conversion:
conquest facilitated preaching to subjugated infidels — although missionary activity
was in practice more characteristic of the thirteenth than of the twelfth century —

When writing in the early twelfth century about lands in Spain conquered from the Muslims by

Alfonso VI, the author of the Historia Silense referred to ‘provinces recovered from their sacrilegious
hands and converted to the faith of Christ’, but he was not referring to the conversion of Muslims: ed.
J. Pe´rez de Urbel and A. Gonza´lez Ruiz-Zorrilla (Madrid, 1959), 119.

Coleccio´n de documentos ine´ditos del Archivo General de la Corona de Arago´n, ed. P. de Bofarull

y Mascaro´, etc., 41 vols (Barcelona, 1847–1910), vol. 4, 93–9, doc. 43; Colec.cio´ diploma`tica de la casa
del Temple de Barbera` (945–1212), ed. J.M. Sans i Trave´ (Barcelona, 1997), 110–14, doc. 35; Martı´n,
Orı´genes, 226–8, doc. 53; Bullarium S. Iacobi, 8–9.

Martı´n, Orı´genes, 248–54 doc. 73; Bullarium S. Iacobi, 13–17.

E. Gallego Blanco, The rule of the Spanish order of St James, 1170–1493 (Leiden, 1971), 110 cap.

30; Bullarium S. Iacobi, 30–1, 36–40, 51–2, 57–8, 79–81, 173–4; D. Mansilla, La documentacio´n ponti-
ficia hasta Inocencio III (965–1216) (Rome, 1955), 145–51, doc. 124; Martı´n, Orı´genes, 350–1, 403–5
docs 168, 226. In a thirteenth-century vernacular version of Santiago’s rule, the reference to conversion
was replaced by the more neutral phrase ‘for the increase (acrescemiento) of God’s faith’: D.W. Lomax,
La orden de Santiago (1170–1275) (Madrid, 1965), 225–6 doc. 1 cap. 34.

Mansilla, Documentacio´n pontificia, 43–5 doc. 27.

See A. Ferrari, ‘Alberto de Morra, postulador de la orden de Santiago y su primer cronista’, Boletı´n

de la Real Academia de la Historia, 146 (1960), 63–139.

When referring to the wording of Alexander III’s bull, M. Rivera Garretas, ‘Los ritos de iniciacio´n

en la orden militar de Santiago’, Anuario de estudios medievales, 12 (1982), 281, maintains that the
papacy ‘conceived of the religious–military vocation as a means of extending European culture …a civilis-
ing expansion which permitted the creation of cultural and economic relations of lordship, in which the
Christians would safeguard their lives and property’. This does not seem a very helpful comment.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

and serious setbacks in battle could help to weaken the faith of Muslims.

Baptism

could also be imposed by force; but in view of canonical opinion, it is unlikely that
Albert of Morra was advocating this method. The statements about Santiago have
nevertheless been linked with comments made by the Cistercian abbot Isaac de l’E-
toile, who in a sermon referred to a new order (novus ordo) which ‘with lances and
cudgels forces unbelievers to the faith’.

He saw the new foundation as using force

to convert. A chronicler of St Martin of Tours similarly asserted that the French
king, Philip II, left money to the Templars and Hospitallers to hire mercenaries ‘who
would convert the usurpers of the promised land and recall them to the unity of the
faith’.

Yet, while this writer named the two leading military orders, the identity of

the foundation to which Isaac de l’Etoile was referring has been disputed. If — as
has been argued — this sermon was delivered when Isaac was still abbot of l’Etoile,
it was written before the foundation of Santiago and could not refer to that establish-
ment. It has been suggested that the phrase ‘new order’ harked back to the term
‘new militia’ (nova militia), which St Bernard used of the Templars, and Isaac de
l’Etoile’s comment has been taken to refer to them.

Yet St Bernard was writing a

generation earlier. If Isaac was referring to a particular order, the foundation in ques-
tion was probably Calatrava, which became affiliated to the Cistercians and which
received rulings from the Cistercian general chapter in 1164.

It is, of course, also

possible that he was referring to the military order as an institution, rather than to
a particular foundation:

but, at a time when there were several military orders in

existence, he referred to an order, rather than to a type of order.

One reason which has sometimes been advanced for not associating Isaac de l’E-

toile’s comment with the Temple or Calatrava is that these two orders did not seek
to impose baptism by force.

Yet in fact none of the military orders confronting

Islam sought to promote conversion directly by force in the way that members of
military orders in the Baltic region in the thirteenth century sought to impose Chris-

Opusculum tripartitum, 1. 15, 16, ed. E. Brown, Appendix ad fasciculum rerum expetendarum et

fugiendarum (London, 1690), 195–6; for an English translation, see L. and J. Riley-Smith, The crusades.
Idea and reality, 1095–1274 (London, 1981), 112, 114.

B.Z. Kedar, Crusade and mission. European approaches toward the Muslims (Princeton, 1984), 105;

G. Raciti, ‘Isaac de l’Etoile et son sie`cle’, Cıˆteaux. Commentarii Cistercienses, 12 (1961), 290; Isaac de
l’Etoile, Sermons, ed. A. Hoste and G. Raciti, 3 vols (Paris, 1967–87), vol. 3, 158–60.

‘Ex chronico Turonensi auctore anonymo, S. Martini Turon. canonici’, Recueil des historiens des

Gaules et de la France, ed. M. Bouquet, etc., 24 vols (Paris, 1869–1904 edn), vol. 18, 304. It has been
pointed out by Nicholson, Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights, 18, that this comment is not
found in the text of Philip II’s will.

J.F. O’Callaghan, ‘La vida de las o´rdenes militares de Espan˜a segu´n sus estatutos primitivos’, in:

Alarcos 1195. Actas del congreso internacional conmemorativo del VIII centenario de la batalla de
Alarcos, ed. R. Izquierdo Benito and F. Ruiz Go´mez (Cuenca, 1996), 17 and n. On the identification with
the Temple, see also J. Leclercq, ‘L’attitude spirituelle de S. Bernard devant la guerre’, Collectanea
Cisterciensia, 36 (1974), 216–17; M. Barber, The new knighthood. A history of the order of the Temple
(Cambridge, 1994), 345, n. 50.

Bullarium de Calatrava, 3–4; Raciti, ‘Isaac de l’Etoile’, Cıˆteaux, 13 (1962), 20–1, 33.

See L. Bouyer, La spiritualite´ de Cıˆteaux (Paris, 1955), 201–2.

Kedar, Crusade and mission, 105; O’Callaghan, ‘Vida’, 17.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

tianity on pagans. Isaac de l’Etoile and the Tours chronicler both lived far from
Christian frontiers, and were not well-informed about the orders’ functions in Medit-
erranean lands. Although chansons de geste allude to forced conversions and
although during the first crusade there had been attempts to coerce Muslims to accept
baptism,

these were not imitated. The master of Calatrava, Martin Pe´rez de Siones,

is reported to have ordered the slaughter of more than 200 Muslim captives in 1170,
but this was not because they had refused to become Christian.

In Mediterranean

regions the military orders gained authority over Muslims, both free and slave, but
did not coerce them to become Christian either at the time of conquest or later:
Muslims who passed under the lordship of the orders were allowed to keep their
religion, as happened on other estates. Although little detailed information survives
about the orders’ vassals in the Holy Land, it is clear that Muslims living under
western rule there were allowed to preserve their faith, even if they did lose some
mosques.

Any members of the Teutonic order who were transferred in the thirteenth

century from the Holy Land to the Baltic therefore found themselves confronted by
a very different situation. The religious freedom allowed by the orders to Muslims
in the Iberian peninsula is apparent from surrender agreements and cartas de pobla-
cio´n. In the charter granted by the Templars in 1234 at Chivert in northern Valencia,
shortly after it had passed into Christian hands, Muslim tenants were allowed to
retain their main mosque and to practise their religion freely. Similar terms were
conceded by the Hospitallers to Muslims at La Aldea, on the left bank of the Ebro
near Tortosa, in 1258.

These agreements were, moreover, intended to be permanent:

the military orders did not envisage that there would in the future be any attempt
to limit religious freedom.

Yet if the orders did not seek to impose Christianity by force, it must also be

considered whether they encouraged and promoted conversion by peaceful means,
or sought to hinder it. Those whom the orders could most easily influence were their
own Muslim vassals and slaves. Little evidence survives about the orders’ Muslim

Kedar, Crusade and mission, 62–3; see also S. Loutchiskaia, ‘La conversion re´elle ou imaginaire?

Les attitudes envers les musulmans dans le premier royaume latin de Je´rusalem’, in: Le partage du monde.
Echanges et colonisation dans la Me´diterrane´e me´die´vale, ed. M. Balard and A. Ducellier (Paris, 1998),
93–102.

F. de Rades y Andrada, Chro´nica de las tres o´rdenes y cavallerı´as de Santiago, Calatrava y Alca´ntara

(Toledo, 1572), Calatrava, f. 17v.

See, for example, B.Z. Kedar, ‘The subjected Muslims of the Frankish Levant’, in: Muslims under

Latin rule, 1100–1300, ed. J.M. Powell (Princeton, 1990), 138–40, 161–3; D. Talmon-Heller, ‘Arabic
sources on Muslim villages under Frankish rule’, in: From Clermont to Jerusalem. The crusades and
crusader societies, 1095–1500, ed. A.V. Murray (Turnhout, 1998), 107.

Cartas pueblas de las morerı´as valencianas y documentacio´n complementaria, ed. M.V. Febrer Rom-

aguera (Zaragoza, 1991), 10–16, 53–6, docs 1, 15; J.M. Font Rius, Cartas de poblacio´n y franquicia de
Catalun˜a, 2 vols (Madrid, Barcelona, 1969–83), vol. 1, 444–6, doc. 303; compare A. Yelo Templado,
‘Los vassalos mude´jares de la orden de Santiago en el reino de Murcia (siglos XIV–XV)’, Anuario de
estudios medievales, 11 (1981), 448. Other studies of the Spanish military orders and their Muslim depend-
ants also focus mainly on the later middle ages: see, for example, M.F. Lopes de Barros, ‘A ordem de
Avis e a minoria muc¸ulmana’, in: Ordens militares. Guerra, religia˜o, poder e cultura. Actos do III Encon-
tro sobre ordens militares, ed. I.C. Fernandes, 2 vols (Lisbon, 1999), vol. 2, 167–73.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

vassals in the Holy Land. In the 1260s the author of De constructione castri Saphet
argued that the rebuilding of the castle meant that ‘the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ
can be preached freely in all the aforesaid places [in the region of Safed] and the
blasphemy of Muhammad can be publicly refuted and demolished in sermons’; but
he was just expressing an aspiration, not commenting on Templar policy.

More precise evidence survives from Spain, although the extent of the free Muslim

population varied from one region to another: in the Campo de Calatrava, for
example, there were hardly any free Muslims on the estates belonging to the order
of Calatrava.

Military orders were clearly in some cases reluctant to allow Muslim

tenants to convert, and penalised them for doing so by confiscating their land. Some
Muslim tenants paid higher rents than Christians and were obliged to perform labour
services from which Christian vassals were exempt: this was acknowledged by James
I of Aragon in his Chronicle, and is evident on Templar estates at Villastar in south-
ern Aragon, where Muslims were in 1267 to pay a quarter of produce in rent, whereas
Christian settlers there paid only a seventh on some crops;

and some Muslim vas-

sals of the Temple in southern Aragon and Valencia owed labour services, while
there is little evidence of such obligations among Christian tenants in these districts.

James I had decreed in 1242 that Muslim converts should not be deprived of their
land,

but, although this ruling was later repeated and supported by papal decrees,

it was not fully implemented on Templar or other estates. Berenguer of San Marcial,
who was Templar commander of Asco´ on the lower Ebro in the opening years of
the fourteenth century, confiscated all the possessions of a Muslim woman at Vinebre

R.B.C. Huygens, ‘Un nouveau texte du traite´ ‘De constructione castri Saphet’’, Studi medievali, 6

(1965), 386.

E. Rodrı´guez-Picavea, La formacio´n del feudalismo en la meseta meridional castellana. Los sen˜orı´os

de la orden de Calatrava en los siglos XII–XIII (Madrid, 1994), 312; J.F. O’Callaghan, ‘The Mudejars
of Castile and Portugal in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, in: Muslims under Latin rule, 20.

The chronicle of James I, king of Aragon, cap. 366, trans. J. Forster, 2 vols (London, 1883), vol. 2,

482; Cartas pueblas de las morerı´as, 77–80, 85–7, 93–4, docs 35, 38, 45; Forey, Templars, 395–7, doc.
24; Cartas de poblacio´n del reino de Arago´n en los siglos medievales, ed. M.L. Ledesma Rubio (Zaragoza,
1991), 255–7, 260–1, 267–8, docs 207, 210, 216.

Forey, Templars, 203–4; see also the Hospitaller charter for La Aldea, which mentions a day’s service

each month.

Coleccio´n diploma´tica del concejo de Zaragoza, ed. A. Canellas Lo´pez, 2 vols (Zaragoza, 1972–5),

vol. 1, 168–9, doc. 66; Documentos de Jaime I, vol. 2, 131–3, doc. 350.

Documentos de Jaime I, vol. 5, 55 doc. 1350; Cortes de los antiguos reinos de Arago´n y de Valencia

y principado de Catalun˜a, 26 vols (Madrid, 1896–1922), vol. 1, 217–18; M. T. Ferrer i Mallol, Els
sarraı¨ns de la Corona catalano aragonesa en el segle XIV. Segregacio´ i discriminacio´ (Barcelona, 1987),
69. James I’s decree of 1242 was supported by a papal bull issued in 1245: A. de Saldes, ‘La o´rden
franciscana en el antiguo reino de Arago´n. Coleccio´n diploma´tica’, Revista de estudios franciscanos, 2
(1908), 474–5; S. Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth century (Philadelphia, 1933), 254–6;
see also R.I. Burns, ‘Journey from Islam. Incipient cultural transition in the conquered kingdom of Valen-
cia (1240–1280)’, Speculum, 35 (1960), 340. In 1206 Innocent III had written to the clergy of Barcelona
about lords who, ‘fearing to lose material benefit’, sought to prevent conversions, but he may have been
referring to the baptism of slaves, not free Muslims: Mansilla, Documentacio´n pontificia, 375–6, doc. 352.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

who converted to Christianity.

This incident has left a record only because Templar

lands passed shortly afterwards under royal control and an appeal was made to the
Crown: there is no reason to assume that it was exceptional. It is therefore unlikely
that the military orders in Aragonese lands reacted favourably to royal instructions
that Muslims should be obliged to listen to the preaching undertaken in the thirteenth
century by friars.

The obligation of ensuring attendance rested mainly on the Mus-

lims themselves and on royal officials, rather than lords, but the latter could obviously
influence the response of their vassals. Certainly at the end of the thirteenth century
sizeable communities of free Muslims continued to live on some of the Templars’
estates in the Corona de Arago´n: the population of Miravet, for example, was still
predominantly Muslim at the time of the Templars’ arrest.

Yet the practice of confiscating converts’ property was not the custom in all parts

of Spain. Although decrees similar to that issued by James I in 1242 were also
enacted in Castile,

indicating that confiscations sometimes occurred, fueros issued

by military orders in that kingdom reveal that in various places converts were allowed
to retain their possessions: that granted by the order of Santiago to Ucle´s in 1179,
for example, stated that ‘men of Ucle´s who become converts can, if they have sons,
bequeath their possessions to them after death’.

But there is no evidence to suggest

that the military orders sought to encourage conversion of their free Muslim vassals
in any part of the Peninsula. They seem to have been more concerned to protect
their Muslim tenants — whether by building walls around morerı´as or by judicial
action — against attacks by a hostile Christian populace.

There was similarly little readiness to promote the baptism of slaves. Since in the

Holy Land in the early thirteenth century it was the custom that emancipation should

Barcelona, Archivo de la Corona de Arago´n (henceforth ACA), Cancillerı´a real, Cartas reales diplo-

ma´ticas, Jaime II 4706.

It is apparently not known to what extent these royal decrees were generally enforced: J. Riera i

Sans, ‘Les llice`ncies reials per predicar als jueus i als sarraı¨ns (segles XIII–XIV)’, Calls, 2 (1987), 113–
43; M.D. Johnston, ‘Ramon Lull and the compulsory evangelization of Jews and Muslims’, in: Iberia
and the Mediterranean world of the middle ages. Studies in honor of Robert I. Burns, S. J., ed. L.J.
Simon, P.E. Chevedden, etc., 2 vols (Leiden, 1995–6), vol. 1, 7–13.

A. Benavides, Memorias de D. Fernando IV de Castilla, 2 vols (Madrid, 1860), vol. 2, 280, 288,

docs 197, 203.

Martı´n, Orı´genes, 277–80, doc. 97; M. Rivera Garretas, La encomienda, el priorato y la villa de

Ucle´s en la edad media (1174–1310) (Madrid, Barcelona, 1985), 234–40, doc. 7; see also the fuero of
Estremera: ibid., 241–3, doc. 11; Martı´n, Orı´genes, 337–9 doc. 153; Lomax, Orden de Santiago, 122.
Compare El fuero de Zorita de los Canes, ed. R. de Uren˜a y Smenjaud (Madrid, 1911), 115, art. 182,
although this may refer to the conversion of those who had been slaves. It was based on the fuero of
Cuenca, as were those of a number of places under the lordship of Santiago and of the Hospitallers:
Fuero de Cuenca, 9. 12, ed. R. de Uren˜a y Smenjaud (Madrid, 1935), 254 and n.; J. Gonza´lez, Repoblacio´n
de Castilla la Nueva, 2 vols (Madrid, 1975–6), vol. 1, 356; M. Rodrı´guez Llopis, Conflictos fronterizos
y dependencia sen˜orial. La encomienda santiaguista de Yeste y Taibilla (ss. XIII–XV) (Albacete, 1982),
57; Libro de privilegios, 450–1, 464–5, 472–3, 475–6, 478–9, 481–3, 490–1, 506–8, 509–12 docs 255,
266, 269, 271, 274, 277, 285, 300, 302–3; P. Guerrero Ventas, El gran priorato de San Juan en el Campo
de la Mancha (Toledo, 1969), 83–96.

Forey, Templars, 200; see also R. I. Burns, ‘Social riots on the Christian–Moslem frontier (thirteenth-

century Valencia)’, American Historical Review, 66 (1960–1), 378–400.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

accompany baptism, lords — including the military orders — often refused to allow
slaves to convert, partly because conversion was viewed by some slaves merely as
a means to secure freedom, but also, of course, because slaves provided manpower
and could be a source of profit through sale or redemption.

The possible release

of slaves could also at times be used as a bargaining counter in negotiations with
neighbouring Muslim powers.

James of Vitry condemned Christian lords who

adopted a hostile stance to the conversion of slaves,

and that the military orders

were among them is implied by a letter sent in 1237 by Gregory IX to the patriarch
of Jerusalem and to the masters of the three leading military orders, stating that those
slaves who genuinely aspired to baptism should be allowed to convert, but should
not thereby lose their servile status.

The Hospitallers do not appear, however, to

have sought to facilitate conversion in the period following the papal decree, for a
statute issued in 1262 ruled that no slave should be baptised without the special
permission of the master,

although that did not imply that no slaves at all would

be allowed to become Christian.

The Hospitaller decree applied not only to the Holy Land but also to Spain.

Although it seems earlier to have been the custom in some parts of the Peninsula
for converted slaves to be freed, in the later thirteenth century baptism no longer
ensured emancipation, and could no longer be resisted by lords on the grounds that
it led to a loss of slaves.

There were certainly a number of baptised slaves on

Templar estates in Aragon in the later thirteenth century: baptizati belonging to the
Templars are mentioned both in inventories of conventual possessions drawn up in

Kedar, Crusade and mission, 77–8, 146–7. On the redemption of Templar slaves, see La re`gle du

Temple, ed. H. de Curzon (Paris, 1886), 95–6, art. 113; for the redemption of a Templar slave in Catalonia,
see L. Pagarolas i Sabate´, Els Templers de les terres de l’Ebre (Tortosa). De Jaume I fins a l’abolicio´
de l’orde (1213–1312), 2 vols (Tarragona, 1999), vol. 2, 34–5, doc. 28. In the mid thirteenth century the
Templar castle of Safed was said to require the services of 400 slaves: Huygens, ‘Nouveau texte’, 384.

In the Iberian peninsula it was reported that in a surrender agreement with the Muslims of Miravet

and Zufera during the conquest of the kingdom of Valencia the Hospitallers and Templars had promised
to release captive Moors: ACA, Ordenes religiosas y militares, San Juan de Jerusale´n, Cartulario de
Tortosa, f. 19–19v doc. 58; see also the agreement between the orders of Santiago and Calatrava in 1243:
Bullarium de Calatrava, 685–6. In the Holy Land, Templars and Hospitallers were, however, reluctant
to allow their slaves to be used for general exchanges of prisoners: A.J. Forey, ‘The military orders and
the ransoming of captives from Islam (twelfth to early fourteenth centuries)’, Studia monastica, 33 (1991),
275–6.

Jacques de Vitry, Lettres de la cinquie`me croisade, ed. and trans. R.B.C. Huygens and G. Duchet-

Suchaux (Turnhout, 1998), 54.

Kedar, Crusade and mission, 212, doc. 2a; Delaville Le Roulx, Cartulaire, vol. 2, 513–14, doc. 2168.

Delaville Le Roulx, Cartulaire, vol. 3, 43–54, doc. 3039, art. 49.

Complaints about the attitudes of lords in the Holy Land and Cyprus continued: Kedar, Crusade and

mission, 151; B.Z. Kedar, ‘Multidirectional conversion in the Latin Levant’, in: Varieties of religious
conversion in the middle ages, ed. J. Muldoon (Gainesville, 1997), 192.

Kedar, Crusade and mission, 77, 149–50, 214–15 docs 2 e, f. In Valencia, slaves who were baptised

with the consent of their lords were at first freed, but this must have dissuaded lords from giving their
consent, and James I later decreed that baptizati should in all cases remain slaves: Fori antiqui Valentiae,
83. 13, ed. M. Dualde Serrano (Madrid, Valencia, 1950–67), 153–4; Burns, ‘Journey from Islam’, 343–
4; see also C. Verlinden, L’esclavage dans l’Europe me´die´vale, 2 vols (Bruges, 1955–77), vol. 1, 292.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

Aragon in 1289 and in records relating to the Templar trial there.

As all recorded

purchases of slaves by the Templars in north-eastern Spain were of Muslims,

might be postulated that the Order did not prevent its slaves from converting. But
not all instruments of sale have survived, and there was certainly a market in baptised
slaves.

Although in the thirteenth century the proportion of baptizati among slaves

in Barcelona was growing,

the Aragonese Templars certainly do not seem to have

taken measures to encourage the conversion of Muslim slaves, for the numbers of
baptizati on their estates appear to have been small: at Miravet in 1289 there were
forty-three Muslim slaves and only two baptizati.

Although evidence about other

military orders in Spain is sparse, they are similarly known to have possessed baptiz-
ati,

but it is not clear whether these slaves were Christians when they were acquired

by the orders.

Although the evidence is limited — further research may reveal new information

scattered among the surviving sources — it is clear that in some cases the orders
sought to impede the baptism of both slaves and free Muslim tenants, and there is
little to indicate that the military orders sought to promote the conversion of those
under their authority. They did not themselves have the personnel to instruct potential
converts — the role of brother chaplains was merely to provide for the spiritual
welfare of their colleagues — but there were other ways in which conversion could
have been encouraged by the orders. A late-medieval prose version of These´us de
Cologne has the Templars rejoicing when more than 12,000 Muslims were converted
in a recaptured Jerusalem: ‘the Templars displayed great joy’;

but in reality the

J. Miret y Sans, ‘Inventaris de les cases del Temple de la Corona d’Arago´ en 1289’, Boletı´n de la

Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona, 6 (1911), 62–9; ACA, Canc. real, registro 291, f. 258,
303, 305, 321, 358.

Records survive of the purchasing of more than thirty slaves by the Aragonese Templars. Most of

these documents are in the collection of royal parchments in the ACA: see, for example, Canc. real, pergs
Jaime I 712, 1161, 1674, 1768, 1806, 1907, 1914, 1924; but see also ACA, Ordenes religiosas y militares,
San Juan, perg. Barbara´ 45. For published texts, see Miret y Sans, ‘Inventaris’, 73–4; Forey, Templars,
398–9, doc. 26.

See, for example, J. Miret y Sans, ‘La esclavitud en Catalun˜a en los u´ltimos tiempos de la edad

media’, Revue hispanique, 41 (1917), 14; Verlinden, L’esclavage, vol. 1, 303; L. J. Simon, ‘ The Church
and slavery in Ramon Llull’s Majorca’, in: Iberia and the Mediterranean world, vol. 1, 352–3.

S. P. Bensch, ‘From prizes of war to domestic merchandise. The changing face of slavery in Catalonia

and Aragon, 1000–1300’, Viator, 25 (1994), 83.

Miret y Sans, ‘Inventaris’, 68. In most inventories slaves were described merely as captives, without

any indication of the numbers who had been baptised.

For a thirteenth-century Hospitaller baptizatus in Aragon, see J. Vincke, ‘Ko¨nigtum und Sklaverei

im aragonischen Staatenbund wa¨hrend des 14. Jahrhunderts’, Gesammelte Aufsa¨tze zur Kulturgeschichte
Spaniens, 25 (1970), 44 doc. 6. In 1468 the abbot of Morimond ruled that officials in the order of Calatrava
should not free baptised slaves without the permission of the chapter general: if any were found to have
been freed they were to be seized and made slaves again: J.F. O’Callaghan, ‘‘Difiniciones’ of the order
of Calatrava enacted by Abbot William II of Morimond, April 2, 1468’, Traditio, 14 (1958), 251, art. 38.

Hystoire Tresrecreative. Traictant des faictz et gestes du noble et vaillant chevalier Theseus de

Coulongne, 2 vols (Paris, 1534), vol. 2, 121. I am grateful to Helen Nicholson for drawing my attention
to this work.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

orders’ approach to the baptism of Muslims in Christian lands seems to have been
lacking in enthusiasm.

It has been claimed that in the East the Templars on occasion also sought to

prevent Muslims of neighbouring Islamic states from converting when they wished
to become Christian. Two well-known instances are reported by William of Tyre,
and his claims are echoed by Walter Map. The first occurred in 1154, when Nasr,
the son of the Egyptian vizir Abbas, was captured on the road out of Egypt into
Palestine and fell into the hands of the Templars. William of Tyre related that while
Nasr was in captivity he sought baptism and was instructed in the elements of the
Christian faith; the Templars, however, then agreed to ransom him for 60,000 dinars
and he was returned to Egypt, where he was killed.

Lundgreen, whose argument

has been taken up by more recent writers, claimed that as Nasr was taken on 7 June
1154 (23

of Rabi I, A. H. 549) and was back in Cairo only four days later he

could hardly have made the progress towards Christianity which William of Tyre
postulated.

It would, however, be very surprising if a ransom had been arranged

and the return journey completed in so short a time, and in fact the thirteenth-century
writer, Ibn Khallikan, who provides precise dating about Nasr’s later movements,
places his return in the year 1155 (27

of Rabi I, A. H. 550).

There would therefore

have been sufficient time for the kind of instruction to which William of Tyre alludes.
It can, of course, be objected that the chronicler was not in the East in 1154–5, and
that he was hostile to the Templars: but his report may not have been a complete
fabrication, even if Nasr’s interest in Christianity may have been feigned. Yet, if
William of Tyre’s account is taken at its face value, he is implying that, until they
were offered a large ransom, the Templars were prepared to allow the instruction in
Christian teaching of a captive: they were not taking the initiative, but were not
opposing baptism. In the last resort, however, financial considerations could not be

William of Tyre, Chronicon, 18. 9, ed. R.B.C. Huygens (Corpus Christianorum: continuatio mediev-

alis [henceforth CCCM], vol. 63, Turnhout, 1986), 823; Walter Map, De nugis curialium. Courtiers’
trifles, 1. 21, ed. and trans. M.R. James, C.N.L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1983), 62–6. Walter
Map maintains that Nasr wanted to become Christian even before he was captured. For other early western
accounts of the incident, see H. Nicholson, ‘Before William of Tyre. European reports on the military
orders’ deeds in the East, 1150–1185’, in: The military orders. Volume 2. Welfare and warfare, ed. H.
Nicholson (Aldershot, 1998), 115.

F. Lundgreen, Wilhelm von Tyrus und der Templerorden (Historische Studien, vol. 97, Berlin, 1911),

94–5; M. Melville, La vie des Templiers (Paris, 1951), 66; M.L. Bulst-Thiele, Sacrae domus militiae
Templi Hierosolymitani magistri. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Templerordens 1118/19–1314
(Go¨ttingen, 1974), 59. The claim seems to have its origin in the dating given in H. Derenbourg, Ousama
Ibn Mounkidh, un e´mir syrien au premier sie`cle des croisades (1095–1188) (Publications de l’Ecole des
Langues Orientales Vivantes, 2nd ser., vol. 12, pt 1, Paris, 1889), 259.

Biographical dictionary, trans. Baron MacGuckin de Slane, 3 vols (Paris, 1842–71), vol. 2, 427; see

also ‘Extraits du Nodjoum ez-Zahireh, par Abou’l-Mehacen’, Recueil des historiens des croisades. Histori-
ens orientaux, 5 vols (Paris, 1872–1906), vol. 3, 508. The date of Nasr’s capture is given by Usamah,
Memoirs of an Arab-Syrian gentleman or an Arab knight in the crusades, trans. P.K. Hitti (Beirut,
1964), 53.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

ignored.

It is only Walter Map who argues that the Templars remained totally deaf

to Nasr’s pleas to be allowed baptism;

but he was writing in the West, and his

whole account is less plausible than that of William of Tyre.

The second instance concerns the incident when a Templar killed an envoy of the

Assassins in 1173. William of Tyre reported that the leader of the Assassins had
studied Christian writings: he and his followers therefore rejected the teachings of
Muhammad. Then, wishing to learn more of Christian doctrines, he sent an envoy
to the king of Jerusalem with the proposal that, if he was released from his obligation
to pay the Templars a tribute of 2,000 dinars a year, he and his followers would
accept baptism. Amaury welcomed the proposal and even agreed to pay the tribute
from his own revenues. On his return journey, however, the envoy was killed by
the Templar Walter of Mesnil, with the approval of his colleagues.

A shorter but

similar account is provided by Walter Map, although he does express some reser-
vations about the accuracy of such reports.

Lundgreen has pointed out that, as it

stands, the story told by William of Tyre does contain certain implausibilities,

and

it seems to be based on misconceptions about religious changes among the Assassins.
The chronicler’s interpretation has its origin in the declaration of the qiyama or
resurrection by the Ismaili leader Hasan II in 1164, but William misunderstood what
he had heard, and assumed that the Assassins were moving towards Christianity.

It was presumably this assumption which led him to believe that the embassy to
Amaury was concerned with the acceptance of the Christian faith. It has admittedly
been argued that William of Tyre had access to Amaury’s version of events and that
his account reflects the royal point of view;

but William reported Amaury’s willing-

ness to assume responsibility for the payment to the Templars as merely a rumour
(ut dicitur). He was therefore not as fully informed as claimed. It would seem that
the embassy sent by Sinan, the leader of the Syrian Assassins, was of a political,
rather than a religious, nature, and the Templars feared the loss of tribute. The epi-
sode cannot be cited as a clear indication of reluctance on the part of the Templars
to allow the conversion of Jerusalem’s opponents.

The Templars were criticised not only for preventing conversion but also for dis-

playing undue tolerance of Islamic religious practices and allowing these to be
observed even in the order’s houses. Frederick II, writing in 1244, claimed that he
had heard from some journeying from the East that ‘the Templars allowed the afore-

It has also been suggested that the Templars had political reasons for agreeing to accept a ransom:

Melville, Vie des Templiers, 66; Bulst-Thiele, Sacrae domus, 60.

He also states, however, that the Templars were sceptical of Nasr’s claims.

William of Tyre, Chronicon, 20. 29–30, ed. Huygens, 953–5.

De nugis curialium, 1. 22, ed. James, Brooke and Mynors, 66–8.

Lundgreen, Wilhelm von Tyrus, 113.

J. Hauzinski, ‘On alleged attempts at converting the Assassins to Christianity in the light of William

of Tyre’s account’, Folia Orientalia, 15 (1974), 229–46; B. Lewis, ‘Kamal al-Din’s biography of Rasid
al-Din Sinan’, Arabica, 13 (1966), 242; B. Lewis, The Assassins (London, 1967), 71–4; see also M.A.
Ko¨hler, Allianzen und Vertra¨ge zwischen fra¨nkischen und islamischen Herrschern im Vorderen Orient
(Berlin, New York, 1991), 279–80.

Barber, The new knighthood, 103.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

said sultans [of Damascus and Kerak] and their followers to perform their super-
stitious practices, invoking the name of Muhammad, within the precincts of houses
of the Temple’. This is obviously a second-hand report from a ruler who was not a
friend of the Templars,

and it has been maintained that Matthew Paris, who repro-

duced the emperor’s letter in his Chronica majora,

dismissed the charges in his

Historia Anglorum and Abbreviatio, although it would be more accurate to say that
he did not repeat them.

This story may well have been inaccurate, but in the later

twelfth century Usamah related that on one occasion the Templars vacated a small
church adjoining the Templar headquarters (the former al-Aqsa mosque) so that he
could pray in it, and also intervened when a recently-arrived Frank repeatedly tried
to force him to pray to the east.

The Templars do not seem to have tried to impede

the practice of the Islamic faith by Muslims visiting the Holy Land. The requirements
of diplomacy would in fact have encouraged them to be tolerant of the religious
practices of some Muslim visitors.

It might, of course, be argued that the military orders would not in fact have

wanted Muslims in lands bordering on Christian territories in the East or Spain to
be converted, for widespread conversion of western Christendom’s enemies would
have undermined the purpose of the military orders. When writing about the killing
of the Assassins’ envoy, Walter Map claimed that some said that the Templars did
not want ‘the faith of the infidels to be swept away in favour of the unity of peace’.

Yet, although there were frequent rumours about the anticipated conversion of vari-
ous Muslim leaders, these were almost always unfounded, and in the thirteenth cen-
tury friars had minimal success in seeking to convert Muslims living in non-Christian
lands. The threat to the orders’ raison d’eˆtre was scarcely significant: conversion on
a very large scale would have been necessary for them no longer to be needed.
Military orders might in a few circumstances even benefit from a piecemeal and
limited conversion of Muslim rulers. It was reported in 1245 that Zeit Aazon, who
had been governor of Sale´, on the Atlantic coast of North Africa, was intending to
be baptised and was ready to grant the town to the order of Santiago. Innocent IV
gave his approval to this proposal, but Sale´ could not be gained without conquest,
and the plan was never implemented.

Frederick II was himself accused of allowing the invocation of Muhammad’s name in the Temple

in Jerusalem: Epistolae saeculi XIII, ed. G. Pertz, 3 vols (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Berlin, 1883–
94), vol. 2, 92, doc. 124.

Ed. H.R. Luard, 7 vols (Rolls Series, 1872–84), vol. 4, 302.

S. Menache, ‘Rewriting the history of the Templars according to Matthew Paris’, in: Cross cultural

convergences in the crusader period. Essays presented to Aryeh Graboı¨s on his sixty-fifth birthday, ed.
M. Goodich, S. Menache and S. Schein (New York, 1995), 201; Historia Anglorum, ed. F. Madden, 3
vols (Rolls Series, 1866–9), vol. 2, 483–4; vol. 3, 289.

Memoirs of an Arab-Syrian gentleman, 163–4.

De nugis curialium, 1. 22, ed. James, Brooke and Mynors, 66.

Bullarium S. Iacobi, 166; R. Chaba´s, ‘Ceid Abu Ceid’, El Archivo, 6 (1892), 408–9; A. Ballesteros

Beretta, ‘La toma de Sale´ en tiempos de Alfonso X el Sabio’, Al-Andalus, 8 (1943), 105–6; C.E. Dufourcq,
‘Les relations du Maroc et de la Castille pendant la premie`re moitie´ du XIIIe sie`cle’, Revue d’histoire
et de civilisation du Maghreb, 5 (1968), 60–1.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

In seeking a more general explanation of the orders’ attitudes to conversion, it is

difficult to relate their stance to the extent of their own knowledge about the Islamic
faith. Precise information on the degree of understanding displayed by members of
the military orders is, of course, usually lacking, but the extent of knowledge appears
to have varied from one region to another. The fullest evidence is provided by the
records of the Templar trial in districts such as France and Italy, where many con-
fessed to the major charges, for a number of Templar witnesses maintained that the
practices of which the Order was accused were derived from Islam. In some instances
comment of this kind was made about the denial of Christ and spitting and trampling
on the cross, which supposedly occurred at admission ceremonies. James of Troyes,
for example, who appeared before papal commissioners in Paris, asserted that he
had heard that

a certain Templar knight, who had come from overseas and who had been among
the pagans, had brought to those parts the aforesaid errors, namely that at their
reception they should deny Christ, trample on the cross and spit on it;

and in 1307 Geoffrey of Gonneville, the master of Aquitaine, had claimed that the
denial of Christ

was introduced by reason of a promise made by a certain evil master who was
in the prison of a certain sultan, and he could not gain his liberty unless he swore
that, if he was freed, he would introduce this procedure in our order, namely that
all who were admitted should deny Jesus Christ.

It might be suggested that these comments show an awareness of the Islamic denial
of the divinity of Christ and the rejection of the crucifixion. Yet some Templars who
spoke of Muslim influences referred to a denial simply of God,

and it seems that the

opinions of these Templars were derived from distorted views expressed in western
propaganda sources rather than a true understanding of Islamic teachings about
Christ.

A number of those, moreover, who linked accusations against the Order

with Islamic influences, did so in the context of idolatry: reference was made to
supposed Muslim idols. Gaucerand of Montpesat, who was interrogated at Car-
cassonne in 1307, referred to an idol ‘made in the image of Baffomet’, and another
Templar questioned at the same time spoke of an ‘image of Baffomet’ and of ‘kissing
his feet, saying Yalla, a word of the Saracens’.

In an undated set of French testi-

monies a brother alluded to a head called Magometum,

and Bernard of Parma, who

was interrogated at Florence, stated that he had seen a head at a provincial chapter

J. Michelet, Proce`s des Templiers, 2 vols (Paris, 1841–51), vol. 1, 258–9; vol. 2, 398.

Michelet, Proce`s, vol. 2, 205–9, 214–16.

A. Kru¨ger, ‘Das ‘Baphomet-Idol’. Ein Beitrag zur Provenienz der Hauptvorwu¨rfe gegen den Tem-

plerorden’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 119 (1999), 130–1.

H. Finke, Papsttum und Untergang des Templerordens, 2 vols (Mu¨nster, 1907), vol. 2, 323, doc. 153.

Finke, Papsttum, vol. 2, 343, doc. 156.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

and had been instructed: ‘You are to worship that head because he is your god and
your Magumeth’.

At Palombara in Italy a Templar also claimed that he had been

told that he should believe in ‘one great god whom the Saracens worship … The
grand master and each provincial preceptor has a certain image which represented
that great god, and displayed it in their main chapters and assemblies and they adored
it as their god and saviour’.

Islam seems often to have been seen as an idolatrous

religion, in which Muhammad was regarded as a god, although the witness at Palom-
bara — unlike the authors of some chansons de geste — did attribute only one god
to the Muslims. Although the Templars were questioned about idols, it does not
seem that witnesses were encouraged by their interrogators to refer to Islam: most
of those testifying in the undated French testimonies spoke of idols, but only one
made reference to Muhammad.

They seem again to have been relying on infor-

mation derived from western works such as chansons de geste, on which their notions
of Islam were based: they merely displayed stereotyped misconceptions.

Many of those questioned in western Europe had spent their whole careers in

districts remote from Muslim lands and had not served in the East. Yet most of the
Templars who did serve in the East had been recruited in lands far from the frontiers
with Islam, and had probably taken out to the Holy Land or Cyprus views such as
those expressed in Templar testimonies in France and Italy. Whether they acquired
a more accurate knowledge of Islam while in the East is not easy to ascertain. The
Templars in Cyprus denied all the main accusations against them and did not elabor-
ate on them. The correspondence of masters of the military orders and of other
officials in the East does at times provide incidental comment about Islam, but this
is not usually very informative. Letters and other documents, for example, even in
the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries commonly refer to Muslims as
pagans and to the lands of Islam as paganismus and paynisme.

But terms were in

this period not used with any precision, and little should be read into the employment
of these words. The most detailed statement about Islam is that found in a letter
which, according to one version, was sent to Innocent III by the patriarch of Jerusa-
lem and the masters of the Temple and Hospital at the turn of the twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries in response to a papal request for information about the situation in
Muslim lands: this reports that the caliph, the pope of the Muslims, ‘goes with his

T. Bini, ‘Dei Tempieri e del loro processo in Toscana’, Atti della Reale Accademia Lucchese di

Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 13 (1845), 474; J. Loiseleur, La doctrine secre`te des Templiers (Paris, 1872),
184–5.

A. Gilmour-Bryson, The trial of the Templars in the papal state and the Abruzzi (Vatican City,

1982), 255.

Similarly, only one of those questioned at Florence made comments of this kind.

Kru¨ger, ‘Baphomet-Idol’, 131.

See, for example, Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, vol. 3, 68–70; vol. 6, 162, 167, 191–7, 203–4;

C. Kohler and C.V. Langlois, ‘Lettres ine´dites concernant les croisades (1275–1307)’, Bibliothe`que de
l’Ecole des Chartes, 52 (1891), 58–61; J. Petit, ‘Me´moire de Foulques de Villaret sur la croisade’, Bibli-
othe`que de l’Ecole des Chartes, 60 (1899), 608; B. Z. Kedar and S. Schein, ‘Un projet de ‘passage
particulier’ propose´ par l’ordre de l’Hoˆpital, 1306–1307’, Bibliothe`que de l’Ecole des Chartes, 137 (1979),
224, 226.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

followers to Magometh, the lord of the Saracens … That lord Magometh is visited
daily and worshipped, just as the crucified Lord is visited and worshipped by Chris-
tian people’.

This comment does not necessarily reflect the views of all masters

of the military orders in the Holy Land: Usamah’s tale of praying indicates some
knowledge at least of Muslim practices. Yet the Templar Ricaut Bonomel, when
bewailing Christian losses in the Holy Land, where he was writing, appears to see
Muhammad as the Muslim counterpart of the Christian god:

…Dieus dorm, qui veillar solia
E Bafometz obra de son poder
E fai obrar lo Melicadefer.

It would seem that proximity to Islam did not always lead to knowledge. In the

Holy Land, many knights of the military orders were men who had recently been
recruited in the West and who spent only a limited time in the East,

although those

who held leading positions had usually resided there longer and would have had
more experience of contact with Muslims. Yet few members of the military orders
in the Holy Land understood Arabic: diplomatic relations with Muslim rulers were
conducted through interpreters.

Literacy within the orders was apparently limited,

and most brothers could not learn from the writings of scholars or pilgrims who
did possess more accurate information.

Those, moreover, who thought that they

understood the nature of the Islamic faith were not likely to seek to test the accuracy
of their views.

The fullest knowledge apparently existed in Spain, where members of military

orders were mostly of local origin and where contact with Muslims had existed since

Ryccardi de Sancto Germano Chronica, ed. C.A. Garufi (Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, vol. 7, pt 2,

Bologna, 1937), 57. In other versions the letter is attributed only to the patriarch: E. Marte`ne and U.
Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, 5 vols (Paris, 1717), vol. 3, 269; C. Hopf, Chroniques gre´co-
romanes ine´dites ou peu connues (Berlin, 1873), 29n.; ‘Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr, de 1229 a`
1261, dite du manuscrit de Rothelin’, Recueil des historiens des croisades. Historiens occidentaux, 5 vols
(Paris, 1844–95), vol. 2, 520.

A. de Bastard, ‘La cole`re et la douleur d’un templier en Terre Sainte: ‘I’re dolors s’es dins mon cor

asseza’’, Revue des langues romanes, 81 (1974), 356. Melicadefer has been identified with Baibars: ibid.,
367–8.

A.J. Forey, ‘Towards a profile of the Templars in the early fourteenth century’, in: The military

orders. Fighting for the faith and caring for the sick, ed. M. Barber (Aldershot, 1994), 200–1.

A.J. Forey, ‘Literacy and learning in the military orders during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’,

in: The military orders. Volume 2. Welfare and warfare, ed. H. Nicholson (Aldershot, 1998), 200; H. M.
Attiya, ‘Knowledge of Arabic in the crusader states in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, Journal of
Medieval History, 25 (1999), 206. Attiya asserts that knowledge of Arabic was more widespread among
Franks than has usually been thought, but his argument rests mainly on a limited amount of anecdotal
evidence and on certain assumptions.

Forey, ‘Literacy and learning’, 185–97.

On pilgrim writings, see A. Graboı¨s, ‘La ‘de´couverte’ du monde musulman par les pe`lerins europe´ens

au XIIIe sie`cle’, Al-Masaq, 5 (1992), 29–46.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

the eighth century. The settlement charters granted by military orders to Muslim
communities in Spain certainly imply some degree of knowledge, although this refers
to Muslim religious customs rather than to doctrines. At Chivert the practices of
summoning to prayer, praying, fasting and going on pilgrimage were mentioned, as
well as the pool of ablutions used for washing before prayer (aliupum), while the
Hospitaller charter for La Aldea similarly refers to calling to prayer and praying
according to the Islamic custom.

Various documents relating to the orders also

mention the use of the c¸una in the settlement of suits, although it is not clear to
what extent its nature was understood.

The Chivert carta de poblacio´n does, how-

ever, also state that if a Muslim had to take an oath ‘he is not to be compelled to
give it by any other being or thing other than almighty God’.

Yet similar policies

were followed both in the eastern Mediterranean and in Aragonese lands, even
though the degree of knowledge in the two regions appears to have differed.

Details of the beliefs and practices of Islam were probably in fact of little interest

to most members of military orders. The majority of brethren were laymen and, like
crusaders, concerned with territorial objectives, not with Muslim souls. The subject
of conversion is mentioned only very rarely in the rules, customs and capitular
decrees of the military orders. When these institutions did issue ordinances relating
to the issue, it was to safeguard their interests. Brothers were merely adopting the
stance which suited their purposes and which was then prevalent in Mediterranean
lands, for — although growing interest was shown in the West during the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries in missionary activity to Muslims and although some rulers
gave their support to attempts at peaceful conversion — the attitude adopted by the
military orders in Spain and the Holy Land in the main reflects common practice in
those regions.

The attitude of westerners at both ends of the Mediterranean was partly determined

by practical considerations. Manpower was needed to ensure that lands were worked,
and in Spain Christian lords were seeking not only to retain existing Muslim tenants
but also to attract new ones: the Muslims, for example, to whom a carta de poblacio´n
was granted by the Templars in 1267 at Villastar in southern Aragon were new

Cartas pueblas de las morerı´as, 10–16, 53–6, docs 1, 15; Font Rius, Cartas de poblacio´n, vol. 1,

444–6, doc. 303. Both documents mention the post of c¸abac¸alanus: on this office, see R.I. Burns, Islam
under the crusaders. Colonial survival in the thirteenth-century kingdom of Valencia (Princeton, 1973),
190–1.

Apart from the charters for Chivert and La Aldea, see J.M. Font Rius, ‘La carta de seguridad de

Ramo´n Berenguer IV a las morerı´as de Asco´ y Ribera del Ebro (siglo XII)’, in: J.M. Font Rius, Estudis
sobre els drets i institucions locals en la Catalunya medieval (Barcelona, 1985), 569; Pagarolas i Sabate´,
Templers de les terres de l’Ebre, vol. 2, 10–11, doc. 4; see also Burns, Islam under the crusaders, 221,
227–8.

When the Muslims of Chivert gave an oath of allegiance to the new order of Montesa in 1319, it

was recorded that they had done so ‘according to their c¸una facing towards the alquible’: Madrid, Archivo
Histo´rico Nacional, Ordenes Militares, Montesa, carpeta 529 no. 716–P; see Burns, Islam under the cru-
saders, 216–18.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

settlers.

A harsh religious policy would have threatened the supply of Muslims,

who might prefer to live in areas under Islamic rule. This would be true not only
of any enforced conversion at the time of conquest, but also of later attempts at
obligatory evangelisation: this might encourage Muslim vassals to seek refuge in
territories still under Islamic rule.

Economic concerns obviously also influenced

attitudes towards voluntary conversions of individual Muslim vassals, as such con-
versions would sometimes have involved financial loss; and the conversion of slaves,
even if it did not lead to emancipation, probably tended to limit lords’ authority over
those subject to them.

Yet in the Baltic region, where manpower was also needed in conquered lands,

Prussians and Livonians were coerced into baptism: and it could be maintained that
revolts and rebellions in Prussia and Livonia might have been averted if a more
tolerant policy about religion and other matters had been adopted.

In Mediterranean lands there were, of course, precedents for religious toleration,

as Christians had usually been allowed to retain their religion when living under
Islamic rule. It might further be argued that, despite the Church’s stance on enforced
baptism, conversion in the Baltic was seen by some as a justification for the conquest
of lands which had never been under Christian rule. But part of the explanation of
the differing treatment of Muslims and pagans is probably to be found in the percep-
tions which western Christians had of their opponents. The peoples conquered in the
Baltic area tended to be seen as leading a primitive and warlike existence and follow-
ing a primitive religion. Conversion to Christianity could be regarded as part of a
process which in time would make them more civilised and less hostile, although
this required the provision of instruction as well as baptism; and the former was
often in practice lacking. It is difficult to assess western perceptions generally in the
East and Spain about the Islamic faith: treatises written by scholars about Islam and
the image of Islam presented in the chansons de geste have been examined,

but

brethren of the military orders are not the only ones among those fighting against
Muslims whose impressions are not easy to ascertain: knowledge was, however,
probably more widespread among Christians in Spain than among westerners in the
Holy Land.

Nevertheless in both areas there must have been an awareness of the

nature of Muslim society, and Muslims could not have been regarded — as Prussians

Forey, Templars, 395–7, doc. 24; Cartas de poblacio´n del reino de Arago´n, 260–1 doc. 210; see in

general R.I. Burns, ‘Immigrants from Islam. The crusaders’ use of Muslims as settlers in thirteenth-
century Spain’, American Historical Review, 80 (1975), 21–42.

This objection is mentioned by Raymond Lull in Libre de Evast e Blanquerna, 80. 6, ed. S. Galme´s,

4 vols (Barcelona, 1935–54), vol. 2, 150.

See, for example, N. Daniel, Islam and the West. The making of an image (Edinburgh, 1960); N.

Daniel, Heroes and Saracens (Edinburgh, 1984), pt 2; C. Pellat, ‘L’ide´e de Dieu chez les ‘Sarrasins’ des
chansons de geste’, Studia Islamica, 22 (1965), 5–42; and more recently J.A.H. Moran Cruz, ‘Popular
attitudes towards Islam in medieval Europe’, in: Western views of Islam in medieval and early modern
Europe, ed. D.R. Blanks and M. Frassetto (London, 1999), 55–81.

Thirteenth-century Castilian rulers displayed a considerable, though not complete, understanding of

Islam: O’Callaghan, ‘Mudejars of Castile and Portugal’, 42, 52; see also Kedar, Crusade and mission,
89–90.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

and Livonians were — as a primitive people, for whom conversion would constitute
part of a civilising process.

As increasing attention came to be devoted in western Christendom during the

course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to missionary activities among Mus-
lims — this is apparent not only in writings and preaching but even in visual ima-
gery

— the military orders’ focus on fighting and material objectives became the

object of criticism from those who favoured missions. These orders had from the
outset attracted censure from those who maintained that all warfare was evil, as is
apparent from the comments in the letter to the Templars written by a certain Hugh
peccator and from St Bernard’s defence of the order against its critics.

Such criti-

cism, which did not touch explicitly on the issue of conversion, did not disappear,
but from the later twelfth century onwards some writers did argue that warfare should
give way to the peaceful conversion of the infidel: there was therefore no place for
military orders. Walter Map wrote of the Templars that, although it was claimed
that the use of force against force was condoned in law,

it seems, however, that they have not chosen the best way, since under their
protection our territories in those parts are always being reduced and those of the
enemy extended; by the word of the Lord, not by the sword’s edge, the apostles
conquered Damascus, Alexandria and a large part of the world, which the sword
has lost;

and he further provided a condensed version of I Samuel 17: 45–7: ‘You come to
me with arms, and I come to you in the name of the Lord, so that the whole church
may know that the Lord does not save by the sword’.

He was arguing against the

expediency of using force, and for the efficacy of preaching. A similar point was
made by Roger Bacon in the 1260s. He asserted that westerners were often defeated
in the Holy Land; even if they were victorious, there was no one to settle the land.
Muslims who survived Christian assaults were made more hostile to Christianity and
it became impossible to convert them. In the East, as well as in the Baltic region,
‘the Templars and Hospitallers and the brothers of the Teutonic order greatly hinder
the conversion of the infidel because of the wars which they are constantly waging

L.-A. Hunt, ‘‘Excommunicata generatione’. Christian imagery of mission and conversion of the Mus-

lim other between the first crusade and the early fourteenth century’, Al-Masaq, 8 (1995), 79–153.

St Bernard of Clairvaux, Liber ad milites Templi de laude novae militiae, in Sancti Bernardi opera,

ed. J. Leclercq and H.M. Rochais, 8 vols (Rome, 1957–77), vol. 3, 205–39. For Hugh’s letter, see J.
Leclercq, ‘Un document sur les de´buts des Templiers’, Revue d’histoire eccle´siastique, 52 (1957), 81–
91; C. Sclafert, ‘Lettre ine´dite de Hugues de Saint-Victor aux chevaliers du Temple’, Revue d’ascetique
et de mystique, 34 (1958), 275–99. A recent discussion of the identity of Hugh is provided by D. Selwood,
‘Quidam autem dubitaverunt. The saint, the sinner, the Temple and a possible chronology’, in: Autour
de la premie`re croisade, ed. M. Balard (Paris, 1996), 222–4.

De nugis curialium, 1. 20, ed. James, Brooke and Mynors, 60. Although he did not go so far as to

condemn the ‘new order’, Isaac de l’Etoile asked: ‘Do they not strengthen that coming son of perdition
in the righteousness of his cruelty against Christians? How are Christ’s gentleness and patience and the
way of preaching to be employed against him?’: Sermons, vol. 3, 160.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

and because they seek complete domination’. He condemned the military orders
because they were seen to hamper the work of conversion. Roger Bacon advocated
peaceful missionary activity, although he did accept that force might be used, in
conjunction with preaching, to ensure that the Holy Land was retained in Christian
hands.

Preaching was also favoured in a number of other writings, although these

did not allude specifically to the activities of the military orders: in the 1270s Ray-
mond Lull, for example, argued in his Libre de contemplacio´ that peaceful missionary
activity was hindered by warfare against the infidel.

While in some works the military orders were criticised for seeking material ends

which hindered conversion, the argument was also advanced that they should involve
themselves in winning over infidels to Christianity. The general point made by Albert
of Morra was taken up and elaborated in the thirteenth century. Although Humbert
of Romans averred merely that conquest might serve to facilitate conversion, some
writers maintained that force might be used more directly to promote it, and that
the military orders should extend their activities to bring about conversion, whether
by force or in other ways. Innocent IV asserted that if infidel rulers refused to accept
Christian missionaries into their lands, the pope could invoke the secular power to
oblige them to do so;

and Ramon Lull in his Blanquerna and elsewhere similarly

advocated the use of force to ensure that preaching of the Christian faith was permit-
ted in infidel territories.

Neither specifically mentioned the military orders when

advancing this argument, but in various works Lull maintained that the military
orders — or a single order resulting from their amalgamation — should work for
the conversion of the infidel, either by the use of force or by other means. It is to
be doubted, however, whether Lull assigned them this role in the Libre de contempla-
cio´. When arguing in chapter 112 of the Latin version of that work that the Holy
Land should be won over by preaching rather than by the force of arms, Lull admit-
tedly wrote: progrediantur sancti equites religiosi, et muniant se signo crucis, et
impleant se gratia sancti spiritus, et eant praedicare infidelibus veritatem tuae pas-

Opus majus, 3. 13–14, ed. J.H. Bridges, 3 vols (Oxford, 1900), vol. 3, 120–2. Some of Roger Bacon’s

comments about the Baltic were foreshadowed by Innocent III, who asserted that the Swordbrethren were
concerned primarily with gaining land and impeded conversion: Liv-, Esth- und Curla¨ndisches Urkunden-
buch, nebst Regesten, ed. F.G. von Bunge, etc., 15 vols (Reval, 1853–1914), vol. 1, 41–3, doc. 36; see
also the complaints by the bishop of Prussia in 1240 against the Teutonic order: Preussisches Urkunden-
buch, ed. R. Philippi, etc., 5 vols (Ko¨nigsberg, Marburg, 1882–1975), vol. 1, pt 1, 100–2, doc. 134; A.
Theiner, Vetera monumenta Poloniae et Lithuaniae, 4 vols (Rome, 1860–4), vol. 1, 34–5, doc. 73.

Libre de contemplacio´ en Deu, 204. 27, ed. A.M. Alcover, 7 vols (Obres de Ramon Lull, vols 2–8,

Palma, 1906–14), vol. 4, 317. See also, ibid., 288. 11, ed. Alcover, vol. 6, 186; 346. 24, ed. Alcover,
vol. 7, 377. The Latin version of the Libre de contemplacio´ is in: Beati Raymundi Lulli Opera, ed. I.
Salzinger, 10 vols (Mainz, 1721–42), vols 9 and 10. Among Lull’s other early works, see Doctrina pueril,
71. 12, ed. G. Schib (Barcelona, 1972), 165. William of Tripoli maintained that force was unnecessary:
De statu Saracenorum, in: H. Prutz, Kulturgeschichte der Kreuzzu¨ge (Berlin, 1883), 597–8; see also E.R.
Daniel, ‘Apocalyptic conversion. The Joachite alternative to the crusades’, Traditio, 25 (1969), 127–54.

The relevant section from Innocent IV’s Apparatus is published in: Kedar, Crusade and mission,

217; see also J. Muldoon, Popes, lawyers and infidels (Liverpool, 1979), 11. Innocent IV’s comment was
repeated by Hostiensis, In tertium decretalium librum commentaria (Venice, 1581), f. 128c.

Blanquerna, 87. 4, ed. Galme´s, vol. 2, 210–11; Ars iuris, in: Kedar, Crusade and mission, 226.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

sionis.

This passage has been translated: ‘the holy monk–knights should go forward,

O Lord, buttress themselves with the sign of the cross, fill themselves with the grace
of the Holy Spirit, and go preach to the infidels the truth of Your Passion’.

If this

version is accepted, it could be argued that Lull was envisaging that the military
orders should abandon warfare for preaching. Yet the Catalan version reads: faense
a avant, Se`nyer, los sants cavallers religioses e guarnesquense del senyal de la creu,
e umplense de la gracia del Sant Esprit, e vajen preicar veritat de la vostra passio
als infeels,

and this has been rendered: ‘Let the knights become religious, let them

be adorned with the sign of the Cross and filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit,
and let them go among the infidels to preach truth concerning Thy Passion’.

this chapter Lull was writing about knights in general, not about the military orders,
and the sense of the Latin text is probably that knights should go forth as religious:
no reference to the military orders was intended.

100

Nevertheless in Blanquerna,

written in the following decade, conversion was to be achieved by brethren of a
unified military order in part by skill at arms: knights should be sent to infidel rulers
and challenge their opponents by feats of arms to establish the truth of the catholic
faith. In this fictional work, the proposal was accepted and one such knight van-
quished ten opponents on successive days.

101

The claims of religion were to be settled

partly by trial by battle, just as St Francis was reported earlier to have proposed trial
by ordeal.

102

But in the same work Lull also urged that schools and places of study

should be created in the houses of a unified military order, where knights should
acquire a competence in languages and learn arguments which would allow them to
prove the validity of the Christian faith: peaceful persuasion as well as force was to
be used to win over the infidel. The knight who vanquished ten infidels by force of
arms also overcame non-believers by the power of his arguments.

In a number of later works Lull provided a variation on this last theme. He wanted

clerics knowledgeable in Arabic and other oriental languages to be members of a
military order created by the amalgamation of existing foundations. A proposal of
this kind was included in Quomodo Terra Sancta recuperari potest and the Liber
de acquisitione Terre Sancte: members trained in languages were to preach not only
to Muslims but also to schismatics and Mongols.

103

The role of trained clerics in a

112.11, in: Beati Raymundi Lulli opera, ed. Salzinger, vol. 9, 250.

Kedar, Crusade and mission, 191.

112.11, ed. Alcover, vol. 3, 59.

E.A. Peers, Ramon Lull. A biography (London, 1929), 31.

100

See also B. Altaner, ‘Glaubenszwang und Glaubensfreiheit in der Missionstheorie des Raymundus

Lullus. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Toleranzgedankens’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 48 (1928), 599.

101

Blanquerna, 80. 7, 11, ed. Galme´s, vol. 2, 151–2, 155–6.

102

L. Lemmens, ‘De Sancto Francisco Christum praedicante coram Sultano Aegypti’, Archivum Francis-

canum Historicum, 19 (1926), 571–2. According to the Cro´nica Najerense, 3.49, ed. A. Ubieto Arteta
(Valencia, 1966), 116, trial by battle was employed by Alfonso VI of Castile in 1077 to decide between
Roman and Mozarab rites.

103

Quomodo Terra Sancta recuperari potest, ed. J. Rambaud-Buhot in: Beati magistri R. Lulli opera

latina, 3 vols (Palma, 1952–4), vol. 3, 96–8; P.E. Longpre´, ‘Le liber de acquisitione Terrae Sanctae du
bienheureux Raymond Lulle’, Criterion, 3 (1927), 278; E. Kamar, ‘Projet de Raymond Lull ‘De acquisi-
tione Terrae Sanctae’’, Studia Orientalia Christiana. Collectanea, 6 (1961), 130.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

military order was, however, elaborated in most detail in the Liber de fine, written
in 1305.

104

These brethren would dispute with important captives to win them over

to the faith; even if the latter resisted conversion, they could be taught about the
Christian religion, and be shown that Muhammad was not a true prophet. Captives
could later be freed and sent to Muslim rulers to inform them of the Christian faith,
which would facilitate conversion. Some of the clerics with a knowledge of Arabic
would also be sent to Muslim and other infidel rulers and inform them that the head
of the order would give them castles and cities if they converted to Christianity, and
would explain the faith to them. If the rulers were unwilling, they were to be told
they would be subjected to perpetual attack:

And they are to say to them, that the lord warrior king will give them castles and
cities, if they are willing to revert to the sacred catholic faith. And they should
demonstrate to them the arguments for our faith; and if they are unwilling, they
are to say to them that it has been decreed that the sword of the warrior will be
wielded against them for ever, wounding and killing them.

105

The issue here seems to have been not merely the admission of missionaries, but
the acceptance of the proposals.

106

The threat of violence was to be used as an

incentive to conversion: Lull was moving towards the attitudes displayed in chansons
de geste and the practices adopted in the Baltic region. In his later writings, however,
Lull did not always propose this association between a military order and the work
of conversion, and did not always link conversion with the use of force. In a number
of late works he mentioned both military orders and preaching to the infidel without
seeking to relate them.

107

Lull possibly advanced some of his views to the Templar master, James of Molay,

104

Raimundi Lulli opera latina (henceforth RLOL), vol. 9 (CCCM, vol. 35, Turnhout, 1981), 282–3.

105

Lull also assigned such clerics the role of acting as spies.

106

The wording is not without ambiguity, but ‘if they are unwilling’ (si nolint) seems to be intended

to balance ‘if they are willing’ (si velint); see Kedar, Crusade and mission, 196. See also Liber super
psalmum ‘Quicumque vult’, in: Beati Raymundi Lulli opera, ed. Salzinger, vol. 4, 30; Liber disputationis
Petri et Raimundi sive Phantasticus, in: RLOL, vol. 16 (CCCM, vol. 78, Turnhout, 1988), 28.

107

See Tractatus de modo convertendi infideles, ed. Rambaud-Buhot in: R. Lulli opera latina, vol. 3,

99–112; Le Desconort, caps. 55–6, ed. A. Page`s (Toulouse, Paris, 1938), 71–3; Petitio Raymundi in
concilio generali ad adquirendam terram sanctam, in: H. Wieruszowski, ‘Ramon Lull et l’ide´e de la Cite´
de Dieu. Quelques nouveaux e´crits sur la croisade’, Estudis franciscans, 47 (1935), 104–9; Liber de ente,
in: RLOL, vol. 8 (CCCM, vol. 34, Turnhout, 1980), 239–40; De locutione angelorum, in: RLOL, vol. 16,
216; Liber de participatione christianorum et saracenorum, in: RLOL, vol. 16, 246; Liber disputationis
Raimundi Christiani et Homeri Saraceni, in: RLOL, vol. 22 (CCCM, vol. 114, Turnhout, 1998), 263–4;
Liber clericorum, in: RLOL, vol. 22, 354. According to the Vita coaetana of Raymond Lull, he proposed
the establishment of a new military order at Pisa in 1308, but its purpose was said to be merely warfare
against Muslims: RLOL, vol. 8, 301; B. de Gaiffier, ‘Vita beati Raimundi Lulli’, Analecta Bollandiana,
48 (1930), 172–3. Nicholson, Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights, 72, suggests that the trouba-
dour Daspol may have thought that the Templars and Hospitallers should have been converting, as well
as killing, the infidel; but the text quoted hardly justifies this conclusion: P. Meyer, ‘Les derniers trouba-
dours de la Provence’, Bibliothe`que de l’Ecole des Chartes, 30 (1869), 288–9.

A. Forey / Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002) 1–22

in 1301, when he visited Cyprus and lodged with the Templars at Limassol when
he was ill.

108

But his opinions and those of Roger Bacon had little effect on the

activities of the orders. Few in the West advocated outright rejection of force in
favour of peaceful missionary activity; and Lull’s works have attracted more attention
from historians than from contemporaries. Many westerners were not optimistic
about the possibilities of peaceful missions in Muslim lands. There would also have
been practical objections to Lull’s proposed introduction of a new preaching element
within a military order, which could have led to divisions over the chief objectives
to be pursued; and the instruction of knights envisaged in Blanquerna did not take
into account the limited educational qualifications of most lay members of military
orders: many would have needed further instruction even in their own faith before
they could enter into disputations.

109

Lull’s plan in addition assumed that lay brethren

would be willing to adopt a new role. As Lull was writing the Liber de fine at a
time when the Holy Land had been lost, and there seemed little immediate prospect
of its recovery, the proposal that Muslims should be threatened with constant war
if they resisted missionary activities was also hardly feasible: it was only in Spain
that a realistic attempt could have been made to further conversion in this way, but
obviously no initiative was forthcoming. Lull’s proposals, like the criticisms of those
who saw force as a hindrance to mission, went unheeded, and the military orders
continued to concentrate on warfare for territorial objectives, to the exclusion of
missionary activity.

Alan Forey has taught in the universities of Oxford, St Andrews and Durham. He has published extensively
on the military orders and crusades. A study of the fall of the Templars in eastern Spain will shortly appear.

108

Vita coaetana, in: RLOL, vol. 8, 296; Gaiffier, ‘Vita’, 168.

109

Compare J.M. Soto Rabanos, ‘La ignorancia del pueblo cristiano llano, un obsta´culo para el dia´logo

interreligioso’, in: Dia´logo filoso´fico-religioso entre cristianismo, judaı´smo e islamismo durante la edad
media en la penı´nsula ibe´rica, ed. H. Santiago-Otero (Turnhout, 1994), 99–116.

Document Outline

The military orders and the conversion of Muslims in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

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