Displaying 1 - 10 of 25
RRR: 3283
year: 1260
text: November 17. Anagni. Pope Alexander IV writes to the archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, and their vicars and officials whom this letter reaches, relating that it was proposed to him on behalf of the master and brothers of the house of the knighthood of the Temple of Jerusalem that, although they have no bishop or prelate except the Roman pontiff and the Apostolic See has granted them that no one can promulgate sentences of excommunication or interdict against them without the pope’s special mandate, some of the addressees envy these liberties and promulgate such sentences against their men and families and lands and against those who associate with them in food and drink, in mills, trials, contracts, and merchandise and in any other way, to their prejudice and detriment. Thus they only observe the words of the papal privileges and not their force or power, excommunicating them after a fashion, since they so not allow others to communicate with them, so they seem to be judged by the judgment of the Jews, such that others find it worse to communicate with them than with excommunicates. The pope therefore strictly prohibits the addressees from daring to pronounce such sentences in deceptive opposition to these privileges, and they are to revoke without trouble those that they have perhaps promulgated, lest the pope be forced to deal with them in other ways.
sources: Bourel de La Roncière, Les registres, 3:77, no. 2988
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RRR: 3284
year: 1260
text: *January 23. (1259 o.s.). Simon de Villejus Hospitaller drapier, Bernard de Porte Hospitaller priest, Giraud de Sauset, Templar commander of Tripoli, Arnaud Rapet, Templar caselier of Tourellée, fr. Herman de Ricle of the Teutonic Order are the arbiters chosen by the Templars and Hospitallers to determine various property disputes they have in the county of Tripoli and lordship of Margat.
sources: Delaville Le Roulx, Cart Hosp 2:885, no. 2943; RRH 1287a
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RRR: 3285
year: 1260
text: January 25. Anagni. Pope Alexander IV writes to the master and brothers of the Hospital of St Mary of the Teutonics of Jerusalem, responding to their request by taking as the right and property of St Peter all lands, areas, castles, towns or villages and whatever places that they are able to wrest from the hands of the pagans, as long as they do not belong to Christians or Christians did not possess them from time immemorial, and he confirms that they shall remain under special papal protection and defence for all times after they are brought to Christian worship, and he concedes them and the tithes from them to the addressees and their house to be held freely, such that they shall never be subject to the dominion of [another] power. Nevertheless, once they have acquired these things, the pope wants them to a grant a portion of these possessions and tithes to the churches and their prelates that the Apostolic See will establish.
sources: Haluscynskyj and Wojnar, Acta Alexandri IV, p. 89, no. 43
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RRR: 3286
year: 1260
text: January 28. Anagni. Pope Alexander IV writes to the Greek Belmest and his wife Henya (Enia), of Syria, relating that he has learned that they are related in the third degree of consanguinity and were married according to the rite of the Greeks of the Kingdom of Jerusalem that has been observed for a very long time. Having consumated the marriage, since they are not committed to (innituntur) that rite at all, they asked the pope for a dispensation, which the pope grants.
sources: Bourel de La Roncière, Les registres, 3:97, no. 3046; Haluscynskyj and Wojnar, Acta Alexandri IV, p. 90, no. 44
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RRR: 3287
year: 1260
text: March 1. Acre. Frater Thomas de ordine Praedicatorum, bishop of Bethlehem (Bethlehemitanus episcopus), in partibus cismarinis apostolice sedis legatus, addresses a general letter to all prelates of the church and secular nobles in Christendom. He describes the perils facing the Holy Land. After the Mongols (Tartari), subjugated Baghdad (Baldach), they occupied Aleppo (Halapia) and the sultans of Ruispie and Camella, and the lords of Hamhac and Amon, and many others, including all the cities of the Saracens (Sarraceni), subjected themselves. The sultan of Damascus has fled to Egypt for assistance. Many Saracens (Sarraceni) have fled with their families and goods to the coast, seeking refuge with the Christians or in Egypt. Their plight as refugees is graphically described. The prince of Antioch has subjected his principality, which, together with the territory of Tripoli has suffered from a terrible earthquake, to the Mongols. Only the [garrisons of the] cities of Acre and Tyre and the castles of the Knights Templar and the brothers of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem and the Hospital of St Mary of the Germans, are working day and night in their preparations to resist. Blasphemous letters have been sent by the king of the Mongols, threatening conquest.
sources: Menko, pp. 547-49; RRH 1288; English translation: Barber and Bate, Letters from the East, pp. 153-56.
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RRR: 3288
year: 1260
text: March 1. Acre. Frater Thomas frater de ordine Praedicatorum, dominici presepi et virginalis puerperii custos indignus, papal legate, warns the prepositi and rectores of churches in Frisia of the dangers faced by women making the pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He suggests that they redeem their vows for money.
sources: Menko, p. 549; RRH 1289
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RRR: 3289
year: 1260
text: March 4. Acre. Frater Thomas Berardi pauperis militum Templi magister informs Frater Amadeus, domorum Templi in Anglia magnus praeceptor of events in the Holy Land. The Mongols (Tartari), about whom he has written so often, are now knocking at the doors of the Holy Land. They have conquered many nations, including the Armenians and Georgians. They have destroyed Baghdad (Baldach) and have killed the caliph and his family. The have subjugated the county of Edessa (Rochas), and the cities of Hamah (Aman), Homs (la Chamele), Shaizar (Caesarea magna) and the lands of the Old Man of the Mountains, Haran and Hassar. They have invaded the lands of Aleppo. Fearful of the future, the people of Antioch, on the advice of dominus H. their prince, have sent Dominicans, Franciscans, Jacobites, Greeks, and their ballivus and conestabilis as emissaries for aid. The dominus and dux Halan has besieged and taken Aleppo. The sultan of Aleppo and Damascus has marched out past the castle of the Knights Templar called Saphech and approaches Gazara. The people have taken refuge in the cities. On the advice of the king of Armenia, the prince of Antioch-Tripoli has entered into an agreement with the Mongols, covering Tripoli and Antioch and their territories. Holding out are the cities of Acre and Tyre, 7 commanderies (domus, which in the context means castles) of the Knights Templar, 3 castles – 2 of which are in Antioch, together with 1 castle of the Hospital of St Mary of the Germans in Apolitana, 2 castles of the Knights Templar in the province of Jerusalem, together with 2 of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, and 1 that belongs to the Hospital of St Mary of the Germans in Tripoli. In this dire situation the military orders have sent frater Stephanus of the Knights Templar to the Iberian peninsula, a brother of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem to France and a brother of the hospital of St Mary of the Germans to Germany for assistance. Thomas stresses the heavy expenses incurred in the defence of Acre and the Templar castles, while the presence of pestilence and the absence of the Genoese and other merchants mean that is impossible to get money changed. He stresses that mercenaries cannot be employed without rations and stipends, particularly as the Knights Templar have 7 major castles to defend, together with Acre, the chief burden of defence of which, he claims, falls on the Knights Templar. They also have the obligation to furnish their churches. Thomas asks Amadeus to beg the king and queen of England to hand over the 10,000 marcae argenti owed to the Order.
sources: ‘Annales monasterii Burtononensis’, pp. 491-95; RRH 1299. For dating this letter to 1260 and not 1261 as stated in the text, see Riley-Smith, ‘The Military Orders and the East’, p. 145 n.72.
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RRR: 3290
year: 1260
text: *March 6. (or 1259). Isabelle lady of Adelon, the widow of Hughes (l’Aleman), brother of the lord of Acre (recte Caesarea: John l’Aleman), remits to the Hospitallers the 600 besants rent assigned as her dower on the houses in Acre that the lord of Caesarea had sold to the Hospitallers (see RRR 3073, 1 May 1255) in return for a lump sum of 15,000 Saracen besants. She has received the money from frère Guillaume Marin acting for the master.
sources: Delaville Le Roulx, Cart Hosp 2:867, no. 2914; RRH 1271a
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RRR: 3291
year: 1260
text: March 7. Anagni. Pope Alexander IV writes to Archbishop [Gilles] of Tyre (Tyrensis), relating that he was shown his petition that claimed that he constructed with his own goods the hospital of Blessed Martin the Confessor of Acre (Acconensis), in which a multitude of sick, weak, and poor hear the divine offices via a papal indulgence, and that at one point the pope wished this indulgence to be widened and granted that these sick, weak, and poor could receive the ecclesiastical sacraments from the chaplain of the hospital, without prejudice to the parish priest, as long as they were not excommunicates, those under interdict by name, or public usurers. Now he wishes to extend this grace still more, so he grants that, if they choose, the sick, weak, and poor who receive the sacraments from the chaplain, when they die, can be buried in the cemetery of the hospital, excluding the same people, again without prejudice to the parish church.
sources: Delaville Le Roulx, ‘Titres’, p. 430, no. 5; RRH 1216
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RRR: 3292
year: 1260
text: *Mid-March. Acre. The magister of Temple writes to the king of England and the master of the London Temple. He reports that the Mongols have devastated the Holy Land almost as far as Acre. The Christians are barely able to resist.
sources: The messenger has travelled exceptionally quickly. He arrived in London on 16 June, taking only 13 weeks; and one day to travel from Dover to London.; Flores Historiarum 2:451-52; RRH 1290
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