ABSTRACT

Historians interested in the social and economic developments of local Templar communities tend to agree that in most parts of Catholic Europe these communities were deeply rooted in society and recruited most of their personnel from local families. 1 In fact, the toponyms functioning as Templars’ surnames recorded in charter documents make it relatively easy to pinpoint the regions and localities from which individual Templar communities drew their personal support. Only rarely, however, do the same sources indicate any personal relationships between the brothers, which caused Alan Forey, for one, to conclude that it was extremely difficult to trace family ties in the order back more than two generations. 2 Questions regarding the significance of personal relationships for the social composition of Templar communities and the importance of these relationships for understanding the inert social dynamics of the order are, therefore, very difficult to answer. And yet, they are worth asking and contemplating, because the way we answer them inevitably affects our understanding of the order’s standing in society and functionality as a whole.