ABSTRACT
The Templar Rule and statutes are also only of limited help when it comes to establishing what went on within the walls of Templar churches. The documentary evidence that captures the patchwork nature of Templar religion best is found in the Templar inventories drawn up, for the most part, shortly after the Templars’ arrests in 1307–1311. Historians working on the Templars’ Spanish inventories – especially Maria Vilar Bonet and, more recently, Sebastian Salvado – have already pointed out that Mass in Templar chapels and churches could be a colourful affair. An alb and amice made of golden velvet and embroidered with birds was found in the Templar church of Mary Magdalene in Bologna. To speak of a South-North or even Spanish-French divide in the material presentation of Templar religion may be a gross simplification of what was in any case a very complex religious and liturgical landscape.
