ABSTRACT
The foundation of the Order of Montesa by papal charter on 10 June 1317 and its effective establishment in the kingdom of Valencia two years later marked a turning point in the history of the military orders in the crown of Aragon. The formal dissolution of the Temple at the Council of Vienne in 1312 posed the immediate question of the future of the Templar territories in Eastern Iberia, but the reluctance of King Jaime II of Aragon to allow the Hospitallers to increase their weight in Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia by adding Templar lands and rights to their own delayed for some years the answer to such a question. After long negotiations, Pope John XXII agreed to found a new order, which was to be centred in the kingdom of Valencia at the southern castle of Montesa, and was to receive Templar and Hospitaller properties there, while the Order of St John would be compensated with the rights and territories that the extinguished institution had held in Aragon and Catalonia. 1
