| Paper 1506-a | Feudalism and the Military Orders: The Economic and Military Authorities in Crusader Syria, 12th-13th Centuries
(Language: English)
Benjamin Michaudel, Institut Français du Proche-Orient, Damascus
Index terms: Architecture - General, Crusades, Economics - General, Military History |
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| Abstract | Paper -a:
After the first Crusade, Coastal Syria was divided between the Principality of Antioch and the County of Tripoli, and subdivided into several fiefs. This Eastern feudalism led at first to the enrichment of the Crusader lords, and from the second quarter of the 12th century to their weakening, as most of them were unable to sustain the heavy economic costs of the struggles against the Seljuks, like the regular recruitment of soldiers and the maintenance of the castles. The progressive sales and donations of the fiefs of Crusader Syria to the Templars and the Hospitallers appeared then as a sensible policy for the permanence of the Latin states, the military orders having at their disposals substantial funds and contingents of soldiers regularly renewed from the West.
Paper -b:
The Christian conquest of Toledo in 1085 brought to this border area new economic patterns. For the local inhabitants, mostly Mozarab peasants, this meant a rearrangement that involved the loss of properties and political autonomy, and their entrance into new feudal relations.
This paper attempts to analyze the mechanisms through which the northern Christians managed to take part of the wealths of the local population, through which kind of devices they legitimated these actions, and in what ways the church and monarchy attempted to deal with the practical problems of controlling a large population with distinctive characteristics.
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