2±0 POLITICAL HERESY.-THE STATE. were sent to the Grand Master, whose official residence was Jeru- salem, together with the proceeds of the collections of an organ- ized system of beggary, their agents for which penetrated into every corner of Christendom. Scarce had the Order been or- ganized when, in 1133, the mighty warrior, Alonso I. of Aragon, known as el Batallador and also as el Emperador, because his rule extended over Navarre and a large portion of Castile, dying with- out children, left his whole dominions to the Holy Sepulchre and to the Knights of the Temple and of the Hospital in undivided thirds ; and though the will was not executed, the knights were promised and doubtless received compensation from his successor, Ramiro el Monje. More practical was the liberality of Philip Augustus, in 1222, when he left the two Orders two thousand marks apiece absolutely, and the enormous sum of fifty thousand marks each on condition of keeping in service for three years three hundred knights in the Holy Land. We can understand how, in 1191, the Templars could buy the Island of Cyprus from Richard of Eng- land for twenty-five thousand silver marks, although they sold it the next year for the same price to Gui, King of Jerusalem. TVe can understand, also, that this enormous development began to ex- cite apprehension and hostility. At the Council of Lateran, in 1179, there was bitter strife between the prelates and the Military Orders, resulting in a decree which required the Templars to sur- render all recently acquired churches and tithes— an order which, in 1186, Urban III. defined as meaning all acquired within the ten years previous to the council." This indicates that already the prelates were beginning to feel jealous of the new organization. In fact, the antagonism which
- Jac. de Vitriaco loc. cit. — Roberti de Monte Contin. Sigeb. Gembl. (Pistorii,
op. cit. I. 875).— Zurita, Anales de Aragon, Lib. I. c. 52-3. — Art de Verifier les Dates V. 337.— Teulet, Layettes, I. 550, No. 1547.— Grandes Chroniques, IV. 86. — Gualt, Mapes de Nugis Curialiuin Dist. i. c. xxiii.— Hans Prutz, Malteser Ur- kunden, Miiuchen, 1883, p. 43. A curious illustration of the prominence which the Templars were acquiring in the social organization is afforded in 1191, when they were made conservators of the Truce of God, by which the nobles and prelates of Languedoc and Pro- vence agreed that beasts and implements and seed employed in agriculture should be unmolested in time of war. For enforcing this the Templars were to receive a bushel of corn for every plough. — Prutz, op. cit. pp. 44-5.
