Sijena Priory

The convent of Sijena was the most prestigious house of Hospitaller nuns in Europe.  A royal convent, it was founded by Queen Sancha of Aragon  in 1183. Queen Sancha herself and her daughter Dona Dulce both took the veil there. Sijena  also became the burial place of members of the royal family, including King Peter II after he was killed at the battle of Murat in 1213. Dona Sancha herself died at Sijena and was interred in a tomb before the high altar. The Prioress of Sijena exercised great power within the convent's dominions which covered  almost four hundred square miles. Nowhere was Sijena's prestige better reflected that in the legendary chapter house whose walls were said to have been covered with the most impressive early 13th Century frescoes to be seen anywhere in Europe.

Sijena's prestige increased further still during the reign of James II (1291-1327) when his daughter Dona Blanca was appointed prioress,  at the age of nineteen, and the convent was given the right of coinage within its own dominions. She built a new prioral palace with a magnificent throne room and developed Sijena into a royal residence. The choir rose to more than 100 nuns, drawn from the most noble families of the kingdom who entered the convent with  retinues of servants and built themselves private apartments that famously perched haphazardly over the convent.

The nuns wore linen rochets and carried silver sceptres. Dona Blanca herself enjoyed frequent absences at court and allowed the nuns the same freedom to travel, which their dowries permitted them to do in great state. With the extinction of the Royal House of Aragon in 1410 seven of the nuns resident at Sijena were members of the royal family.

The privileges of Sijena declined with the extinction of the royal house that had founded it.

With the fall of Malta to Napoleon the King of Spain imposed his own rule over the four Spanish priories. When the Treaty of Amiens threatened to restore their independence he king promptly converted them into the the royal Order of St. John, by a royal decree of January 1802. After the first Carlist War (1833-1839)i the governement of Queen Isabella confiscatedall church property, and so Sijena lost all of its possessions, the monastry itself was sold, and although the buyer allowed the nuns to remain they were forced to subsist on their own dowries. The nuns did eventually manage to regain possession of their house, but not their estates.

The nuns of Sijena continued their traditional way of life until the outbreak of the Civil War, when a group of republicans from Barcelona set fire to the convent destroying all the magnificent tombs and buildings adorned over centuries. An order of French nuns has established a community in the ruins.

Mascourbe Farm

Mascourbe farm belonged to the Hospitallers' Commandery of St. Felix in the Priory of Saint-Gilles. First mentioned in 1373, the farm was rebuilt by the Order of St. John at at new site, nearby,  in c 1583. The farmyard survives almost unchanged from that date, arranged around its' large courtyard. Today, as then, the main activity on the farm is the fattening of ducks.

Balantrodoch (Temple) Commandery

The preceptory of Balantrodoch was the principal house of the Order of the Temple in Scotland. It is eleven miles south of Edinburgh on the wooded banks of the river South Esk. The original church had a round nave, like so many Templar churches in imitation of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. There would also once have been a full range of domestic and administrative buildings, none of which have survived.

The Templars settled at Balantrondoch  some time after Hughues de Payens came to Scotland and had met David I on his tour of European powers. He was  gathering  support for the expansion of the original band of nine knights into an international Order. While there is no clear evidence, it does seem likely that King David himself made the original grant of Balantrodoch to the fledgling Order. From here the Templars  administered the extensive properties donated by the faithful across Scotland.

The Templars remained at Balantrodoch until the suppression of the Order in 1307.  It appears that Balantrodoch was one of the few Templar properties that was transferred to the Order of St John. Like all property of the Hospitallers  in Scotland Balantrodoch was administered from their preceptory (commandery) at Torphichen. The present, ruined, chapel seems to date from the early 14th Century and so would have been  built by the Hospitallers.

 In the 15th Century the Preceptor Fra.William Knollis obtained an act of parliament changing the name 'Temple' to the 'Barony of St. John.' But the name was not accepted by the locals who always called it simply 'Temple'. The Temple remained in the hands of the Hospitallers of St. John until 1535 when they, also, lost control due to Henry VIII of England's Act of Reformation. The chapel became the area's Protestant church and in 1618 the name 'Temple' became formally applied to the village. The building was in constant use as the parish church until 1840 after which it was left to fall into ruin.

It is curious that this picturesque chapel in its wooded valley is so little known compared to another village only a few miles away, Roslin. That is of course due to the Rosslyn chapel and all the fanciful stories that surround it.

Sainte Eulalie Commandery

 In 1158  Count Raymond Beranger, King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona, as guardian of his young nephew Raymond Berenger II, Viscount of Millau  gave the village of Sainte Eulalie and the surrounding territory , the limestone plateau of the Larzac, to the Order of the Temple. After the suppression of the Templars, Sainte Eulalie became the property of the Order of St John in 1312 and was the most valuable legacy of the Templars to the Priory of Saint-Gilles. From 1312 until 1792 Saint Eulalie was one of the Order of St. John's richest commanderies, if not the richest in the south of France
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However the prosperity was interupted as a result of the disasters of the late 14th Century. First, the Hundred Years War devastated the lands to the west of the Rhone. At first Provence managed to remain relatively unscathed but the papal schism of 1378 led to its own six year war of succession. Then from their possessions in Gascony the English were able to devastate wide areas of southern France during the 14th and 15th Centuries. The English even captured Sainte Eulalie in 1385 and stayed until at least 1389. To better protect their possessions the Order of St John  threw up 30' high defensive walls around the Commandery of Sainte Eulalie and the villages  of La Cavalrie and La Couvertoirade, the "Ramparts of Larzac." between 1442-1450, on the orders of Commander Fra.Bertrand d'Aapajon.

The oldest building at Sainte Eulalie is the church, which dates from the beginning of the Templar occupation in the 12th Century. However Commander Fra. Jean de Bernay Villeneuve decided to reverse the orientation of the church in 1642. He removed the cemetery and laid out the fountain square in its place opening a new entrance to the church in the existing apse, with a statue of the Virgin and child from Genoa placed over the door. Now the faithful could enter the church without having to pass through the courtyard of the commandery.

Another building dating from the Templar occupation is the tower in the north-west of the village, the Tower of Quarante.This was where grain was stored and where taxes and kind were collected, 1/40th of the harvest. In return the peasantry could take refuge inside.

At the heart of Sainte Eulalie is the "Palace", the residence of the commander and the resident brethren. The original, austere Templar building was rebuilt by the Hospitallers in the middle of the 14th Century. In the 17th Century commander Fra. Jean Bernay Villeneuve as part of his improvements  reorganized the building by inserting extra floor into the great hall. The first floor known as the "upper palace" was the dormitory. Fireplaces were installed in each of the new rooms.The main room in the "lower palace" was used as the refectory and chapter room.

The loveliest room in the palace is the frescoe room, a combined corridor and ante chamber completely painted with frescoes on the theme of the virtues. The work was done in 1648 at a considerable cost of 200 livres.

A small room in the round bartizan tower has interesting graffiti depicting 17th and 18th century churches which may well be based on some unfortunate confined person's memories of Malta.

The capuchin's room was fitted out c1730 and has a door constructed from reused floorboards.

The size of the Hospitaller community living at Sainte Eulalie fluctuated over the centuries. There were five brethren after the fall of Acre. But in later years it seems to have been just two, the commander himself and one other.

Beside the brethren, also living at Sainte Eulalie were the chaplains in charge of the church and the "donats" lay people who had contributed to the Order and in return were accommodated and looked after by them. There were officials including the cellerer who had the functions of a steward and the keeper of the bedchamber among others. Finally there were the servants, the shepheards, oxherds, grooms woodsmen, porters, cooks, bakers, brewers and agricultural labourers. A census of 1373 records 29 people living there including two women. The house also fed eight poor folk throughout the year.

Commander be Bernay Villeneuve also created a new entrance to the commandery, from fountain square where a vaulted passage gave access to the staircase and the upper floors and to the courtyard. The courtyard was fortified, until the ramparts were built in the mid 15th Century it was the only protected place in the village. The original entrance to the commandery is on the south side. Arranged around the courtyard are various service buildings, stabling for horses, mules and oxen, workshops, a sheep house and a poultry yard, with accommodation for the servants who looked after them.

Above the arch next to the south tower of the palace is the study of the last commander of Sainte Eulalie, Fra. Elzear de Riqueti-Mirabeau (1768-1789), uncle of the grand tribune revolutionary. After the Revolution all the escutcheons were removed from the buildings of Sainte Eulalie as outdated symbols of nobility and the ancien regime, but in most other respects this former commandery of the Templars and the Hospitallers is little changed.

Castle of Chysocheria, Calymno

The castle of Chysocheria on the island of Calymno (Kalymnos) was built by the Knights of St John after they occupied the island following the conquest of Rhodes c1310.The castle occupies a strategic hilltop with clear views over the bay of Pothia and in the other direction inland to the Castle of Chora. The castle was built on the ruins of ancient and Byyzantine strongholds. The local, Greek, population were obliged to work on the construction of the castle, to their evident dismay. In 1445 the plebs and populus produced a document of uncertain provenance, written in Greek, claiming that they were not obliged to work on the castle. A legal debate followed at Rhodes after which it was decided that the population did in fact owe castle service, but were free of all other obligations.

The castle of Chysocheria was the headquarters of the Hospitaller castellan, the island's governor. The castle's defences were put to the test in 1457 when the island, together with the islands of Nisyro, Lerro, Piskopi and the castle of Archangelus on Rhodes were subjected to large-scale Turkish raids. Further significant  raids followed in 1460. The castle eventually surrendered to the Turks in 1522.

The castle takes its present name Chysochera, from a hoard of gold coins that were discovered  under the church of Panagia Chrysocheria (Virgin of the Golden Hands) within the castle walls. The other church within the walls of Chrysocheria is dedicated to St. George.

Manoel Theatre, Valletta

The Manoel Theatre in Valletta, begun in 1731 is one of the oldest theatres in Europe. It was named after the Grand Master who built it, Fra. Antonio Manoel de Vilhena. Before it was built plays and theatrical productions were usually held in the great halls of the various Auberges. The new theatre followed the plan of the theatre at Palermo and was erected "for the honest recreation of the people." The Grand Master appointed as "Protector" of the theatre, a Knight to supervise its management. The theatre was formally inaugurated on 19th January, 1732, with a performance of Merope by Maffei.

At first productions were staged by the various Langues, but Grand Master Pinto introduced a professional company, after, it is said, repeated protests from the Inquisitor over pages and novices taking the soprano roles. The theatre became a centre of Malta's social life. The Master of the king's Chapel at Naples dedicated a number of musical dramas to the grand-masters and in the course of the 18th century a number operas by Galuppi, Paisello, Cimarosa and Pergolisi were staged.

 The theatre was also used for dances when the pit was raised by scaffolding to the level of the stage. While from the outside the theatre is almost inconspicuous on the inside it is a charming and intimate space with three floors of boxes in open galleries, flanking the five boxes of the top floor, each box painted with delightful landscapes, cornucopias of flowers and other motifs.

Garway Commandery

The preceptory of Garway in the Monow valley had been the main house of the Order of the Temple in Herefordshire. Granted to the Templars by Henry II c.1185-1187 he gave them the right to asssart 2000 acres in the Archenfield forest which had been the Crown's possession  since the revolt of Roger de Breteuil, Earl of Hereford (in 1072). In due course Garway became an important manor and administrative centre responsible for their property throughout the dioceses of Hereford and Llandaf. It is probable that the church at Garway dates from after 1162 when the Order was permitted to have its own chaplains. Originally the church was built with a circular nave in imitation of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. (The foundations of the circular nave were unearthed during excavations in 1927).

The Knights of Rhodes took over the former Templar estate at Garway in 1324. As soon as they arrived the Hospitallers began a programme of building and restoring the infrastructure of the property which had fallen into disrepair after the departure of the Templars in 1307. The nave of the church, the chancel, font and the upper storey of the tower all date from the Hospitallers' rebuilding.

The church of St Michael at Garway  was used by both the Hospitaller community and as the parish church. Seating was provided in the chancel for use by members of the Order and its officials. No seats were provided for the lay congregation who stood or knelt on the floor strewn with rushes of other hedgerow plants. However there was a stone ledge against the nave walls where the elderly and infirm could sit, giving rise to the saying "let the weak go to the wall."

After Garway had been transferred to the Knights of Rhodes it lost its status as a preceptory or commandery and became a camera of the commandery at Dinmore. However Garway continued to function as a separate unit of administration and remained a commandery in all but name, in 1338 it was in the charge of a keeper,Brother William Dalmaly, a chaplain of the Order. The estate had become an extensive manor with a demesne of 720 acres of arable and 60 acres of meadow.

 There were officials including the chamberlain, bailiff and seneschal  and numerous servants. The scale of the establishment at Garway in those days can be gauged from the numerous servants who included cooks, bakers, porters, personal servants of the keeper and two attendant pages and the reaper of the manor who was responsible for the allocation of labour services of the villeins living on the demesne (home farm). In 1338 all the servants on the estate were in receipt of wages varying from 3/4d to 13/4d a year.

There were also three holders of corrodies or pensions living at Garway in 1338, one of whom Gilbert of Pembridge dined at the table of the brethren and received a pension 20/s a year while the other two received 10/s and ate at the table of the free servants. Due to the establishment's position on the Welsh marches there was a steady stream of visitors and wayfarers who made heavy demands on the houses's hospitality.

There are no remains of the domestic buildings at Garway with the exception of the circular dovecot. According to the inscription over the door "Anno domini millesimo tres entesimo vic esimo sexto factum fuit istud columbare frrem Ricardum." "In the year 1326 this dovecot was built by Brother Richard." Outside is a projecting string course high above the ground to prevent rats from getting in. Inside there are 666 nesting boxes arranged in 19 rows.

It had been a custom or the Bishop of Hereford to make a triennial visit to the parish church at Garway, recieving on each occasion 53/4d in respect of procurations, but in 1524 the parishioners memorably barred the door to him, refusing to ring the bells. In consequence the bishop retaliated by placing the church under interdict and excommunication all those who had barred his entry.