Templars (Portugal)

Who holds it

Title

Master of the Temple in Portugal

Confidence

low

Gualdim Pais, master in Portugal for some forty years and builder of Tomar, died in 1195. His successor on 1 January 1200 is not named in the sources checked.

What it holds

• Tomar: castle (1160), town and district, the order's head house in Portugal
• Soure (1128), Pombal (castle and foral 1174) with Redinha (foral 1159), and Ega
• The Tagus and Zêzere castles: Almourol, Cardiga and Zêzere
• Idanha-a-Velha and Monsanto on the Beira frontier (1165)
• A promise (1169) of a third of conquests south of the Tagus, unfulfilled after 1191
• Not yet held: Castelo Branco (castle built 1214-1230)

How it was acquired

Grants of Countess Teresa (1128) and Afonso Henriques (1159, 1165, 1169); castles built by Gualdim Pais from 1160.

How things stand that morning

Held. Tomar and the Tagus castles are the shield of central Portugal since the losses of 1191.

Wealth

Rents and justice of many villages; the Nabão mills at Tomar; river traffic and fords on the Tagus and Zêzere; flocks on the Beira uplands.

Threats

• A new Almohad push up the Tagus like that of 1190
• Leonese raids on the Beira frontier

Advocates and rivals

No advocate: the provincial master answers to the master of the Temple. Neighbours: the Hospital at Belver, the abbey of Alcobaça, the bishops of Coimbra and Lisbon over churches, and the king.

Places of note

• Castle of Tomar: Begun 1 March 1160; held against the Almohads in 1190
• Almourol: Island castle in the Tagus, inscription of 1171
• Idanha-a-Velha: The old episcopal city of Egitânia, Templar since 1165

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The grants and the 1171 inscription are well attested; the master in 1200 is not pinned.

On the map: Modern concelhos stand for the Templar districts, which were thinly settled in 1200; the Zêzere and Cardiga castles are not drawn because their districts are not pinned.

Primary sources for Portugal

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of Toledo and other short Iberian annals (12th and 13th centuries; Anales Toledanos I to 1219). Florez's volume 23 gathers the short annals of the peninsula. Read online
• Chronicle of the World (Lucas of Tuy), Lucas de Tuy (1236, for Queen Berenguela). The Leonese counterpart to Rodrigo, written at San Isidoro for Berenguela. Read online
• Historical Monuments of Portugal: Writers (Annals of King Afonso, Chronicon Conimbricense, Chronica Gothorum and others) (12th to 15th centuries). The Portuguese annals in one volume. Read online
• Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, Anonymous, probably Juan of Osma, chancellor of Castile (about 1223 to 1239). The chancellor's chronicle of Alfonso VIII's reign, detailed from the 1190s. Read online
• The Garden of Pages: a History of the Kings of the Maghreb and of the City of Fez, Ibn Abi Zar al-Fasi (completed in 1326 at Fez, for the Marinid sultan Abu Said Uthman). The Almohad chapters give a brisk dated narrative of al-Mansur's death and burial, al-Nasir's accession and the Banu Ghaniya troubles, with the kind of detail (coinage, public works at Fez and Rabat, prices, plagues) that a Fez compiler cared about, and the annals of Fez supply the city's governors and markets. Read online
• The Wondrous Account of the History of al-Andalus and the Maghreb, Ibn Idhari al-Marrakushi (about 1312, at Marrakesh). The Almohad section is the fullest year-by-year narrative of the caliphate around 1200: the last campaigns and the death of Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur in January 1199, the accession of his son Muhammad al-Nasir, the renewed war of the Banu Ghaniya in Ifriqiya under Yahya ibn Ishaq and his ally Qaraqush, the Almohad losses of Mahdia and Tunis a few years later, and al-Nasir's reconquest of Ifriqiya in 1205 to 1206 followed by the appointment of Abd al-Wahid ibn Abi Hafs as governor. Read online
• History of the Affairs of Spain, Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada (completed 1243). The archbishop's history of the peninsula, written forty years on by a Navarrese who served Castile. Read online
• The Gift of the Imamate, Ibn Sahib al-Sala (Abd al-Malik ibn Muhammad al-Baji) (late twelfth century; the surviving part covers 1159 to 1173). The only Almohad court chronicle written from inside the administration, by a chancery secretary who travelled with the caliphs Abd al-Mu'min and Abu Yaqub Yusuf.

5 more in the sources library for France and Iberia.