Chapter 2
The Lincolnshire preceptories and the former Templar estates, 1308–13
The initial donations of sundry small parcels of land as recorded in the Inquest of 1185 did not lend themselves to efficient estate management. To overcome this problem, the Templars became adept at acquiring and exchanging land so as to consolidate estates, reduce travel time, and lengthen the effective working day. The extent to which they were successful is illustrated by the reduction in the number of vills in which the Templars held land by 1308. Indeed, the Order’s extensive acquisition of land was one of the factors that spurred Edward I to enact the Statutes of Mortmain in 1279 and 1290. These statutes were intended to halt the alienation of land by the Church and the Military Orders – ‘religious orders were prohibited from receiving land without royal licence’ – as ecclesiastical land was not subject to royal taxation and so resulted in lost income to the crown.
1 R. Gilchrist, Contemplation and Action: The Other Monasticism (Leicester, 1995), p. 68. This chapter looks at the nature of the Templar estates and in particular the Lincolnshire preceptories in the early fourteenth century.
The preceptories
The preceptory was the administrative heart of the Templar estate and as such reflected both the size of the estate and its primary function, that of practising mixed agriculture to raise money for the support of Templar affairs overseas, particularly in the Holy Land. In addition the preceptory had to perform religious offices and to provide accommodation for visitors of noble and sometimes royal rank. Each preceptory had at its head a preceptor who was a member of the Order but not necessarily a knight. Estate management was delegated through bailiffs to artisans and labourers, who did the work. An estate usually consisted of the preceptory manor and other member manors in addition to sundry parcels of land, churches and mills. However, Templar estates varies in size and composition, which meant that although they shared a common function of financing the Order, each achieved that function in its own way.
Any description of the buildings which constitute a Templar preceptory is dependent upon the limited archaeological evidence, mainly the excavation at South Witham. Hurst stresses the significance of the South Witham archaeological evidence, pointing out that Templar sites are rare – following the suppression of the Order in 1312, the buildings were generally altered or demolished during the early fourteenth century.
2 J. G. Hurst, ‘Rural building in England and Wales’, in The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. 2: 1042–1350, ed. H. E. Hallam (Cambridge, 1988), p. 896. While the excavations at Denny Abbey, Cambridgeshire, exposed the Templar church and a range of buildings, there had been much modification by the Franciscans who occupied the site after the suppression of the Order.
3 P. M. Christie and J. G. Goad, ‘Excavations at Denny Abbey’, The Archaeological Journal, 137 (1980), pp. 197–9. The scant archaeological evidence can be supplemented with the more extensive documentary evidence provided by the inventories of deadstock and records of expenditure on building repairs enrolled in the estate accounts of 1308–9, immediately following the arrest of the Order. Although even the combination of archaeological and documentary evidence is insufficient to provide a definitive picture of the physical layout of a Templar preceptory, it is more than enough to enable a reasoned, speculative, extrapolation.
In early 1308 there were four active Templar preceptories in Lincolnshire. Of these, the preceptories at Temple Bruer, Willoughton and Eagle were each the administrative centre of an estate consisting of member manors. Aslackby was the exception as it consisted of a demesne manor and additional rented property. Besides administering the estate, the preceptory acted as the centre for the collection of estate produce, particularly wool. As a result of its estate-wide function, the preceptory could be expected to have had a larger range of buildings, and a greater storage capacity, than would be found on a member manor. The size of the wheat and barley barns which are still extant at Cressing Temple in Essex gives some indication of the storage capacity necessary for a large, operational preceptory.
4 A. Tapper, Knights Templar and Hospitaller in Herefordshire (Little Logaston, 2005), p. 48. Of the barns at Cressing Temple (Essex), the barley barn dating from 1200–20 is 120 feet long by 48 feet wide, and the wheat barn dating from c. 1260 is 130 feet long and 44 feet wide. Tapper adds that the barns at Garway, also built by the Templars, were probably similar. The excavation at Temple Newsam near Leeds during the last decade of the twentieth century revealed the foundations of an aisled barn 150 feet long, so clearly the Cressing barns are unusual only in that they have survived.
5 D. Weldrake, The Templars and Temple Newsam: The Crusader Knights and their Farmstead near Leeds (Wakefield, 1995), pp. 16–21. The preceptory manor was typically the most extensive of the manors constituting the estate.
The historical links between the Cistercians and the Templars (the Templars were endorsed by Bernard of Clairvaux) might suggest that the Order would have replicated the standardised system of estate management adopted by the Cistercians. The spiritual and administrative centre of each Cistercian estate was the abbey, associated with which were the granges. Each grange was a farm located on the estate and answerable to the centralised estate administration based at the abbey itself. Barber points out that ‘despite attempts to mould the Templar possessions into a coherent structure, there was no typical preceptory, modelled on a preconceived plan like that of the Cistercians’.
6 M. C. Barber, The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple (Cambridge, 1994), p. 262. Barber based his conclusion upon twelfth-century French evidence; the archaeological and documentary evidence for early fourteenth-century Lincolnshire points to the same conclusion. Although there was a degree of conformity in the management of the Templar estates in Lincolnshire, each of the four Lincolnshire preceptories had its own unique physical characteristics. While the preceptories shared common elements, each was adapted to its function: Eagle had the only infirmary and Willoughton had the most widespread estate. These differences were reflected in the constituent buildings, precisely as Barber argues. St John Hope refers to the ‘numerous inventories of the contents of the preceptories, which show that the buildings included a church or chapel, oft-times a
camera or set of lodgings, and always a hall and kitchen, with such usual adjuncts as a larder, bakehouse, brewhouse, cellar etc.’
7 W. H. St John Hope, ‘The round church of the Knights Templar at Temple Bruer, Lincolnshire’, Archaeologia, 61 (1908), p. 178. A later definition of a camera is as a small separate holding. For Temple Balsall, the Warwickshire preceptory, Gooder lists a hall, chamber, chapel, pantry, dairy and larder, buttery and cellar, kitchen, bakery, brewhouse and mills as being included in the inventory of 1308.
8 E. A. Gooder, Temple Balsall: The Warwickshire Preceptory of the Templars and their Fate (Chichester, 1995), pp. 70–6. Similar to St John Hope, Gooder itemises only those buildings which, with the exception of the mills and the chapel, were essentially domestic in purpose rather than agricultural. However, the conjectural plan of Temple Balsall shows, in addition, the farm buildings, barns, stables and a dovecote as an enclosed area arranged around a green courtyard (fig. 1).
9 Ibid., p. 68. The plan includes ‘lodgings (probably for full time-labourers)’, but this is highly speculative as in Lincolnshire there is neither archaeological evidence nor documentary evidence to support the existence of dormitories for labourers.
10 Ibid. Further, although the plan of Temple Balsall illustrates lodgings over the parlour, it does not include a guest house, though such a building might have been expected given the importance of hospitality as a function of a preceptory.
11 Ibid. Gilchrist suggests that the ‘sites indicate that preceptories’ buildings would be ordered around a central space adjacent to a church or incorporating a conventual chapel’.
12 Gilchrist, Contemplation and Action, p. 81.Content - style instruction: {INSERT FIGURE 1 NEAR HERE}
Figure 1. Conjectural plan of Temple Balsall, based on records from 1308, 1541 and 1759, from E. A. Gooder, Temple Balsall: The Warwickshire Preceptory of the Templars and their Fate (Chichester, 1995), p. 68
While it was never a preceptory, Temple Manor, at Strood in Kent, was an estate near the main road to the Continent and as such offered accommodation to important travellers, not least Templars.
13 S. E. Rigold, Temple Manor (London, 1962, rev. and rep. 1990), p. 11. Rigold, who excavated the site between 1951 and 1968, describes Temple Manor as having been in 1185 ‘a court [with] a complex of timber structures, hall, kitchens, barns and stables’, sufficient to accommodate guests and store the produce of the estate.
14 Ibid., p. 1.The most comprehensively excavated example of a Templar preceptory is that of South Witham in Kesteven, Lincolnshire. The excavation was completed by Mayes in 1967 and the findings published in 2002.
15 P. Mayes, Excavations at a Templar Preceptory: South Witham, Lincolnshire, 1965–7 (Leeds, 2002). The general site plan and the artist’s impression of South Witham both show an extensive premises with a full range of domestic buildings including a great hall, brewhouse, dairy, workshop and kitchen (figs 2 and 3). A guesthouse, conveniently situated next to the entrance gate and gatehouse, provided accommodation for travellers as was expected of a preceptory. During the second phase of occupation a second hall was added, which Gilchrist suggests was ‘to ensure separate accommodation for members of the monastery in the great hall, leaving the lesser hall for the servants’.
16 Gilchrist, Contemplation and Action, p. 85. In addition there was a full range of farm buildings providing animal accommodation, including stables and pigsties, while barns and a granary stored the estate’s arable produce. The presence of a smithy indicates that the preceptory had the capacity to fabricate horseshoes and to manufacture and repair carts and ploughs, a point further emphasised by the anvils, hammers and tongs listed in the inventory of deadstock ending at 23 February 1309 (appendix 1).
17 TNA, E 358/18, 14/1 dorse, lines 35–6.Content - style instruction: {INSERT FIGURE 2 NEAR HERE}
Figure 2. General site plan of South Witham preceptory, showing all the buildings of phases 2 (1220–late C13) and 3 (late C13–1313), with earthworks, adapted from P. Mayes, Excavations at a Templar Preceptory: South Witham, Lincolnshire, 1965–67, Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph, 19 (Leeds, 2002)
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Figure 3. Artist’s impression of South Witham site during phase 3 (late C13–1313), adapted from P. Mayes, Excavations at a Templar Preceptory: South Witham, Lincolnshire, 1965–67, Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph, 19 (Leeds, 2002)
Although the layout of South Witham was by no means identical to that of Temple Balsall, reinforcing the point that, unlike Cistercian operations, there was not a standardised building plan, the buildings did reflect the functional similarity of the two preceptories. Before 1308, South Witham had ceased to be a preceptory. Even so, South Witham continued to rent land from the likes of William de Crescy and Thomas de St Laund and, further, to rent out land. At its apogee, South Witham was a less important preceptory than either Temple Bruer or Willoughton, as it was the administrative centre of a smaller estate, albeit one with extra-comital interests.
18 Ibid., lines 41–4. While the Templars, and subsequently Edward II, drew income from a moiety of the church of South Witham, they also enjoyed tithes from the churches of Thistleton and Stretton, both of which are now in Rutland. On this basis, it must be assumed that the buildings of Temple Bruer and Willoughton would have been more extensive to provide additional storage and accommodation for the larger estates, but there is no archaeological evidence. Excavations at Temple Bruer have concentrated on the site of the round church, and there has been no archaeological excavation at Willoughton. However, the artist’s reconstruction of Temple Bruer preceptory and the plan of the site of Willoughton preceptory both suggest extensive premises (figs 4 and 5).
19 D. Mills, The Knights Templar in Kesteven (Lincoln 1990, rev. and rep. 2009), p. 10; P. L. Everson, C. C. Taylor and C. J. Dunn, Change and Continuity: Rural Settlement in North-West Lincolnshire (London, 1991), p. 219. The preceptory of Eagle also covered an area in excess of that of the current Eagle Hall, as indicated by the irregularities visible in the surrounding fields.
20 Mills, Knights Templar in Kesteven, pp. 16–17. Archaeological evidence from elsewhere is more limited. At Garway in Herefordshire the foundations of a circular church, the extant dovecote and the two fishponds resonate with the Lincolnshire evidence.
21 Tapper, Knights Templar and Hospitaller, pp. 45–53. The excavations at Temple Newsam, in Yorkshire, in 1991 revealed the existence of a great barn and other buildings, in addition to pits which may have been used for tanning.
22 Weldrake, Templars and Temple Newsam, pp. 16–21. The foundations of what was probably the preceptory chapel had been uncovered in 1903, but did not emerge during the subsequent excavation.
23 Ibid. Archaeological investigations at Templecombe, in Somerset, in 1995 confirmed the existence of a Templar chapel and revealed a wall which marked the boundary of the tithe-free land and was ‘therefore likely to be the precinct boundary’.
24 P. Harding et al., ‘Archaeological investigations at Templecombe, 1995’, Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeology and Natural History Society, 147 (2003), pp. 144, 153. This suggests a boundary wall rather than a defensive wall, which agrees with the function of the moat at Faxfleet discussed later.
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Figure 4. Artist’s reconstruction of Temple Bruer preceptory, view from south-east, drawn by David Vale, riba, from ‘The Knights Templar of Temple Bruer and Aslackby’, Lincolnshire Museums Information Sheet, Archaeology Series, 25 (Lincoln, n.d.), p. 1
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Figure 5. Site plan of the preceptory of the Knights Templars and Hospitallers at Willoughton, adapted from P. L. Everson, C. C. Taylor and C. J. Dunn, Change and Continuity: Rural Settlement in North-West Lincolnshire (London, 1991), p. 219
The evidence of the inventories of deadstock, goods and chattels
Documentary evidence is more plentiful. However, the record provided by the accounts for the former Templar estates in Lincolnshire covering the period 1308–13 is both discontinuous and incomplete. The first survey was made after Michaelmas 1308, and the first inventory for the preceptory of Temple Bruer is in the accounts beginning Michaelmas 1311.
25 TNA, E 358/18, 38/1 dorse, lines 3–11. Notwithstanding their limitations, the inventories give some idea of the domestic range of buildings to be found at the preceptories and of their contents. They do not, however, refer to barns, byres and pigsties (i.e. the agricultural buildings). Deadstock constitutes agricultural equipment such as ploughs, carts and wagons. Goods and chattels include all items other than deadstock and agricultural produce such as grain. Livestock (i.e. beasts) is enrolled separately. The 1311 inventory of Temple Bruer included the contents of a hall, pantry, buttery, brewhouse and kitchen. In addition there were 40 quarters of lime in the kiln, valued at 4d. per quarter, which would have been used either for mulching or for making lime mortar.
26 Ibid. In either case – that of improving the soil quality or of maintaining and erecting stone buildings – it does not suggest that Temple Bruer was experiencing the ‘decay on the estates’ argued by Gooder.
27 Gooder, Temple Balsall, p. 84. A limekiln was found by Jemmett at Garway and was thought to be for the production of lime mortar for use in the Templar or Hospitaller buildings.
28 Tapper, Knights Templar and Hospitaller, p. 48.The most remarkable omission from the inventory was that of the contents of Temple Bruer church, which must have had a chalice and paten, a missal and an order of service at the very least. The omission is doubly surprising, for the remainder of the inventory was thorough and gives the impression that Temple Bruer was well equipped. Ten silver spoons were listed in the pantry in the account ending 2 July 1312, and in the buttery were a maplewood mazer and a goblet, both with silver feet – all high-value goods.
29 TNA, E 358/18, 38/1 dorse, lines 3–11. Gooder states that ‘silver spoons were exceptional enough in inventories of that date [1308] to suggest the one-time presence of Templars’.
30 Gooder, Temple Balsall, p. 84. The existence of rare and valuable objects over four years after the arrest of the Order further implies that the ‘decay on the estates’ may not have been as general as Gooder argues; were it so, then surely valuable goods would have been sold, or even stolen.
31 Ibid., p. 85.The inventories of the Willoughton estate for 1308–9 cover both the member manors and the preceptory.
32 TNA, E 358/18, 15/1; 15/2; 15/1 dorse; 15/2 dorse. The manors clearly had little of substantial value: Temple Belwood had only a small broken pot and a metal dish. However, it is notable that the vessels included in the inventories were made of metal, or, in a minority of cases, of unspecified material, so wooden platters and bowls and clay pots were omitted as not worthy of inclusion. This further suggests that there was far less building specialisation on the smaller member manors, and little expenditure on equipment of any value.
The inventory for Willoughton preceptory enlisted only the contents of the chapel and the most immediate domestic buildings: kitchen, bakehouse, brewhouse and dairy.
33 TNA, E 358/18, 15/2, lines 11–14. Although the inventory suggests a poorly equipped establishment compared with Temple Bruer, this is unlikely. It is difficult to believe that the absence of a forge and a carpenter’s shop in the inventory means that they did not exist. Gooder argues convincingly with regard to the accounts that ‘there is no inventory of buildings as such and that they are only mentioned if their contents need recording […] lack of mention is not proof of non-existence’.
34 E. A. Gooder, ‘South Witham and the Templars: the documentary evidence’, in Mayes, Excavations at a Templar Preceptory, p. 84 Despite this assurance, neither a forge nor a carpenter’s shop can operate without tools, so their absence may indicate theft or that the inventory was completed only for the domestic range of buildings. Tull refers to Willoughton as ‘the richest of English Templar houses’, in which case it would have been fully equipped to function accordingly.
35 G. F. Tull, Traces of the Templars (Rotherham, 2000), p. 107. The accounts certainly show that of the two largest Templar estates in Lincolnshire, Temple Bruer appears to have been the most economically important by 1308, whereas in 1185 Willoughton had been primate, a status to which it had returned by 1338.
36 Inquest, p. cxci; S. Phillips, The Prior of the Knights Hospitaller in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2009), p. 21. Willoughton was subject to much more invasive asset stripping in the first year of sequestration, after the arrest of the Order, than was Temple Bruer, which explains its initial reduction in status when in the hands of Edward II.
Eagle was unusual as it was one of the two Templar preceptories in England which were also infirmaries, the other being Denny in Cambridgeshire.
37 Tull, Traces, p. 97. The Hospital of John the Baptist at Mere, to which Simon Ropsley gave half a fee before 1243, was to the north-west of the original village and a completely separate institution from the Templar house.
38 W. Page, ed., A History of the County of Lincoln, vol. 2, Victoria County History (London, 1906), p. 233.The primary function of an infirmary was to care for the old and infirm members of the Order. The inventory of Eagle preceptory, covering the period from Michaelmas 1312 until 6 June 1313, is the most extensive of all the Lincolnshire inventories, encompassing the contents of the house, store room (cellar), pantry, kitchen, dairy, brewhouse, bakehouse, carpenter’s shop, forge and chapel, with the addition of three carts, four wagons and five ploughs.
39 TNA, E 358/18, 39/2 dorse, lines 32–49. The inventory includes high-status items: mazers and goblets were listed, which were old and well-worn, as were a table cloth and two chairs, all of which are likely to have survived from the Templar era (appendix 1).
40 Ibid., lines 34–5. By comparison, on arrival at Denny to confiscate the property following the arrest of the Templars in 1308, John de Creke, sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, found eleven Templars, including the preceptor, whose beds were in a chamber along with a chest valued at 2s. In addition, there was a hall or refectory with two trestle tables and two ‘tables dormant’, and a well-equipped kitchen and bakehouse.
41 Christie and Goad, ‘Excavations at Denny Abbey’, p. 140. Included in the items found in the richly appointed chapel were three silver chalices, two gilt chalices, a silk altar cloth, six complete sets of vestments and eleven religious volumes.
42 E. Lord, The Knights Templar in Britain (London, 2002, 2004), p. 84. This was not dissimilar to Eagle.
The enigma of accommodation
The extent of the domestic buildings at Eagle and the wealth of items listed in the inventory correspond with those of Temple Bruer and, in all probability, with what existed at Willoughton. The Eagle estate was smaller than either Temple Bruer or Willoughton; its additional function, that of an infirmary, may explain the extensive range of buildings and the size of the inventory, but there is no mention of either a dormitory or an infirmary. Denny, the only other Templar infirmary, is the only example of a property transferred to the Templars by another religious order, in this case the Benedictines, who returned to the mother house of Ely
c. 1170.
43 R. Wood and English Heritage, Denny Abbey and the Farmland Museum (London, 2003, rev. and rep. 2012), pp. 27–8. As a Benedictine abbey, the living quarters would have included a kitchen, refectory and dormitory, which would have proved useful to the Templars as the property was converted for use as a preceptory and infirmary.
44 Ibid., p. 3. In addition to the chamber with eleven beds cited above, Christie and Goad refer to the Templars’ development of a north range which ‘could have served as a hospital, frater or dormitory’ and may, of course, have included the same chamber.
45 Christie and Goad, ‘Excavations at Denny Abbey’, p. 198. Both Tull and Lord refer to Denny as having an infirmary with eleven beds. As an infirmary, Eagle too would have provided discrete accommodation for the elderly and failing members of the Order.
46 Tull, Traces, pp. 98–9; Lord, Knights Templar, p. 84. The transfer of the last
custos infirmorum, Br. William de la Forde, to Denny from Eagle to assume the position of preceptor is sufficient evidence to confirm the existence of an infirmary at Eagle.
47 ‘Houses of Knights Templars: Preceptory of Denney’, in A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely, vol. 2, ed. L. F. Salzman, Victoria County History (London, 1948), pp. 259–62. Available through British History Online (www.british-history.ac.uk).The only reference to a dormitory in any of the accounts is indirect. Among the corrodians enrolled at Temple Bruer until Easter 1309 was one, Adam le Dorturer, who had a pension of 2d. per day until his death on 11 June 1309.
48 TNA, E 358/18, 19/2, lines 9–10; E 358/18, 16/2, lines 29–30. It was not uncommon for an individual to be awarded a corrody for life in exchange for their offering a service for as long as they were able to do so. In the case of Adam le Dorturer, his name would suggest that he was the obedientiary responsible for a
dorter or dormitory, or had been earlier in his life, possibly at a different preceptory. If there was a dormitory at Temple Bruer, there would probably have been similar facilities at Willoughton, Eagle and Aslackby, each of which employed
famuli and accommodated corrodians.
While St John Hope refers to the ‘numerous inventories of the contents of the preceptories’, he adds that ‘there is no evidence of […] a common
dorter’
.49 St John Hope, ‘Round church’, p. 178. In a more general reference to manorial agriculture, Postan observes that ‘records are singularly silent about servants residing on the demesne or the demesne buildings which could have housed them’, adding that ‘the inevitable presumption therefore is that the labourers “keep” no longer took the form of the common bread and the collective habitation in the lord’s household’.
50 M. M. Postan, ‘The famulus: the estate labourer in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, EHR, supplement 2 (Cambridge, 1954), p. 15. As there is neither archaeological nor documentary evidence for the existence of dormitories to accommodate
famuli, to suggest their existence would be speculative. The Inquest of 1185 gives only a passing reference to Temple Hirst in Yorkshire, but the estate accounts of 1308 list a hall or treasury, chapel, kitchen, larder, brewhouse, bakehouse and dovecote. A subsequent survey of 1312 adds a dormitory, dairy, grange and forge. This post-dates the period during which Temple Hirst was a Templar preceptory, therefore suggesting the absence of a dormitory during Templar occupancy.
51 J. S. Lee, ‘Landowners and landscapes: the Knights Templar and their successors at Temple Hirst, Yorkshire’, The Local Historian, 41 (2011), p. 296. Harvey suggests that the hall of the manor at Cuxham, Oxfordshire, was sparsely furnished and ‘was probably used for meals provided for workers on the demesne’.
52 P. D. A. Harvey, A Medieval Oxfordshire Village: Cuxham, 1240 to 1400 (Oxford, 1965), p. 34. He adds, ‘it is not clear what the room over the gate and next to the kitchen were used for, but they may have been the sleeping quarters of the
famuli’.
53 Ibid. There is an alternative interpretation.
The existence of dormitories on the Cistercian estates to accommodate the
conversi, the lay brethren, is well established and has been described by both Donkin and Burton.
54 R. A. Donkin, ‘The Cistercian Order and the settlement of northern England’, Geographical Review, 59, 3 (1969), pp. 403–16; J. E. Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain, 1000–1300 (Cambridge, 1994), p. 254. There is, however, neither archaeological nor documentary evidence to suggest that the Templar preceptories had dormitories to provide accommodation for the
famuli,
despite their being the labour force for the estate. The probability is that the
famuli lived outside the preceptory and only went there to work, the only residents being Templars, sergeants, corrodians and possibly domestic staff, who were relatively few in number and literally left no scar on the landscape
. Nicholson states that the Templars generally brought in settlers to work the land, adding that ‘at Bruer in Lincolnshire they attracted in colonists from the surrounding area and set up a new settlement’.
55 H. J. Nicholson, The Knights Templar: A New History (Stroud, 2001, rep. 2004), p. 185.Churches and chapels
All preceptories would have needed to accommodate visitors and to provide for both material and spiritual sustenance. Mayes suggests that ‘South Witham did not become a preceptory until full provision for the maintenance of a religious life could be made’.
56 Mayes, Excavations at a Templar Preceptory, p. 4. An integral part of a preceptory was a church or chapel which provided for the observation of religious services and in addition was an important source of income. Gilchrist refers to the chapel of a larger preceptory, located near the hall of the Templar house, as having served as the parish church of the preceptory’s manorial tenants as well.
57 Gilchrist, Contemplation and Action, p. 77. She also cites the churches of Temple Bruer, Garway and the Temple Church in London as having round naves reminiscent of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
58 Ibid., p. 81.In 1308, Temple Bruer enjoyed the income from the perquisites and obventions of Temple Bruer church together with mortuary payments and a wool tithe.
59 TNA, E 358/18, 19/1, lines 17–19. A chaplain was employed to conduct services at the church, and a second chaplain to conduct Mass for the soul of Andrew le Mareschal.
60 Ibid., lines 48–50. The church, of which a tower is still extant, on the site of the preceptory of Temple Bruer, was clearly fully active in 1308. Mass was still being conducted for the soul of Andrew le Mareschal in 1312, paid for by the income from tenancies in the vill of Kirkby.
61 TNA, E 358/18, 38/1 dorse, lines 24–5. The preceptory church was not the only one from which income was derived. In addition, there were the pensions of the churches of Caythorpe, Rauceby and Normanton, which were still rendering income in 1312.
62 Ibid., lines 12–13. Caythorpe, Rauceby and Normanton were not enrolled as Templar member manors, but ownership of the manor was not a prerequisite for having a financial interest in the church. The income of a church from tithes, pensions, advowsons and burial fees could be substantial and as such attracted secular interest and was frequently diverted into noble purses. Having established ownership of a church’s finances, however dubiously, they became a commodity to be bought, sold or given in their entirety or in part. In these cases, church income was diverted from the manors or parishes which they served to those who owned the financial rights. In the cases cited above, the Templars owned only the rights to the church pensions, not any other aspects of church income, nor did they own the manors which the churches served.
In 1308 two chantry chaplains are enrolled in the Willoughton accounts to conduct Mass for the souls of Jordan Foliot and Roger de St Martin, both paid for from the rents of land and tenancies at Saxby and Blyborough.
63 TNA, E 358/18, 17/1, lines 47–9. In 1212, Jordan Foliot held a knight’s fee in Saxby. Roger de St Martin was a tenant of the manor of Blyborough on the Mowbray fee and gave a toft to the Templars. Inquest, pp. 101–2. Further, 2 pounds of wax had been bought to light the chapel.
64 TNA, E 358/18, 15/1, line 23. The account of the following year includes an inventory of a chapel.
65 TNA, E 358/18, 53/1, lines 62–3. In addition, there was income derived from the fruits and obventions of the churches of Gainsborough, Thorpe, Goulceby and a moiety of the church of Willoughton, which may well have been entirely separate from the preceptory chapel.
66 Ibid., line 14.The 1308 account for Eagle stipulates the inclusion of the church.
67 TNA, E 358/18, 18/1 dorse, line 47. A chantry chaplain was paid for by the income from lands and tenements to conduct Mass for the soul of William Bardolf and his ancestors.
68 TNA, E 358/18, 18/2 dorse, lines 25–6. Thomas de Wigsley, another chaplain, was paid a corrody of 3d. per day and ate at the table of the brothers.
69 Ibid., lines 13–14. He would have followed the usual practice of continuing to perform the religious offices for as long was he was able, but his corrody would have been for life. In 1309 income was drawn both from the sheaf tithe of Eagle north field and from the sheaf tithe of Swinderby church, together with the pension from North Scarle church.
70 TNA, E 358/18, 15/2 dorse, lines 40 and 44. By 1313 income included that of the sheaf tithe of the church of Eagle, presumably that which had been previously ascribed to the north field, and the pension from the church of North Scarle.
71 TNA, E 358/18, 39/1 dorse, lines 48–9 and 52. Mass was still being said for the soul of William Bardolf, and Thomas de Wigsley continued to conduct services in the chapel, both chaplains being paid 3d. per day.
72 Ibid., lines 66 and 68. The detailed inventory of the chapel for 1313 includes not only a chalice, paten and an extensive selection of religious volumes, but also religious relics and crosses kept in a chest under the seals of William de Spanneby and Sir David Graham.
73 TNA, E 358/18, 39/2 dorse, lines 46–8. As mentioned above, the chapel of Denny, the other Templar infirmary, was at least as well appointed.
74 Lord, Knights Templar, p. 84. The overall impression is that Eagle’s chapel was well endowed, perhaps by the families of the very Templars who had ended their days in the infirmary. Further, the inventory suggests that there had been neither theft nor desecration since the arrest of the Order in January 1308.
The initial account for Aslackby, beginning 10 January 1308, includes a receipt of £3 10s. from the sale of a portion of the hay tithe of Aslackby church.
75 TNA, E 358/18, 18/2, line 48. Included in the expenses is an allowance for a chaplain to conduct Mass for the soul of John, son of Thomas and Helen (Thomas’s wife).
76 Ibid., lines 67–8. The chantry was paid for from the income of 10 acres of meadow and a rent of £6 2s. 3d.
77 Ibid. The subsequent account is headed ‘Aslackby and church’, implying that the church was now a Templar property.
78 TNA, E 358/18, 14/2 dorse, line 9. William de Spanneby was keeper of the Templar lands in Lincolnshire, and, as such, the king’s officer. Sir David Graham was the lessee of the Eagle estate. In the final account for Aslackby, beginning at Michaelmas 1313, the solitary deadstock inventory includes the contents of a chapel.
79 TNA, E 358/18, 55/2, lines 9–10.Each of the five former preceptories, including South Witham, presents ample archaeological and documentary evidence to support the conclusion that each had an integral church or chapel. Each made ‘provision for the maintenance of a religious life’, and continued to do so after the arrest of the Order.
80 Mayes, Excavations at a Templar Preceptory, p. 4. It is notable, however, that where an individual for whom chantry Masses were performed was identifiable, such as Jordan Foliot and Roger de St Martin, they are recorded in the Inquest of 1185 as donors to the Templars.
81 Inquest, p. 101. The attraction of a chantry benefaction to the Templars must have diminished. As the Order’s undertakings in the Holy Land began to fail, so their power of intercession with the Almighty, on behalf of the souls of the departed, was deemed to be less efficacious.
Domestic and agricultural buildings and fishponds
None of our evidence gives any indication of the extent and nature of the farm buildings, which the excavation at South Witham so clearly showed. However, the inventory of deadstock for South Witham for the period ending on 23 February 1309 does not differentiate between articles in different domestic buildings, and lists only the contents of the forge separately.
82 TNA, E 358/18, 14/1 dorse, lines 32–6. The inventory does not indicate the extent of the preceptory, or of its agricultural buildings, nor does it suggest the presence of a church, all of which the archaeological evidence revealed. Other than carts and ploughs, the inventories for Aslackby include only the contents of a kitchen, brewhouse and chapel, which is to be expected for the smallest of the Lincolnshire preceptories.
The excavation of South Witham gives a detailed picture of the architectural composition of a preceptory. The deadstock accounts, although incomplete, give an idea of the contents of the domestic buildings and occasionally forges and carpenters’ shops where they have some monetary value. The only reference to agricultural buildings is where there had been expenditure on repairs, and even the contents of churches were not always included in the inventories. In these circumstances the notional Templar preceptory must be based upon an extrapolation of function.
To provide food and ale there had to be a larder for the storage of meat, specifically beef, mutton and bacon, and a dairy for the making and storage of butter and cheese, as itemised at South Witham.
83 In the accounts, the contents of larders and dairies are enrolled separately from deadstock. A bakehouse provided the bread and a brewhouse the ale, the latter being stored in the buttery along with wine for high-status visitors. Cooking would have been carried out in the kitchen, which in all probability would have been in a separate building, as at South Witham, to reduce fire risk. Communal eating would have taken place in a hall, which, practicality would suggest, would have been near the kitchen. Seating arrangements at the trestle tables, as the accounts stipulate, would have been strictly according to status. Among the corrodians at Temple Bruer, Walter de Thorpe ate at the table of the brothers while Henry Jubel ate at the lower-status table of the squires.
84 TNA, E 358/18, 19/1, lines 68–71. Guest accommodation needed to be provided for visitors, who may have been lodged in a separate guesthouse as at South Witham. There is no evidence of accommodation for the craftsmen and labourers who were employed at the preceptories, the
famuli. They must have lived locally, but not within the confines of the preceptory itself. These, then, were the functions which had to be catered for in the arrangement of the domestic buildings.
Also necessary were a forge for making and maintaining horseshoes, tackle and wheels, and a carpenter’s shop for ploughs, carts, wagons and general woodwork. Roofing, although an important part of building maintenance, usually depended upon contracted itinerants, rather than permanently employed artisans, so there was no dedicated building. Whether each manor had its own smithy and carpenter’s shop is open to surmise, but it was certainly to be expected of each preceptory. In the account of 1311–12 for Temple Bruer, the contents of the forge included hammers and tongs. In addition, the expenses included the wages of a smith and the purchase of charcoal.
85 TNA, E 358/18, 38/2 dorse, lines 9–10; 38/1 dorse, lines 20 and 16. The same account includes both the inventory of the carpenter’s shop and the wages of a carpenter; clearly, both the forge and the carpenter’s shop were still active four and a half years after the arrest of the Order.
86 TNA, E 358/18, 38/2 dorse, line 10; 38/1 dorse, lines 23–4. This was equally true of Eagle during the following year, 1312–13, where both a smith and a carpenter were employed, each in well-equipped premises.
87 Ibid., lines 43–5. The inventory for Aslackby, the preceptory of the smallest Templar estate, included neither forge nor carpenter’s shop, and neither smith nor carpenter is listed among the waged employees. Perhaps Aslackby did not generate sufficient work to employ skilled craftsmen on a full-time basis and so they were hired as and when the need arose.
No contemporaneous accounts exist for the Willoughton estate because the last Willoughton accounts ended on 30 July 1309.
88 TNA, E 358/18, 53/1. Further, inventories were either incomplete in the first two years after the arrest of the Order, or, as in the cases of Temple Bruer, Eagle and Aslackby, non-existent. The inventory for Willoughton is entirely restricted to the domestic range of buildings, and the contents of the bakehouse and brewhouse are listed together, which seems to indicate a perfunctory survey carried out in haste.
89 Ibid., lines 662–5. Were Willoughton’s inventory entirely accurate then it would have been ill equipped to discharge its function as Lindsey’s only preceptory. Listed among the employees at Willoughton is a carpenter, but no smith. However, the account for Tealby itemises expenditure on a smith and a carpenter for the repair of carts and ploughs.
90 TNA, E 358/18, 15/1, line 26 It is not difficult to imagine that this smith and carpenter may have travelled from Willoughton, the preceptory of which Tealby was a member manor, to make the repairs. On the basis of the evidence, it is reasonable to conclude that there were both forges and carpenters’ shops at Temple Bruer, Willoughton and Eagle, but the same cannot be said with any certainty of Aslackby.
The Templars practised mixed farming and there is no evidence in the accounts of extensive autumn culling, which means that livestock needed to be accommodated in winter and that there had to be enough fodder to feed them. Stables and byres would have been necessary for horses and cattle, including the draught oxen. The accounts include expenditure to repair the byre roofs on the manors of Rowston and Woodhouse during the period beginning Michaelmas 1308.
91 TNA, E 358/18, 16/1 dorse, line 54; 14/2, line 6. On other manors, roof repairs were made to the grange, a more generic term which does not identify individual buildings. The archaeological evidence from South Witham suggests the use of pigsties, probably for fattening the pigs, or as an alternative to pannage. The 1308 account for the manor of Keal lists, among expenses, malt dregs for pig food.
92 TNA, E 358/18, 17/2 dorse, line 45. Certainly, bacon was generally to be found in preceptory larders. As many as forty flitches of bacon are listed in the account for Temple Bruer ending at Michaelmas 1308, of which sixteen were destined to help provision Edward II’s castles in Scotland.
93 TNA, E 358/18, 19/2, lines 67–8. While Edward II did not launch a campaign against the Scots until 1310, he did take advantage of lulls in the activity of Robert the Bruce to provision his castles, particularly in the Borders. C. McNamee, The Wars of the Bruces: Scotland, England and Ireland, 1306–1328 (East Linton, 1997), pp. 44–8. It would appear that this was a flat-rate charge at the time, as Willoughton, Eagle and Aslackby also each handed over to Thomas de Burnham, sometime sheriff of Lincoln, sixteen flitches of bacon for despatch to Scotland.
94 TNA, E 358/18, 17/2, line 22; 18/2 dorse, line 65; 18/1 dorse, line 41.Barns were the prerequisite for the storage of grains, legumes and hay. The examples at Cressing Temple and Temple Newsam, cited above, indicate that their size was considerable. In addition, both grain and legumes needed to be threshed and winnowed, and the resultant straw and seed stored separately. Equipment storage would not have been overlooked. As the maintenance of carts, wagons and ploughs was an ongoing expense, it would have been sensible, then as now, to protect them from the elements as much as possible, either in a dedicated building, or in spare barn capacity. Clearly, the amount of storage needed, which determined the size and number of the barns, depended upon the extent of the estate. Above all, sizeable barns would have been integral to any preceptory’s range of agricultural buildings. In the cases of both Temple Bruer and Willoughton, substantial storage capacity would have been essential.
A dovecote would have been usual. The sale of doves was common as was their payment as a form of rent. Both Temple Bruer and Eagle list the contents of their dovecotes in the accounts beginning on Michaelmas 1308: 200 doves at Eagle and 240 doves at Temple Bruer were sold at a farthing each, leaving sufficient breeding stock for the following year.
95 TNA, E 358/18, 14/1, line 57; 16/2, line 74. The dovecote at Garway could accommodate 666 pairs of birds, double that figure if two squabs per nest are included.
96 Tapper, Knights Templar and Hospitaller, pp. 52–3. There is every reason to suppose that the Lincolnshire dovecotes would have been sizeable buildings.
The account beginning 10 January 1308 for Upton, on the Willoughton estate, is the only one which includes fish – 300 herring – being used as part of the payment to harvesters in autumn.
97 TNA, E 358/18, 17/2 dorse, line 2. Presumably the herring were salted for preservation and transported in barrels. The nearest supplies would have been available from Barton on Humber and Burton upon Stather, on the Trent, both of which were involved in the salt and herring trade.
98 S. Pawley, ‘Maritime trade and fishing in the Middle Ages’, in An Historical Atlas of Lincolnshire, ed. S. Bennett and N. Bennett (Hull, 1993), pp. 56–7. In addition, the Trent river port of Gainsborough, only a short haul from Upton, was involved in seasonal herring fisheries.
99 Ibid. The general absence of fish in the preceptory larders does not mean that fish were not consumed – they were raised in fishponds (stews) and consumed fresh rather than purchased externally. South Witham had three such stews, Willoughton had a sizeable moat, and Eagle had both stews and a moat, all of which would have been stocked with fish.
100 Everson, Taylor and Dunn, Change and Continuity, pp. 218–20; Mills, Knights Templar in Kesteven, pp. 6–17. It is notable that the upkeep of stews was expensive and freshwater fish was considered a luxury.
101 C. Dyer, Everyday Life in Medieval England (London, 1994, 2nd edn 2000), p. 102. As late as 1485, the fishpond at Temple Balsall provided bream and tench for a guild feast held in Coventry.
102 Ibid., p. 110.Unlike arable farming, the sheep farming component of the Templars’ mixed farming enterprise was organised and managed centrally from the preceptory. It was to the preceptory that the wool merchants would have travelled to buy wool and be accommodated. To ensure the best quality of wool, and hence the optimum price, the estate sheep would have been washed and clipped and the wool baled and stored at the preceptory under close supervision. At the very least, this would have required dedicated storage for the wool, and sheep pens for sorting stock. Dyer has written about the use of sheepcotes at Temple Guiting, a Templar site in Gloucestershire, and elsewhere, and it seems these structures were used in Lincolnshire as well.
103 C. Dyer, ‘Sheepcotes: evidence for medieval sheep farming’, Medieval Archaeology, 39 (1995), p. 139. There are four references in the accounts to repairs made to sheepcotes, those for Willoughton and Blyborough, Temple Bruer and Eagle, each in the account beginning Michaelmas 1308.
104 TNA, E 358/18, 15/1, line 20; 16/1, lines 57–8; 15/2 dorse, line 50. There is no reason to suppose that Aslackby did not have a sheepcote; one can simply assume that during 1308 it was not in need of repair.
Mills and perimeters
Just as sheepcotes were an integral part of the vernacular architecture of sheep farming, so mills were crucial to cereal farming. While a mill was not a prerequisite for a preceptory, there would have been a mill on the demesne manor, otherwise there would have been no means of making flour, and no opportunity for generating income by charging multage or by farming out the mill. Gervers says that every Templar estate transferred to the Hospitallers in Essex had at least one mill, and the same was true of Lincolnshire.
105 The Cartulary of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem in England, ed. M. Gervers, part 2: Prima camera: Essex (Oxford, 1996), p. lxxvii.The excavation at South Witham revealed a watermill 300 metres to the north-east of the preceptory enclosure (fig. 2).
106 Mayes, Excavations at a Templar Preceptory, p. 4. While there is no archaeological evidence to suggest the existence of mills elsewhere, documentary evidence is plentiful. The initial account for South Witham, beginning 10 January 1308, includes the expenditure of 3s. on 12 ells of canvas to repair the sails of a windmill, which could well mean that by 1308 the watermill at South Witham had fallen into disuse and been replaced by more recent technology.
107 TNA, E 358/18, 18/2, lines 6–7. Gooder cites 110 ells of canvas as being necessary for a full set of sails for a four-sail mill, in which case the purchase of 12 ells of canvas was for repair, so the mill was not dilapidated. Gooder, ‘South Witham’, in Mayes, Excavations at a Templar Preceptory, p. 94, endnote 22. However, at nearby Woolsthorpe a watermill was rented out along with a messuage and other tenancies.
108 TNA, E 358/18, 18/1, lines 50–1. Gooder suggests that the continued operation of the watermill at Woolsthorpe was due to its being further downstream on the Witham and so having a greater head of water, which precluded the need for its replacement by a windmill.
109 Gooder, ‘South Witham’, p. 85. Although the former preceptory of South Witham retained control of the demesne windmill, the watermill at Woolsthorpe was more easily managed as a rented property. Elsewhere, the picture was varied.
On the Willoughton estate, in 1308, the windmills of Willoughton, Keadby and Limber and the watermill of Keal were all farmed out at fixed rents but tenants did not stand the cost of maintenance.
110 TNA, E 358/18, 15/1, lines 12–13. Included in the expenses of Willoughton are two millstones for Keadby and sailyards and millspindles for both Limber and Keal, which were clearly in need of restoration.
111 Ibid., line 22. While Temple Bruer spent 10s. 8d. on 30 ells of canvas and grease for the repair of windmills at Temple Bruer and Ashby, the mill at
Heriherdeby was rented out to Robert Gunwardby for life.
112 TNA, E 358/18, 16/1, line 59, lines 44–5. On the Eagle estate wages were paid to millers at Eagle, Stapleford and Beckingham, and 30 ells of canvas bought for sails; all transactions were enrolled in the account of Eagle.
113 TNA, E 358/18, 15/2 dorse, lines 56 and 50. The manor of Bracebridge was exceptional, where the income from the fixed rental of its six watermills was granted to the leper hospital at Lincoln.
114 TNA, E 358/18, 17/1, lines 16 and 19–20. Aslackby had a watermill which was farmed out by the king’s agents, implying that it had previously been under the direct control of the Templars. It was probably less economically attractive than the windmill, for which 3s. 5d. had been spent on 10 ells of canvas, with further expenditure on two door locks.
115 TNA, E 358/18, 18/2, lines 41, 7 and 5.Thus we can say that each preceptory had a mill, at least in close proximity if not as an integral part of the preceptory buildings; in the cases of Temple Bruer, Willoughton and Eagle, there are mills accounted at other locations as well, not always on member manors. A mill not only provided an essential service but also generated income regardless of whether it stood on a Templar manor. There was no standardised approach to the way in which the mills were managed after the arrest of the Order, and, as it is unlikely that immediate changes were made to established practice, the first accounts must reflect the individuality of Templar estate management. However, the archaeological evidence of the existence of barns and a mill at South Witham, and the documentary evidence of the earliest post-arrest accounts for Lincolnshire, which record Templar mills and the storage of substantial quantities of grain, indicate beyond doubt that the Templars ‘exploited their own demesne’, which is precisely what Gervers established for Essex.
116 Cartulary: Essex, ed. Gervers, p. cvii.Finally, both the artist’s impression of South Witham and the artist’s reconstruction of Temple Bruer show an enclosing wall, which, given that Temple Bruer had been granted royal permission to crenellate in 1306, was probably a usual part of preceptory architecture (see figs 3 and 4).
117 CPR, 1307–13, p. 14. St John Hope states that the crenellation of a ‘certain great and strong gate […] points to their [the buildings of the preceptory] enclosure by a walled precinct’.
118 St John Hope, ‘Round church’, p. 181. As outlined above, both Willoughton and Eagle were moated, and they are likely to have been walled in addition.
119 D. Holloway and T. Colton, The Knights Templar in Yorkshire (Stroud, 2008), p. 29. More generally, Lord refers to preceptories being ‘defended by strong walls and a gatehouse’.
120 Lord, Knights Templar, p. 22.In an unpublished paper, Fenwick suggests that a moat may merely have marked a precinct boundary rather than having served a defensive purpose, and that at both Faxfleet (the Templar preceptory in Yorkshire) and Hogshaw (the Hospitaller commandery in Buckinghamshire) the extent of the site exceeded that enclosed by the moat.
121 H. Fenwick, unpublished paper delivered at The Templar Economy in Britain and Ireland conference at the University of Hull, 26 April 2014, entitled ‘Recent archaeological work on Templar properties in England.’ Lee suggests that Temple Hirst probably had a moat, adding that at nearby moated sites associated with lay landlords, moats were mainly created for prestige rather than defence.
122 Lee, ‘Landowners and landscapes’, p. 298. Nicholson states unequivocally that:
A major difference between the lives of the Templars living on the frontiers of Christendom and those living in Europe […] was the physical form of their houses. […] In frontier zones, Templar houses would be fortified […] Away from frontier zones […] the majority of their houses were similar to secular manor houses.
123 H. J. Nicholson, The Everyday Life of the Templars: The Knights Templar at Home (Fonthill, 2017), p. 43.Gilchrist states that the ‘majority of sites [Templar preceptories] were enclosed by moats’, adding that ‘in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries moated sites were symbolic of gentry status and synonymous with manorial settlement’.
124 Gilchrist, Contemplation and Action, p. 74. The weight of opinion suggests that walls and moats were used to mark perimeters rather than for defensive purposes – perimeters which, as in the case of Faxfleet, may have become overly constraining as the preceptory outgrew its initial site.
Conclusion
The distribution of settlement in medieval Lincolnshire was determined by the relationship between topography and man. Arable farming was largely restricted to the lighter calcareous soils as the ploughing technology was unable to cope with heavy clay. Unreclaimed wetlands were much more extensive than they are today, particularly in the fenland to the south of the county. Within the limitations set by the landscape, the initial distribution of Templar property recorded in the Inquest of 1185 constituted small parcels of land which became organised around the preceptories of Willoughton, Temple Bruer, Eagle, Aslackby and South Witham. During the thirteenth century the Templars were involved in land trading and consolidation of estates in Lincolnshire. By the time the Order was arrested in January 1308 there were far fewer Templar holdings than in 1185, and much of the reduction was due to rationalisation so as to increase the efficiency of the estates. Over the same period the Order held both churches and mills. Unlike the number of landholdings, there was little reduction in the number of Templar-held churches between 1185 and 1308, but the number of mills was substantially reduced as watermills were abandoned in favour of the technically superior windmills.
In the literature, the nature of a Templar preceptory is generally assumed and, where considered at all, the discussion is restricted to the range of domestic rather than agricultural buildings. Although archaeological evidence is not plentiful, the excavation of South Witham, when teamed with the more abundant documentary evidence, does allow us to determine the constituent buildings of a preceptory based on function. Each preceptory had a church or chapel in which religious offices were performed. The existence of a full domestic range of hall, kitchen, larder, dairy, bakehouse and brewhouse depended upon the size of the preceptory; in a smaller preceptory, each function may not have had a dedicated building. The absence of evidence of mass slaughter of livestock in autumn presupposes the existence of byres, stables, pigsties and sheepcotes along with ample barn storage for grain and fodder. The need to maintain carts, wagons and ploughs meant the existence of both forges and carpenters’ workshops besides buildings for storage. In addition, the agricultural buildings included a dovecote and a mill and usually stews for rearing fish. Each preceptory had a perimeter demarcated by a wall, moat or fence, which may have been merely to determine the boundary rather than a defensive measure. The building most notable for its absence is the dormitory. While accommodation must have been provided for the few Templars, sergeants, corrodians and guests to enable a preceptory to function, there was no dormitory for the famuli, the labourers. In the absence of accommodation, we may suppose that the famuli lived outside the preceptory rather than within it.
Aslackby did not have an extensive estate but consisted of a demesne manor with no member manors which depended for its additional acreage upon rented property. The limited extent of the deadstock implies a much smaller operation than elsewhere, which would have been reflected in a more limited range of buildings.
125 TNA, E 358/18, 39/1, lines 40–5. The deadstock inventory for Michaelmas 1311 – 16 June 1312 is the only one recorded in the six Aslackby accounts. Eagle had a dual function of preceptory and infirmary, which was reflected in the greater range of domestic buildings than at Aslackby, in addition to which, the deadstock inventory confirms the continuing existence of a sizeable catering capacity as late as 1313.
126 TNA, E 358/18, 39/2 dorse, lines 32–48. The deadstock inventory for Michaelmas 1312 – 6 June 1313 is the only one recorded in the four Eagle accounts. As the preceptories responsible for the management of the most extensive estates, Temple Bruer and Willoughton would each have had a full and extensive range of both domestic and agricultural buildings, as befitted their function and status. Perhaps the most generally applicable description of a preceptory belongs to Mayes, who said of South Witham that ‘the site was formed of a number of buildings suited for domestic or agricultural uses, grouped loosely around an extended courtyard’, a description which allows for both the commonality of purpose and the individuality of function manifest in the Lincolnshire preceptories in early 1308.
127 Mayes, Excavations at a Templar Preceptory, p. 1. By mid-1309 the Templars’ preceptories and their estates had been handed over to men of substance by the agents of Edward II and the hand of the Order became less apparent.