The Templar Estates in the Territory of Acre

Abstract

Researchers of the Frankish period have a lot of difficulties in defining many of the properties of the Templar Order, especially the rural properties, because of the loss of the Templar archives, and although it is reasonable to assume that the Templar Order owned as much property as the Hospitallers, only some of its holdings are known.1 Actually, our acquaintance with the order comes from the documents of other military orders, ecclesiastical bodies and a few other sources, such as descriptions by contemporary historians. This study will seek to locate the Templar properties in the region of Acre, or at least to identify the area in which the order owned properties, an element that has been missing in earlier studies. The current research will deal with the plain of Acre between the Ladder of Tyre in the north and the Kishon River in the south, with the Acreafed highway connecting the two parts of the plain – the Western Upper Galilee plain in the north and the Western Lower Galilee plain in the south.