Ad pauperes recreandos: Food-alms and identity in the Military Orders of the Hospitallers and the Templars

Judith Bronstein takes up the theme of Templar and Hospitaller daily life in relation to food and food charity, considering the regulations and attitudes of the Orders, identifying evidence for daily practices, diet and the logistics of food-based almsgiving and drawing on evidence for such activity by the Orders in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Cyprus and western Europe. By examining charter evidence, Bronstein also brings to light the place of food charity (notably involving fish) in the grants made by donors to the Orders. Such gifts were a crucial part of the bond between the Military Orders and the society in which they were embedded, both in terms of provision for the living and for the souls of the dead. They also indicate that charity ranked alongside military vocation in donors’ perception of the Orders, particularly so in the case of the Hospitallers.