'Steamy Syrian Scandals: Matthew Paris on the Templars and Hospitallers', from Medieval History, 2.2...

Published in Medieval History, 2.2 (1992), 68–85 (ISSN 0960-0752)

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Steamy Syrian Scandals: Matthew Paris on the Templars and Hospitallers

by Helen J. Nicholson

Matthew Paris is a MAJOR source of information on the Templars and Hospitallers. But we ask:

‘How far can this Mad Monk be trusted? Was he in the pay of the Evil Emperor?’

With his racy, popular style and nose for scandal, Matthew Paris is one of the best known and

most controversial of medieval historians. A Benedictine monk, he was chronicler of St. Alban‘s

Abbey from around 1236 until his death in 1259. The aim of this article is to examine Matthew’s

value as an historian in one important area: events in the Holy Land from 1229 to 1259, of which

he was a contemporary and for which he is an important source for modern historians.

Matthew was a prolific writer. Along with a number of short histories, he composed four

major historical works: the Chronica Maiora (Greater Chronicle),1 the Flores Historiarum

(Highlights of History),2 the Historia Anglorum (History of the English) and the Abbreviatio

Chronicorum Angliae (Abbreviation of the Chronicles of England)3 These contain a wealth of

historical material, much that is unique, a veritable treasure trove for historians.4

In common with many other monastic chroniclers, Matthew did not confine himself to

simply noting important events. He collected information from a vast number of sources, and

built it into lively, detailed histories spiced with plenty of his own opinions. He began by

rewriting and continuing the chronicle written by Roger of Wendover, his predecessor at St.

Alban’s, widening its scope and improving its style. The result was the Chronica Maiora, a vast

work which described events throughout the known world, and included many valuable

documents.

The Chronica was probably aimed only at Matthew’s immediate monastic circle, as it seems

never to have passed into general circulation. Few copies were made, although a number of

chroniclers later drew on parts of it.5 For wider circulation, Matthew produced shorter, sharper

histories. He began to write the Flores Historiarum soon after 1250. The detail and breadth of

the Chronica vanished; instead, Matthew concentrated on major events, particularly of the

disastrous and scandalous sort. It has the air of a work designed for the ‘popular market. ‘

Perhaps some of Matthew’s numerous friends and contacts outside his monastery, clergy or

nobility, had asked him for a shorter, more readable version of his Chronica. In any case, the

Flores enjoyed immediate success, and was frequently copied; at least nineteen manuscripts

1 Matthew Paris, Chronica Maiora, ed. H. R. Luard, 7 vols, Rolls Series 57 (London, 1872–83) ,

henceforth cited as CM. 2 Matthew Paris, Flores Historiarum, ed. H. R. Luard, 3 vols, Rolls Series 95 (London, 1890),

henceforth cited as Flores. 3 Matthew Paris, Historia Anglorum, sive Historia Minor, item. Abbreviatio Chronicorum

Angliae, ed. F. Madden, 3 vols, Rolls Series 44 (London, 1866–9), henceforth cited as HA and

Abb. 4 On Matthew as an historian, his sources, and for discussion of his works see: R. Vaughan,

Matthew Paris (Cambridge, 1958) and A. Grandsen, Historical Writing in England c.550 to

c.1307 (London, 1974), pp. 356–79. 5 See Vaughan, pp. 153–4.


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survive.6

The Historia Anglorum and the Abbreviatio were also written after 1250, concluding in

1253. They concentrated on the history of England, although Matthew included a number of

overseas events for good measure, as we shall see below. Although we do not know for whom,

precisely, Matthew wrote them, he had many friends among the English nobility who would

probably have been interested in an ‘English ‘ history. It is even possible that they were written

for the king, Henry III, as many of the alterations which Matthew made from his earlier works

would have made them more acceptable to the king.

All Matthew’s major historical works were full of juicy passages in which Matthew vented

his scorn of the papacy, the king, the friars, or others, and unmasked the depravity of the modern

world. But in time Matthew seems to have realized that his histories were too outspoken, and he

revised them, removing passages that could cause offence. Richard Vaughan hascounted

sixty-one passages removed from the Chronica Maiora, including fifteen offensive to the

papacy, nine offensive to the king and three offensive to the friars.7

Matthew’s work needs a great deal of analysis before it can be used as historical evidence.

The problems of interpretation which his works present are common to monastic chronicles.8

His reporting of events was distorted; partly because his informants were sometimes unreliable,

but mainly by his own prejudices. Because of his hatred of the pope, the king, foreigners, the

friars and others, he sometimes misinterpreted his information. He has been accused of forging

some of the documents he inserted into his chronicle. He passed off his own personal view as

general opinion. At the same time, however, Matthew’s prejudice is interesting in itself. It offers

us a window into the thoughts of one well-informed but narrow-minded thirteenth-century monk,

and casts some light on the prejudices of his immediate audience. For Matthew must have

expected his audience to agree with at least some of his opinions!

For this reason, Matthew Paris’ treatment of the Templars and Hospitallers is particularly

revealing and significant for historians of the crusades and of the military orders.9 Matthew is an

important source for the history of the Holy Land during the thirteenth century, up to his death in

1259. His writings reveal him to have been very much in favour of Christian control of the holy

places in Palestine. But he was hotly critical of the failure of those whose duty it was to protect

them: the crusaders and the military orders.

The military orders had been founded to protect Christian pilgrims travelling to the holy

places, and were responsible for the day-to-day defence of the Holy Land from the Muslims.

Their members were principally knights and other fighting men, living together under a monastic

rule. They were regarded as ‘Christ’s knights’, warriors dedicated to Christ, and it was popularly

6 Vaughan, p. 152. 7 Vaughan, p. 119. 8 The problem was conveniently summarized by Emma Mason in ‘William Rufus and the

historians’, Medieval History, 1.1 (1991), 8. 9 This paper does not set out to be an introduction to either the crusades or the military orders. A

good introduction to the crusades is H. E. Mayer, The Crusades, trans. J. Gillingham, 2nd edition

(Oxford, 1988). At the time of writing, there is little in the way of good general studies of the

military orders in English. On the Hospitallers, see J. Riley-Smith, The Knights of St. John in

Jerusalem and Cyprus, c. 1050–1310 (London, 1967). A general history of the Templars is being

prepared by Malcolm Barber. Alan Forey has produced numerous articles on the military orders

over the last few years.


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supposed that they were invincible, because God was on their side. Therefore any defeat which

they suffered, it was thought, must be due to their sin, or deliberate on their part. In brief,

because of this superstitious mystique which had grown up around them, the military orders were

usually the first to be blamed for any failure of the Christians in the Holy Land. The Templars

and Hospitallers were the major military orders, and the butt of Matthew’s particular venom; his

chronicles were almost invariably hostile towards them.

To judge from Matthew’s work, support for military expeditions to the Holy Land was

declining by the mid-thirteenth century, along with confidence in the military orders. Yet it is not

certain that Matthew’s attitude was typical. He was better informed than many of his

contemporaries, and was untypically outspoken in expressing his opinions. Again, from time to

time Matthew „was € favourable towards the Templars and Hospitallers. Clearly a closer

examination of Matthew’s work is necessary in order to draw any conclusions from his treatment

of these military orders.

In this paper I will discuss the following questions:

What does Matthew say about the Templars and Hospitallers?

How far can this be shown to be distorted?

What causes this distortion - Matthew’s source, his own individual prejudices, or popular

prejudice?

The ‘correct’ scholarly approach would be to discuss Matthew’s attitude towards the military

orders theme by theme. This approach assumes that the reader is familiar with the text. But as

this article is intended as an introduction to Matthew Paris for readers unfamiliar with his work, I

shall adopt a simpler approach and discuss each of his anecdotes in the order that he wrote them.

I shall take each anecdote on the military orders from the Chronica Maiora, which Matthew

wrote first and which is his most detailed work, and then discuss how he altered it in his later

works. We shall begin in 1229, where Matthew’s account of the military orders first appears to

be contemporary and personal.

The earlier part of Matthew’s Chronica Majora, up to the year 1236, was taken from the work of

his predecessor as chronicler at St. Albans, Roger of Wendover.10

Roger was generally

favourable towards the military orders, and so, at first, was Matthew’s account. While

transcribing Roger’s record of the events of 1229, however, Matthew inserted a savage attack on

the Templars and Hospitallers. The occasion was the crusade of the Holy Roman emperor,

Frederick II. He had been excommunicated by the pope, Gregory IX, before setting sail for the

Holy Land, but had nevertheless recovered Jerusalem for the Christians for ten years, through a

peace treaty with the sultan of Egypt. Although Frederick was very much the ‘evil emperor’ in

papal propaganda, Matthew, who hated papal authority, hero-worshipped him. Under the

heading ‘On the pride and hatred of the Templars and Hospitallers’, he wrote:

The Templars and Hospitallers, envious of the emperor’s deeds... wishing that all these wonders

should be attributed to them ... craftily and treacherously informed the sultan of Egypt that the

emperor intended to go secretly to the river where Christ was baptized by John the Baptist ...

dressed in linen, with few companions, to worship humbly, and there he could kill or capture the

emperor, as he liked. When the said sultan heard this ... he was disgusted at the cunning tricks,

jealousy and the treachery of the Christians, and especially of those who appear to wear the

10 Roger of Wendover, Flores Historiarum, ed. H. Hewlett, 3 vols, Rolls Series 84 (London,

1886-9).


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religious habit bearing the sign of the cross.11

The sultan therefore warned the emperor of the plot. The emperor, equally shocked, departed for

Europe, biding his time for revenge.

This, Matthew stated, was the cause of the hatred between the emperor and the Templars

and Hospitallers, although the Hospitallers attracted less blame for it than the Templars. He

continued: when the Templars and Hospitallers realized that their plot had been foiled, they

persuaded the patriarch of Jerusalem to write to the pope, defaming the emperor.12

He thus threw

doubt on the truth of a letter which, he recorded, had done a great deal of harm to the emperor’s

reputation in Europe.

Matthew painted his tale in lurid colours. He depicted the military orders as nasty, petty and

scheming, ready to betray Christendom and their duty in order to further their own ambition,

whereas the emperor was an innocent victim of their plots. Writers in the Holy Land held the

opposite view!13

Matthew’s source for this tale is not known. He did not invent it; a similar tale was recorded

by the Sicilian Bartholomaeo de Neocastro, a judge of Messina, in his Historia Sicula (Sicilian

History), written in the last decade of the thirteenth century.14

In a letter to the archbishop of Messina dated 2 February 1240, the emperor Frederick

himself made a reference to an attempt on his life during his crusade.15

But no other

contemporary chronicler records it. Matthew himself probably did not record it until after 1240;16

perhaps he obtained it by way of the earl of Cornwall, who was the emperor’s brother-in-law and

ally. Matthew developed the tale and got much mileage out of it. He repeated it in every one of

his histories, adapting it on each occasion to suit the tone of each work. It had many features to

endear it to the chronicler: it was short, scandalous, undermined the good reputation of the

military orders, whom Matthew disliked, bolstered the reputation of the emperor, whom

Matthew supported, and had a nice moral flavour. It also explained the emperor’s dislike for the

military orders, which – to an outsider’s eye – had arisen suddenly and inexplicably during the

emperor’s crusade. Yet, as Matthew had already recorded in his chronicle, this was not the first

11 CM, vol. 3 pp. 177–8. 12 CM, vol. 3 pp. 178–9. 13

Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le trésorier, ed. L. de Mas Latrie, Société de l’histoire de

France (Paris, 1871), pp. 462–6; Philippe de Novara, ‘Mémoires’, in Les Gestes des Chiprois:

Recueil des chroniques françaises‚ écrites en orient aux XIII et XIV siècles, ed. G. Raynaud

(Paris, 1887), pp. 29, 50; contrast ‘Estoire de Eracles empereur et la conqueste de la Terre d

‘Outremer’, in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Historiens Occidentaux, pub. Académie

des Inscriptions et de Belles-Lettres, 5 vols (Paris, 1872–1906), vol. 2 pp. 372–5, which does not

assign blame for the disagreement. 14 Bartholomaeo de Neocastro, ‘Historia Sicula’, ed. G. Paladino, in Rerum Italicarum

Scriptores, ed. L. Muratori, new edition ed. G. Carducci, V. Fiorini, P. Fedele (Citta di Castello,

Bologna, 1900ff.), vol. 13.3 pp. 116–17. 15

Historia Diplomatica Frederici Secundi, ed. J. L. A. Huillard-Bréholles, 6 vols in 11 (Paris,

1852–61, reprinted Turin, 1963) (henceforth cited as HDFS), vol. 5 p. 708. 16 Vaughan suggests that Matthew composed the part of the Chronica covering the period before

1236 between 1240 and 1245: Vaughan, pp. 59–60.


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occasion on which the military orders and emperor had clashed.17

The longest and most detailed version of the story appeared in Matthew’s first work, the

Chronica Majora, and was written before 1245. After 1250, Matthew rewrote it. For the shorter,

more racy Flores he summarized it, which removed most of the scurrilous references to the

military orders. Now it was the emperor’s servants (domestici) who conspired against him, but

the emperor suspected the Templars of the conspiracy.18

Matthew did not explain this apparent

contradiction. •For the Historia Anglorum he repeated the account in the Chronica, but with less

emphasis on the Templars and Hospitallers. He could now explain how the Hospitallers had

avoided blame for the plot: they had, he said, denied on oath having had any part in it. The

Templars alone had persuaded the patriarch to write his defamatory letter to the pope. When he

came to revise the Historia, Matthew wrote in the margin next to this section: ‘Erase, because

offensive to the Templars’.19

Obviously he did not consider his tale to be offensive to the

Hospitallers; or perhaps he was more afraid of offending the Templars than the Hospitallers.

Or perhaps he had repented of his insults against the Templars. For, when he wrote his

Abbreviatio, he watered down his account again. This time the plot was ascribed simply to ‘the

emperor’s betrayers’. Matthew continued:

However, those who do not love the honour of the Temple and Hospital accuse them of these lies.

For it is not credible that such great wickedness should spring from religious men, although they

would seem to help the pope ... However, this was the cause of hatred between the emperor and the

Templars and, indeed, the Hospitallers.20

The next tale about the military orders in the Chronica Majora was concerned solely with the

Templars. This was a unique version of the defeat of the Templars of Antioch by the army of the

Sultan of Aleppo at Darbsak, in 1237. The Templars fought bravely, and Matthew praised the

courage and prowess of the standard-bearer, Reginald de Argenton, an Englishman. However, he

concentrated on the rash arrogance and obstinacy of the Templars’ commander, the preceptor of

Antioch, William of Montferrat, who deliberately (Matthew claimed) led the Templars into an

ambush against impossible odds. According to Matthew, many of the Templars deserted him

before the battle; and he himself, against the rule of his order, fled from the field with some of

his companions. Matthew only grudgingly admitted that the preceptor killed many of the enemy

before he was cut to pieces. The reader was left considering that the Templars deserved to be

defeated.21

Matthew did not repeat this savage attack on the Templars in his later works. He omitted this

tale from the Flores. He included it in the Historia Anglorum and Abbreviatio, but considerably

altered. He noted that the Hospitallers had also been involved in the expedition; he laid particular

emphasis on the courage of the English standard-bearer; and he omitted all reference to the

rashness and imprudence of the preceptor.22

The source for this tale is unknown. We may guess that Matthew obtained it from a

newsletter from the Holy Land, informing the West of the defeat and asking for assistance. But

17 CM, vol. 3 pp. 154–5. 18 Flores, vol. 2 pp. 194–5. 19 HA, vol. 2 pp. 312–4, and p. 312 note 4. 20 Abb, vol. 3 p. 259. 21 CM, vol. 3 pp. 404–6. 22 HA, vol. 2 p. 399, Abb, vol. 3 p. 274.


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in this case it is strange that Matthew’s account is so hostile to the Templars. The only other

account of this battle in a western source is in the chronicle of Alberic of Trois Fontaines, who

was probably a Cistercian monk and who seems to have been writing in the mid-thirteenth

century, as his chronicle ends in 1241. He was, therefore, a contemporary of Matthew. He also

blamed the defeat on the Templars, but states that they were defeated because they had ignored

the advice of the count of Joppa and the two sons of the lord of Beirut.23

The criticism, however,

was the same: the Templars’ rashness and arrogance led to their defeats.

Matthew is the only source for a letter he records in the Chronica Majora under 1239,

concerning the defeat of the French crusaders at Gaza. He claims that the letter was written from

Amaury, count of Montfort, to his wife, who sent it to Earl Richard of Cornwall. In it, Amaury

blamed the Templars and Hospitallers for failing to come to the help of the crusaders at Gaza,

and stated that, in revenge, the King of France had removed all his treasure from the Temple in

Paris, where it had hitherto been kept. Matthew omitted this account from the Flores, probably

because he felt it lacked interest and importance. He included it in the Historia Anglorum, but

added that the Templars and Hospitallers, ‘wishing to redeem their reputation’, also suffered

heavy losses in the battle. Although he mentioned the battle in the Abbreviatio, no further

observations were made on the Templars and Hospitallers.24

Possibly Matthew had begun to

have doubts about this story. Certainly, there is no evidence that the King of France had moved

his treasure, as Matthew claimed.

Up to this point, Matthew’s information about events in the Holy Land was rather ‘bitty’,

but after 1240 his sources improved. This was largely thanks to an English crusade, led by Earl

Richard of Cornwall, in 1240, but there also seems to have been an increase in the number of

letters coming from the Holy Land to Europe with news and pleas for assistance. Matthew was

able to write in the Chronica Majora a detailed account of events in the Holy Land from the

crusade of Earl Richard in 1240 to the devastating defeat of the Christians at La Forbie in

October 1244. The military orders played a major role in the events of these years, but

Matthew’s attitude towards them was unremittingly hostile, even when they were successful. In

part this may have been due to Earl Richard’s attitude. Matthew was obviously friendly with the

earl, as the latter sent him detailed information. He quoted a letter from the earl during his

crusade to friends in England, in which the earl complained of the squabbles of the Templars and

Hospitallers; he also recorded that the Templars had referred flippantly to the earl as ‘a boy’.25

As he was only thirty, inexperienced in war, and knew little of the Holy Land, it was natural for

the Templars to resent his interference in their local politics. But Matthew, naturally, took the

earl’s part.

The attitude of Emperor Frederick II would also have influenced Matthew. Our chronicler

was a great admirer of the Holy Roman emperor, at least partly because he was at loggerheads

with the pope, whom Matthew hated. As we have already seen, the emperor’s relations with the

orders of the Temple and Hospital had not been good. He had been reconciled with the order of

the Hospital by the early 1240s,26

but remained at odds with the order of the Temple until his

23 Alberic des Trois Fontaines, ‘Chronica’, ed. P. Scheffer-Boichorst, in Monumenta Germaniae

Historica Scriptores, ed. G. H. Pertz et al., 32 vols (Hanover, 1826–1934) (henceforth MGHS),

vol. 23 p. 942. 24

CM, vol. 4, p. 25; HA, vol. 2 p. 433; Abb, vol. 3 p. 280. 25 CM, vol. 4 pp. 139, 525. 26 HDFS, vol. 5 pp. 324–6 (June, 1239), vol. 6 pp.116–18 (August, 1243).


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death. After the army of the Christians of the Holy Land had been massacred at La Forbie in

October 1244, the emperor wrote to his brother-in-law the earl of Cornwall, describing the battle

and blaming the Templars. Matthew alone copied this letter into his chronicle; perhaps he

obtained a copy from the earl himself. According to the emperor, some religious men had come

to him from the Holy Land after the defeat, and had informed him that: ‘the Templars received

within the cloisters of the house of the Temple the sultan of Damascus and other Muslims’ (their

allies against the sultan of Egypt) ‘with pomp and eagerness, and allowed them to carry out their

superstitious rites, with invocation of Mohammed and worldly revelling’27

. Shocking behaviour

for men of God! - but also common courtesy of which the emperor himself was equally guilty

when it pleased him!

In the Flores, Matthew adopted the emperor’s view of events. The Templars were to blame

for the disaster at La Forbie because they had broken the truce the earl of Cornwall had made

with the sultan of Egypt, and they had allied with Muslims, ‘thinking to find good faith in those

without Faith’. But yet again, when he came to write the Historia Anglorum and the Abbreviatio,

Matthew sweetened his tone. In these works he only quoted a letter giving details of the battle,

and assigned blame to no one.28

Matthew was proud of the earl of Cornwall’s achievements in the Holy Land from 1240 to

1241: the refortification of the port of Ascalon, and a truce with the sultan of Egypt. The earl’s

deeds had eclipsed the French crusade of 1239, and mirrored the achievements of his uncle, the

renowned King Richard the Lionheart. Yet Matthew passed over an important motive for the earl

in the Holy Land: to promote the emperor’s interests, in making a truce with Egypt. This policy

was also supported by the Hospitallers, but opposed by the Templars and many of the barons of

the kingdom of Jerusalem, who preferred an alliance with Damascus. As Matthew was a great

admirer of the emperor, he believed that his policy was in the best interests of the Holy Land.

However, most of the barons in the Holy Land did not agree.29

After the truce had been made and the earl had departed, civil war broke out in the kingdom

of Jerusalem between the emperor’s party, supported by the Hospitallers and the Teutonic

knights, and the baronial party, supported by the Templars. The emperor’s regent in the Holy

Land was one Richard Filangeri, whose stronghold was the city of Tyre. In his memoirs, Philip

of Novara, a member of the baronial party and an eyewitness of events, described how the regent

attempted to take Acre with the connivance of the Hospital, and how as a result Balian d’Ibelin,

lord of Beirut, one of the leading barons, had the Hospital besieged.30

Ignorant of the wider

political question, or choosing to ignore it, Matthew presented this as a war purely between the

military orders. According to him, the Templars poured scorn on the earl’s truce with Egypt, and

attacked the Hospitallers because they had supported it. They also attacked the Teutonic knights

because of their support for the emperor. Philip of Novara shows that the military orders were

not even involved in the fighting. But Matthew was so convinced by his own version of events

that he repeated it in the Flores, the Historia Anglorum and in the Abbreviatio.31

27

CM, vol. 4 p. 302. 28

Flores, vol. 2 pp. 264, 272; HA, vol. 2 pp. 483–4; Abb, vol. 3 p. 289. 29 See P. Jackson, ‘The crusades of 1239–41 and their aftermath’, Bulletin of the School of

Oriental and African Studies, 50 (1987), 32–60. 30

Philippe de Novara, ‘Mémoires’, pp. 125–7. 31 CM, vol. 4 pp. 167–8 (1241), p. 256 (1243); Flores, vol. 2 pp. 250 (1241), 264 (1243); HA,

vol. 2 p. 472 (1243); Abb, vol. 3 p. 287 (1243). For details of this dispute, and the date, see P.


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Matthew concluded his account of these years in the Holy Land with a unique tale of how, in

1246, the Templars and Hospitallers sent messengers to Egypt in a vain attempt to ransom the

brothers who had been captured at La Forbie two years previously. Although they bribed the

sultan’s chief ministers to intercede for them, they met only abuse from the sultan, Matthew

related. Matthew depicted the sultan repeating some of his (Matthew’s) most deeply-held

grudges against the military orders: they had attempted to betray the emperor, the Templars ‘

preceptor had fled the field at Darbsak, they fought between themselves, the Templars had

mocked the earl of Cornwall.32

And now, adding evil to evil, and heaping infringement of the rule of their order on infringements,

they are trying to ransom their captive masters and brothers by paying a large amount of money.

We know that the law of their order does not permit them to be ransomed, except for a belt or

halter.33

(This was untrue. Matthew seems to have misinterpreted a tale recorded by the twelfth-century

chronicler Robert of Torigny of a former master of the Temple, Eudes de St. Amand, who had

refused to be ransomed, probably because he considered the terms to be unfavourable to the

order.)34

According to Matthew, the sultan’s chief ministers advised the disappointed

messengers to ask the emperor to intercede for them with the sultan, but they declined to do so.35

It is interesting that on this occasion Matthew was equally critical of both Temple and Hospital.

Obviously his dislike of the orders went deeper than his complaints on behalf of the emperor and

the earl. But this tale appeared only in the Chronica Majora.

Why did Matthew change and tone down his tales? His initial attacks on the orders in the

Chronica Majora were very savage. Perhaps Matthew became more friendly towards the orders

after 1250; perhaps he realized that it could be dangerous to express himself so freely against

these orders, which were so close to both king and pope; perhaps, as he grew older and prepared

to meet his Maker, he feared the effect for his soul of such attacks on pillars of the Church. It is

impossible to say; especially as we do not know the intended audience for Matthew’s writings.

He may have toned down the Historia Anglorum, for example, because he expected it to be read

at the royal court.

In any case, Matthew’s attitude towards the military orders softened considerably in his

account of the crusade of King Louis IX of France, of 1249–50. Partly this was because, for

once, the military orders were not the obvious party to blame for the failure of the crusade.

Matthew hated foreigners even more than he hated the military orders, and he placed the blame

squarely on the French. Partly it was because his source shared his views on the French, and was

favourable towards the military orders. Although the source of Matthew’s account is unknown,

he was probably a follower of the English nobleman William Longespee, who led an English

Jackson, ‘The end of Hohenstaufen rule in Syria’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research,

59 (1986), 20–36. 32 CM, vol. 5 pp. 524–5. 33

CM, vol. 5 p. 525. 34 ‘The chronicle of Robert of Torigny, abbot of the monastery of St. Michael-in-peril-of-the-

sea’ in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, ed. R. Howlett, 4 vols, Rolls

Series 82 (London, 1884–9), vol. 4 p. 288. 35

CM, vol. 5 p. 526.

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contingent on the crusade. William is the hero of Matthew’s version of events. Perhaps his

informant was the same man who provided the details for an epic poem celebrating William’s

valiant death during the crusade, at the battle of Mansourah.36

The poem praises the courage and

good faith of the Templars; Matthew did not go so far, but he put the Templars and Hospitallers

in the right, and allowed them to defend themselves against the accusations made against them –

accusations which Matthew himself had made in the past.37

Matthew related that the count of Artois was leading the vanguard of the crusading army,

with the masters of the Temple and Hospital. The count proposed an attack on the town of

Mansourah, but the master of the Temple opposed this, until the rest of the army could catch up

with them. The count of Artois was furious and cried:

Oh, ancient Templar treachery! Oh, old Hospitaller sedition! Oh long-concealed fraud, how openly

it erupts now! ... this whole land of the Orient would have been won long ago, if the deceit of the

Temple and Hospital, and others who proclaim themselves religious,had not impeded us laymen. ..

For the Templars fear and the Hospitallers and their accomplices are afraid, that if the land is

subdued to the Christian Law, their domination (which is fattened with rich revenues) will expire.38

He went on to accuse the orders of poisoning crusaders and betraying them to the Saracens,

citing their plot against the emperor.

These were Matthew’s own accusations against the orders. Yet he went on to defend the

brethren. The masters of the Temple and Hospital and their brothers, he wrote, were bitterly

wounded by these words, and replied: ‘To what end, noble count, did we receive the religious

habit? Surely not to overturn the Church of Christ, and to lose our souls by planning treachery?

Far, far be it from us, no, from every Christian’. The master of the Temple then ordered the

attack, and, despite William Longespee’s attempt to restore calm, the crusaders advanced and

were cut to pieces.39

This account was not strictly accurate, although contemporary sources

agreed in placing the blame for the disastrous attack on the count of Artois and exonerating the

Templars. The point to note is that Matthew Paris for once put aside his prejudice against the

military orders and allowed them to defend their reputation in his pages. However, it was a

favour he did not repeat. This account does not appear in any of his other works.

Matthew ceased to add to the Historia Anglorum or the Abbreviatio after the beginning of

1253. The Flores continued until 1259, but there were no more anecdotes of the military orders;

clearly Matthew no longer considered the Holy Land as suitable material for a racy, exciting

history. He had been growing increasingly depressed about the situation in the Holy Land. In

1250 he wrote in the Chronica Majora that the crusaders in the Holy Land were despairing,

saying that God had deserted them, and asking: ‘Isn’t the law of Mohammed better than the law

of Christ?’40

Although he himself condemned such thoughts, when he came to conclude his

chronicle at the end of 1250, his view of events in the Holy Land was black. ‘The whole

Christian army was cut to pieces in Egypt, alas...’41

When he took up the pen again to continue

36 ‘Du bon William Longespee’, in A. Jubinal (ed.), Nouveau Recueil de contes, dits, fabliaux et

autres piŠces in‚dits des XIIIe, XIVe et XVe siècles, 2 vols. (Paris, 1839–42), vol. 2, pp. 339–53. 37 CM, vol. 5 pp. 147–54. 38 CM, vol. 5 p. 149. 39 CM, vol. 5 p. 150. 40 CM, vol. 5 p. 108. 41 CM, vol. 5 p. 196.


10

his chronicle, news was no better: he recorded sadly under 1254 that the pope had diverted a

planned crusade to Sicily and Apulia. ‘Hearing this, the Templars and Hospitallers, the patriarch

of Jerusalem, and all the prelates and inhabitants of the Holy Land who oppose Christ’s enemies,

and already feared worse, were grieved to death, detesting the Roman treachery’.42

The military

orders had become victims of the pope, as Matthew saw himself to be. So he had no incentive to

repeat scandalous tales against them.

In the Chronica Majora there were no more tales of the military orders in the Holy Land

until 1257, apart from a brief tale under 1253 (but dating from around 1220) of an apostate

Templar who eventually made good.43

Under 1257, Matthew’s attitude towards the orders was

again favourable. The brothers of the Temple and Hospital and all the inhabitants of the Holy

Land were depicted refusing to surrender to the pagan Tatars in return for protection against the

Muslims. ‘Therefore let the Tatars, demons of Tartaros, come and they would find servants of

Christ prepared in the field for battle to defend the Christians against them’.44

Almost at the end of his life, however, Matthew reversed his opinion of the military orders

again. They were still the murderous, treacherous, fratricidal men they had always been. In 1259,

under the heading ‘How the Templars and Hospitallers killed each other’, he wrote that civil war

had again broken out in the Holy Land, and that the Hospitallers had attacked the Templars and

all but destroyed the order.

A deadly dispute arose between them, and the Hospitallers unanimously rose up against the

Templars, and, after sacrificing the greatest part of their own men, as it is said, completely

destroyed the Templars; so that, as it is said, scarcely one of the Templars survived, but very many

indeed of the Hospitallers. Never was there said to be such a great and miserable slaughter among

Christians, and especially among religious men45

There is little evidence to support this story. The war of St. Sabas was raging in the Holy Land

during 1257–8, but the military orders did not take up arms, although they supported opposing

sides. It is possible that Matthew had confused reports of the civil war with a report of the

Templars’ losses in the field and financial crisis. Either he was greatly misinformed, or his

knowledge of events was mixed with a good deal of wistful thinking. It is as if, feeling his own

powers failing, he had vowed to finish off his old adversaries with his pen.

Why was Matthew so hostile towards the military orders? We have seen that his attitudes often

reflected the prejudices of the men whom he supported and who provided his source material.

But he also had other reasons for distrusting the military orders, which we have only touched

upon. The reader of the Chronica Majora is not left long in doubt as to Matthew’s particular

objection to the orders. Introducing his tale of the Templars’ and Hospitallers’ plot against the

emperor, he complained that they received great incomes from the whole of Christendom, but,

for no more than defending the Holy Land, swallowed up these enormous revenues as if they

42

CM, vol. 5 pp. 457–8. 43 CM, vol. 5 p. 387. 44 CM, vol. 5 p. 655. The gist of this account is borne out by other European account, ‘La

continuation de Guillaume de Tyr, de 1229–1261, dite du manuscrit de Rothelin’, Recueil de

Historiens des Croisades, Historiens occidentaux, pub. Académie des Inscriptions et de

Belles-Lettres, 5 vols (Paris, 1841–95), vol. 2 p. 636, ch. 80. 45

CM, vol. 5 p. 745–6.


11

threw them into an abyss.46

He returned to this theme again under 1244, after quoting a letter

from Hermann de Perigord, master of the Temple, to Robert of Sandford, master of the Temple

in England. Hermann was delighted to inform his subordinate that the Christians in the Holy

Land had made a treaty with the sultan of Egypt and Nasser, lord of Krak, by which all the land

to the west of the Jordan was returned to Christian hands, with a few exceptions. Jerusalem was

restored to Christian control. However, due to disagreements between the Christians, the

Templars had been left bearing the weight of the defence of the Holy Land. They intended to

build a large castle to defend Jerusalem, and they needed assistance from their brothers in the

West.47

Matthew Paris recorded that Christians were suspicious of this apparently good news. They

suspected a trick: that the Templars had invented this news in order to attract more donations.

They had three reasons, according to Matthew, for distrusting the military orders. Firstly, the

Templars and Hospitallers were said to deliberately prolong the war between Christians and

Muslims in order to collect more money from pilgrims; secondly, the Templars and Hospitallers

fought each other; lastly, they had plotted against the emperor.48

We have already discussed the

third point; but the first two complaints had been made by other commentators many times

before, and would be made again.

Regarding the second point, modern historians have shown that the Templars and

Hospitallers were not such deadly enemies as their contemporaries believed; they often

co-operated, and strove to maintain good relations with each other.49

Nevertheless, many other

writers apart from Matthew complained Matthew’s first accusation was more serious. It stemmed

from the superstitious belief that the military orders, as Christ’s knights, were invincible. God

would not allow His knights to be defeated. As they had not succeeded, after more than a

century, in driving back the Muslims from the Holy Land, the obvious conclusion for outsiders

was that they did not wish to succeed. Ill-informed or simple-minded observers would conclude

that because the military orders kept asking for money from the West in order to carry on a war

which they never won, they must be deliberately prolonging the war in order to collect more

money. Matthew went on to discuss this at greater length. He declared that the Templars had

nine thousand manors throughout Christendom and the Hospitallers had nineteen thousand, plus

various revenues from the confraternity (a kind of lay support group), preaching and their

privileges. The revenue from each of these manors could easily support a knight to defend the

Holy Land against the Muslims. Christians assert that there must be fraud and trickery (Matthew

wrote), because otherwise so many active Western knights would have been enough to conquer

the whole of the East50

Although Matthew’s complaint is the earliest surviving complaint of this

kind, such complaints had probably been voiced for many years, whenever there were protests

against the Templars’ and Hospitallers’ widespread privileges. They received so much income,

they had such vast estates and vast privileges; and yet they were always asking for more. Either

they were greedy, or else they were cheating Christendom. Accusations of greed and treachery

were made from early in the military orders’ career – from the time of the siege of Damascus, in

46 CM, vol. 3 p. 178. 47 CM, vol. 4 pp. 288–91. 48 CM, vol. 4 p. 291. 49 See, e.g., Riley-Smith, Knights of St. John, pp. 150–1. 50 CM, vol. 4 p. 291.


12

1148, and the siege of Ascalon, in 1153.51

Similar complaints to Matthew’s – that the orders

made inefficient use of their resources – would be made later in the century.52

It seems likely

that Matthew was accurate in presenting this as a general complaint against the military orders,

especially from the members of other religious orders and other members of the clergy, who

were jealous of the apparent wealth of the Templars and Hospitallers. The wealth fell short of the

orders’ actual military needs, as much was swallowed up by papal and royal demands and legal

disputes, not to mention the costs of administrating and housing the brethren based in Europe;

but onlookers could not have appreciated this.

We may easily pardon Matthew for jealousy of the military orders’ success. For any member

of an old-established religious order, the popularity of new orders must have been, at best, trying.

According to traditional ideas, such orders were often of doubtful basis. The military orders

which fought with lance and sword, or the friars, whose brothers went about from place to place

preaching, would have been unacceptable in earlier ages. But now they were accepted by lay

people and showered with gifts, while the older orders suffered. Matthew was very suspicious of

all new orders in the Church, and hated the friars as much as he hated the military orders.53

Matthew had other reasons for disliking the military orders, which had nothing to do with their

own faults or merits, or their actions in the Holy Land. He was steadfastly hostile to any who

claimed worldly authority over him from outside his own monastery, especially the king and the

pope.54

But the Templars and Hospitallers were closely bound to both. They held many

privileges from the papacy and from monarchs, and relied on them for protection and patronage.

The papacy, and the English monarchs, used the military orders to guard their treasure, as

confidential envoys and as personal servants. Matthew was generally very uncomplimentary

about his king, Henry III; but Henry was consistently generous towards the Templars and

Hospitallers, particularly the Templars. In 1231 he and his queen bequeathed their bodies to the

Templars. One Brother Geoffrey the Templar became Henry’s almoner in 1229, and keeper of

his Wardrobe in 1236.55

As almoner, he held a very responsible position, having control over

large sums of cash and goods for distribution to the poor. As keeper of the Wardrobe, he was

Henry’s chief private financial manager. Geoffrey also acted for Henry in other matters.56

Matthew heartily hated him (perhaps because he was an upstart), and when the Templar finally

51 Siege of Damascus: John of Salisbury, Historia Pontificalis, ed. M. Chibnall (Edinburgh,

1956), p. 57; John of Würzburg; ‘Descriptio Terrae Sanctae’, in J. P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae

Cursus Completus, Series Latina, 217 vols. (Paris, 1834–64), vol. 155, col. 1087; Würzburg

Annals: ‘Annales Herbipolenses’, ed. G. H. Pertz, in MGHS, 16 p. 7. Siege of Ascalon: Egmont

Annals: ‘Annales Egmundani’, in MGHS, 16 pp. 458–9. 52 Richard Mepham, dean of Lincoln, at the second council of Lyons in 1274: Councils and

Synods with other documents relating to the English Church, ed. D. Whitelock, F. M. Powicke et

al., 2 vols. in 4 (Oxford, 1964–81), vol. 2.2, p. 815; the Church councils of 1292: Council of

London, Councils and Synods, vol. 2.2, p.1113; Council of Rheims, MGHS, 25 p. 581. 53 See Vaughan, p.138. 54 Discussed by Vaughan, p. 263. 55 For references see A. Sandys, ‘The Financial and Administrative importance of the London

Temple in the thirteenth century’, in A.G. Little and F. M. Powicke (eds), Essays in Medieval

History presented to Thomas Frederick Tout (Manchester, 1925), p. 150. 56 E.g., see R. C. Stacey, Politics, Policy and Finance under Henry III, 1216–1245 (Oxford,

1987), pp. 77, 145 note 64, 146.


13

retired in 1240 he declared that he had been ignominiously sacked, because the king could no

longer tolerate his insolent pride. Some time later, he revised this opinion, stating that Brother

Geoffrey the Templar and his colleague Simon the Norman had been dismissed for opposing an

irresponsible whim of the king. In fact it appears that Geoffrey retired with honour.57

It is likely

that Matthew’s hatred for Geoffrey the Templar strengthened his dislike for the order as a whole.

Henry showered the Templars and Hospitallers with small gifts: barrels of wine, venison,

and wood for building; but until the mid 1240s, the Templars received greater generosity than the

Hospitallers, and their masters were more intimate with the king than the priors of the

Hospitallers. In 1245 Henry began rebuilding Westminster Abbey as a shrine for the body of

King Edward the Confessor, to which he finally bequeathed his body (to the indignation of the

Templars). At around this time, Henry’s gifts to the military orders began to decline. In the

1250s, the Hospitallers were receiving more individual gifts of friendship than the Templars, and

Brother Robert de Manneby, prior of the Hospital in England from 1256/7 to 1262, was closer to

the king than the master of the Templars in England during the same period, Amblard of St.

Romain. This change in the Templars’ standing at court may have softened Matthew’s dislike of

them.

Also, during the 1250s Matthew recorded a number of occasions when the Hospitallers and

Templars in England had opposed Henry III’s ‘tyranny’, as Matthew saw it. Under the year

1252, he depicted the prior of the Hospital in England rebuking the king for criticizing Church

privileges: ‘As long as you observe justice, you may be king; but as soon as you infringe this,

you will cease to be king’.58

Under 1253 he recorded that the Templars and Hospitallers had

refused to lend the king money for the marriage of Henry’s niece, one of the hated Lusignan

family. As a result of their steadfast opposition to his scheme, Henry persecuted the orders,

Matthew recorded.59

Suddenly the scheming, greedy, treacherous men whom Matthew despised

had become martyrs of royal ‘tyranny’, and therefore deserving of his sympathy. We might see

this as a reason for his more gentle treatment of them in the Chronica Majora during most of the

1250s, and in his later works.

Yet we must also bear in mind that Matthew also sweetened his tone towards other old

enemies during the 1250s. The Chronica Maiora is notoriously hostile towards King John, father

of King Henry III. But in the Historia Anglorum, after noting King John’s death, Matthew went

on to record some good deeds which ‘it is to be hoped will plead for him before the tribunal of

the Supreme Judge’.60

He had founded the abbey of Beaulieu, he had bequeathed his heart to the

abbey of Crockston with ten librates of land, and he had prevented certain Greek philosophers

from expounding their heresies in England. Note that Matthew did not mention that King John

was also a great patron of the military orders! We may suspect, then, that some of Matthew’s

change of heart after 1250 was due to an anxiety to avoid offending King Henry. Although

Matthew professed to hate and despise his king, he must have realized the dangers of losing the

royal favour.61

57 CM, vol. 3 p. 629, and note 2; Stacey, Politics, pp.139–40, and note 38; Close Rolls of the

reign of Henry III preserved in the Public Record Office, 1227–72 (London, 1902–38),

1237–1242, p. 186. 58 CM, vol. 5 p. 339. 59 CM, vol. 5 pp. 363–5. 60 HA, vol. 2 p. 194. 61 Matthew describes how, on an occasion in 1247, Henry encouraged him in his writing and


14

But Matthew also despised the orders for their association with the papacy. He hated his

pope for the same reasons that he hated his king: because he saw him as corrupt, greedy, and

incompetent, but mainly because he resented his authority.62

The Templars and Hospitallers did

the pope’s dirty work; therefore he hated them too. In particular, Matthew recorded one occasion

in 1236 when a Brother Thomas the Templar, the pope’s confidant, was sent to England with

papal authority to release from their vows those who had ‘taken the cross’ and vowed to go to

the Holy Land on crusade in response to the preaching of the friars. He was to collect a payment

in return for absolution from the vow. Matthew was disgusted at the Romans’ greed and their

methods of cheating people out of their money. What was the point, he wondered, of urging

people to take the cross, and then taking money from them instead? There must be fraud at

work.63

It is difficult to see how the military orders could have avoided incurring the hatred of

Matthew and others like him in this respect. They were dependent on the support and protection

of secular powers in order to carry out their vocation in the Holy Land. Yet it is true that they

sacrificed much of their neutrality, their separation from the affairs of the world, in the service of

kings and popes, and so lost sight of their original vocation. Matthew would have argued that this

was one reason why they failed to win victories in the Holy Land.

Matthew, then, had a strong personal dislike of the orders of the Temple and Hospital,

particularly the order of the Temple, which was the favourite order of King Henry III and at odds

with the emperor. He objected to the military orders’ political affiliations, their wealth and their

collection of money in Europe, their inefficiency, their rivalry, their novelty. He exaggerated

their faults and presented them more as a burden to the Holy Land than its protectors. The only

military order which he liked – although he said very little about it – was the Teutonic order,

which was the special favourite of the emperor. In his complaints about the Templars’ and

Hospitallers’ inefficiency, wealth and rivalry, he echoed objections voiced by other writers, and

appears to be representing general opinion. However, his complaints about their political

affiliations, and all the bitterness which flowed from this, were unique to Matthew.

Yet it is important to remember that Matthew Paris was before all else a storyteller; some

would say a scandalmonger! A major influence on his account of the orders of the Temple and

Hospital was his love of a good story. As a skilled raconteur, he preferred scandalous stories

which were likely to hold the attention of his audience. Most of the tales he told of the Templars

and Hospitallers were hostile towards the orders, because there is a particular attraction in telling

scandalous tales against religious men. Any scandal which Matthew could discover, he recorded.

What he did not say is also important. He did not accuse the orders of the heinous charges

brought against the order of the Temple by Philip IV of France in 1307: in particular, sodomy

and heresy. A charge of heresy in the thirteenth century was as grave as an accusation of

communism in the USA during the 1950s. Had any such rumour been current, Matthew would

probably have heard of it, as his sources of information were very wide. He would certainly have

repeated it, without respect for the knight-brothers’ reputation! Yet he did not mention such

rumours; we may therefore be almost certain that the orders were not guilty of such crimes at this

time.

invited him to dinner: see Vaughan, pp. 3–4. 62 See Vaughan, pp. 140–1, 263. 63

CM, vol. 3 p. 374.


15

Nor did Matthew call for the military orders to be abolished. He considered them to be

corrupt and inefficient, but seems to have seen reform, rather than abolition, to be the answer to

their failings.

To return to our opening question: can this Mad Monk be trusted? No; no more than a

modern tabloid. His tales were not always based on reliable information. Like tabloid leader

writers, he was proud to speak his mind, to despise authority, to speak out against wrong where

he saw it. Yet he also edited his texts to avoid offending powerful vested interests. His work,

therefore, is far from being objective truth. It is the historian’s enjoyable task to sift through the

gold-mine of information which he offers, and attempt to recreate both the events behind his

histories and the mind of the man who wrote them.

Bibliography

Primary sources: Matthew Paris’ histories

Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H. R. Luard, 7 vols, Rolls Series 57 (London, 1872–83).

Translated in part as Matthew Paris’ English History, 1135–1273, by J. A. Giles, Bohn

Antiquarian Library (London, 1852)

– Flores Historiarum, ed. H. R. Luard, 3 vols, Rolls Series 95 (London, 1890). Translated by C.

D. Yonge, Bohn Antiquarian Library (London, 1853)

– Historia Anglorum, sive... Historia Minor, item Abbreviatio Chronicorum Angliae, ed. F.

Madden, 3 vols, Rolls Series 44 (London, 1866–9)

Primary sources: other contemporary historians

Alberic des Trois Fontaines, ‘Chronica,’ ed. P. Scheffer-Boichorst, in Monumenta Germaniae

Historica Scriptores, ed. G. H. Pertz et al., 32 vols, (Hanover, 1826–1934), vol. 23

‘Annales Egmundani,’ ed. G. H. Pertz, in MGHS 16

‘Annales Herbipolenses,’ ed. G. H. Pertz, in MGHS 16

Bartholomaeo de Neocastro, ‘Historia Sicula,’ ed. G. Paladino, in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores,

ed. L. Muratori, new edition ed. G. Carducci, V. Fiorini, P. Fedele (Citta di Castello, Bologna,

1900ff.), vol. 13.3.

Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le trésorier, ed. L. de Mas Latrie, Société de l’histoire de

France (Paris, 1871)

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(London, 1902–38)

Councils and Synods with other documents relating to the English Church, ed. D. Whitelock, F.

M. Powicke et al., 2 vols in 4 (Oxford, 1964–81)

‘La continuation de Guillaume de Tyr, de 1229–1261, dite du manuscrit de Rothelin’, in Recueil

de Historiens des Croisades, Historiens occidentaux, pub. Académie des Inscriptions et de

Belles-Lettres, 5 vols (Paris, 1841–95), vol. 2

‘Du bon William Longespee’, in A. Jubinal (ed.), Nouveau Recueil de contes, dits, fabliaux et

autre pièces in‚dits des XIIIe, XIVe et XVe siècles, 2 vols (Paris, 1839–42), vol. 2, pp.339–53

‘Estoire de Eracles empereur et la conqueste de la Terre d’Outremer’, in Recueil des Historiens

des Croisades, Historiens Occidentaux, pub. Académie des Inscriptions et de Belles-Lettres, 5

vols (Paris, 1872–1906), vol. 2


16

Historia Diplomatica Frederici Secundi, ed. J. L. A. Huillard-Bréholles, 6 vols in 11 (Paris,

1852–61, reprinted Turin, 1963)

John of Salisbury, Historia Pontificalis, ed. and trans. M. Chibnall (Edinburgh, 1956)

John of Würzburg, ‘Descriptio Terrae Sanctae’, in J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologiae Cursus

Completus, Series Latina, 217 vols (Paris, 1834–64), vol. 155

Philippe de Novara, ‘Mémoires’, in Les Gestes des Chiprois: Recueil des chroniques françaises

écrites en orient aux XIII et XIV siècles, ed. G. Raynaud (Paris, 1887)

Robert of Torigny, ‘Chronica’, in Chronicles of the reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I,

ed. R. Howlett, 4 vols, Rolls Series 82 (London, 1884–9), vol. 4

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1886–9)

Secondary sources

A. Grandsen, Historical writing in England c.550 to c.1307 (London, 1974)

P. Jackson, ‘The end of Hohenstaufen rule in Syria’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical

Research, 59 (1986) 20–36.

– ‘The crusades of 1239–41 and their aftermath,’ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African

Studies, 50 (1987) 32–60.

H. E. Mayer, „The crusades, trans. J. Gillingham, 2nd edition (Oxford, 1988)

J. Riley-Smith, The Knights of St. John in Jerusalem and Cyprus, c.1050–1310 (London, 1967)

A. Sandys, ‘The financial and administrative importance of the London Temple in the thirteenth

century,’ in A. G. Little and F. M. Powicke (eds), Essays in Medieval History presented to

Thomas Frederick Tout (Manchester, 1925), pp. 147–62

R. C. Stacey, Politics, Policy and Finance under Henry III, 1216–1245 (Oxford, 1987)

R. Vaughan, Matthew Paris (Cambridge, 1958)

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