Heritage and Resources of the Commanderies: Sociability, Income Management and Tax Practices, 1200-1600

Abstract

The purpose of this text is to focus on commanderies as key elements within the articulation between the management of the patrimonial resources and incomes of the Military Orders and the royal and social pressure on them. The commanderies are expressions of power and sociability that extrapolate the Orders themselves, as they reflected strong external ambitions. From the transition from the 13^th to the 14^th century, a crucial time in the history of these Orders, some evidences of decline and transformation of the landlord are known, which coincided with a greater dependence of these Orders on the crown and with deeper exposure to some social groups. So, it is important to identify the instruments for their maintenance under royal control, as well as those that each Order implemented, seeking the management of the jurisdictional rights over their territories, the systems for collecting revenues and other types of income, the tax mechanisms and the efforts to accountancy.