Gift idea for Templar enthusiasts

In 1312, the Council of Vienna suppressed the Temple with the bull Vox in excelsoa few weeks later, Ad providam entrusted his possessions to the Hospital... except in Castile, Aragon, Portugal and Majorca, reserved for a later decision. In the Crown of Aragon, James II obtained from John XXII the creation of the Order of Montesa on June 10, 1317, affiliated to Calatrava, to resume defense of the Valencian marches and inherit local Templar possessions. In Portugal, after lengthy negotiations led by Dinis, the pope instituted the Order of Christ on March 14, 1319, by Ad ea ex quibusIn the British Isles, heritage, houses and some of the brothers found continuity in the XIVᵉ century. In the British Isles, procedures were more moderate; the transfer of land to the Hospital stretched over time and some brothers received pensions. In short, the Temple's destiny was neither uniform nor monolithic.

In the spring of 1218, at the height of the Fifth Crusade, the Temple's engineers settled on the narrow Atlit peninsula to build Château Pèlerin. The sea rock was cut like a quarry: three cylindrical shafts, some twenty meters deep, were cut into the rock, their walls lined with rubble stone and hydraulic mortar to capture the coastal aquifer without the intrusion of brackish water. At the same time, the builders dug at least six vast cisterns lined with waterproof plaster under the courtyard and in the basements. The terraces, roofs and walkways are connected to these tanks by a network of terracotta pipes, still visible today, designed to collect every drop of rain and filter it before storage.
The whole complex, completed by a small inner harbor protected from swells, provided fresh water not only for the knights, but also for the horses, kitchens and infirmary. The garrison - up to 4,000 men in the event of a siege - could thus hold out for months, even years, without land supplies. In 1220, and again in 1265, the Ayyubid and Mamluk armies were finally forced to break camp: the strategy of "thirst" was defeated by this simple yet visionary engineering. Château Pèlerin didn't fall until 1291, evacuated by sea when the entire Frankish coast had already collapsed, proving that in the Middle Ages, mastery of water was often better than the highest of walls.

In the Middle Ages, the Order of the Temple wove a dense network of commanderies across Europe, forming an unprecedented logistical, economic and spiritual network. These establishments, far more than mere farms or monasteries, were the pillars of the Templar infrastructure.
Each commandery, headed by a commander, managed farmland, workshops, mills and chapels. They were used to finance campaigns in the Holy Land, recruit and train brothers, and welcome pilgrims and travelers. Their location, often along trade routes or near urban centers, ensured the Order's strategic presence in the territory.
This territorial network, structured into provinces and baillies, prefigured a form of proto-state organization, with centralized management and local autonomy. The commanderies were the sinews of a network that combined faith, warfare and economics.