The Knights Hospitaller

Abstract

There were many military religious orders in medieval Catholic Christendom, but the only two active in Wales were the Templars and the Hospitallers, of which only the Hospitallers held substantial property there. The Hospitallers’ estates were among the most extensive religious properties in medieval Wales. In 1535, at the date of the Valor Ecclesiasticus – the survey of the Church in England and Wales carried out for King Henry VIII that would be used in the following year as a basis for commencing the dissolution of the monasteries – the Hospitallers’ commandery at Slebech in Pembrokeshire was the third richest monastic house in Wales, after the Cistercian houses of Tintern and Valle Crucis. Slebech was also wealthy in comparison to other Hospitaller houses within England and Wales. In 1338 it received the largest income of any Hospitaller house in England and Wales, apart from the main house at Clerkenwell near London while in 1535 it had the fourth highest net value of the Hospitallers’ twenty-two houses in England and Wales, after Clerkenwell, Buckland, and Ribston. This article places the Knights Hospitaller in the context of the monastic history of Wales, exploring their properties and their social, political and economic role within the principality.

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