104 THE ORIGINS OF FREEMASONRY FROM ANCIENT TIMES TO THE MIDDLE AGES
land had no break in continuity. The rest consisted of streets, land, and
houses that were sometimes isolated enclaves in the jurisdiction of the
provostship, the university, or another sovereign jurisdiction. The rights
of the Temple were confirmed by the placement of the Order's coat of
arms on the facades of their buildings.
Inside this vast commandery lived a large number of knights and an
even larger number of brother servants, among whom were the broth-
ers who concerned themselves with construction projects and who were
placed under the command of an officer called the master carpenter,
magister carpentarius in domo templi parisiensis. The rapid building of
the quarters of the Templar censive district shows that numerous lay
craftsmen, masons, carpenters, and other tradesmen had come to reside
there.
Inside this huge domain, the Templars ruled as masters. As was the
case for such orders throughout the Christian world, the Order was sov-
ereign both spiritually and temporally. With regard to the spiritual, just
like the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, the Templars answered directly
to the Holy See. The papal bull Omne datum optimum, issued on March
23, 1139, by Pope Innocent II and confirmed in 1162 by Alexander III,
immediately transferred the affairs of the Order to the Holy See and
removed them from the authority of the patriarch of Jerusalem—and the
prelates of other countries. It also gave the Order complete authority to
institute priests and chaplains to serve its churches.* Shortly afterward,
another bull, this one issued by Gregory VIII in 1188, declared that the
Templars did not have to acknowledge the supremacy of any bishop
other than the pope. This enabled them to avoid the pastoral authority of
the bishop in Paris. By virtue of these privileges, the Order not only was
spared the necessity of Episcopal visits, but it also assumed visitation and
jurisdictional rights over the dependent parishes of its commanderies,
except for the ordinances of diocesen bishop's concerning the manage-
ment of souls and the administration of sacraments. The Order had the
power to consecrate its own oratories and churches without any inter-
vention from the clergy and the right to possess its own cemeteries and
inter people in its parish churches.
* This was the motive that prompted the bitterness of William, archbishop of Tyre.