within the walls of a major castle. Most of the provincial convents were
similarly housed, and indeed all of the castles manned by the orders had to
function as convents for the professed brethren assigned to their defense.
The seats of priories and comparable regional units were also housed for
the most part in castles belonging to the order, but the commanderies—
which might have only one professed brother—were typically housed in
smaller and less fortified establishments resembling those of a manor
house. Within the castles that served as their convents, at least, the brethren
usually provided themselves with the set of buildings associated with the
monastic life: a church, in which the daily office was maintained by the
clerical brethren and any others available; a kitchen, refectory, and dormi-
tory for eating and sleeping; a chapter house for meetings; stables for their
horses; various outbuildings for storing equipment, grain, wine, and other
things necessary to their lives and activities; and buildings for housing and
feeding auxiliaries. The master and conventual officers in the seat and the
priors in their seats usually maintained separate housing for themselves and
honored guests that bore more resemblance to the dwellings of princes than
to those of monks.
The military missions of the religious order varied significantly both
from theater to theater and from period to period. In the Levant, their task
was mainly defensive, except during a more general crusade, and this was
also true in Iberia after 1250 and in the Baltic after 1309. Between 1158 and
1250, however, the Iberian orders’ primary task was retaking lost Christian
territory, whereas between 1202 and 1309, the Baltic orders were mainly in-
volved in conquering the lands of pagan peoples whom they were perfectly
prepared to slaughter if they did not convert. The very different physical and
climatic environments of the three theaters also necessitated different strate-
gies and tactics, so it is difficult to generalize about these matters.
In the leading orders, the brother knights and brother sergeants-at-
arms constituted the principal fighting force, and although the former were
provided with better equipment and more horses than the latter, both
groups were trained to fight primarily as heavy cavalry or (when the occa-
sion required it) heavy infantry. In this they resembled the knights and
squires of secular companies, but there is no evidence that nobly born re-
cruits to any order had to postpone dubbing to knighthood beyond their
attainment of the age of majority, as was increasingly true in the secular
world. The religious knights did not differ from their secular equivalents in
arms, armor, or tactics, but the hosts of the military orders were much
larger and better disciplined than those led by any secular prince or baron,
and had more esprit de corps. Indeed, in the Levant the Muslims looked
upon them as their most dedicated and therefore dangerous enemies, and
Saladin systematically killed any of them who fell into his hands. Their dis-382 Orders of Knighthood, Religious