cipline was enforced by written regulations, by the formal vow of obedi-
ence they took on joining, by the harsh punishments meted out to those
who deviated, and by their custom of living, exercising, and fighting as part
of a stable community. The number of fighting brethren maintained by
each order varied considerably, but at their height in the thirteenth century
each of the three great orders in the Levant could field about three hun-
dred, of whom about a third were knights. Nine hundred might not seem
like a very high number, but it was half again as great as that of the whole
feudal levy of the kingdom. When one bears in mind the fact that other
types of fighting men always supplemented the warrior brethren more or
less closely tied to the order, it becomes clear that the orders were vitally
important for the defense of the Holy Land.
The nature of the supplementary forces also varied. In some orders,
the brother sergeants-of-office could be called upon to take up arms in
emergencies, but they were not expected to fight very well and were not
under the same discipline. Most of the major orders also permitted knights,
squires, and probably sergeants to join them for a season or a year, and to
live under their rule without taking vows of permanent membership. The
Teutonic Order had a theoretical right to command all those who joined
the ongoing Baltic crusade, and the leading orders also acquired numerous
estates held for them by vassals whom they could compel to serve the or-
der without acquiring any formal association with it. Finally, most orders
relied to some extent on mercenaries, some of whom presumably served in
capacities other than heavy cavalry. In the Levant they were commonly re-
ferred to as turcopoles,but what precisely that term implied militarily is
unclear. The principal military duties of the orders consisted of manning
castles and using them as bases for both defensive and offensive operations
against enemies, serving in the field either on their own or as major units
in a royal or princely host, and later (from 1299) maintaining and fighting
from fleets of galleys dedicated to protecting Christian shipping and harry-
ing the Muslims whenever and in whatever ways were feasible.
The more or less sharp decline in the fortunes of all of the orders other
than the Hospital after 1291, and even more after 1350, was due to a num-
ber of distinct factors. Of these the most important were the success or fail-
ure of their original enterprise, a destructive rivalry among the orders, and
the decline of the monastic ideals they represented in the eyes of the popu-
lation at large. Certainly the problem was not initially an inherent defect in
their nature or organization, for on all three frontiers of Latin Christendom
the orders had demonstrated again and again the value of a disciplined
body of carefully trained knights who trained and practiced their skills as
a unit, were maintained in constant readiness, and fought under the famil-
iar and unquestioned authority of a single commander who could require
Orders of Knighthood, Religious 383