The Templars and the Parisian Builders 131Templars increased rapidly. The 1632 list made by the grand prior of
Malta showing the definitive status of the censive district of the former
Templar commandery notably indicates these holdings: "rue Frognier
l'Asnier; rue Gamier sur l'Eau (Grenier sur l'Eau); rue des Barres or
Barrys; Saint Gervais Church, cememtery, chevet; Beaudoyer Gate; rue
du Gantelet; rue Jean en Greve; Martlet; chevet of the church (Saint
Jean); Hotel de Ville of Paris; Greve; old Saint Jean Cemetery, rue de la
Mortellerie: the Seine River: the Vannerie and Jean de l'Espine: rue
Vielle Tissanderie (today Francois Miron)."^41
The presence of organized builders in this quarter is visible from the
time the Templars installed themselves, long before the existence of a
sworn association of masons in Paris. Toward 1170, according to
Lebeuf, a mason named Garin and his son Harcher, priest of the parish
district of Saint Jacques de la Boucherie, founded a hospital on rue de
la Tissanderie (Francois Miron).^42 This hospital was created "to shelter
poor travelers, to whom bed and board were given for only three
nights." Originally, the institution had a master and brothers to provide
hospitality. It is possible to believe that the monks who managed this
hospital, called Saint Gervais, were affiliated with the Temple, for in the
fourteenth century, following the dissolution of the Order, the bishop of
Paris entrusted its administration to the clergy. The chapel of Saint
Gervais Hospital was rebuilt in 1411 and consecrated in the name of
Saint Anastasius. In 1657, the hospital was transferred into the Hotel
d'O at 60 rue Vielle du Temple. Abbe Lebeuf states that in his day
(1754) nothing remained of the old hotel except its chapel, which peo-
ple called the Saint Nicholas Chapel. The number of guests it sheltered,
which varied every year from 15,000 to 16,000, reached the astound-
ing figure of 32,238 people in 1789. These "poor travelers" just like the
"transients" we saw earlier in relation to Trinity Hospital, were origi-
nally pilgrims, most often those beginning the journey to Saint James of
Compostella. Later, it was more than likely that these transients and
travelers were not only the faithful on pilgrimage, but mendicants and
vagabonds as well. A vagabond was one who had no profession, trade,
or sure abode, while valid mendicants were "the homeless who wan-
dered the land."^43
The police always acted ruthlessly against these mendicants and