Bibliographie - The Templars in Perugia - History and Art of the Preceptory of San Bevignate

Description :

A new templar preceptory in thePapal States

After the victorious outcome of the First Crusade, which culminated in 1099 with the conquest of Jerusalem, the spread of the Order of Knights Templar in the West was spurred by the dual necessity of generating resources to send to the Holy Land and of furnishing help and support along the principal travel routes and in the main ports of call used to transfer soldiers, horses, foodstuffs, and pilgrims to the lands of Outremer.

Yet, a careful look at the provinces created in the Papal States during Innocent III's pontificate makes it clear that the Militia Templi had taken on an additional role - one in harmony with the territorial claims and temporal aspirations of the papacy, which for some time had been in conflict with the Empire. Strengthened by their privileged relationship with the Holy See - in 1139 Innocent II had placed the Order under direct papal authority - the Templars took up the task of protecting strategic areas of the Patrimonium Beati Petri in Tuscia (a territory that included the city of Perugia), both by furnishing reliable castellans to Church fortresses and via their own network of foundations.

It is in precisely this scenario that the history of the preceptory of San Giustino and San Girolamo/San Bevignate - composed of two distinct domus (houses) destined to play a key role in the territorial organization of the Temple - can best be understood.

L'auteur :

Sonia Merli graduated in Lettere (Humanities) at the University of Perugia, with a final thesis on diplomatics of the medieval communes. She was later granted the Diplôme d’études approfondies en Histoire (Université Paris X - Nanterre) under the supervision of André Vauchez and earned a diploma in Archival, Palaeographic, and Diplomatic Studies at the school of the State Archives of Perugia. Upon receiving a post-graduate scholarship, she spent one year in Paris at the UMR 9963 Culture, politique et société en Europe (IXe-XVIe siècles) of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, conducting prosopographic research on members of the chancellery of Jean, Duke of Berry (1340-1416). Since then, Merli has contributed to scholarly editions of a variety of documentary and statutory sources issued in communal contexts and to a prosopographical database of information on teachers and students of the Studium Perusinum in the Middle Ages, created for the septcentenary of the Studium’s founding. From 2005 to the present, her studies have focused on the history of military orders in Italy, with emphasis on the Templars in the Lands of the Church. Among other contributions in that field, she co-organized and co-edited the international conference and collected studies Gli Ordini di Terrasanta(http://www.ordiniditerrasanta.it/) in 2019-2021 and serves as a member of the Scientific Committee of the Templar Route European Federation. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Palermo (ERC Documenting Multiculturalism).