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.Nevertheless, when a Hospitaller brother, Arnaldo de Soler, was elected master in February 1320, the order was already in control of a signifi cant part of its territories.6 He was not an outsider; he had been Hospitaller commander of the Valencian district of Cervera in the mid 1290s.7 Nonetheless, a general estimate of the fi nancial basis of Montesa was required.A more or less accurate count of the new dependants, as well as a precise description and estimate of the rents they paid, were urgently needed.The report written on 25 March 1320 contained all this information.The details it provided offered not just a ‘snapshot’, limited to the early months of 1320, but presented relevant facts regarding the Templar and Hospitaller past of the recently acquired territories.This valuable source is well known and has been transcribed, but still deserves a systematic study to relate its content to what is already known about Templar and Hospitaller lands and rights in the kingdom of Valencia in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.Frontier, vol.1 (Cambridge Mass., 1967), pp.183–90; Eugenio Díaz Manteca ‘Notas para el estudio de los antecedentes históricos de Montesa’, Estudis Castellonencs, 2 (1984–85), 246–64; Enric Guinot Rodríguez, ‘La Orden de San Juan del Hospital en la Valencia medieval’, Aragón en la Edad Media, 14–15 (1999), 723–38.4 ‘Registre de tots los castells, vilas e lochs quel orde de Muntesa ha en lo Regne de Valencia’: Archivo Histórico Nacional [AHN], Sección de Órdenes Militares [SOM], Libros Manuscritos [LM], Montesa, 871 C.It was transcribed by Eugenio Díaz Manteca in ‘Notas para el estudio’, 288–305.5 Luis García-Guijarro Ramos, ‘Los orígenes de la Orden de Montesa’, in Las Órdenes Militares en el Mediterráneo Occidental (siglos XII–XVIII) (Madrid, 1989), pp.69–83.6Thefi rst two masters of Montesa have been studied by Vicente García Edo: ‘El efímero mandato de Guillem d’Erill, primer maestre de la orden de Montesa (22 julio/4octubre 1319)’, in Ricardo Izquierdo Benito and Francisco Ruiz Gómez (eds), Las Órdenes Militares en la Península Ibérica, vol.1, Edad Media (Cuenca, 2000), pp.589–606; Vicente García Edo, ‘Arnau de Soler, segon mestre de l’orde de Montesa (1320–1327) (itinerari i altres noticies del seu temps)’, in Actes de les primeres jornades sobre els ordes religioso-militars als països catalans (segles XII– XIX) (Tarragona, 1994), pp.555–66.7 4 September 1294: AHN, SOM, Pergaminos [Perg.], Montesa, Particulares [P] 509; 5 May 1295: ibid., P 522; 31 March 1296: ibid., P 527.Luis García-Guijarro Ramos207Map 1Hospitaller districts and possessions in the kingdom of Valencia at the time of the foundation of the Order of Montesa.Based on the map byE.Guinot Rodriguez, ‘La Orden de San Juan’, p.742.The maps couldnot have been drawn without the help of Elizabeth López Orduin.208The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean and EuropeThe data on the population and rents of the different territories that were assigned to Montesa by the papal charter of 1317 offer a clear idea of their weight and relative importance.The most important asset given to the new order was the bailiwick of Cervera, a group of eight villages around the castle of Cervera at the extreme north of the kingdom of Valencia8 (see Map 16.2).This area was donated to the Hospital by King Jaime I on 23 December 1235.9 The survey of 1320 estimated its population at 2,029 hearths, the highest number by far of all the recorded inhabitants of the lands received by Montesa.10 The neighbouring old Templar territories of Cuevas, Peñíscola and Chivert had only 910, 540 and 324 hearths respectively,11 and the nearby districts of Culla and Ares, also in the hands of the Templars when they were dispossessed by King Jaime II, had 1,035 and 250 hearths respectively.12 In other parts of the kingdom only Onda showed fi gures clearly exceeding 200 hearths.13Within the bailiwick of Cervera three villages had reached that demographic level: Cervera, the centre of the district, had 250 hearths; Traiguera 300; while San Mateo outstripped the rest with 900 hearths.The expansion of this village had been truly remarkable, bearing in mind that less than a century before it had been given by the Hospitallers to just three settlers.14 A charter of 12 March 1326 reckoned that San Mateo was the largest of the order’s villages, and that it had recently doubled its population due to the privileges bestowed by Montesa and by the Order of St John in previous times.The Master Arnaldo de Soler was thus inclined to agree to the villagers’ petition for freedom from certain dues, in the belief that this concession would further increase the village’s population.15 In the Hospitaller period, on 18January 1308, the castellan of Amposta Pedro de Soler had used a similar argument 8 Cervera, San Mateo, Traiguera, Canet, Chert with Molinar and Barcella, Calig, La Jana with Carrascal, and Rosell.The bailiwick of Cervera’s limits were the River Cenia to the east, which marked the border between Valencia and Catalonia, the castles of Peñíscola and Chivert to the south, the castle of Cuevas to the west, and the castle of Morella to the north.9 AHN, SOM, Perg [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]