The Order of Saint James of Altopascio ( or Ordine dei Frati Ospitalieri di San Jacopo), also called the Knights of the Tau (Cavalieri del Tau) or Hospitallers of Saint James, was a military order, perhaps the earliest Christian institution to combine the protection and assistance of pilgrims, the staffing of hospitals, and a military wing. According to American historian Ephraim Emerton, who produced the first systematic study of the Order, "the fame of the house drew visitors, both well and sick, including women in childbirth and infants" from around Italy.Ephraim Emerton (1923), "Altopascio—A Forgotten Order", American Historical Review, 29(1), 6.
History Foundation The Order was founded by Matilda of Canossa between 1070 and 1080 at Altopascio, a town on the Via Francigena in what is now Tuscany.Michael Walsh (2003), Warriors of the Lord: The Military Orders of Christendom (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, .), 197. The earliest datable reference to a hospital edificatus in locus et finibus ubi dicitur Teupascio ("built in the place called Teupascio") is from 1084.A location called Teupascio is first mentioned in a document reporting a land transfer in Teutpascu, qui vocatur Tersuarius ("in Teupascio, which is called Tersuarius") from the nobleman Causulus of Lucca to the presbyter Tanuald of Saint Regulus "in the third year of the Lombard king Ratchis", that is, 746. Ludovico Muratori thought Teupascio to be an eighth-century corruption of the Latin Altopassus.Emerton, 4, citing Muratori (1739), Antiquitates Italicae Medii Aevi, IIL, 1041. Giovanni Lami believed it to be of Etruscan origin, but related it to the Latin totus pascuus (all pasture), denoting its verdant meadows, fed by a river of the same name which Lami believed to read in a grant of 1056. The variants Taupascio and Topascio have led some to suppose a relationship between the (alternative) name of the town and the Order sometimes known as "of the Tau", after their symbol, which would once have been a common sight in the town. This derivation is highly unlikely, however, and the name appears to be Germanic in origin.Emerton, 4–5, believes it meant "German pasture" or "German pass". He adduces evidence in support of this from the Germanic names prevalent in charters referring to Teupascio. The document of 746 is witnessed by Ratpert, Tuirepert, Eliprandus, and a scribe named Aldipertus. The 1056 document is a title deed relating to one Teutio and referring to a priest Theupert. Also, near where the rivers Arno and Elsa meet, sits the town and castle named San Miniato al Tedesco, that is, "to the German".
According to the Order's own tradition it was founded between the Palude di Fucecchio, the Lago di Sesto, and the forest of Cerbaie towards 1050 by twelve citizens of nearby Lucca, a tradition which is preserved in a couple of lines of poetry appended to the Italian version of its rule: La qual casa sia questa dell Ospitale La quale incommincio lo Coro duodenale.Emerton, 5. These were persone da bene (persons of means) according to Lami.That house which belongs to the hospital Which was founded by the Choir of twelve. Probably the "choir of twelve" refers to the founding twelve members (brethren, friars, fratres), not to twelve founders.Its foundation is probably wrapped up in the spiritual movements of the mid-eleventh century, such as the Pataria, the Peace and Truce of God, and the Gregorian reform. The movement is attested in the area by the foundation in 1039 and spiritualisation in 1059 of the Badia di San Pietro in nearby Badia Pozzeveri. In his Memorie di Pescia, Francesco Galeotti wrote that the Order was founded by a rich and pious personaggio (individual). The Order was dedicated to James the Greater and Egidius. Its head was initially a rector, later a grand master (magister generalis), custos (custodian), warden, and eventually even bore the title Signore d'Altopascio (Lord of Altopascio).Emerton, 6.
Originally the Order was composed of a few canons charged with caring for pilgrims on their way to Rome or the Holy Land, via Italy, but later it extended its concern to the Way of Saint James. Their headquarters were in the church of the same name, San Giacomo dell' Alto Passo. Their Great Hospital dedicated to Saint James at Altopascio (Domus Hospitalis Sancti Iacobi de AltopassuTranslation: House of the Hospital of Saint James of Altopascio, .) is first mentioned in a bull of Innocent III from 1198, though he refers to earlier grants to the hospice by the Bishops of Lucca, whose names indicate that it existed as early as the third quarter of the century.Emerton, 5. In 1244 the hospice of Altopassus received a confirmation of its properties in Italy from the Emperor Frederick II as part of a program of support for institutions looking after the miserabiles (unfortunate). The emperor forbade the imposition of any tax on the Order or any interference lay or ecclesiastical with its property.Emerton, 7, says: "all persons are forbidden to obstruct in any way the free passage of goods destined for the service of the hospice or to hinder the brethren in their coming and going about their business—pro quacumque necessitate vel negotio suo—anywhere in Italy by the imposition of any form of exaction." The movement of goods as part of the Order's regular business was to go unhindered.Emerton, 7.
Expansion In time the Order came to be charged with safeguarding the roads and the bridges from brigands. The Order also had a bell named "La Smarrita" that was rung each night from a half hour before sunset to a half hour past to help guide any pilgrim wandering in the woods to safety. This custom was still reported in the time of Lami. They maintained a ferry service on the Arno River: in the territory of Florence and on the high road to Rome, where formerly a heavy tribute was exacted. This road has now been made free by members of the aforesaid Great Hospital and of other hospitals affiliated with it. So that at present all pilgrims and others freely pass there without payment.Emerton, 2, quoting Pierre Hélyot, in his turn quoting Jacques du Breul, Le Théâtre des Antiquitez de Paris (Paris: Pierre Chevalier, 1612), 576.
The lands from which the Order drew its income were found throughout Tuscany: in the Valdarno (bull of Anastasius IV of 1154), Valdinievole (bull of Alexander III of 1169), and Pistoia and Prato (aforementioned bull of Innocent III of 1198). Eventually the Order spread throughout Tuscany and Italy, reaching first Naples, Sardinia, and Sicily. The Order was eventually internationalised and had reached as far as the Rhône in Provence by the end of the twelfth century. It received endowments in Bavaria, Burgundy, the Dauphiné, England, Flanders, France, Germany, Lorraine, Navarre, Portugal, and Savoy. Each separate body was called a mansio (plural mansiones) on analogy with the Roman relay stations and hospitals abiding by the Order's rule were called obedientiae. Grants to the mansiones of money and land and, in the later Middle Ages, tithes were supervised by the grand master. The heart of the Order was always in Tuscany, however, as its close relationship with the great families of the Republic of Florence shows.Emerton, 6, citing Lami's documents. There is evidence that in the sixteenth century the Order was exchanging lands in such a way as to build up a compact territory of holdings nearer Altopascio.In 1481 the grand master, a member of the Capponi family of Florence, exchanged lands in Florence itself for lands near Fucecchio contiguous with properties already held by the order, with the permission of the papal legate. (The document is affirmed by "Antonio, son of Anastasio, son of Amerigo de' Vespucci, notary" and a brother of another Amerigo Vespucci.) The same grand master also exchanged lands in Volterra and Pisa with "Giovanni, notary of the Apostolic See, canon of Florence, and son of Lorenzo the Magnificent" for lands nearer Florence.
The church and hospital of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas in Paris, subject to the Great Hospital, was founded by Philip IV of France.Emerton, 2. Other sources place its foundation in 1180. It was still active in 1567.
Suppression The Order was suppressed by the bull Execrabilis issued by Pius II on 18 January 1459 along with five other religiones (religious orders). Their property was transferred to the fledgling Order of Our Lady of Bethlehem founded by that same bull: Further, we suppress and annul their former ordinances (ordines), the names of their associations, their titles of priority (priorales) and other dignities, and we decree that henceforth they shall be called, held, and named as of that military order of Saint Mary of Bethlehem. Moreover, in this order there shall be brethren and knights and priests as also in the aforesaid Order of Rhodes [Knights of Saint John], and the head of the aforesaid Hospital of Saint Mary of Bethlehem shall be the Master, elected by the brethren in the same way (pariformiter) [as in the Order of Rhodes].Emerton, 22–23. The suppression, however, was imperfectly carried out, or perhaps was never carried out at all.C. H. M. (1924), "The Fratres Pontifices and the Community at Altopasio," Catholic Historical Review, 9:4, 565–66. The Order certainly retained some Italian property until, on 14 March 1587, Sixtus V, at the request of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, merged the Order of Altopascio with the Order of Saint Stephen. In France it was finally absorbed into the Order of Saint Lazarus in 1672.
Organisation
Rule The Order's rule, the Regola dei Frati di San Jacopo d'Altopascio, was promulgated in ninety-six chapters by Gregory IX in 1239, and was based on the rule of the Knights of Saint John and, more generally, the rule of Saint Augustine.Emerton, 9. The rule was requested by the brethren. It is unknown if they abided by a different rule before 1239.If they were always Augustinians, as Walsh, 197, believes, they probably requested the more specific Hospitaller rule to more efficiently organise their Order, cf. Emerton, 9. The new rule also instituted a previously unknown hierarchy of members, leading the brethren to eventually refer to themselves all as knights, cf. Emerton, 18. The Latin rule is preserved in the Archives nationales on twenty-one 8½"x6" pages.Emerton, 12, who reviewed only photographic reproductions of the Latin manuscript, notes that the paragraphs "correspond in general with those in the Italian version". It was first published (in part) by the antiquarian Giovanni Lami between 1741 and 1754 and edited (entirely) by Pietro Farfani in 1864 in Italian.Emerton, 1–4. He disparages Farfani's Italian edition (in Curiosità Letterarie, LIV) on page 11, though Fanfani was aware that his Italian version was not contemporary but was a later translation, since the original Latin had been quoted at an earlier date by the Sieur du Cange. A Pescian document of 1358 still referred to the order as "living under the Rule of Saint Augustine".Emerton, 11.