Crusader towns of the military orders: from the Levant to the Baltic

This paper examines the archaeology, urban plans, and history of towns founded by military orders in the Levant and the Baltic regions. First, the analysis compares the 13thcentury development of Templar Atlit (Israel) and Teutonic Elbląg (Poland). These two towns are shown to have developed in an almost identical way. They were similar in size, function, and origin, and both held important relics. Their contemporary development represents a unique point of confluence, as Atlit was one of the last crusader towns to develop in the mainland Levant, while Elbląg was one of the first such settlements in the Baltic. Thus, in the second part of the study, the development of each town is positioned in the broader context of settlement and modernization processes that occurred in both the Latin Levant and Central Europe. An overview of the chronology and structure of the new towns founded in these frontiers demonstrates that, in each region, the military orders were not the first Latin agents involved in establishing new settlements. Instead, the knights drew from earlier practices of other, secular and religious institutions, particularly the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre, and gradually learned to use them to build their own, increasingly autonomous positions.