Abstract EN:

Settled in Normandy after the great monastic and canonical orders, knights hospitallers and knights templars received the worst pieces of land, those which had not been occupied yet. They organized them in two different ways, the hospitallers by creating new towns and keeping only small domains; the templars by trying to extend theirs which were devoted to cattle-breeding as well as agriculture. Managed by non noble brethren, the estates of both orders were directly exploited by wage earners. Strongly and rationally organized, these properties left their mark in the landscapes up to the recent regrouping of land. During the XIVth century, war and plague largely reducec arable lands which did not find again their extent before the XVIIIth century, ward had another consequence : the destruction of buildings. Nevertheless, the edifices built by the templars which have been preserved, like chapels or barns, are noteworthy for their dimensions and construction quality. In normandy, the hospitallers renounced the direct cultivation on behalf of farming lease during the XVth century. From the XVIth to the XVIIIth, a mainly aristocratic recruitment transformed the knights hospitallers' mentalities. More lords than monks, commanders pulled down their medieval buildings, including chapels, and replaced them by up-do-date manor houses. Whatever they are, these old structures are seriously threatened today.