of grand priories and commanderies, and the other administrative
arrangements differed in little, except occasionally in name, from
those of the Templars.

[Sidenote: Privileges of the military Orders.]

Both these Orders obtained not only extensive possessions from the
pious, but wide privileges from the Pope. They were subject to the
spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope alone; they could consecrate
churches and cemeteries on their own lands without any interference of
the local clergy; they could hold divine service everywhere.
Interdicts and excommunications had no terrors or even inconveniences
for them. They were free from payment of tithes and other imposts
levied on the clergy. There is no doubt that but for these Orders the
Crusaders would have fared far worse than they did. The Templars and
Hospitallers were the one really reliable element in the crusading
forces. This is no very high praise, and their effectiveness was
largely discounted by their bitter quarrels with each other and with
the local authorities, both secular and ecclesiastical, alike in the
east and the west. They scandalously abused the extensive privileges
accorded to them, by such acts as the administration of the Sacrament
to excommunicated persons, to whom they would also give Christian
burial. In 1179, at the second Lateran Council, Alexander III was
moved by the universal complaints to denounce their irresponsible
defiance of all ecclesiastical law, and subsequent Popes were obliged
to speak with equal vigour. After the destruction of the Latin power
in Palestine (1291) the Hospitallers transferred their head-quarters
to Cyprus till 1309, then to Rhodes, and finally to Malta. The
Templars abandoned their _raison d'etre_, retired to their
possessions in the west, and placed their head-quarters at Paris,