THE TEMPLARS AND THE HOLY SEE 83
of the Order forbidding such exchanges, and died in a
Damascus prison in 1180.
Under Odo de St. Amand the Temple had grown in power,
but he had been a troublesome element in the kingdom.
The Bull of Alexander III, which gave so many privileges
to the Order, had been interpreted by Odo as making the
Temple free of every restraint, and the Order grew
unpopular as a result of his pride and aggressiveness. The
Hospital likewise adopted the attitude that the power of the
military monks was unlimited in ecclesiastical affairs. Both
Orders claimed tithes which belonged to other religious
institutions $ acquired churches which were not intended for the
use of their members 5 installed and removed priests in such
churches as seemed good to them. The permission to hold
services once a year in churches laid under interdict had been
extended by the Orders to a general authority to have services
as often as they liked in such places and to bury people in the
cemeteries of interdicted churches. Wealthy persons who
were excommunicated could afford to despise the ecclesiastical
ban, for the Temple and the Hospital would, for a considera-
tion, arrange for the priests of the Orders to administer the
sacraments to the outcasts. Nor was it only to the rich that
the Orders gave such consolations. Often they welcomed
excommunicated men merely to show their contempt for the
bishops.
The Church of Palestine protested and sent representatives
to Rome to beseech the Pope to intervene. As a result of
these complaints, the Holy See addressed a warning to the
Masters of the Temple and the Hospital in 1179: —
" Whereas it is our clear duty to plant the sacred religion
and to cherish it in every way, our purpose can never be better
fulfilled than if we consider that, by the authority of God,
we are charged to protect the right and to correct whatever
interferes with the spread of the truth. From the com-
plaints of our bishops and colleagues we learn that the