in Jerusalem. The Crusaders called it the
Temple of Solomon and it was from this location that the Knights took their name of Templar.
Prelude ; illustration from a 15th–century French manuscript While the Templars had started off well and were at times considered the model of Christian knighthood, it was not long before resentment of their privileges, of their being "rich as kings", and criticism of some of their actions in war began to surface. For example, at the
siege of Damascus in 1148, the Templars and
Hospitallers were accused of accepting bribes to convince King
Conrad III of Germany to abandon the effort. There was other criticism of their actions as well. Following
the disastrous battle at the
Horns of Hattin and the subsequent
fall of Jerusalem, which some blamed on the Templars, they were left with almost no discernible military purpose in the Holy Land. Other critics also questioned their morals. The chronicler
William of Tyre was often critical of the order and in one instance accused them of ransoming Nasr-al-Din, the sultan's son, for 6,000 gold florins. When Grand Master
Odo de St Amand died in 1179, William called him "a wicked man, haughty and arrogant, in whose nostrils dwelt the spirit of a fury, one who neither feared God nor revered man" and that he was "mourned by no one". When the Templars took up banking and lending, the criticism only increased. Both
Walter Map and
John of Salisbury accused the Templars of
avarice.
Matthew Paris sometimes praised them while at other times was severely critical of the Templars. The loss of the last foothold in Syria,
Tortosa in 1302, was yet another failure that left them vulnerable to their critics. As the obvious surprise and shock of their arrests in 1307 indicate, nobody thought the Order was flawed to the point it needed disbanding. During this time period the power of the
papacy had declined and most of the popes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries found themselves either fleeing Rome or not allowed to enter at all. Also at this time
antipopes backed by the
German Emperors were common fixtures in the Emperors' bitter struggle with the Church. One of the last thirteenth century popes was Peter Morrone, an old man selected to be pope as a compromise, who as
Pope Celestine V proved too old and too ineffective to rule the Church and upon realizing this himself, he abdicated. This caused a tremendous protest throughout the western Church and had a divisive effect on the next pope,
Boniface VIII. Pope Boniface was in many ways the opposite of his predecessor in that he was very capable, determined and even bold, but many held that a pope could not abdicate and that Celestine remained the true pope. Boniface in turn captured the old pope, who had sought nothing more than to retire in peace, imprisoning him until his death in 1296. Boniface VIII continued to impose his control on secular authorities,
Edward I of England and
Philip IV of France, who both protested against his authority, but Philip IV of France proved his most formidable opponent. Philip attempted to tax the church, which Boniface refused, beginning a long series of struggles between the two. Finally in 1303
Guillaume de Nogaret, Philip IV's lawyer, drew up a list of 29 charges including
black magic, sodomy, heresy and blasphemy against Pope Boniface. In turn Boniface announced that he intended to place the
Kingdom of France under
interdict. This threat to Philip might have led to revolution, so de Nogaret and
Sciarra Colonna, leading a force of 1600 men, attacked
Anagni where the pope was in residence. They captured Boniface and held him prisoner for three days. After four days, however, the residents of Anagni rose up and expelled the invaders and took Boniface to Rome in triumph. But the ordeal had been too much for the 86‑year‑old pope and he died days later. Philip IV was determined not to have a pope interfere with his plans again and after a year the conclave was still unable to decide, so an outsider was suggested in the person of Bernard de Goth, Archbishop of Bordeaux. He had been a supporter of Boniface, but Philip arranged a meeting promising to support him as pope if he would agree to certain conditions, including reconciliations between France and the Church and absolution for any of Philip's men who had fought and captured Boniface. Bernard de Goth became Pope
Clement V on 14 November 1305. Philip IV of France, like his predecessors, employed Templars in his royal treasury in Paris to oversee a variety of financial functions of the French kingdom. There was little to indicate he had less than full trust in their integrity. In 1299, the Order loaned Philip the substantial sum of 500,000 livres for the dowry of his sister as well as his need of funds to fight the
Flemish War, at which time he imposed taxes until his subjects were in revolt. When he
debased the coinage, it led to an insurrection in Paris. The Knight Templar defended and gave the king refuge during the incident. But Philip had a history of seizing property and persons when it suited his needs, such as from the
Lombards in 1291 and the
Jews in 1306. In a meeting between Grand Master Molay and the pope, in either March or April 1307, the discussion revolved around problems in the order. In turn, in a letter to the King, Clement V told Philip that he intended a full investigation of the Templar order (Latin: on/concerning the state of the Templars) in mid-October later that year. About a week before his planned formal investigation Clement V received a surprising message that members of the order had been arrested, imprisoned and charged with heresy by an inquisition the pope had not convened.
Plan and the arrest On 14 September 1307, all bailiffs and seneschals in the Kingdom of France were sent secret orders from King Philip IV ordering preparations to be made for the arrest and imprisonment of all members of the Order of Templars; the arrests were to be executed a month later. At dawn on 13 October 1307, the soldiers of King Philip IV then captured all Templars found in France. Clement V, initially incensed at this flagrant disregard for his authority, nonetheless relented, and on 22 November 1307, issued the
papal bull Pastoralis praeeminentiae, which ordered all
monarchs of the Christian faith to arrest all Templars and confiscate their lands in the name of the Pope and the
Church. The order went out to
England,
Iberia,
Germany,
Italy and
Cyprus. The leader, Templar Grand Master
Jacques de Molay, and
Hugues de Pairaud, a Templar, referred to in various documents as "the visitor of France", who was the collector of all of the royal revenues of France owing to the Order, were both arrested, as were many other Templars in France. Philip used his ministers and agents
Guillaume de Nogaret and
Enguerrand de Marigny who collected a list of charges against the Templars. Other witnesses were said to have been made up of expelled Templar members, previously removed for their misdeeds. Under the orders of the French king, they were arrested and severely
tortured. Soon after, in 1307, the Pope sent two
cardinals to interview Jacques de Molay and Hugues de Pairaud. At that time they recanted their confessions and told the other Templars to do the same.
The specific charge of heresy Several significant changes in legal procedures had been made by 1230 that affected later trials, especially those of the Templars. No longer did a witness need fear reprisals if his accusations were proved untrue. Instead, a new system relying on the testimony of witnesses, judicial latitudes and the
inquisitorial procedure began to dominate criminal trials in most of Europe. In France, the issuance of
Cupientes in 1229 by
Louis IX of France, Philip's grandfather, gave the kings of France the duty to eliminate heresy in his kingdom. Additionally, from 1230 on, the inquisitors in northern Italy had been given special powers by
Pope Honorius III which allowed them to examine even the exempted and protected orders of the
Hospitallers,
Cistercians and Templars, but only in cases where heresy was suspected. When the
Albigensian Crusade was over, these special powers were never revoked but simply forgotten. Philip's royal lawyers concentrated their charges on this one vulnerable exception, that of heresy, to an otherwise untouchable order, one which answered only to the Pope.
Charges against the Templars The initial charge against the Templars was heresy; more specifically, "when professing, the brothers were required to deny Christ, to spit on the Cross, and to place three 'obscene kisses' on the lower spine, the navel and the mouth; they were obliged to indulge in carnal relations with other members of the order, if requested; and finally they wore a small belt which had been consecrated by touching a strange idol, which looked like a human head with a long beard. On August 12, 1308, the charges would be increased stating that the Templars worshipped idols, specifically made of a cat and a head, the latter having three faces. The lists of articles 86 to 127[3] would add many other charges. None of these "idols" were ever produced.
The inquisitional trials Of the various trials held in France, the first, and one of the larger trials, ran from 19 October to 24 November 1307, and was held in Paris. A total of 138 prisoners gave a full testimony and almost all admitted guilt to one or more charges. Since torture was used to elicit these confessions, the reliability of their testimony before this and other inquisitional tribunals remains an open question. What is known is these earlier confessions contradicted later testimony before the 1310 papal commissions in Paris. Another important trial that was held at Poitiers between 28 June and 2 July 1308 where at least 54 Templars testified before the pope and his commission of cardinals. Here too a considerable number of defendants confessed to one or more of the charges. When asked if their statements were freely given many said that, while they had been tortured or threatened, restricted to bread and water and other forms of harsh treatments had been imposed on them, their confessions were not the results of any torture. But in 1310 at least three said they had lied in front of the Pope and now wished to defend the order. Templar Peter (Pierre) of Bologna was trained as a
canon lawyer and was the Templar representative to the
papal court in
Rome. On 23 April 1310, Peter, with others, went before the commission and demanded what amounts to
full disclosure of their accusers and all the information and evidence gathered in the case. They also requested a ban on witnesses conversing with one another, and that all proceedings should be kept secret until they were sent to the Pope. In May 1310,
the Archbishop of Sens, Philippe de Marigny, took over the trial of the Templars from the original commission. De Marigny conducted the proceedings against the Templars until his death in 1316.
Pope Clement V interceded and directed that actual trials take place; however, Philip sought to thwart this effort, and had several Templars burned at the stake as heretics to prevent their participation in the trials. Two days after this change, 54 Templars were burned outside of Paris. When the papal commission met on 3 November 1310, they found the Templars had no defenders and adjourned until 27 December. At this time the prisoners insisted that Peter de Bologna and Renaud de Provins again defend them but were told the two priests had appeared before the commission of the Archbishop of Sens and that both de Provins and de Bologna were found guilty and had been imprisoned. Peter de Bologna, however, had managed to escape his confinement.
Recantation and death of Templar leaders in France Eventually King Philip's Inquisitors succeeded in making Jacques de Molay confess to the charges. On 18 March 1314, de Molay and de Charney recanted their confessions, stating they were innocent of the charges, and they were only guilty of betraying their Order by confessing under duress to something they had not done. They were immediately found guilty of being relapsed
heretics, for which the punishment was death. This effectively silenced the other Templars. Philip continued to pressure and threaten the Pope to officially disband the Order, and things came to a dramatic end in 1314 with the public execution by burning of leader
Jacques de Molay and
Geoffroi de Charney.
Trial timeline in France • Source for the majority of this timeline:
Malcolm Barber,
Trials p. 258
Outcome After commissions of the
Council of Vienne had reviewed all documents regarding the Templars, on 22 March 1312, Clement V issued the
Papal bull suppressing the Order of the Templars. In May 1312 by the bull
Ad Providam he provided that all assets of the Order of the Temple were to be given to
Knights Hospitaller, to maintain the original purposes of the gifts to aid the Holy Land. It further made a distinction between Templars who remained unrepentant and those not found guilty of any crimes or who had been reconciled to the Church. Philip IV, however, confiscated a huge sum from them in "compensation" for the "costs" of the proceedings against the Templars. Also, in England where inventories were made of Templar lands and assets, the papal order had no immediate effect. There were so many delays and stalling in handing over these lands that even as late as 1338 the Hospitallers had only nominal control of former Templar lands. == Trials in England, Ireland and Scotland ==