_Conflict with Boniface VIII.--The States-General--The
Destruction of the Knights-Templars--The Parlement_
In 1302 the eyes of Europe were again drawn to Paris where the Fourth
Philip, surnamed the Fair, a prince who, in Dante's grim metaphor,
scourged the shameless harlot of Rome from head to foot, and dragged
her to do his will in France, was grappling with the great pontiff,
Boniface VIII.--the most resolute upholder of the papacy in her claim
to universal secular supremacy--and essaying a task which had baffled
the mighty emperors themselves.
The king knowing he had embarked on a struggle in which the greatest
potentates had been worsted, determined to appeal to the patriotism of
all classes of his subjects and fortify himself on the broad basis of
such popular opinion as then existed. For the first time the
States-General were summoned, after the burning of the papal bull in
Paris on the memorable Sunday of 11th February 1302. Their meeting
marks an epoch in French history, and for the first time members of
the _Tiers Etat_ (the third estate, or commons), sat beside the
privileged orders of clergy and nobles, and were recognised as one of
the legitimate orders of the realm. The assembly was convoked to meet
in Notre Dame on the 10th of April. The question was the old one
which had rent Christendom asunder for centuries: Was the pope at Rome
to be supreme over the princes and peoples of the earth in secular as
well as in spiritual matters? The utmost enthusiasm prevailed, and
though the prelates spoke with a somewhat timid voice, the assembled
members swore to risk their lives and property rather than sacrifice
the honour of the crown and their own liberties to the insolent
usurpation of Rome. Excommunication followed, but Philip had ordered
all the passes from Italy to be guarded, so that no papal letter or
messenger should enter France. "Boniface, who," says Villani, the
Florentine chronicler, "was proud and scornful, and bold to attempt
every great deed, magnanimous and puissant," replied by announcing the
publication of a bull deposing the king from his throne and releasing
his subjects from their allegiance. Philip at an assembly in the
garden of the palace in the Cite, and in presence of the chief
ecclesiastical, religious and lay authorities, again laid his case
before the people and read an appeal against the pope to a future
Council of the Church.
The bull of deposition was to be promulgated on 8th September. On the
7th, while the aged pope was peacefully resting at his native city of
Anagni, Guillaume de Nogaret, Philip's minister, bearing the royal
banner of France, Sciarra Colonna and other disaffected Italian
nobles, with three hundred horsemen, flung themselves into Anagni,
crying--"Death to Pope Boniface." The papal palace was unguarded: at
the first alarm the cardinals fled and hid themselves, and all but a
few faithful servants forsook their master. The defenceless pope
believed that his hour was come, but, writes Villani, "Great-souled
and valiant as he was, he said, 'Since like Jesus Christ I must be
taken by treachery and suffer death, at least I will die like a pope.'
He commanded his servants to robe him in the mantle of Peter, to
place the crown of Constantine on his head and the keys and crozier in
his hands." He ascended the papal throne and calmly waited. Guillaume,
Sciarra and the other leaders burst into the apartment, sword in hand,
uttering the foulest of insults; but awed and cowed by the indomitable
old pontiff, who stood erect in appalling majesty, their weapons
dropped as though their hands were palsied and none durst offend him.
They set a guard outside the room and proceeded to loot the palace.
For three days the grand old pope--he was eighty-six years of
age--remained a prisoner, until the people of Anagni rallied and
rescued him, and he returned to Rome. In a month the humiliated
Boniface died of a broken heart, and before two years were passed his
successor in Peter's chair, Pope Clement V., revoked all his bulls and
censures, expunged them from the papal register, solemnly condemned
his memory and restored the Colonna family to all their honours.
Dante, who hated Boniface as cordially as Philip did, and cast him
into hell, was yet revolted at the cruelty of the "new Pilate, who had
carried the fleur-de-lys into Anagni, who made Christ captive, mocked
Him a second time, renewed the gall and vinegar, and slew Him between
two living thieves." But the "new Pilate was not yet sated." The
business at Anagni had only been effected _spendendo molta moneta_;
the disastrous battle of Courtrai and the inglorious Flemish wars had
exhausted the royal treasury; and the debasement of the coinage
availing nought, Philip turned his lustful eyes on a once powerful lay
order, whose chief seat was at Paris and whose wealth and pride were
the talk of Christendom.
After the capture of Jerusalem and the establishment there of a
Christian kingdom, pilgrims flocked to the holy places. Soon, however,
piteous stories reached Jerusalem of the cruel spoliation and murder
of unarmed pilgrims, on their journey from the coast, by hordes of
roving lightly-armed Bedouins, against whom the heavily-armed Franks
were powerless. The evil was growing well-nigh intolerable when, in
1118, two young French nobles, Hugh of Payens and Godfrey of St. Omer,
with other seven youths of highest birth, bound themselves into a lay
community, with the object of protecting the pilgrims' way. They took
the usual vows of poverty, charity and obedience; St. Bernard drew up
their Rule--and we may be sure it was austere enough--pope and
patriarch confirmed it. Their garb was a mantle of purest white linen
with a red cross embroidered on the shoulder. The order was housed in
a wing of the palace, which was built on the site of Solomon's Temple,
hard by the Holy Sepulchre, and its members called themselves the Poor
Soldiers of Christ and of Solomon's Temple. Their banner, half of
black, half of white, was inscribed with the device "_non nobis
Domine_." Their battle-cry "Beauceant," and their seal, two figures on
horseback, have not been satisfactorily interpreted--the latter
probably portrays a knight riding away with a rescued pilgrim. Soon
the little band of nine was joined by hundreds of devoted youths from
rich and noble families; endowments to provide them with arms and
horses and servants flowed in, and thus was formed the most famous,
the purest and the most heroic body of warriors the world has ever
seen. Hugh de Payens had gathered three hundred Knights-Templars
around him at Jerusalem: in five years nearly every one had been slain
in battle. But enthusiasm filled the ranks faster than they were mowed
down: none ever surrendered and the order paid no money for ransom.
When hemmed in by overwhelming numbers, they fought till the last man
fell, or died, a wounded captive, in the hands of the Saracens. Of
the twenty-two Grand Masters, seven were killed in battle, five died
of wounds, and one of voluntary starvation in the hands of the
infidel.
When Acre was lost, and the last hold of the Christians in the Holy
Land was wrested from them, only ten Knights-Templars of the five
hundred who fought there escaped to Cyprus. They chose Jacques de
Molay for Grand Master, replenished their treasury and renewed their
members; but their mission was gone for ever. The order was exempt
from episcopal jurisdiction and subject to the pope alone; its wealth,
courage and devotion were rusting for lack of employment. Boniface
VIII., with that grandeur and daring which make of him, despite his
faults, so magnificent a figure in history, conceived the idea of
uniting them with the other military orders--the Hospitallers and the
Teutonic Knights--and making of the united orders an invincible army
to enforce on Europe the decrees of a benevolent and theocratic
despotism. They soon became suspected and hated by bishops and kings
alike, and at length were betrayed by the papacy itself to their
enemies.
In 1304, a pair of renegade Templars,[73] who for their crimes were
under sentence of imprisonment for life in the prison at Toulouse,
sought an introduction to the king, and promised in return for their
liberty to give information of certain monstrous crimes and sacrileges
of common and notorious occurrence in the order. Depositions were
taken and sent to Philip's creature, Pope Clement V. Some
communication passed between them, but no action was taken and the
matter seemed to have lapsed. About a year after these events the
pope wrote an affectionate letter to Jacques de Molay, inviting him to
bring the treasure of the order and his chief officers to France, to
confer with himself and the king respecting a new crusade. Jacques and
his companions, suspecting nothing, came and were received by pope and
king with great friendliness: the treasure, twelve mules' load of gold
and silver, was stored in the vaults of the great fortress of the
Templars at Paris. Some rumours reached de Molay of the delation made
by the Toulousian prisoners, but the pope reassured him in an
interview, April 1307, and lulled him into security. On 14th September
of the same year the royal officers of the realm were ordered to hold
themselves armed for secret service on 12th October, and sealed
letters were handed to them to be opened that night. At dawn on the
13th, all the Templars in France were arrested in their beds and flung
into the episcopal gaols, and the bishops then proceeded to "examine"
the prisoners. One hundred and forty were dealt with in Paris, the
centre of the order. The charges and a confession of their truth by
the Grand Master were read to them; denial, they were told, was
useless: liberty would be the reward of confession, imprisonment the
penalty of denial.
[Footnote 73: The contemporary chronicler, Villani, says of one of
these scoundrels that he "was named Nosso Dei, one of our Florentines,
a man filled with every vice."]
A few confessed and were set free. The remainder were "examined."
Starvation and torture of the most incredible ferocity did their work.
Thirty-six died under the rack in Paris, and many more in other
places; most of the remainder confessed to anything the inquisitors
required. Clement, warned by the growing feeling in Europe, now became
alarmed, and the next act in the drama opens at the abbey of St.
Genevieve in Paris, where a papal commission sat to hear what the
Templars had to say in their defence. All were invited to give
evidence and promised immunity in the name of the pope. Hundreds came
to Paris to defend their order,[74] but having been made to understand
by the bishops that they would be burned as heretics if they retracted
their confessions, they held back for a time until solemnly assured by
the papal commissioners that they had nothing to fear, and might
freely speak. Ponzardus de Gysiaco, preceptor of Payens, then came
forward and disclosed the atrocious means used to extort confessions,
and said if he were so tortured again he would confess anything that
were demanded of him; he would face death, however horrible, even by
boiling and fire, in defence of his order, but long-protracted and
agonising torture was beyond human endurance. Ponzardus was sent back
to confinement and the warders were bidden to see that he suffered
naught for what he had said. The rugged old master, Jacques de Molay,
scarred by honourable wounds, the marks of many a battle with the
infidel, was brought before the court and his alleged confession read
to him. He was stupefied, and swore that if his enemies were not
priests he would know how to deal with them. A second time he was
examined and preposterous charges of unnatural crimes were preferred
against the order by the king's chancellor, Guillaume de Nogaret. They
were drawn from a chronicle at St. Denis, and based on certain
statements alleged to have been made by Saladin, Sultan of Babylon
(Egypt). Again he was stupefied, and declared he had never heard of
such things. And now the Templars' courage rose. Two hundred and
thirty-one came forward, emaciated, racked and torn; among them one
poor wretch was carried in, whose feet had been burnt by slow
fires.[75] Nearly all protested that the confessions had been wrung
from them by torture, that their accusers were perjurers, and that
they would maintain the purity of their order _usque ad mortem_ ("even
unto death"). Many complained that they were poor, illiterate
soldiers, neither able to pay for legal defence nor to comprehend the
charges indicted in Latin against them. It was Philip's turn now to be
alarmed, but the prelates were equal to the crisis. The archbishop of
Sens, metropolitan of Paris and brother of the king's chief adviser,
convoked a provincial court at his palace in Paris, and condemned to
the stake fifty-four of the Knights who had retracted their
confessions. On the 10th of May the papal commissioners were appealed
to: they expressed their sorrow that the episcopal court was beyond
their jurisdiction, but would consider what might be done. Short time
was allowed them. The stout-hearted archbishop was not a man to show
weakness; he went steadily on with his work, and in spite of appeals
from the papal judges for delay, the fifty-four were led forth on the
afternoon of the 12th[76] to the open country outside the Porte St.
Antoine, near the convent of St. Antoine des Champs, and slowly
roasted to death. They bore their fate with the constancy of martyrs,
each protesting his innocence with his last breath, and declaring
that the charges alleged against the order were false. Two days later,
six more were sent to the stake at the Place de Greve. In spite of
threats, the prelates went on with their grim work of terror. Many of
the bravest Templars still gave the lie to their traducers, but the
majority were cowed; further confessions were obtained, and the pope
was satisfied. The proudest, bravest and richest order in Christendom
was crushed or scattered to the four corners of the world; their vast
estates were nominally confiscated to the Knights Hospitallers. But
our "most dear brother in Christ, Philip the king, although he was not
moved by avarice nor intended the appropriation of the Templars'
goods"[77] had to be compensated for the expense of the prosecution:
the treasure of the order failed to satisfy the exorbitant claims of
the crown, and the Hospitallers were said to have been impoverished
rather than enriched by the transfer.
[Footnote 74: The indictment covers seven quarto pages. The charges
may be briefly classified as blasphemy, heresy, spitting and trampling
on the crucifix, obscene and secret rites, and unnatural crimes.]
[Footnote 75: An approved method of extracting confessions. As late as
1584 at the examination of a papal emissary, the titular archbishop of
Cashel, before the Lords Justices, Archbishop Loftus and Sir H. Wallop
at Dublin, the easy method failing to do any good "we made
commission," writes Loftus to Walsingham, "to put him to torture such
as your honour advised us, which was to toast his feet against the
fire with hot boots. Yielding to the agony he confessed,"
etc.--Froude's _History_, x. p. 619.]
[Footnote 76: There is a significant entry on page 273 of the
published trial: _in ista pagina nihil est scriptum_. The empty page
tells of the moment when the papal commissioners, having heard that
the fifty-four had been burned, suspended the sitting.]
[Footnote 77: _Nihil sibi appropriare intendebat._]
[Illustration: PALACE OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF SENS.]
The last act was yet to come. On 11th March 1314, a great stage was
erected in the _parvis_ of Notre Dame, and there, in chairs of state,
sat the pope's envoy, a cardinal, the archbishop of Sens, and other
officers of Christ's Church on earth. The Grand Master, Jacques de
Molay, and three preceptors were exposed to the people; their alleged
confession and the papal bull suppressing the order, and condemning
them to imprisonment for life, were read by the cardinal. But, to the
amazement of his Eminence, when the clauses specifying the enormities
to which the accused had confessed were being recited, the veteran
Master and the preceptor of Normandy rose, and in loud voices, heard
of all the people, repudiated the confession, and declared that they
were wholly guiltless, and ready to suffer death. They had not long to
wait. Hurried counsel was held with the king, and that same night
Jacques de Molay and the preceptor of Normandy were brought to a
little island on the Seine, known as the Isle of the Trellises,[78]
and burnt to death, protesting their innocence to the last.
[Footnote 78: Or the isle of the Jews, which, with its sister islet of
Bussy, were subsequently joined to the island of the Cite, and now
form the Place Dauphine and the land that divides the Pont Neuf.
Philip watched the fires from his palace garden.]
"God pays debts, but not in money." An Italian chronicler relates that
the Master, while expiring in the flames, solemnly cited pope and king
to meet him before the judgment-seat of God. In less than forty days
Clement V. lay dead: in eight months Philip IV. was thrown by his
horse. Seven centuries later the grisly fortress of the Templars
opened its portals, and the last of the unbroken line of the kings of
France was led forth to a bloody death.
Those who would read the details of the dramatic examination at Paris
before the papal commissioners, may do so in the minutes published by
Michelet.[79] The great historian declares that a study of the
evidence shook his belief in the Templars' innocence, and that if he
were writing his history again, he must needs alter his attitude
towards them. Such is not the impression left on the mind of the
present writer. Moreover it has been pointed out that there is a
suspicious identity in the various groups of testimonies,
corresponding to the episcopal courts whence such testimonies came.
The royal officers, after the severest search, could find not a single
compromising document in the Templars' houses, nothing but a few
account books, works of devotion and copies of St. Bernard's Rule.
There were undoubtedly unworthy and vicious knights among the fifteen
thousand Templars belonging to the order, but the charges brought
against them are too monstrous for belief. The call which they had
responded to so nobly, however, had long ceased. They were wealthy,
proud and self-absorbed. Sooner or later they must infallibly have
gone the way of all organisations which have outlived their use and
purpose. It is the infamy of their violent destruction for which pope
and king must answer at the bar of history.
[Footnote 79: It is to be hoped that some English scholar will do for
these most important records, the earliest report of any great
criminal trial which we possess, what Mr. T. Douglas Murray has done
for the Trial and Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc.]
Philip's reign is also remarkable for the establishment of the
Parlement in Paris. From earliest times of the Monarchy, the kings had
dispensed justice, surrounded by the chief Churchmen and nobles of the
land, thus constituting an ambulatory tribunal which was held wherever
the sovereign might happen to be. In 1302 Philip restricted it to
judicial functions, and housed it in his palace of the Cite, which on
the kings ceasing to dwell there in 1431 became the Palais de Justice.
The ancient palace was rebuilt and enlarged by Philip. A vast hall
with a double barrel-roof decorated with azure and gold, supported by
a central row of columns adorned with statues of the kings of
France--the most spacious and most beautiful Gothic chamber in
France--and other courts and offices accommodated the Parlement. The
tribunal was at first composed of twenty-six councillors or judges, of
whom thirteen were lawyers, presided over by the royal chancellor, and
sat twice yearly for periods of two months. It consisted of three
chambers or courts.[80] The nobles who at first sat among the lay
members gradually ceased to attend owing to a sense of their legal
inefficiency, and the Parlement became at length a purely legal body.
During the imprisonment of John the Good in England, the
Parlement[81] sat _en permanence_, and henceforth became the _cour
souveraine et capitale_ of the kingdom. The purity of its members was
maintained by severest penalties. In 1336 one of the presidents was
convicted of receiving bribes and hanged. Twelve years later the
falsification of some depositions was punished with the same severity,
and in 1545 a corrupt chancellor was fined 100,000 livres, degraded,
and imprisoned for five years. The chief executive officer of the
Parlement, known as the Concierge, appointed the bailiffs of the court
and had extensive local jurisdiction over dishonest merchants and
craftsmen, whose goods he could burn. His official residence, known as
the Conciergerie, subsequently became a prison, and so remains to this
day. The entrance flanked by the two ancient _tours de Cesar et
d'Argent_, is one of the most familiar objects in Paris. There the
Count of Armagnac was assassinated and the cells are still shown where
Marie Antoinette, Madame Roland, and many of the chief victims of the
Terror were lodged before their execution; where Danton, Hebert,
Chaumette, and Robespierre followed each other in one self-same
chamber.
[Footnote 80: In the seventeenth century the councillors had increased
to one hundred and twenty and the courts to seven.]
[Footnote 81: The term "Parlement" was originally applied to the
transaction of the common business of a monastic establishment after
the conclusion of the daily chapter.]
[Illustration: PALAIS DE JUSTICE, CLOCK TOWER AND CONCIERGERIE.]