THE PRIORY OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM
The history of this House belongs to the history of the Knights of St.
John, or Knights Hospitallers. The Order was founded about the year
1048, beginning, like all great orders, in a small and humble way,
with a Hospital for pilgrims at Jerusalem; after the conquest of the
city, the Brethren were incorporated into a religious body, bound by
vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience; in the year 1118 they became
a military body, sworn to defend the Holy Sepulchre. They became, in
the course of two centuries, an extremely wealthy body, whose only
rivals were the Templars. They wore a red surcoat over their armour,
with a Maltese Cross enamelled white and edged with gold for a badge.
Their motto was “Pro fide,” with the later addition of “Pro utilitate
hominum.”
There were nearly 40,000 knights scattered over the various Priories,
Commanderies, and Preceptories of the Order; they were divided into
eight “langues”—Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon, England,
Germany, and Castile.
The Grand Prior of Clerkenwell ranked as the first Baron of England; he
had absolute authority over the English branch; after the suppression
of the Templars the Hospitallers obtained a nominal grant of all their
estates, but these were so heavily burdened with legal and other
charges, that the new owners were not greatly enriched.
The church of the Priory was dedicated by Heraclius, Patriarch of
Jerusalem, in 1185. The English branch of the knights grew and
prospered; they acquired a great number of manors; they sent abroad
companies and contingents wherever fighting was going on against the
Moslem; no one could accuse the knights of refusing to act up to their
vows as regards fighting. But they became most unpopular; they acquired
the reputation, like the Templars, of being oppressive landlords and
proud neighbours. In the rising of Wat Tyler, vengeance fell especially
upon the Knights Hospitallers. The mob attacked, seized, wrecked, and
fired the Priory; they would not allow any effort to stay the flames;
they watched it burn for a week; and they destroyed the Prior’s house
at Highbury.
When the insurrection was quelled, the knights returned to their
ruined Priory and set themselves to rebuild it in greater
magnificence; the rebuilding, conducted in the leisurely mediæval
fashion, took nearly two hundred years; it was not until 1504 that the
House was completed by Sir Thomas Docwra, then Prior, and this was only
one short generation before the suppression of the Order in England and
the confiscation of their property.
The Dissolution of the Order took place in 1540. The Act for its
suppression was read for the first time in the House of Commons on the
22nd of April, for the second time on the 26th, and for the third time
on the 29th. On the 7th May the Order was suppressed. The value of its
revenues in England was estimated, according to Stow, at £3385: 19:
8; according to Dugdale, at £2385: 12: 8. The last Prior, Sir William
Weston, received from the King the promise of a pension of £1000 a
year—an enormous pension considering the value of money. But he died on
the day of the suppression.
[Illustration: THE PRIORY OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM, LONDON
_Londina Illustrata_, vol. i.]
Unlike many Houses, the Priory, with its noble church, escaped the
hands of the destroyer for some time. What happened to it is told by
Stow:—
“This Priory church and House of St. John was preserved from spoil or
downpulling, so long as King Henry VIII. reigned, and was employed as
a store-house for the King’s toils and tents, for hunting, and for the
wars, etc.; but in the 3rd of King Edward VI., the church, for the
most part, to wit, the body and side aisles, with the great bell tower
(a most curious piece of workmanship, graven gilt, and enamelled, to
the great beautifying of the city, and passing all other that I have
seen), was undermined and blown up with gunpowder; the stone thereof
was employed in building of the Lord Protector’s house in the Strand.
That part of the choir which remaineth, with some side chapels, was,
by Cardinal Pole in the reign of Queen Mary, closed up at the west
end, and otherwise repaired; and Sir Thomas Gresham, knight, was then
made lord prior there, with restitution of some lands, but the same
was again suppressed in the first year of Queen Elizabeth.” (_Survey_,
vol. ii.)
Not even the Templars, at their highest point of splendour, outdid
these knights in magnificence and luxury, in pride and in independence.
Unpopular as they were, they did not incur the same odium as the
Templars. In their pride and their privileges, it is true, they were
the equals of the rival Order; they were as hard landlords; but they
had this great superiority over the Templars in the fact that they did
honestly continue the work for which they were founded: they fought the
Moslem without intermission at Acre, at Rhodes, at Cyprus, at Malta,
and in the Mediterranean Sea. They preserved the respect of the world
for unconquerable courage.
In 1191 the Knights Hospitallers took Acre, which they held till 1292.
On losing this, the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land, they
retired to Cyprus, where they lay quiet, maturing their plans for
fourteen years. It was, no doubt, the knowledge that they were forming
plans for another attack on the Saracens which saved them on the
downfall of the Templars. In 1308 they conquered Rhodes, which they
defended for more than two hundred years. In 1522 they were turned out
of this island; the few knights who survived sailed away with about
4000 soldiers and others from Rhodes, and took refuge in Candia, in
Sicily, and in Naples, hoping for assistance to retake Rhodes. This
assistance was not forthcoming, but they accepted from Charles the
Fifth the islands of Malta and Gozo, to which they repaired, with all
their archives and relics, in 1530. For two hundred and fifty years
after this, the knights continued to fight Turk, Algerine, and Moor
in the Mediterranean. In 1798, however, they allowed Napoleon to land
without striking a blow.
Their rules were so stringent that it would seem, at first, wonderful
how so much pride and luxury should have crept in. But the history of
every Monastic House shows how rules can be evaded, or so obeyed as to
destroy the spirit while adhering to the letter.
“Poverty, chastity, and obedience: to expect but bread and water and a
coarse garment. The clerks to serve in white surplices at the altar.
The priests, in their surplices, to convey the Host to the sick, with
a deacon or clerk preceding them, bearing a lantern and the sponge
filled with holy water. The brethren to go abroad by appointment of
the master, but never singly, and to avoid giving offence. No females
to be employed for or about their persons; when soliciting alms, to
visit churches or people of reputation, and ask their food for charity;
if they received none, to buy enough for subsistence; to account for
all their receipts to the master, and he to give them to the poor,
retaining only one-third part of provisions, the overplus to the poor.
The brethren to go soliciting only by permission; to carry candles
with them; to wear no skins of wild beasts, or clothes degrading the
Order. To eat but twice a day on Wednesday and Saturday; and no flesh
from Septuagesima till Easter, except when aged or indisposed. To
sleep covered. If incontinent in private, to repent in privacy, and
do penance; if the brother was discovered, he was to be deprived of
his robe in the church of the town after mass, to be severely whipped,
and expelled from the Order; but, if truly penitent, he might be again
received; but not without penance and a year’s expulsion, etc.”
[Illustration: CRYPT OF ST. JOHN’S CHURCH, CLERKENWELL]
If we follow the fortunes of the House after the accession of
Elizabeth, we find that the south gate was granted by King James in
1604 to Sir Roger Wilbraham for life. In 1607 the site of the House,
containing five acres, was granted to Ralph Freeman and his heirs. The
choir, which had been restored or rebuilt by Cardinal Pole, became the
property of Sir William Cecil; the Earl of Elgin got it by his marriage
with Diana, daughter of the Earl of Exeter; his son, being created
Earl of Aylesbury, called it Aylesbury Chapel. In the reign of James
the Second a Roman Catholic convent of Benedictine monks was set up in
the Precinct of St. John’s. An account of the attempt is given in T.
Cromwell’s _History of Clerkenwell_:—
“It appears, that in the reign spoken of, a certain _Father Corker_
was ‘resident in England to the Elector of Colen’ (Cologne); and
that, having first set up a chapel in the Savoy, from which, owing to
a dispute with the Jesuits, he was persuaded by the King to remove,
‘he went to St. John’s, corruptly called St. Jone’s, and there built
a mighty pretty convent, which the Revolution of 1688 pulled down to
the ground, to his very great loss, for as he was Dean of the rosary,
he melted down the great gold chalice and patten to help towards
this building, supplying the want of them with one of silver just
of that make. He counted this convent for the conversion of souls
amongst those things which the holy Fathers of the Church allow the
church treasure to be spent on.’ This convent seems to have cost the
Benedictines considerable sums of money; frequent entries appear
in their account-books of that period of amounts paid towards its
erection, etc. It is always styled in these books ‘The Factory,’ or,
‘The Factory in Clerkenwell.’”
In the year 1721 the estate was purchased by Simon Michell, and in 1723
he repaired and enlarged the chapel, which he sold to the commissioners
for building fifty new churches, for £2950. The church was declared
to be a parish church, and the parish assigned to it was the former
precinct of the Priory.
The remains of the Priory consist now of the gate, the crypt of the
church, some fragments of the ancient walls, and foundations of the
former buildings. The crypt, which, until recently, was filled with
coffins, has now been cleared; it is one of the most remarkable
monuments in London; it was found by excavation to have extended,
formerly, much farther to the west; probably to the whole extent of the
church.
The Gatehouse consists of the gate itself, with two rooms, one on each
side, and a large chamber above. In 1731 it was occupied by Edward
Cave the publisher, and from this spot was issued the _Gentleman’s
Magazine_. The associations of Johnson, Goldsmith, and others with the
Gate belong to another place.
The Gatehouse served for some time as a tavern. In 1876 it became the
Chapter House of the English Order of St. John of Jerusalem.
THE TEMPLARS
We now turn to the second of the two great Military Orders which belong
to the Mediæval Life. The Templar, as well as the Knight Hospitaller,
rode through the streets with his following, haughty, rich, luxurious,
hated by the people as a hard and cruel landlord; hated by the King for
his privileges; by the Church as outside Episcopal jurisdiction; by the
City for his pride, and for the vices which were freely attributed to
him.
The story of the destruction of the Order of Knights Templars in
1306-1312 is a historical problem that will never, I suppose, be
satisfactorily explained. The broad facts are well known. In the
year 1305, through the influence of Philippe le Bel, King of France,
Bertrand, Archbishop of Bordeaux, was elected Pope and took the title
of Clement the Fifth. He was the first of the Popes of Avignon. In
return for the tiara, Clement undertook to perform certain acts,
in number six. Five of them are known. The sixth, kept a secret,
is supposed to have been the suppression of the Templars. There
were indeed various reasons why the King—or any king in Western
Europe—should desire the suppression of this Order. The knights had
grown enormously rich; some idea of their wealth may be obtained by the
enumeration of some of the manors they possessed in England alone. Let
us take one county, Hertfordshire (C. G. Addison’s _Knights Templars_,
p. 94). In this county formerly they possessed the town and forest of
Broxbourne, the manor of Chelsin Templars (Chelsin Templariorum) and
the manors of Laugenok, Broxbourne, Letchworth, and Temple Dynnesley;
demesne lands at Stanho, Preston, Charlton, Walden, Hiche Chelles,
Levecamp and Benigho; the church of Broxbourne, two watermills, and a
lock on the river Lea; property at Hichen, Pyrton, Ickilford, Offeley
Parva, Walden Regis, Furnivale, Ipolitz, Wandsmyll, Watton, Therleton,
Weston, Gravele, Wilien, Leccheworth, Baldock, Datheworth, Russenden,
Codpeth, Sumershale, Buntynford, etc., and the church of Weston.
[Illustration: “THE TEMPLARS”: AN ANCIENT HOUSE AT HACKNEY
Drawn and engraved by S. Rawle.]
It must not be supposed that Hertfordshire was exceptional in this
respect; the whole of England was dotted over with the possessions of
the Order. All this land was given to the Order at a time when the
first passion for crusading had cooled, and princes began to think
that it might be better for the country if men were paid to fight the
Saracen. The Templars were at first a very fine regiment, splendidly
equipped, and full of valour. To maintain this regiment was surely
a good work, almost as good as going to fight in person. The land
was given them on the condition that the larger part of the revenues
should be sent every year to the Grand Master of the House and Order in
Jerusalem. It was held by them, further, on such terms as were never
before heard of; the knights were exempt from all taxation aids and
“amerciaments”; they could not be compelled to plead except before the
King or his Chief Justice; they had power to hold Courts; to impose
fines upon their tenants; to hold markets; to try criminals caught
on their lands; they could travel without paying toll; they were not
obliged to contribute to bridges and other works; they seized the
chattels of all felons caught on their lands. Nor was this all: they
were exempted from paying tithe; they could not be excommunicated by
Bishop or priest; their houses had the right of sanctuary; and they had
an Ecclesiastical Court of their own, with a judge, whom they called
Conservator Privilegiorum Suorum. The Grand Master and the Brotherhood
were subordinate only to the Pope; a large number of priests had been
admitted to the Order, which was entirely free from the Church in any
country. This great Order, at the beginning of the fourteenth century,
numbered, it is said, fifteen hundred knights, with chaplains and
serving brothers innumerable. The revenues were, as has been shown,
enormous, and not one penny went to the purpose for which the Order
had been endowed. The Holy Land had been swept clear of Christians;
the Latin Kingdom, the name of which survived, had been destroyed for
more than a hundred years; the degenerate grandsons of the Crusaders
had long been scattered to the four winds; the Knights Templars and
Knights Hospitallers had been expelled from the country, even from the
fortified ports: Jaffa and Antioch fell in 1268, Tripoli in 1290, Acre
in 1291. Then the Templars, reduced in numbers, retired to Cyprus,
whence, in 1300, Jacques de Moray, the last Grand Master, made an
unsuccessful attempt to seize Alexandria, and in 1303, when he tried to
found a settlement at Tortosa, not only the power of the knights had
gone but also their prestige. These dates are necessary, because they
show that as soon as the Templars were proved incapable of doing the
work for which they existed, then the attack upon them commenced, and
not before.
[Illustration: KNIGHT TEMPLAR]
[Illustration: KNIGHT TEMPLAR:
TEMPLE CHURCH]
The central house of the Templars in London was called the Temple. At
first it was built on the north-east corner of Chancery Lane. Remains
of this house were standing until quite modern times. When the Order
became richer, the members bought a piece of ground stretching from
Whitefriars to Essex House, and there erected a splendid convent, of
which the Chapel remains to this day. The Master of the Temple was
the Master of the English Templars. There were, however, some fifty
Preceptories scattered about the country, monastic establishments, each
ruled by a Prior, chiefly inhabited by sick or aged Templars. The site
of many of their Preceptories is still preserved by the name, as Temple
Combe in Somersetshire, Temple Rothley in Lincolnshire, and others. The
Priors of the Preceptories had in their hands the management of the
estates and the collection of the rents and dues.
[Illustration: AN EFFIGY AT THE TEMPLE CHURCH, ERRONEOUSLY DESCRIBED AS
THAT OF GEOFFREY DE MANDEVILLE]
The Temple of London, in consequence of its garrison of knights,
its monastic character, and its privilege of sanctuary, became a
place in which great lords and even kings deposited their treasure.
Queen Berengaria’s dower was placed in the hands of the Templars.
Hubert de Burgh made the Temple his bank, and the knights refused
to let the King’s officers remove the money and jewels he had given
into their care. Kings made the place their residence; King John
was there when his barons came to him demanding the “liberties and
laws of King Edward.” Henry the Third, after a little quarrel with
the Order, became reconciled to them, and lived for a while in the
Temple; he made them the guardians of his treasure; he was present at
the consecration of the Chancel of their Church in 1240. And he sent
certain Castilian Ambassadors to the Temple as his guests. But by the
beginning of the fourteenth century there is no doubt that the Templars
had become unpopular. The King could not be pleased to think of manors
and lordships which produced no revenues for the realm; the nobles
grudged the immunities of the Order, and remembered that the lands of
the Templars had once belonged to their ancestors before they were
piously alienated; merchants could not with patience behold the annual
transmission of vast sums of money out of the country; the Bishops
lusted after the tithes, and regarded the Templars with suspicion and
dislike as a united body over whom they had no authority. Finally,
soldiers and military historians remembered that in the last days
in Palestine the Order would own no subordination to King, Bishop,
or Council; the knights stood apart, a compact body; so far, it was
said, from supporting the Cross in the Holy Land, they did their best
by their stubborn independence to pull it down. War has no rule more
rigid and inflexible than the rule of obedience to one general. This
rule the Templars had broken. That they fought with valour no one could
deny, but they fought for themselves. Lastly, since there was no more
fighting in Palestine, and no hope of any, why go on sending all their
treasure out of the country? And what good were the Knights Templars
any longer? There had been signs of coming storm after the fall of
Acre in 1291. Edward the First seized the money intended to be sent
to Cyprus on the ground that the purpose for which it had been sent
in former years no longer existed. He gave it up, it is true, at the
request of the Pope. Before this he had seized ten thousand pounds
belonging to the Templars, and this money he did not return. Edward
the Second also took away from the Temple fifty thousand pounds of
silver, with a quantity of gold, jewels, and precious stones. That
these acts of violence were committed without remonstrance or redress
indicates that the power of the Templars had greatly diminished. These
considerations—coupled with the intolerable pride of the knights and
their splendour, which mocked the smaller gentry—were sufficient
to account for the unpopularity of the Order and for the general
acquiescence in its suppression. And with societies as well as with men
when they become unpopular, sinister rumours began to be whispered,
crimes began to be alleged, words began to be reported.
On 6th June 1306 Clement the Fifth addressed an invitation to the Grand
Masters of the Templars and the Hospitallers inviting them both to a
conference as to the recovery of the Holy Land. It is thought that it
was his intention to overwhelm both Orders in one common destruction.
Since, however, a great part of the property of the Templars was
afterwards given to the Hospitallers, it is not probable that this was
the Pope’s intention. Jacques de Moray, Grand Master of the Templars,
accepted: the Grand Master of the Hospitallers declined to be present.
De Moray arrived in France with sixty knights and a long train of
sumpter mules bearing his treasure, estimated at 150,000 golden
florins, and a vast quantity of silver. On September 14 the King,
without waiting for the Pope’s consent, issued secret orders to all
his seneschals instructing them to summon each a powerful force on the
night of October 12; not to open the orders until that night, and then
to execute them. On that night every Templar in France was arrested.
The world heard with amazement that this great and valiant order was
guilty of the most frightful crimes. These were arranged under five
heads:
(1) That at their initiation they denied Christ and spat upon the Cross.
(2) That they worshipped an idol of some monstrous form.
(3) That they gave and received disgusting kisses at these receptions.
(4) That they omitted the words of consecration in the mass.
(5) That they practised unnatural vices.
There were other and minor charges. Among them, for instance, that the
Grand Master claimed the power of granting absolution; that they wore
a magical cord; that they were in secret league with the Mohammedans.
How these charges arose it is impossible to prove; it was said that
they came from one Squin de Florian, a man who had been imprisoned on
account of his corrupt life, and according to others a certain Nosso,
an apostate Templar, who between them devised and invented the whole.
[Illustration: _Photochrom Co. Ltd_
INTERIOR OF THE TEMPLE CHURCH]
How those charges became an indictment of the Templars in Paris; how
they were tortured until they confessed, and slowly burned to death
when they retracted, belongs to the general history of the Order.
Here we have only to do with the Templars in London. The French King,
Philippe, sent a messenger, one Bernard Peletin, to Edward the Second,
his son-in-law, informing him of the detestable crimes of which the
Templars were guilty, and urging him to follow his example. Edward
refused at first to believe the charges. But the Pope wrote to the same
effect; and, against his wishes, Edward had no choice but to arrest the
Templars in England, Scotland, and Ireland. The arrest was made on the
8th of January. By this time, the news from Paris had spread over every
Preceptory in the country; many anticipated their arrest by flight;
but the leaders, the Master of the Temple, the Priors, and the chief
officers made no attempt to escape. The knights, with the exception
of the Master, who was liberated on bail, were kept prisoners till
September in the following year, when the two inquisitors appointed
by the Pope arrived. There were in all 229 knights. There is reported
to have been a general scramble for the goods and chattels of the
knights—no doubt the Temple and the Preceptories were full of silver
plate and tapestry and armour. The trial began in the hall of the
Bishop of London’s Palace. The first examination in London, Dublin,
York, and Lincoln produced nothing. All, without exception, steadfastly
denied the charges brought against them. At the same time, as the
Pope had sent a bull in which he assumed as already proved the guilt
of the Order, and the crime of which the members stood accused, the
Inquisition was bound to find the knights guilty. One should observe
here that although as yet no torture had been applied, the knights
could not be ignorant of what was being done in France, where tortures
too dreadful to be written down were applied to the unhappy prisoners.
Probably they expected what was to follow. The infamy of the torture,
however, belongs to the Pope, not to Edward. The Pope it was who wrote
to admonish his dearest son that the “question” should be applied.
Edward gave way: he ordered that the prisoners should be confined in
separate rooms, and that the inquisitors should visit them, and do
with their bodies “whatsoever they should think fit, according to
ecclesiastical law.” For three months, therefore, the knights were
subjected to question under torture. Not one confessed anything. The
Inquisitors then examined witnesses for the prosecution. The evidence
was, from beginning to end, hearsay. It discloses a great deal of
hatred towards the Templars, since these things could be whispered
about them, but there is not the least direct evidence. Then the
knights drew up a declaration of faith, which they handed in. It is
full and explicit, and asserts their orthodoxy and their belief in the
strongest terms. Once more the torture was applied. By this time the
prisoners filled the City prisons. Some were in the Tower, some were
in the prison of Aldgate, some in that of Cripplegate, some in that of
Bishopsgate, some in that of Ludgate, and some in that of Newgate.
They were loaded with fetters; they were placed in solitary
confinement; they were kept in dungeons; they were living on bread
and water; and thus weakened, they were tortured by the Inquisition
and worried by learned doctors of theology, who succeeded at last in
getting a confession from two serving brethren and one chaplain. There
was nothing in the confessions except what the Inquisitors wanted.
However, armed with that, they were able to satisfy the Pope. The
process against the Templars was at least more humane in London than
in Paris. Torture there was, but at the express command of the Pope;
there was no burning, not even of the Master; nor was there any of the
accursed slow roasting which makes the French business so atrocious.
What happened in London to terminate the Inquisition was this. The
Bishops of London, Winchester, and Chichester had an interview with
some of the Templars, and told them that they were clearly guilty of
heresy in supposing that the Grand Master had power of absolution, and
that it would be well for them, generally, to clear themselves of that
and any other heresy of which they might be accused. The prisoners
replied that they were anxious to clear themselves of any heresy into
which they might have fallen. Observe that there was not one word said
about any of the five charges brought by Philip; these were quietly
dropped. The Templars, therefore, were publicly reconciled to the
Church, and absolved by a form of words in which it was guardedly said
that “they could not entirely purge themselves of the heresies set
forth in the apostolic bull.” Surely a verdict of not guilty could
not be more plainly returned. Then the rest were reconciled. All but
William de Moray the Master. He died in prison of a broken heart. At
the same time, in Aragon, Portugal, Tarragona, and Germany, the Order,
though examined under torture, was pronounced innocent of the charges
brought against it. It was said, long afterwards, that with his dying
breath Jacques de Moray summoned Pope and King to meet him before the
judgment seat of God. Both of them died the year after. Everybody,
it is reported, and it was believed, connected with the trials and
the cruelties, came to a miserable end. The wretched man who invented
the charges, Squin de Florian, was hanged for some new crime. And as
for the agonising death of Edward the Second, men whispered that thus
and thus had it been done unto him in return for his treatment of the
Templars. The voice of the people is difficult to hear in the first
decade of the fourteenth century, otherwise one would like to know what
they thought of the introduction of torture as a judicial instrument.
For until these trials torture was unknown in England. To be tried, to
be hanged, to have the hand struck off, to be branded, these things
the people understood, but torture they did not understand. Nay, so
ignorant were they of the art and method of torture that two Frenchmen
were sent for to instruct the executioners. Torture was always
regarded, not only by the English people generally, but by the judges
and lawyers, with a shrinking and horror which did not exist on the
Continent, where they continued to torture prisoners until well into
the eighteenth century. There can be no doubt that the later hatred
of the Roman Catholic Religion was fomented and kept alive by the
reports which came from Spain and Portugal of the tortures inflicted
by the Inquisition in the name of that religion. The Tudor sovereigns
occasionally inflicted torture. But the judges in 1628 declared that
the torture of Villiers, the murderer of Buckingham, was illegal.
Considering the wholesale nature of the torture of the Templars, and
that the thing was done in the City prisons, and that it was well
known to the Mayor and Sheriffs, and therefore, one supposes, to all
the world, one would expect some kind of shuddering recollection of
the event in the minds of the people, some lingering horror. But there
is none. The flames of Smithfield, all laid to the charge of Mary,
remain in men’s minds. But the cruel torture of these men, and their
unmerited sufferings, passed at once out of mind and were forgotten.
For three years and a half the English Templars were in prison. They
were arrested in January 1308 and released in 1311. In April 1312, at a
Council held at Vienna, the Order was finally suppressed.
The property of the Templars—by order of the Pope—was given to the
Knights Hospitallers. Their personal property, their vast heaps of gold
and silver plate, their furniture, tapestry, armour, precious stuffs,
their sacks of money were seized and scrambled for at the outset. When
a rich Preceptory was suddenly left empty and deserted save for a few
outdoor servants, anybody, any neighbouring Baron, could step in and
clear out the contents. Their manors and lordships, their churches,
villages, tolls and rights were given away by King Edward with a lavish
hand. No king, as yet, since William the Conqueror, had had so much
to give as Edward; nor would any king again have so much till the
Dissolution of the Houses. The Pope expostulated. But it was difficult
to make the new owners give up their holdings: an Act of Parliament was
passed; it proved futile. Later on, in the reign of Edward the Third,
another Act was passed, and some of the property was given to the
Hospitallers. In France, Philip handed over the whole, but so charged
and laden by his own demands that the Hospitallers found themselves
none the richer.
The evidence and the confessions suggest certain observations. For
instance, the knights wore a magical cord. That there was a cord is
clear, and they all wore it, but they were mostly in ignorance of its
meaning. It was intended to remind them of their vows of chastity; it
was supposed to have been passed round the waist of the Virgin. The
cord remained, but its symbolical meaning was lost. Then as to the
denial of their religion, the kiss of brotherhood, and so forth. There
have been, and are still, many societies of men in which there is a
secret form of initiation, with ceremonies which are symbolical. I see
no reason at all to doubt that at the initiation of a Templar he was
led into the Hall naked or in a shirt only—he was to be penniless,
naked, without arms, helpless—all temporal gifts he was to receive
from his brethren. Is it too much to suppose that he went through the
form of worshipping an idol indicated by a statue or picture while in
this naked, prehistoric condition, in order that he might receive his
religion also from the knights, and so owe everything in this world and
the next to the Brotherhood? Considering other initiations of which one
has learned something, I am quite prepared to admit the probability of
such a ceremony. As to the origin of the reports and rumours, it is
quite enough to live in an ignorant age, to be raised above the common
herd by wealth, to be separated from the rest of the world, and to
observe secrecy as regards certain forms and ceremonies. Against such
men reports and rumours will speedily arise and spread abroad and fill
the whole land. And these, it is very certain, will not be reports of
virtue or rumours of sanctity.
The transference of the property of the Templars to their rivals makes
one doubt that the object of the Pope was plunder. Since we cannot
believe that he had destroyed one Order, on account of its wealth and
power, only to make another Order richer and more powerful still, it
seems certain that the jealousy of the Templars’ wealth was not the
cause of the Pontiff’s action. Was it, then, really a belief in the
charges brought against them? We have seen that there was no evidence,
so far as has been recorded, to support these charges: that in Spain,
Portugal, and Germany the Order was found “not guilty”: that a verdict
practically amounting to “not guilty” was found in London: and that
in Paris only were the knights sentenced to be punished as heretics
and relapsed heretics. If Clement the Fifth actually believed in the
hearsay evidence of improbabilities amounting to impossibilities, he
must have possessed far less of the judicial faculty than belongs even
to the ecclesiastical mind. Had such a man been a layman he would be
set down as the most mischievous fool that ever sat upon a bench of
justice. We will suppose that Clement was not a fool, what then? Why
did he write those bulls? Was it in accordance with the sixth condition
agreed upon with Philip? Is Philip, and Philip alone, responsible for
this terrible crime, the greatest of all the Mediæval crimes? Did he
destroy the Order simply and solely for the sake of its wealth? And did
he, in order to get a handle, make use of the ignorant and idle gossip
which was current as to the morals and customs of the Secret House? And
to all these questions it is useless even to suggest an answer.