The Persecution of the Templars.
When Acre fell in 1292, the Templars, having lost all their possessions
and a great number of their members in the Holy Land, retired with
the other Christians to Cyprus. Having probably seen the folly of all
hope of recovering the Holy Land, they grew indifferent about it; few
members joined them from Europe, and it is more than probable that they
meditated a removal of the chief seat of the Order to France.[15] The
Hospitallers, on the other hand, with more prudence, as events showed,
resolved to continue the war against the infidels, and they attacked
and conquered Rhodes; while the Teutonic knights transferred the sphere
of their pious warfare to Prussia against its heathen inhabitants.
Thus, while the Templars were falling under the reproach of being
luxurious Knights, their rivals rose in consideration, and there was an
active and inveterate enemy ready to take advantage of their ill-repute.
Philip the Fair, a tyrannical and rapacious prince, was at that time
on the throne of France. His darling object was to set the power of
the monarchy above that of the church. In his celebrated controversy
with Pope Boniface, the Templars had been on the side of the Holy
See. Philip, whose animosity pursued Boniface even beyond the grave,
wished to be revenged on all who had taken his side; moreover, the
immense wealth of the Templars, which he reckoned on making his own if
he could destroy them, strongly attracted the king, who had already
tasted of the sweets of the spoliation of the Lombards and the Jews;
and he probably, also, feared the obstacle to the perfect establishment
of despotism which might be offered by a numerous, noble, and wealthy
society, such as the Templars formed. Boniface's successor, Clement
V. was the creature of Philip, to whom he owed his dignity, and at
his accession had bound himself to the performance of six articles
in favour of Philip, one of which was not expressed. It was probably
inserted without any definite object, and intended to serve the
interest of the French monarch on any occasion which might present
itself.
[Illustration: LA TOUR DU TEMPLE À PARIS]
It had been the object of Pope Boniface to form the three Military
Orders into one, and he had summoned them to Rome for that purpose, but
his death prevented it. Clement, on this, June 6, 1306, addressed the
Grand Masters of the Templars and the Hospitallers, inviting them to
come to consult with him about the best mode of supporting the Kings of
Armenia and Cyprus. He desired them to come as secretly as possible,
and with a very small train, as they would find abundance of their
Knights this side the sea; and he directed them to provide for the
defence of Limisso in Cyprus during their short absence. Fortunately
perhaps for himself and his Order, the Master of the Hospitallers was
then engaged in the conquest of Rhodes, but Jacques de Molay,[16] the
Master of the Templars, immediately prepared to obey the mandate of the
Pope, and he left Cyprus with a train of 60 Knights, and a treasure of
150,000 florins of gold, and a great quantity of silver money, the
whole requiring twelve horses to carry it.[17] He proceeded to Paris,
where he was received with the greatest honours by the King, and he
deposited his treasure in the Temple of that city. It is, as we have
said, not impossible that it was the intention of Molay to transfer
the chief seat of the Order thither, and that he had, therefore,
brought with him its treasure and the greater part of the members of
the chapter; and indeed it is difficult to say how early the project
of attacking the Templars entered into the minds of Philip and his
obsequious lawyers, or whether he originally aimed at more than
mulcting them under the pretext of reformation: and farther, whether
the first informers against them were suborned or not. The records
leave a considerable degree of obscurity on the whole matter. All we
can learn is, that a man named Squin de Flexian, who had been a Prior
of the Templars, and had been expelled the Order for heresy and various
vices, was lying in prison at Paris or Toulouse, it is uncertain which.
In the prison with him was a Florentine named Noffo Dei, "a man," says
Villani, "full of all iniquity." These two began to plan how they
might extricate themselves from the confinement to which they seemed
perpetually doomed. The example of the process against the memory of
Pope Boniface, shewed them that no lie was too gross or absurd not to
obtain ready credence, and they fixed on the Templars as the objects
of their charges. Squin told the governor of the prison that he had a
communication to make to the King, which would be of more value to him
than if he had gained a kingdom, but that he would only tell it to the
King in person. He was brought to Philip, who promised him his life,
and he made his confession, on which the King immediately arrested some
of the Templars, who are said to have confirmed the truth of Squin's
assertions. Shortly afterwards, it is said, similar discoveries were
made to the Pope by his chamberlain, Cardinal Cantilupo, who had been
in connexion with the Templars from his eleventh year.
Squin Flexian declared, 1. That every member on admission into the
Order swore on all occasions to defend its interests right or wrong;
2. That the heads of the Order were in secret confederacy with the
Saracens, had more of Mahommedan unbelief than of Christian faith, as
was proved by the mode of reception into the Order, when the novice was
made to spit and trample on the crucifix, and blaspheme the faith of
Christ; 3. That the superiors were sacrilegious, cruel, and heretical
murderers; for if any novice, disgusted with its profligacy, wished to
quit the Order, they secretly murdered him, and buried him by night;
so, also, when women were pregnant by them, they taught them how to
produce abortion, or secretly put the infants to death; 4. The Templars
were addicted to the error of the Fraticelli, and, like them, despised
the authority of the Pope and the Church; 5. That the superiors were
addicted to the practice of horrible crimes, and if any one opposed
them, they were condemned by the Master to perpetual imprisonment; 6.
That their houses were the abode of every vice and iniquity; 7. That
they endeavoured to put the Holy Land into the hands of the Saracens,
whom they favoured more than the Christians. Three other articles of
less importance completed this first body of charges. It is remarkable,
that we do not find among them those which made such a figure in the
subsequent examinations; namely, the devil appearing among them in
the shape of a cat; their idolatrous worship of an image with one or
three heads, or a skull covered with human skin, with carbuncles for
eyes, before which they burned the bodies of their dead brethren, and
then mingled the ashes with their drink, thereby thinking to gain more
courage; and, finally, their smearing this idol with human fat.[18]
It was unfortunate for the Templars that their chapters were held in
secret,[19] and by night, for an opportunity was thereby afforded
to their enemies of laying whatever secret enormities they pleased
to their charge, to refute which, by the production of indifferent
witnesses, was consequently out of their power. Philip having now all
things prepared, sent, like his descendant Charles IX. previous to
the St. Bartholomew massacre, secret orders to all his governors to
arm themselves on the 12th of October, and on the following night,
but not sooner, on pain of death, to open the king's letter, and act
according to it. On Friday the 13th of October, all the Templars
throughout France were simultaneously arrested at break of day. The
unhappy Knights were thrown into cold cheerless dungeons, (for they
were arrested, we should remember, at the commencement of winter), had
barely the necessaries of life, were deprived of the habit of their
Order, and of the rites and comforts of the church; were exposed to
every species of torture then in use, were shown a real or pretended
letter of the Grand Master, in which he confessed several of the
charges, and exhorted them to do the same; and finally, were promised
life and liberty, if they freely acknowledged the guilt of the Order.
Can we then be surprised that the spirit of many a Knight was broken,
that any hope of escape from misery was eagerly caught at, and that
falsehoods, the most improbable, were declared to be true? And it is
remarkable that the most improbable charges are those which were most
frequently acknowledged, so just is the observation, that men will
more readily in such circumstances acknowledge what is false than what
is true; for the false they know can be afterwards refuted by its own
absurdity, whereas truth is permanent.
Of the Templars in England 228 were examined;[20] the Dominican,
Carmelite, Minorite, and Augustinian friars brought abundance of
hearsay evidence against them, but nothing of any importance was
proved; in Castile and Leon it was the same; in Aragon the Knights
bravely endured the torture, and maintained their innocence; in
Germany all the lay witnesses testified in their favour; in Italy
their enemies were more successful, as the influence of the Pope was
there considerable, yet in Lombardy the Bishops acquitted the Knights.
Charles of Anjou, the cousin of Philip, and the foe of the Templars,
who had sided with Frederick against him, could not fail, it may be
supposed, in getting some evidences of their guilt in Sicily, Naples,
and Provence. It is not undeserving of attention, that one of these
witnesses, who had been received into the Order in Catalonia, (where
all who were examined had declared the innocence of the Order), said he
had been received there in the usual impious and indecent manner, and
mentioned the appearance and the worship of the cat in the chapter!!
Such is the value of rack-extorted testimony! In fine, in every country
out of the sphere of the immediate influence of Clement, Philip, and
Charles, the general innocence of the Order was acknowledged. In
Portugal they were preserved under the altered appellation of the
Knights of Christ,--a change which was effected by the friendly policy
of Prince Denys, who in 1218, secured for them the sanction of the
successor of Clement.[21]
Throughout the entire process against the Templars, from October 1307
to May 1312, the most determined design of the King and his ministers
to destroy the Order meets us at every step; Philip would have blood
to justify robbery; several Templars had already expired on the rack,
perished from the rigour of their imprisonment, or died by their own
hands; but on the 12th May 1310, fifty-four Templars who had confessed,
but afterwards retracted, were by his order committed to the flames,
in Paris, as relapsed heretics. They endured with heroic constancy the
most cruel tortures, asserting with their latest breath the innocence
of the Order, though offered life if they would confess, and implored
to do so by their friends and relatives. Similar executions took place
in other towns. The Pope soon went heart and hand with Philip. In vain
did the bishops assembled at Vienne propose to hear those members who
came forward as the defenders of the Order. A Bull of the Pope was
fulminated against the Order,[22] and transferred its possessions
to the Knights of St. John, who, however, had to pay such enormous
fines to the King and Pope before they could enter on them, as almost
ruined them; so that if Philip did not succeed to the utmost of his
anticipations, he had little reason to complain of his share.[23] The
members of the society of the Templars were permitted to enter that of
the Hospitallers,--a strange indulgence for those that had spitten on
the cross, and practised horrible vices.
But the atrocious scene was yet to come which was to complete the ruin
of the Templars, and satiate the vengeance of their enemies. Their
Grand Master, Molay, and three other dignitaries of the Order, still
survived: And, though they had made the most submissive acknowledgments
to their unrelenting persecutors, yet the influence which they had over
the minds of the vulgar, and their connection with many of the Princes
of Europe, rendered them formidable and dangerous to their oppressors.
By the exertion of that influence, they might restore union to their
dismembered party, and inspire them with courage to revenge the murder
of their companions;[24] or, by adopting a more cautious method, they
might repel, by uncontrovertible proofs, the charges for which they
suffered; and, by interesting all men in their behalf, they might
expose Philip to the attacks of his own subjects, and to the hatred and
contempt of Europe. Aware of the dangers to which his character and
person would be exposed by pardoning the surviving Templars, the French
Monarch commanded the Grand Master and his Brethren to be led out to
a scaffold, erected for the purpose, and there to confess before the
public, the enormities of which their Order had been guilty, and the
justice of the punishment which had been inflicted on their brethren.
If they adhered to their former confession, a full pardon was promised
to them; but if they should persist in maintaining their innocence,
they were threatened with destruction on a pile of wood, which the
executioners had erected in their view, to awe them into compliance.
While the multitude were standing around in awful expectation, ready,
from the words of the prisoners, to justify or condemn their King,
the venerable Molay, with a cheerful and undaunted countenance,
advanced, in chains, to the edge of the scaffold; and, with a firm and
impressive tone, thus addressed the spectators.--"It is but just, that
in this terrible day, and in the last moments of my life, I lay open
the iniquity of falsehood, and make truth to triumph. I declare then,
in the face of heaven and earth, and I confess, though to my eternal
shame and confusion, that I have committed the greatest of crimes; but
it has been only in acknowledging those that have been charged with
so much virulence upon an Order, which truth obliges me to pronounce
innocent. I made the first declaration they required of me, only to
suspend the excessive tortures of the rack, and mollify those that made
me endure them. I am sensible what torments they prepare for those
that have courage to revoke such a confession. But the horrible sight
which they present to my eyes, is not capable of making me confirm one
lie by another. On a condition so infamous as that, I freely renounce
life, which is already but too odious to me. For what would it avail
me to prolong a few miserable days, when I must owe them only to the
blackest of calumnies."[25] In consequence of this manly revocation,
the Grand Master and his companions were hurried into the flames, where
they retained that contempt for death which they had exhibited on
former occasions. This mournful scene extorted tears from the lowest
of the vulgar.[26] Four valiant Knights, whose charity and valour
had procured them the gratitude and applause of mankind, suffering,
without fear, the most cruel and ignominious death, was, indeed, a
spectacle well calculated to excite emotions of pity in the hardest
hearts. Humanity shudders at the recital of the horrid deed; and if the
voice of impartial posterity has not, with one accord, pronounced the
unqualified acquittal of the Templars, it has branded with the mark of
eternal infamy the conduct of their accusers and judges.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: CONTINUATION OF THE ORDER.]
[Illustration]