A. D.1266.
On the last day of April, (A. D.1265,) Benocdar stormed Arsuf, one of the strongest of the castles of the Hospitallers; he slew ninety of the garrison, and led away a thousand into captivity. The year following he stormed Castel Blanco, a fortress of the Knights Templars, and immediately after laid siege to their famous and important castle of Saphet. After an obstinate defence, the Preceptor, finding himself destitute of provisions, agreed to capitulate, on condition that the surviving brethren andtheir retainers, amounting to six hundred men, should be conducted in safety to the nearest fortress of the Christians. The terms were acceded to, but as soon as Benocdar had obtained possession of the castle, he imposed upon the whole garrison the severe alternative of the Koran or death. They chose the latter, and, according to the christian writers, were all slain.[303]The Arabian historian Schafi Ib’n Ali Abbas, however, in his life of Bibars, or Benocdar, states that one of the garrison namedEffreez Lyoub, embraced the Mahommetan faith, and was circumcised, and that another was sent to Acre to announce the fall of the place to his brethren. This writer attempts to excuse the slaughter of the remainder, on the ground that they had themselves first broken the terms of the capitulation, by attempting to carry away arms and treasure.[304]“By the death of so many knights of both orders,” says Pope Clement IV., in one of his epistles, “the noble college of the Hospitallers, and the illustrious chivalry of the Temple, are almost destroyed, and I know not how we shall be able, after this, to find gentlemen and persons of quality sufficient to supply the places of such as have perished.”[305]A. D.1268.The year after the fall of Saphet, (A. D.1267,) Benocdar captured the cities of Homs, Belfort, Bagras, and Sidon, which belonged to the order of the Temple; the maritime towns of Laodicea, Gabala, Tripoli, Beirout, and Jaffa, successively fell into his hands, and the fall of the princely city of Antioch was signalized by the slaughter of seventeen and the captivity of one hundredthousand of her inhabitants.[306]The utter ruin of the Latin kingdom, however, was averted by the timely assistance brought by Edward Prince of Wales, son of Henry the Second, king of England, who appeared at Acre with a fleet and an army. The infidels were once more defeated and driven back into Egypt, and a truce for ten years between the sultan and the Christians was agreed upon.[307]Prince Edward then prepared for his departure, but, before encountering the perils of the sea on his return home, he made his will; it is dated at Acre, June 18th,A. D.1272, and Brother Thomas Berard, Grand Master of the Temple, appears as an attesting witness.[308]Whilst the prince was pursuing his voyage to England, his father, the king of England, died, and the council of the realm, composed of the archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the bishops and barons of the kingdom, assembled in the Temple at London, and swore allegiance to the prince. They there caused him to be proclaimed king of England, and, with the consent of the queen-mother, they appointed Walter Giffard, archbishop of York, and the earls of Cornwall and Gloucester, guardians of the realm. Letters were written from the Temple to acquaint the young sovereign with the death of his father, and many of the acts of the new government emanated from the same place.[309]
King Henry the Third was a great benefactor to the Templars.He granted them the manors of Lilleston, Hechewayton, Saunford, Sutton, Dartfeld, and Halgel, in Kent; several lands, and churches and annual fairs at Baldok, Walnesford, Wetherby, and other places, and various weekly markets.[310]
William de Beaujeu.A.D.1273.
The Grand Master, Thomas Berard, was succeeded by Brother William de Beaujeu,[311]who came to England for the purpose of obtaining succour, and called together a general chapter of the order at London. Whilst resident at the Temple in that city, he received payment of a large sum of money which Edward, the young king, had borrowed of the Templars during his residence in Palestine.[312]The Grand Master of the Hospital also came to Europe, and every exertion was made to stimulate the languid energies of the western Christians, and revive their holy zeal in the cause of the Cross. A general council of the church was opened at Lyons by the Pope in person; the two Grand Masters were present, and took precedence of all the ambassadors and peers at that famous assembly. It was determined that a new crusade should be preached, that all ecclesiastical dignities and benefices should be taxed to support an armament, and that the sovereigns of Europe should be compelled by ecclesiastical censures to suspend their private quarrels, and afford succour to the desolate city of Jerusalem. The Pope, who had been himself resident in Palestine, took a strong personal interest in the promotion of the crusade, and induced many nobles, princes, andknights to assume the Cross; but the holy pontiff died in the midst of his exertions, and with him expired all hope of effectual assistance from Europe. A vast change had come over the spirit of the age; the fiery enthusiasm of the holy war had expended itself, and the Grand Masters of the Temple and Hospital returned without succour, in sorrow and disappointment, to the East.
A. D.1275.
William de Beaujeu arrived at the Temple of Acre on Saint Michael’s Day,A. D.1275, and immediately assumed the government of Palestine.[313]As there was now no hope of recovering the lost city of Jerusalem, he bent all his energies to the preservation of the few remaining possessions of the Christians in the Holy Land. At the expiration of the ten years’ truce he entered into a further treaty with the infidels, called “the peace of Tortosa.” It is expressed to be made between sultan Malek-Mansour and his son Malek-Saleh Ali, “honour of the world and of religion,” of the one part, and Afryz Dybadjouk (William de Beaujeu) Grand Master of the order of the Templars, of the other part. The truce is further prolonged for ten years and ten months from the date of the execution of the treaty, (A. D.1282;) and the contracting parties strictly bind themselves to make no irruptions into each other’s territories during the period. To prevent mistakes, the towns, villages, and territory belonging to the Christians in Palestine are specified and defined, together with the contiguous possessions of the Moslems.[314]This treaty, however, was speedily broken, the war was renewed with various success, and another treaty was concluded, which was again violated by an unpardonable outrage. Some European adventurers, who had arrived at Acre, plundered and hung nineteen Egyptian merchants, and the sultan of Egypt immediatelyresumed hostilities, with the avowed determination of crushing for ever the christian power in the East. The fortress of Margat was besieged and taken; the city of Tripoli shared the same fate; and in the third year from the re-commencement of the war, the christian dominions in Palestine were reduced within the narrow confines of the strong city of Acre and the Pilgrim’s Castle.A. D.1291.In the spring of the year 1291, the sultan Khalil marched against Acre at the head of sixty thousand horse and a hundred and forty thousand foot.
“An innumerable people of all nations and every tongue,” says a chronicle of the times, “thirsting for christian blood, were assembled together from the deserts of the East and the South; the earth trembled beneath their footsteps, and the air was rent with the sound of their trumpets and cymbals. The sun’s rays, reflected from their shields, gleamed on the distant mountains, and the points of their spears shone like the innumerable stars of heaven. When on the march, their lances presented the appearance of a vast forest rising from the earth, and covering all the landscape.”... “They wandered round about the walls, spying out their weaknesses and defects; some barked like dogs, some roared like lions, some lowed and bellowed like oxen, some struck drums with twisted sticks after their fashion, some threw darts, some cast stones, some shot arrows and bolts from cross-bows.”[315]On the 5th of April, the place was regularly invested. No rational hope of saving it could be entertained; the sea was open; the harbour was filled with christian vessels, and with the galleys of the Temple and the Hospital; yet the two great monastic and military orders scorned to retire to the neighbouring and friendly island of Cyprus; they refused to desert, even in its last extremity, that cause which they had sworn to maintain with the last drop of their blood. For a hundred and seventy yearstheir swords had been constantly employed in defending the Holy Land from the profane tread of the unbelieving Moslem; the sacred territory of Palestine had been everywhere moistened with the blood of the best and bravest of their knights, and, faithful to their vows and their chivalrous engagements, they now prepared to bury themselves in the ruins of the last stronghold of the christian faith.
William de Beaujeu, the Grand Master of the Temple, a veteran warrior of a hundred fights, took the command of the garrison, which amounted to about twelve thousand men, exclusive of the forces of the Temple and the Hospital, and a body of five hundred foot and two hundred horse, under the command of the king of Cyprus. These forces were distributed along the walls in four divisions, the first of which was commanded by Hugh de Grandison, an English knight. The old and the feeble, women and children, were sent away by sea to the christian island of Cyprus, and none remained in the devoted city but those who were prepared to fight in its defence, or to suffer martyrdom at the hands of the infidels. The siege lasted six weeks, during the whole of which period the sallies and the attacks were incessant. Neither by night nor by day did the shouts of the assailants and the noise of the military engines cease; the walls were battered from without, and the foundations were sapped by miners, who were incessantly labouring to advance their works. More than six hundred catapults, balistæ, and other instruments of destruction, were directed against the fortifications; and the battering machines were of such immense size and weight, that a hundred wagons were required to transport the separate timbers of one of them.[316]Moveable towers were erectedby the Moslems, so as to overtop the walls; their workmen and advanced parties were protected by hurdles covered with raw hides, and all the military contrivances which the art and the skill of the age could produce, were used to facilitate the assault. For a long time their utmost efforts were foiled by the valour of the besieged, who made constant sallies upon their works, burnt their towers and machines, and destroyed their miners. Day by day, however, the numbers of the garrison were thinned by the sword, whilst in the enemy’s camp the places of the dead were constantly supplied by fresh warriors from the deserts of Arabia, animated with the same wild fanaticism in the cause oftheirreligion as that which so eminently distinguished the military monks of the Temple. On the fourth of May, after thirty-three days of constant fighting, the great tower, considered the key of the fortifications, and called by the Moslemsthe cursed tower, was thrown down by the military engines. To increase the terror and distraction of the besieged, sultan Khalil mounted three hundred drummers, with their drums, upon as many dromedaries, and commanded them to make as much noise as possible whenever a general assault was ordered. From the 4th to the 14th of May, the attacks were incessant. On the 15th, the double wall was forced, and the king of Cyprus, panic-stricken, fled in the night to his ships, and made sail for the island of Cyprus, with all his followers, and with near three thousand of the best men of the garrison. On the morrow the Saracens attacked the post he had deserted; they filled up the ditch with the bodies of dead men and horses, piles of wood, stones, and earth, and their trumpets then sounded to the assault. Ranged under the yellow banner of Mahomet, the Mamlooks forced the breach, and penetrated sword in hand to the very centre of the city; but their victorious career and insulting shouts were there stopped by the mail-clad Knights of the Temple and the Hospital,who charged on horseback through the narrow streets, drove them back with immense carnage, and precipitated them headlong from the walls.
At sunrise the following morning the air resounded with the deafening noise of drums and trumpets, and the breach was carried and recovered several times, the military friars at last closing up the passage with their bodies, and presenting a wall of steel to the advance of the enemy. Loud appeals to God and to Mahomet, to heaven and the saints, were to be heard on all sides; and after an obstinate engagement from sunrise to sunset, darkness put an end to the slaughter. On the third day, (the 18th,) the infidels made the final assault on the side next the gate of St. Anthony. The Grand Masters of the Temple and the Hospital fought side by side at the head of their knights, and for a time successfully resisted all the efforts of the enemy. They engaged hand to hand with the Mamlooks, and pressed like the meanest of the soldiers into the thick of the battle. But as each knight fell beneath the keen scimitars of the Moslems, there were none in reserve to supply his place, whilst the vast hordes of the infidels pressed on with untiring energy and perseverance. The Marshall of the Hospital fell covered with wounds, and William de Beaujeu, as a last resort, requested the Grand Master of that order to sally out of an adjoining gateway at the head of five hundred horse, and attack the enemy’s rear. Immediately after the Grand Master of the Temple had given these orders, he was himself struck down by the darts and the arrows of the enemy; the panic-stricken garrison fled to the port, and the infidels rushed on with tremendous shouts ofAllah acbar! Allah acbar!“Godis victorious.” Three hundred Templars, the sole survivors of their illustrious order in Acre, were now left alone to withstand the shock of the victorious Mamlooks. In a close and compact column they fought their way, accompanied by severalhundred christian fugitives, to the Temple, and shutting their gates, they again bade defiance to the advancing foe.
Gaudini.A. D.1291.
The surviving knights now assembled together in solemn chapter, and appointed the Knight Templar Brother Gaudini Grand Master.[317]The Temple at Acre was a place of great strength, and surrounded by walls and towers of immense extent. It was divided into three quarters, the first and principal of which contained the palace of the Grand Master, the church, and the habitation of the knights; the second, called the Bourg of the Temple, contained the cells of the serving brethren; and the third, called the Cattle Market, was devoted to the officers charged with the duty of procuring the necessary supplies for the order and its forces.
The following morning very favourable terms were offered to the Templars by the victorious sultan, and they agreed to evacuate the Temple on condition that a galley should be placed at their disposal, and that they should be allowed to retire in safety with the christian fugitives under their protection, and to carry away as much of their effects as each person could load himself with. The Mussulman conqueror pledged himself to the fulfilment of these conditions, and sent a standard to the Templars, which was mounted on one of the towers of the Temple. A guard of three hundred Moslem soldiers, charged to see the articles of capitulation properly carried into effect, was afterwards admitted within the walls of the convent. Some christian women of Acre, who had refused to quit their fathers, brothers, and husbands, the brave defenders of the place, were amongst the fugitives, and the Moslem soldiers, attracted by their beauty, broke through all restraint, and violated the terms of the surrender. The enraged Templars closed and barricadoed the gatesof the Temple; they set upon the treacherous infidels, and put every one of them, “from the greatest to the smallest,” to death.[318]Immediately after this massacre the Moslem trumpets sounded to the assault, but the Templars successfully defended themselves until the next day (the 20th.) The Marshall of the order and several of the brethren were then deputed by Gaudini with a flag of truce to the sultan, to explain the cause of the massacre of his guard. The enraged monarch, however, had no sooner got them into his power than he ordered every one of them to be decapitated, and pressed the siege with renewed vigour. In the night, Gaudini, with a chosen band of his companions, collected together the treasure of the order and the ornaments of the church, and sallying out of a secret postern of the Temple which communicated with the harbour, they got on board a small vessel, and escaped in safety to the island of Cyprus.[319]The residue of the Templars retired into the large tower of the Temple, called “The Tower of the Master,” which they defended with desperate energy. The bravest of the Mamlooks were driven back in repeated assaults, and the little fortress was everywhere surrounded with heaps of the slain. The sultan, at last, despairing of taking the place by assault, ordered it to be undermined. As the workmen advanced, they propped the foundations with beamsof wood, and when the excavation was completed, these wooden supports were consumed by fire; the huge tower then fell with a tremendous crash, and buried the brave Templars in its ruins. The sultan set fire to the town in four places, and the last stronghold of the christian power in Palestine was speedily reduced to a smoking solitude.[320]A few years back the ruins of the christian city of Acre were well worthy of the attention of the curious. You might still trace the remains of several churches; and the quarter occupied by the Knights Templars continued to present many interesting memorials of that proud and powerful order.
The downfall of the Templars—The cause thereof—The Grand Master comes to Europe at the request of the Pope—He is imprisoned, with all the Templars in France, by command of king Philip—They are put to the torture, and confessions of the guilt of heresy and idolatry are extracted from them—Edward II. king of England stands up in defence of the Templars, but afterwards persecutes them at the instance of the Pope—The imprisonment of the Master of the Temple and all his brethren in England—Their examination upon eighty-seven horrible and ridiculous articles of accusation before foreign inquisitors appointed by the Pope—A council of the church assembles at London to pass sentence upon them—The curious evidence adduced as to the mode of admission into the order, and of the customs and observances of the fraternity.En cel an qu’ai dist or endroit,Et ne sait a tort ou a droit,Furent li Templiers, sans doutance,Tous pris par le royaume de France.Au mois d’Octobre, au point du jor,Et un vendredi fu le jor.Chron. MS.
The downfall of the Templars—The cause thereof—The Grand Master comes to Europe at the request of the Pope—He is imprisoned, with all the Templars in France, by command of king Philip—They are put to the torture, and confessions of the guilt of heresy and idolatry are extracted from them—Edward II. king of England stands up in defence of the Templars, but afterwards persecutes them at the instance of the Pope—The imprisonment of the Master of the Temple and all his brethren in England—Their examination upon eighty-seven horrible and ridiculous articles of accusation before foreign inquisitors appointed by the Pope—A council of the church assembles at London to pass sentence upon them—The curious evidence adduced as to the mode of admission into the order, and of the customs and observances of the fraternity.
James de Molay.A. D.1297.A. D.1302.
It now only remains for us to describe the miserable fate of the surviving brethren of the order of the Temple, and to tell of the ingratitude they encountered from their fellow Christians in the West. Shortly after the fall of Acre, a general chapter of the fraternity was called together, and James de Molay, the Preceptorof England, was chosen Grand Master.[321]He attempted once more (A. D.1302) to plant the banners of the Temple upon the sacred soil of Palestine, but was defeated by the sultan of Egypt with the loss of a hundred and twenty of his brethren.[322]This disastrous expedition was speedily followed by the downfall of the fraternity. Many circumstances contributed to this memorable event.
With the loss of all the christian territory in Palestine had expired in Christendom every serious hope and expectation of recovering and retaining the Holy City. The services of the Templars were consequently no longer required, and men began to regard with an eye of envy and of covetousness their vast wealth and immense possessions. The privileges conceded to the fraternity by the popes made the church their enemy. The great body of the clergy regarded with jealousy and indignation their exemption from the ordinary ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The bullomne datum optimumwas considered a great inroad upon the rights of the church, and broke the union which had originally subsisted between the Templars and the ecclesiastics. Their exemption from tithe was a source of considerable loss to the parsons, and the privilege they possessed of celebrating divine service during interdict brought abundance of offerings and alms to the priests and chaplains of the order, which the clergy looked upon as so many robberies committed upon themselves. Disputes arose between the fraternity and the bishops and priests, and the hostility of the latter to the order was manifested in repeated acts of injustice, which drew forth many severe bulls and indignant animadversions from the Roman pontiffs. Pope Alexander, in a bull fulminated against the clergy, tellsthem that if they would carefully reflect upon the contests which his beloved sons, the brethren of the chivalry of the Temple, continually maintained in Palestine for the defence of Christianity, and their kindness to the poor, they would not only cease from annoying and injuring them, but would strictly restrain others from so doing. He expresses himself to be grieved and astonished to hear that many ecclesiastics had vexed them with grievous injuries, had treated his apostolic letters with contempt, and had refused to read them in their churches; that they had subtracted the customary alms and oblations from the fraternity, and had admitted aggressors against the property of the brethren to their familiar friendship, insufferably endeavouring to press down and discourage those whom they ought assiduously to uphold. From other bulls it appears that the clergy interfered with the right enjoyed by the fraternity of collecting alms; that they refused to bury the brethren of the order when deceased without being paid for it, and arrogantly claimed a right to be entertained with sumptuous hospitality in the houses of the Temple. For these delinquencies, the bishops, archdeacons, priests, and the whole body of the clergy, are threatened with severe measures by the Roman pontiff.[323]
The Templars, moreover, towards the close of their career, became unpopular with the European sovereigns and their nobles. The revenues of the former were somewhat diminished through the immunities conceded to the Templars by their predecessors, and the paternal estates of the latter had been diminished by the grant of many thousand manors, lordships, and fair estates to the order by their pious and enthusiastic ancestors. Considerable dislike also began to be manifested to the annual transmission of large sums of money, the revenues of the order, from theEuropean states to be expended in a distant warfare in which Christendom now took comparatively no interest. Shortly after the fall of Acre, and the total loss of Palestine, Edward the First, king of England, seized and sequestered to his own use the monies which had been accumulated by the Templars, to forward to their brethren in Cyprus, alleging that the property of the order of the Temple had been granted to it by the kings of England, his predecessors, and their subjects, for the defence of the Holy Land, and that since the loss thereof, no better use could be made of the money than by appropriating it to the maintenance of the poor. At the earnest request of the pope, however, the king afterwards permitted their revenues to be transmitted to them in the island of Cyprus in the usual manner.[324]King Edward had previously manifested a strong desire to lay hands on the property of the Templars. On his return from his victorious campaign in Wales, finding himself unable to disburse the arrears of pay due to his soldiers, he went with Sir Robert Waleran and some armed followers to the Temple, and calling for the treasurer, he pretended that he wanted to see his mother’s jewels, which were there kept. Having been admitted into the house, he deliberately broke open the coffers of the Templars, and carried away ten thousand pounds with him to Windsor Castle.[325]His son, Edward the Second, on his accession to the throne, committed a similar act of injustice. He went with his favourite, Piers Gavaston, to the Temple, and took away with him fifty thousand pounds of silver, with a quantity of gold, jewels, and precious stones, belonging to the bishop of Chester.[326]The impunity with which these acts of violence were committed, manifests that the Templars then no longer enjoyed the power and respect which they possessed in ancient times.
As the enthusiasm, too, in favour of the holy war diminished, large numbers of the Templars remained at home in their western preceptories, and took an active part in the politics of Europe. They interfered in the quarrels of christian princes, and even drew their swords against their fellow-Christians. Thus we find the members of the order taking part in the war between the houses of Anjou and Aragon, and aiding the king of England in his warfare against the king of Scotland. In the battle of Falkirk, fought on the 22nd of July,A. D.1298, seven years after the fall of Acre, perished both the Master of the Temple at London, and his vicegerent the Preceptor of Scotland.[327]All these circumstances, together with the loss of the Holy Land, and the extinction of the enthusiasm of the crusades, diminished the popularity of the Templars in Europe.
At the period of the fall of Acre, Philip the Fair, son of St. Louis, occupied the throne of France. He was a needy and avaricious monarch,[328]and had at different periods resorted to the most violent expedients to replenish his exhausted exchequer. On the death of Pope Benedict XI., (A. D.1304,) he succeeded, through the intrigues of the French Cardinal Dupré, in raising the archbishop of Bourdeaux, a creature of his own, to the pontifical chair. The new pope removed the Holy See from Rome to France; he summoned all the cardinals to Lyons, and was there consecrated, (A. D.1305,) by the name of Clement V., in the presence of king Philip and his nobles. Of the ten new cardinals then createdninewere Frenchmen, and in all his acts the new pope manifested himself the obedient slave of the Frenchmonarch. The character of this pontiff has been painted by the Romish ecclesiastical historians in the darkest colours: they represent him as wedded to pleasure, eaten up with ambition, and greedy for money; they accuse him of indulging in a criminal intrigue with the beautiful countess of Perigord, and of trafficking in holy things.[329]
A. D.1306.
On the 6th of June,A. D.1306, a few months after his coronation, this new French pontiff addressed letters from Bourdeaux to the Grand Masters of the Temple and Hospital, expressing his earnest desire to consult them with regard to the measures necessary to be taken for the recovery of the Holy Land. He tells them that they are the persons best qualified to give advice upon the subject, and to conduct and manage the enterprize, both from their great military experience and the interest they had in the success of the expedition. “We order you,” says he, “to come hither without delay, with as much secrecy as possible, and with avery little retinue, since you will find on this side the sea a sufficient number of your knights to attend upon you.”[330]The Grand Master of the Hospital declined obeying this summons; but the Grand Master of the Temple forthwith accepted it, and unhesitatingly placed himself in the power of the pope and the king of France.A. D.1307.He landed in France, attended by sixty of his knights, at the commencement of the year 1307, and deposited the treasure of the order which he had brought with him from Cyprus, in the Temple at Paris. He was received with distinction by the king, and then took his departure for Poictiers tohave an interview with the pope. He was there detained with various conferences and negotiations relative to a pretended expedition for the recovery of the Holy Land.
Among other things, the pope proposed an union between the Templars and Hospitallers, and the Grand Master handed in his objections to the proposition. He says, that after the fall of Acre, the people of Italy and of other christian nations clamoured loudly against Pope Nicholas, for having afforded no succour to the besieged, and that he, by way of screening himself, had laid all the blame of the loss of the place on pretended dissensions between the Templars and Hospitallers, and projected an union between them. The Grand Master declares that there had been no dissensions between the orders prejudicial to the christian cause; that there was nothing more than a spirit of rivalry and emulation, the destruction of which would be highly injurious to the Christians, and advantageous to the Saracens; for if the Hospitallers at any time performed a brilliant feat of arms against the infidels, the Templars would never rest quiet until they had done the same or better, ande converso. So also if the Templars made a great shipment of brethren, horses, and other beasts across sea to Palestine, the Hospitallers would always do the like or more. He at the same time positively declares, that a member of one order had never been known to raise his hand against a member of the other.[331]The Grand Master complains that the reverence and respect of the christian nations for both orders had undeservedly diminished, that everything was changed, and that most persons were then more ready to take from them than to give to them, and that many powerful men, both clergy and laity, brought continual mischiefs upon the fraternities.
In the mean time, the secret agents of the French king industriously circulated various dark rumours and odious reportsconcerning the Templars, and it was said that they would never have lost the Holy Land if they had been good Christians. These rumours and accusations were soon put into a tangible shape.
According to some writers, Squin de Florian, a citizen of Bezieres, who had been condemned to death or perpetual imprisonment in one of the royal castles for his iniquities, was brought before Philip, and received a free pardon, and was well rewarded in return, for an accusation on oath, charging the Templars with heresy, and with the commission of the most horrible crimes. According to others, Nosso de Florentin, an apostate Templar, who had been condemned by the Grand Preceptor and chapter of France to perpetual imprisonment for impiety and crime, made in his dungeon a voluntary confession of the sins and abominations charged against the order.[332]Be this as it may, upon the strength of an information sworn to by a condemned criminal, king Philip, on the 14th of September, despatched secret orders to all the baillis of the different provinces in France, couched in the following extravagant and absurd terms:
“Philip, by the grace of God king of the French, to his beloved and faithful knights ... &c. &c.
“A deplorable and most lamentable matter, full of bitterness and grief, a monstrous business, a thing that one cannot think on without affright, cannot hear without horror, transgressions unheard of, enormities and atrocities contrary to every sentiment of humanity, &c. &c., have reached our ears.” After a long and most extraordinary tirade of this kind, Philip accuses the Templars of insulting Jesus Christ, and making him suffer more in those days than he had suffered formerly upon the cross; of renouncing the christian religion; of mocking the sacred imageof the Saviour; of sacrificing to idols; and of abandoning themselves to impure practices and unnatural crimes. He characterises them as ravishing wolves in sheep’s clothing; a perfidious, ungrateful, idolatrous society, whose words and deeds were enough to pollute the earth and infect the air; to dry up the sources of the celestial dews, and to put the whole church of Christ into confusion.
“We being charged,” says he, “with the maintenance of the faith; after having conferred with the pope, the prelates, and the barons of the kingdom, at the instance of the inquisitor, from the informations already laid, from violent suspicions, from probable conjectures, from legitimate presumptions, conceived against the enemies of heaven and earth; and because the matter is important, and it is expedient to prove the just like gold in the furnace by a rigorous examination, have decreed that the members of the order who are our subjects shall be arrested and detained to be judged by the church, and that all their real and personal property shall be seized into our hands, and be faithfully preserved,” &c. To these orders are attached instructions requiring the baillis and seneschals accurately to inform themselves, with great secrecy, and without exciting suspicion, of the number of the houses of the Temple within their respective jurisdictions; they are then to provide an armed force sufficient to overcome all resistance, and on the 13th of October are to surprise the Templars in their preceptories, and make them prisoners. The inquisition is then directed to assemble to examine the guilty, and to employtortureif it be necessary. “Before proceeding with the inquiry,” says Philip, “you are to inform them (the Templars) that the pope and ourselves have been convinced, by irreproachable testimony, of the errors and abominations which accompany their vows and profession; you are to promise them pardon and favour if theyconfessthe truth, but if not, you are to acquaint them that they will be condemned to death.”[333]
As soon as Philip had issued these orders, he wrote to the principal sovereigns of Europe, urging them to follow his example,[334]and sent a confidential agent, named Bernard Peletin, with a letter to the young king, Edward the Second, who had just then ascended the throne of England, representing in frightful colours the pretended sins of the Templars. On the 22nd of September, king Edward replied to this letter, observing that he had considered of the matters mentioned therein, and had listened to the statements of that discreet man, Master Bernard Peletin; that he had caused the latter to unfold the charges before himself, and many prelates, earls, and barons of his kingdom, and others of his council; but that they appeared so astonishing as to be beyond belief; that such abominable and execrable deeds had never before been heard of by the king and the aforesaid prelates, earls, and barons, and it was therefore hardly to be expected that an easy credence could be given to them. The English monarch, however, informs king Philip that by the advice of his council he had ordered the seneschal of Agen, from whose lips the rumours were said to have proceeded, to be summoned to his presence, that through him he might be further informed concerning the premises; and he states that at the fitting time, after due inquiry, he will take such steps as will redound to the praise of God, and the honour and preservation of the catholic faith.[335]
On the night of the 13th of October, all the Templars in the French dominions were simultaneously arrested. Monks were appointed to preach against them in the public places of Paris,and in the gardens of the Palais Royale; and advantage was taken of the folly, the superstition, and the credulity of the age, to propagate the most horrible and extravagant charges against the order. They were accused of worshipping an idol covered with an old skin, embalmed, having the appearance of a piece of polished oil-cloth. “In this idol,” we are assured, “there were two carbuncles for eyes, bright as the brightness of heaven, and it is certain that all the hope of the Templars was placed in it; it was their sovereign god, and they trusted in it with all their heart.” They are accused of burning the bodies of the deceased brethren, and making the ashes into a powder, which they administered to the younger brethren in their food and drink, to make them hold fast their faith and idolatry; of cooking and roasting infants, and anointing their idols with the fat; of celebrating hidden rites and mysteries, to which young and tender virgins were introduced, and of a variety of abominations too absurd and horrible to be named.[336]Guillaume Paradin, in his history of Savoy, seriously repeats these monstrous accusations, and declares that the Templars had “un lieu creux ou cave en terre, fort obscur, en laquelle ils avoient un image en forme d’un homme, sur lequel ils avoient appliqué la peau d’un corps humain, et mis deux clairs et luisans escarboucles au lieu des deux yeux. A cette horrible statue etoient contraints de sacrifier ceux qui vouloient etre de leur damnable religion, lesquels avant toutes ceremonies ils contragnoient de renier Jesus Christ, et fouler la croix avec les pieds, et apres ce maudit sacre auquel assistoient femmes et filles (seduites pour etre de ce secte) ils estegnoient les lampes et lumieres qu’ils avoient en cett cave.... Et s’il advenoit que d’un Templier et d’un pucelle nasquit, un fils, ils se rangoit tous en un rond, et se jettoient cet enfant de main en main,et ne cessoient de le jetter jusqu’a ce qu’il fu mort entre leurs mains: etant mort ils se rotissoient (chose execrable) et de la graisse ils en ognoient leur grand statue!”[337]The character of the charges preferred against the Templars proves that their enemies had no serious crimes to allege against the order. Their very virtues indeed were turned against them, for we are told that “to conceal the iniquity of their livesthey made much almsgiving, constantly frequented church, comported themselves with edification, frequently partook of the holy sacrament, and manifested always much modesty and gentleness of deportment in the house, as well as in public.”[338]
During twelve days of severe imprisonment, the Templars remained constant in the denial of the horrible crimes imputed to the fraternity. The king’s promises of pardon extracted from them no confession of guilt, and they were therefore handed over to the tender mercies of the brethren of St. Dominic, who were the most refined and expert torturers of the day.
On the 19th of October, the grand inquisitor proceeded with his myrmidons to the Temple at Paris, and a hundred and forty Templars were one after another put to the torture. Days and weeks were consumed in the examination, and thirty-six Templars perished in the hands of their tormentors, maintaining with unshaken constancy to the very last the entire innocence of their order. Many of them lost the use of their feet from the application of the torture of fire, which was inflicted in the following manner: their legs were fastened in an iron frame, and the soles of their feet were greased over with fat or butter; they were then placed before the fire, and a screen was drawn backwards and forwards, so as to moderate and regulate the heat. Such was the agony produced by this roasting operation, that the victims often went raving mad. Brother Bernarde de Vado,on subsequently revoking a confession of guilt, wrung from him by this description of torment, says to the commissary of police, before whom he was brought to be examined, “They held me so long before a fierce fire that the flesh was burnt off my heels, two pieces of bone came away, which I present to you.”[339]Another Templar, on publicly revoking his confession, declared that four of his teeth were drawn out, and that he confessed himself guilty to save the remainder.[340]Others of the fraternity deposed to the infliction on them of the most revolting and indecent torments;[341]and, in addition to all this, it appears that forged letters from the Grand Master were shown to the prisoners, exhorting them to confess themselves guilty. Many of the Templars were accordingly compelled to acknowledge whatever was required of them, and to plead guilty to the commission of crimes which in the previous interrogatories they had positively denied.[342]
These violent proceedings excited the astonishment and amazement of Europe.
On the 20th of November, the king of England summoned the seneschal of Agen to his presence, and examined him concerning the truth of the horrible charges preferred against the Templars; and on the 4th of December the English monarch wrote letters to the kings of Portugal, Castile, Aragon, and Sicily, to the following effect:
“To the magnificent prince the Lord Dionysius, by the grace of God the illustrious king of Portugal, his very dear friend Edward, by the same grace king of England, &c. Health and prosperity.
“It is fit and proper, inasmuch as it conduceth to the honour of God and the exaltation of the faith, that we should prosecute with benevolence those who come recommended to us by strenuous labours and incessant exertions in defence of the Catholic faith, and for the destruction of the enemies of the cross of Christ. Verily, a certain clerk, (Bernard Peletin,) drawing nigh unto our presence, applied himself, with all his might, to the destruction of the order of the brethren of the Temple of Jerusalem. He dared to publish before us and our council certain horrible and detestable enormities repugnant to the Catholic faith, to the prejudice of the aforesaid brothers, endeavouring to persuade us, through his own allegations, as well as through certain letters which he had caused to be addressed to us for that purpose, that by reason of the premises, and without a due examination of the matter, we ought to imprison all the brethren of the aforesaid order abiding in our dominions. But, considering that the order, which hath been renowned for its religion and its honour, and in times long since passed away was instituted, as we have learned, by the Catholic Fathers, exhibits, and hath from the period of its first foundation exhibited, a becoming devotion to God and his holy church, and also, up to this time, hath afforded succour and protection to the Catholic faith in parts beyond sea, it appeared to us that a ready belief in an accusation of this kind, hitherto altogether unheard of against the fraternity, was scarcely to be expected. We affectionately ask, and require of your royal majesty, that ye, with due diligence, consider of the premises, and turn a deaf ear to the slanders of ill-natured men, who are animated, as we believe, not with the zeal of rectitude, but with a spirit ofcupidityand envy, permitting no injury unadvisedly to be done to the persons or property of the brethren of the aforesaid order, dwelling within your kingdom, until they have been legally convicted of the crimes laid to their charge, orit shall happen to be otherwise ordered concerning them in these parts.”[343]
A few days after the transmission of this letter, king Edward wrote to the pope, expressing his disbelief of the horrible and detestable rumours spread abroad concerning the Templars. He represents them to his holiness as universally respected by all men in his dominions for the purity of their faith and morals. He expresses great sympathy for the affliction and distress suffered by the master and brethren, by reason of the scandal circulated concerning them; and he strongly urges the holy pontiff to clear, by some fair course of inquiry, the character of the order from the unjust and infamous aspersions cast against it.[344]On the 22nd of November, however, a fortnight previously, the Pope had issued the following bull to king Edward.
“Clement, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his very dear son in Christ, Edward, the illustrious king of England, health and apostolical blessing.
“Presiding, though unworthy, on the throne of pastoral pre-eminence, by the disposition of him who disposeth all things, we fervently seek after this one thing above all others; we with ardent wishes aspire to this, that shaking off the sleep of negligence, whilst watching over the Lord’s flock, by removing that which is hurtful, and taking care of such things as are profitable, we may be able, by the divine assistance, to bring souls to God.
“In truth, a long time ago, about the period of our first promotion to the summit of the apostolical dignity, there came to our ears a light rumour, to the effect that the Templars, though fightingostensibly under the guise of religion, have hitherto been secretly living in perfidious apostasy, and in detestable heretical depravity. But, considering that their order, in times long since passed away, shone forth with the grace of much nobility and honour, and that they were for a length of time held in vast reverence by the faithful, and that we had then heard of no suspicion concerning the premises, or of evil report against them; and also, that from the beginning of their religion, they have publicly borne the cross of Christ, exposing their bodies and goods against the enemies of the faith, for the acquisition, retention, and defence of the Holy Land, consecrated by the precious blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, we were unwilling to yield a ready belief to the accusation....”
The holy pontiff then states, that afterwards, however, the same dreadful intelligence was conveyed to the king of France, who, animated by a lively zeal in the cause of religion, took immediate steps to ascertain its truth. He describes the various confessions of the guilt of idolatry and heresy made by the Templars in France, and requires the king forthwith to cause all the Templars in his dominions to be taken into custody on the same day. He directs him to hold them, in the name of the pope, at the disposition of the Holy See, and to commit all their real and personal property to the hands of certain trustworthy persons, to be faithfully preserved until the holy pontiff shall give further directions concerning it.[345]King Edward received this bull immediately after he had despatched his letter to the pope, exhorting his holiness not to give ear to the accusation against the order. The young king was now either convinced of the guilt of the Templars, on the high authority of the sovereign pontiff, or hoped to turn the proceedings against them to a profitable account, as he yielded a ready and prompt compliance with the pontifical commands.An order in council was made for the arrest of the Templars, and the seizure of their property. Inventories were directed to be taken of their goods and chattels, and provision was made for the sowing and tilling of their lands during the period of their imprisonment.[346]This order in council was carried into effect in the following manner:
On the 20th of December, the king’s writs were directed to each of the sheriffs throughout England, commanding them to make sure of certain trustworthy men of their bailiwicks, to the number of ten or twelve in each county, such as the king could best confide in, and have them at a certain place in the county, on pain of forfeiture of everything that could be forfeited to the king; and commanding the sheriffs, on pain of the like forfeiture, to be in person at the same place, on the Sunday before the feast of Epiphany, to do certain things touching the king’s peace, which the sheriff would find contained in the king’s writ about to be directed to him. And afterwards the king sent sworn clergymen with his writs, containing the said order in council to the sheriffs, who, before they opened them, were to take an oath that they would not disclose the contents of such writs until they proceeded to execute them.[347]The same orders, to be acted upon in a similar manner in Ireland, were sent to the justiciary of that country, and to the treasurer of the Exchequer at Dublin; also, to John de Richemund, guardian of Scotland; and to Walter de Pederton, justiciary of West Wales; Hugh de Aldithelegh, justiciary of North Wales; and to Robert de Holland, justiciary of Chester, who were strictly commanded to carry the orders into execution before the king’s proceedings against the Templars in England were noised abroad. All the king’s faithful subjects were commanded to aid and assist the officers in the fulfilment of their duty.[348]