The History of the Knights Templars, the Temple Church, and the Temple

by C. G. Addison

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 bull omne datum optimum was 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, tells them 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 the European 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 created nine were Frenchmen, and in all his acts the new pope manifested himself the obedient slave of the French monarch. 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 a very 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 to have 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, and e 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 reports concerning 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.