It appears that in the prison of Aldgate there were confined Brother William de Sautre, Knight, Preceptor of Samford; Brother William de la Ford, Preceptor of Daney; Brother John de Coningeston, Preceptor of Getinges; Roger de Norreis, Preceptor of Cressing; Radulph de Barton, priest, Prior of the New Temple; and several serving brethren of the order. In the prison of Crepelgate were detained William de Egendon, Knight, Preceptor of Schepeley; John de Moun, Knight, Preceptor of Dokesworth; and four serving brethren. In the prison of Ludgate were five serving brethren; and in Newgate was confined Brother Himbert Blanke, Knight, Grand Preceptor of Auvergne.
The above declaration of faith and innocence was far from agreeable to the papal inquisitors, who required a confession of guilt, and the torture was once more directed to be applied. The king sent fresh orders to the mayor and the sheriffs of the city of London, commanding them to place the Templars in separate dungeons; to load them with chains and fetters; to permit the myrmidons of the inquisitors to pay periodical visits to see that the wishes and intentions of the inquisitors, with regard to the severity of the confinement, were properly carried into effect; and, lastly, to inflict TORTURE upon the bodies of the Templars, and generally to do whatever should be thought fitting and expedient in the premises, according to ecclesiastical law.[400] In conformity with these orders, we learn from the record of the proceedings, that the Templars were placed in solitary confinement in loathsome dungeons; that they were placed on a short allowance of bread and water, and periodically visited by the agents of the inquisition; that they were moved from prison to prison, and from dungeon to dungeon; were now treated with rigour, and anon with indulgence; and were then visited by learned prelates, and acute doctors in theology, who, by exhortation, persuasion, and by menace, attempted in every possible mode to wring from them the required avowals. We learn that all the engines of terror wielded by the church were put in force, and that torture was unsparingly applied “usque ad judicium sanguinis!” The places in which these atrocious scenes were enacted were the Tower, the prisons of Aldgate, Ludgate, Newgate, Bishopsgate, and Crepelgate, the house formerly belonging to John de Banguel, and the tenements once the property of the brethren of penitence.[401] It appears that some French monks were sent over to administer the torture to the unhappy captives, and that they were questioned and examined in the presence of notaries whilst suffering under the torments of the rack. The relentless perseverance and the incessant exertions of the foreign inquisitors were at last rewarded by a splendid triumph over the powers of endurance of two poor serving brethren, and one chaplain of the order of the Temple, who were at last induced to make the long-desired avowals.
On the 23rd of June, Brother Stephen de Stapelbrugge, described as an apostate and fugitive of the order of the Temple, captured by the king’s officers in the city of Salisbury, deposed in the house of the head gaoler of Newgate, in the presence of the bishops of London and Chichester, the chancellor of the archbishop of Canterbury, Hugh de Walkeneby, doctor of theology, and other clerical witnesses, that there were two modes of profession in the order of the Temple, the one good and lawful, and the other contrary to the christian faith; that he himself was received into the order by Brother Brian le Jay, Grand Preceptor of England at Dynneslee, and was led into the chapel, the door of which was closed as soon as he had entered; that a cross was placed before the Master, and that a brother of the Temple, with a drawn sword, stood on either side of him; that the Master said to him, “Do you see this image of the crucifixion?” to which he replied, “I see it, my lord;” that the Master then said to him, “You must deny that Christ Jesus was God and man, and that Mary was his mother; and you must spit upon this cross;” which the deponent, through immediate fear of death, did with his mouth, but not with his heart, and he spat beside the cross, and not on it; and then falling down upon his knees, with eyes uplifted, with his hands clasped, with bitter tears and sighs, and devout ejaculations, he besought the mercy and the favour of holy church, declaring that he cared not for the death of the body, or for any amount of penance, but only for the salvation of his soul.
On Saturday, the 25th of June, Brother Thomas Tocci de Thoroldeby, serving brother of the order of the Temple, described as an apostate who had escaped from Lincoln after his examination at that place by the papal inquisitors, but had afterwards surrendered himself to the king’s officers, was brought before the bishops of London and Chichester, the archdeacon of Salisbury, and others of the clergy in St. Martin’s Church in Vinetriâ; and being again examined, he repeated the statement made in his first deposition, but added some particulars with regard to penances imposed and absolutions pronounced in the chapter, showing the difference between sins and defaults, the priest having to deal with the one, and the Master with the other. He declared that the little cords were worn from honourable motives, and relates a story of his being engaged in a battle against the Saracens, in which he lost his cord, and was punished by the Grand Master for a default in coming home without it. He gives the same account of the secrecy of the chapters as all the other brethren, states that the members of the order were forbidden to confess to the friars mendicants, and were enjoined to confess to their own chaplains; that they did nothing contrary to the christian faith, and as to their endeavouring to promote the advancement of the order by any means, right or wrong, that exactly the contrary was the case, as there was a statute in the order to the effect, that if any one should be found to have acquired anything unjustly, he should be deprived of his habit, and be expelled the order. Being asked what induced him to become an apostate, and to fly from his order, he replied that it was through fear of death, because the abbot of Lagny, (the papal inquisitor,) when he examined him at Lincoln, asked him if he would not confess anything further, and he answered that he knew of nothing further to confess, unless he were to say things that were not true; and that the abbot, laying his hand upon his breast, swore by the word of God that he would make him confess before he had done with him! and that being terribly frightened he afterwards bribed the gaoler of the castle of Lincoln, giving him forty florins to let him make his escape.
The abbot of Lagny, indeed, was as good as his word, for on the 29th of June, four days after this imprudent avowal, Brother Thomas Tocci de Thoroldeby was brought back to Saint Martin’s Church, and there, in the presence of the same parties, he made a third confession, in which he declares that, coerced by two Templars with drawn swords in their hands, he denied Christ with his mouth, but not with his heart; and spat beside the cross, but not on it; that he was required to spit upon the image of the Virgin Mary, but contrived, instead of doing so, to give her a kiss on the foot. He declares that he had heard Brian le Jay, the Master of the Temple at London, say a hundred times over, that Jesus Christ was not the true God, but a man, and that the smallest hair out of the beard of one Saracen was of more worth than the whole body of any Christian. He declares that he was once standing in the presence of Brother Brian, when some poor people besought charity of him for the love of God and our lady the blessed Virgin Mary; and he answered, “Que dame, alez vous pendre a vostre dame”—“What lady? go and be hanged to your lady,” and violently casting a halfpenny into the mud, he made the poor people hunt for it, although it was in the depth of a severe winter. He also relates that at the chapters the priest stood like a beast, and had nothing to do but to repeat the psalm, “God be merciful unto us, and bless us,” which was read at the closing of the chapter. (The Templars, by the way, must have been strange idolaters to have closed their chapters, in which they are accused of worshipping a cat, a man’s head, and a black idol, with the reading of the beautiful psalm, “God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and show us the light of thy countenance, that thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations,” &c. Psalm lxvii.) This witness further states, that the priest had no power to impose a heavier penance than a day’s fast on bread and water, and could not even do that without the permission of the brethren. He is made also to relate that the Templars always favoured the Saracens in the holy wars in Palestine, and oppressed the Christians! and he declares, speaking of himself, that for three years before he had never seen the body of Christ without thinking of the devil, nor could he remove that evil thought from his heart by prayer, or in any other way that he knew of; but that very morning he had heard mass with great devotion, and since then had thought only of Christ, and thinks there is no one in the order of the Temple whose soul will be saved, unless a reformation takes place.[402]
Previous to this period, the ecclesiastical council had again assembled, and these last depositions of Brothers Stephen de Stapelbrugge and Thomas Tocci de Thoroldeby having been produced before them, the following solemn farce was immediately publicly enacted. It is thus described in the record of the proceedings:
“To the praise and glory of the name of the most high Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, to the confusion of heretics, and the strengthening of all faithful Christians, begins the public record of the reconciliation of the penitent heretics, returning to the orthodox faith published in the council, celebrated at London in the year 1311.
“In the name of God, Amen. In the year of the incarnation of our Lord 1311, on the twenty-seventh day of the month of June, in the hall of the palace of the bishop of London, before the venerable fathers the Lord Robert by the grace of God archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, and his suffragans in provincial council assembled, appeared Brother Stephen de Stapelbrugge, of the order of the chivalry of the Temple; and the denying of Christ and the blessed Virgin Mary his mother, the spitting upon the cross, and the heresies and errors acknowledged and confessed by him in his deposition being displayed, the same Stephen asserted in full council, before the people of the City of London, introduced for the occasion, that all those things so deposed by him were true, and that to that confession he would wholly adhere; humbly confessing his error on his bended knees, with his hands clasped, with much lamentation and many tears, he again and again besought the mercy and pity of holy mother church, offering to abjure all heresies and errors, and praying them to impose on him a fitting penance, and then the book of the holy gospels being placed in his hands, he abjured the aforesaid heresies in this form:
“I, brother Stephen de Stapelbrugge, of the order of the chivalry of the Temple, do solemnly confess,” &c. &c. (he repeats his confession, makes his abjuration, and then proceeds;) “and if at any time hereafter I shall happen to relapse into the same errors, or deviate from any of the articles of the faith, I will account myself ipso facto excommunicated; I will stand condemned as a manifest perjured heretic, and the punishment inflicted on perjured relapsed heretics shall be forthwith imposed upon me without further trial or judgment!!”
He was then sworn upon the holy gospels to stand to the sentence of the church in the matter, after which Brother Thomas Tocci de Thoroldeby was brought forward to go through the same monstrous ceremony, which being concluded, these two poor serving brothers of the order of the Temple, who were so ignorant that they could not write, were made to place their mark (loco subscriptionis) on the record of the abjuration.