The Knights Templars

by C. G. Addison

On the imprisonment of the Templars in England, the Temple at London, and all the preceptories dependent upon it, with the manors, farms, houses, lands, and revenues of the order, were placed under the survey of the Court of Exchequer, and extents were directed to be taken of the same, after which they were confided to the care of certain trustworthy persons, styled “Guardians of the lands of the Templars,” who were to account for the rents and profits to the king’s exchequer. These guardians were directed to pay various pensions to the old servants and retainers of the Templars dwelling in the different preceptories, also the expenses of the prosecution against the order; and they were at different times required to victual the king’s castles and strongholds. In the month of February, A. D. 1312, the king gave the Temple manors of Etton and Cave to David, earl of Athol, directing the guardians of the lands and tenements of the Templars in the county of York to hand over to the said earl all the corn in those manors, the oxen, calves, ploughs, and all the goods and chattels of the Templars existing therein, together with the ornaments and utensils of the chapel of the Temple. But on the 16th of May the pope addressed bulls to the king, and to all the earls and barons of the kingdom, setting forth the proceedings of the council of Vienne, and the publication of a papal decree, vesting the property late belonging to the Templars in the brethren of the Hospital of St. John, and he commands them forthwith to place the members of that order in possession thereof. Bulls were also addressed to the archbishops of Canterbury and York and their suffragans, commanding them to enforce by ecclesiastical censures the execution of the papal commands. King Edward and his nobles very properly resisted this decree, and on the 21st of August the king wrote to the Prior of the Hospital of St. John at Clerkenwell, telling him that the pretensions of the pope to dispose of property within the realm of England, without the consent of parliament, were derogatory to the dignity of the crown and the royal authority. The following year the king granted the Temple at London, with the church and all the buildings therein, to Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke; and on the 5th of May of the same year, he caused several merchants, from whom he had borrowed money, to be placed in possession of many of the manors of the Templars.[170]

Yielding, however, at last to the exhortations and menaces of the pope, the king, on the 21st of Nov., A. D. 1313, granted the property to the Hospitallers, and sent orders to the guardians of the lands of the Templars, and to various powerful barons who were in possession of the estates, commanding them to deliver them up to certain parties deputed by the Grand Master and chapter of the Hospital of St. John to receive them. At this period many of the heirs of the donors, whose title had been recognised by the law, were in possession of the lands, and the judges held that the king had no power of his own sole authority to transfer them to the order of the Hospital. The thunders of the Vatican were consequently vigorously made use of, and all the detainers of the property were doomed by the Roman pontiff to everlasting damnation. Pope John, in one of his bulls, dated A. D. 1322, bitterly complains of the disregard by all the king’s subjects of the papal commands. He laments that they had hardened their hearts and despised the sentence of excommunication fulminated against them, and declares that his heart was riven with grief to find that even the ecclesiastics, who ought to have been as a wall of defence to the Hospitallers, had themselves been heinously guilty in the premises.[171]

At last (A. D. 1324) the pope, the bishops, and the Hospitallers, by their united exertions, succeeded in obtaining an act of parliament, vesting all the property late belonging to the Templars in the brethren of the Hospital of St. John, in order that the intentions of the donors might be carried into effect by the appropriation of it to the defence of the Holy Land and the succour of the christian cause in the East. This statute gave rise to the greatest discontent. The heirs of the donors petitioned parliament for its repeal, alleging that it had been made against law, and against reason, and contrary to the opinion of the judges; and many of the great barons who held the property by a title recognised by the common law, successfully resisted the claims of the order of the Hospital, maintaining that the parliament had no right to interfere with the tenure of private property, and to dispose of their possessions without their consent. This struggle between the heirs of the donors on the one hand, and the Hospitallers on the other, continued for a lengthened period; and in the reign of Edward the Third it was found necessary to pass another act of parliament, confirming the previous statute in their favour, and writs were sent to the sheriffs (A. D. 1334) commanding them to enforce the execution of the acts of the legislature, and to take possession, in the king’s name, of all the property unjustly detained from the brethren of the Hospital of St. John.[172]

Whilst the vast possessions, late belonging to the Templars, thus continued to be the subject of contention, the surviving brethren of that dissolved order continued to be treated with the utmost inhumanity and neglect. The ecclesiastical council had assigned to each of them a pension of fourpence a day for subsistence, but this small pittance was not paid, and they were consequently in great danger of dying of hunger. The king, pitying their miserable situation, wrote to the prior of the hospital of St. John at Clerkenwell, earnestly requesting him to take their hard lot into his serious consideration, and not suffer them to come to beggary in the streets. The archbishop of Canterbury also exerted himself in their behalf, and sent letters to the possessors of the property, reproving them for the non-payment of the allotted stipends. “This inhumanity,” says he, “awakens our compassion, and penetrates us with the most lively grief. We pray and conjure you in kindness to furnish them, for the love of God and for charity, with the means of subsistence.” The archbishop of York caused many of them to be supported in the different monasteries of his diocese.[173]

We have already seen (ante, [p. 298]) that the Temple at London, the chief house of the English province of the order, had been granted (A. D. 1313) by king Edward the Second to Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke. As Thomas earl of Lancaster, the king’s cousin and first prince of the blood, however, claimed the Temple by escheat, as the immediate lord of the fee, the earl of Pembroke, on the 3rd of October, A. D. 1315, at the request of the king, and in consideration of the grant to him by his sovereign of other land, gave up the property to the earl of Lancaster. This earl of Lancaster was president of the council, and the most powerful and opulent subject of the kingdom, and we are told that the students and professors of the common law made interest with him for a lodging in the Temple, and first gained a footing therein as his lessees. They took possession of the old Hall and the gloomy cells of the military monks, and converted them into the great and most ancient Common Law University in England. From that period to the present time the retreats of the religious warriors have been devoted to “the studious and eloquent pleaders of causes,” a new kind of Templars, who, as Fuller quaintly observes, now “defend one Christian from another, as the old ones did Christians from Pagans.”

Subsequently to this event the fee simple or inheritance of the place passed successively through various hands. On the memorable attainder and ignominious execution before his own castle of the earl of Lancaster it reverted to the crown, and was again granted to Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, who was shortly afterwards murdered at Paris. He died without issue, and the Temple accordingly once more vested in the crown.[174] It was then granted to the royal favourite, Hugh le Despenser the younger, and on his attainder and execution by the Lancastrian faction, it came into the hands of the young king Edward the Third, who had just then ascended the throne, and was committed by him to the keeping of the Mayor of London, his escheator in the city. The mayor closed the gate leading to the waterside, which stood at the bottom of the present Middle Temple Lane, whereby the lawyers were much incommoded in their progress backwards and forwards from the Temple to Westminster. Complaints were made to the king on the subject, who, on the 2nd day of November, in the third year of his reign, (A. D. 1330,) wrote as follows to the mayor:—“The king to the mayor of London, his escheator in the same city. Since we have been given to understand that there ought to be a free passage through the court of the New Temple at London to the river Thames, for our justices, clerks, and others, who may wish to pass by water to Westminster to transact their business, and that you keep the gate of the Temple shut by day, and so prevent those same justices, clerks of ours, and other persons, from passing through the midst of the said court to the waterside, whereby as well our own affairs as those of our people in general are oftentimes greatly delayed, we command you, that you keep the gates of the said Temple open by day, so that our justices and clerks, and other persons who wish to go by water to Westminster may be able so to do by the way to which they have hitherto been accustomed.” The following year (A. D. 1331) the king wrote to the mayor, his escheator in the city of London, informing him that he had been given to understand that the pier in the said court of the Temple, leading to the river, was so broken and decayed, that his clerks and law officers, and others, could no longer get across it, and were consequently prevented from passing by water to Westminster. “We therefore,” he proceeds, “being desirous of providing such a remedy as we ought for this evil, command you to do whatever repairs are necessary to the said pier, and to defray the cost thereof out of the proceeds of the lands and rents appertaining to the said Temple now in your custody; and when we shall have been informed of the things done in the matter, the expense shall be allowed you in your account of the same proceeds.”[175]

Two years afterwards (6 E. III., A. D. 1333) the king committed the custody of the Temple to “his beloved clerk,” William de Langford, “and farmed out the rents and proceeds thereof to him for the term of ten years, at a rent of 24l. per annum, the said William undertaking to keep all the houses and tenements in good order and repair, and so deliver them up at the end of the term.” In the mean time, however, the pope and the bishops had been vigorously exerting themselves to obtain a transfer of the property to the order of the Knights Hospitallers of Saint John. The Hospitallers petitioned the king, setting forth that the church, the cloisters, and other places within the Temple, were consecrated and dedicated to the service of God, that they had been unjustly occupied and detained from them by Hugh le Despenser the younger, and, through his attainder, had lately come into the king’s hands, and they besought the king to deliver up to them possession thereof. King Edward accordingly commanded the mayor of London, his escheator in that city, to take inquisition concerning the premises.

From this inquisition, and the return thereof, it appears that many of the founders of the Temple Church, and many of the brethren of the order of Knights Templars, then lay buried in the church and cemetery of the Temple; that the bishop of Ely had his lodging in the Temple, known by the name of the bishop of Ely’s chamber; that there was a chapel dedicated to St. Thomas-à-Becket, which extended from the door of the Temple Hall as far as the ancient gate of the Temple; also a cloister which began at the bishop of Ely’s chamber, and ran in an easterly direction; and that there was a wall which ran in a northerly direction as far as the said king’s highway; that in the front part of the cemetery towards the north, bordering on the king’s highway, were thirteen houses formerly erected, with the assent and permission of the Master and brethren of the Temple, by Roger Blom, a messenger of the Temple, for the purpose of holding the lights and ornaments of the church; that the land whereon these houses were built, the cemetery, the church, and all the space enclosed between St. Thomas’s chapel, the church, the cloisters, and the wall running in a northerly direction, and all the buildings erected thereon, together with the hall, cloisters, and St. Thomas’ chapel, were sanctified places dedicated to God; that Hugh le Despenser occupied and detained them unjustly, and that through his attainder and forfeiture, and not otherwise, they came into the king’s hands.[176]

After the return of this inquisition, the said sanctified places were assigned to the prior and brethren of the Hospital of Saint John; and the king, on the 11th of January, in the tenth year of his reign, A. D. 1337, directed his writ to the barons of the Exchequer, commanding them to take inquisition of the value of the said sanctified places, so given up to the Hospitallers, and of the residue of the Temple, and certify the same under their seals to the king, in order that a reasonable abatement might be made in William de Langford’s rent. From the inquiry made in pursuance of this writ before John de Shoreditch, a baron of the Exchequer, it further appears that on the said residue of the Temple upon the land then remaining in the custody of William de Langford, and withinside the great gate of the Temple, were another HALL and four chambers connected therewith, a kitchen, a garden, a stable, and a chamber beyond the great gate; also eight shops, seven of which stood in Fleet Street, and the eighth in the suburb of London, without the bar of the New Temple; that the annual value of these shops varied from ten to thirteen, fifteen, and sixteen shillings; that the fruit out of the garden of the Temple sold for sixty shillings per annum in the gross, that seven out of the thirteen houses erected by Roger Blom were each of the annual value of eleven shillings; and that the eighth, situated beyond the gate of entrance to the church, was worth four marks per annum. It appears, moreover, that the total annual revenue of the Temple then amounted to 73l. 6s. 11d., equal to about 1,000l. of our present money, and that William de Langford was abated 12l. 4s. 2d. of the said rent.[177]

Three years after the taking of this inquisition, and in the thirteenth year of his reign, A. D. 1340, king Edward the Third, in consideration of the sum of one hundred pounds, which the prior of the Knights Hospitallers promised to pay him towards the expense of his expedition into France, granted to the said prior all the residue of the Temple then remaining in the king’s hands, to hold, together with the cemetery, cloisters, and the other sanctified places, to the said prior and his brethren, and their successors, of the king and his heirs, for charitable purposes, for ever. From this grant it appears that the porter of the Temple received sixty shillings and tenpence per annum, and twopence a day wages, which were to be paid him by the Hospitallers. At this period Philip Thane was prior of the Hospital; and he exerted himself to impart to the celebration of divine service in the Temple Church, the dignity and the splendour it possessed in the time of the Templars. He, with the unanimous consent and approbation of the whole chapter of the Hospital, granted to Hugh de Lichefield, priest, and to his successors, guardians of the Temple Church, towards the improvement of the lights and the celebration of divine service therein, all the land called Ficketzfeld, and the garden called Cotterell Garden; and two years afterwards he made a further grant, to the said Hugh and his successors, of a thousand fagots a year to be cut out of the wood of Lilleston, and carried to the New Temple to keep up the fire in the said church.[178]