Secret Societies of the Middle Ages

by Thomas Keightley

On Monday and Tuesday two more of the witnesses were heard. One of them named Humbert de Puy declared that, having refused to acknowledge the crimes laid to the charge of the order, he had been tortured three times and kept for thirty-six weeks on bread and water in the bottom of an infected tower, by order of John de Jainville.

While thus engaged, the commissioners learned to their dismay that the council was about to commit to the flames fifty-four of the knights who had stepped forth as the defenders of the order. They instantly sent one of their notaries and one of the keepers of the prison of the Templars to entreat the archbishop to act with caution, as there were strong reasons for doubting the truth of the charges; and representing that the witnesses were so terrified at what they had heard of the intentions of the council, that they were incapable of giving their evidence; that moreover the Templars had delivered in an appeal to the pope.

The archbishop, who was paying the price of his elevation to a hard creditor, was not to be stopped by these considerations. He was making short work of the business. On the Monday he had a number of those who had undertaken the defence of the order brought before the council, and he interrogated them once more himself. Those of them who, having confessed, had afterwards retracted, and now persisted in their retractation, were declared to be relapsed heretics, and were delivered over to the secular arm and condemned to the flames; those who, had not confessed, and would not, were sentenced to imprisonment as unreconciled Templars; those who persisted in their confession of the enormities laid to the charge of the order were set at liberty, and called reconciled Templars.

The next morning the fifty-four Templars who had been declared relapsed were taken from their prison, placed in carts, and conducted to the place of execution, where they beheld the piles prepared, and the executioners standing with flaming torches in their hands. An envoy from the court was present, who proclaimed liberty and the royal favour for those who would even then retract their declarations and confess the guilt of the order. The friends and relatives of the unhappy victims crowded round them, with tears and prayers, imploring of them to make the required acknowledgment and save their lives. In vain. These gallant knights, who, yielding to the anguish of torture, and worn down by solitude and privations, had confessed to the truth of the most absurd charges, now that they beheld the certain limit of their sufferings, disdained to purchase by falsehood a prolongation of life to be spent in infamy and contempt. With one voice they re-asserted their own innocence and that of their order. They called on God, the Virgin, and all the saints to aid and support them, raised the hymn of death, and expired amidst the tears and commiseration of the by-standers.

Felons convicted on the clearest evidence will, as is well known, die asserting their innocence; but this is when they have no hope of escape remaining. Here life and liberty were offered, and the victims were implored by those whom they most loved to accept of them. May we not then assert that the men who resisted all solicitations were sincere and spoke the truth, and were supported by their confidence of being received as martyrs by that God whom they devoutly adored according to the doctrines of their church?

On Wednesday, Aymeric de Villars-le-Duc, aged about fifty years, was brought before the commissioners. He was quite pallid, and seemed terrified beyond measure. On the articles to which he was to depose being explained to him, he asseverated in the strongest manner his resolution to speak the truth; then striking his breast with his clenched hands, he bent his knees, and stretching his hands towards the altar, spake these memorable words:—

"I persist in maintaining that the errors imputed to the Templars are absolutely false, though I have confessed some of them myself, overcome by the tortures which G. de Marcillac and Hugh de Celle, the king's knights, ordered to be inflicted on me. I have seen the fifty-four knights led in carts to be committed to the flames because they would not make the confessions which were required of them. I have heard that they were burnt; and I doubt if I could, like them, have had the noble constancy to brave the terrors of the pile. I believe that, if I were threatened with it, I should depose on oath before the commission, and before any other persons who should interrogate me, that these same errors imputed to the order are true. I would kill God himself if it was required of me."

He then earnestly implored the commissioners and the notaries who were present not to reveal to the king's officers, and to the keepers of the Templars, the words which had escaped him, lest they should deliver him also to the flames.

Ought not these simple honest words, the very accents of truth, to prevail with us against all the confessions procured by torture, or by promises or threats, and satisfy us as to their value?

The commissioners, whose conduct throughout the whole affair was regulated by humanity and justice, declared that the evening before one of the witnesses had come to them and implored of them to keep his deposition secret, on account of the danger which he ran if it should be known; and, judging that in their present state of terror it would not be just to hear the witnesses, they deliberated on proroguing their session to a future period.