We thus see that even the papal commission could not protect against the king such of the witnesses as were honest and bold enough to maintain the innocence of the order. Strict justice was therefore out of the question, Philip would have the order guilty of the most incredible crimes, and death awaited the witness who did not depose as he wished. Meantime his agents were busily engaged in tampering with the prisoners; and by threats and promises they prevailed on forty-four of them to give up their design of defending the order.
On the 21st May the commissioners met, in the absence of the Archbishop of Narbonne and the Archdeacon of Trent, and, declaring their labours suspended for the present, adjourned to the 3d November.
In the interval the conduct of the council of Sens had been imitated in other provinces. The Archbishop of Rheims held a council at Senlis, by whose sentence nine Templars were committed to the flames. Another council was held at Pont-de-l'Arche by the Archbishop of Rouen, and several knights were burnt. The Bishop of Carcassonne presided at a council which delivered many victims to the secular arm. On the 18th August the Archbishop of Sens held a second council, and burned four knights. Thibault, Duke of Lorraine, the close friend of King Philip, put many Templars to death, and seized the property of the order.
On the 3d November three of the papal commissioners met at Paris: they asked if any one wished to defend the order of the Templars. No one appearing they adjourned to the 27th December. On resuming their sittings they called on William de Chambonnet and Bertrand de Sartiges to give their presence at the hearing of the witnesses. These knights required the presence of Raynaud de Pruino and Peter of Bologna, but were informed that these priests had solemnly and voluntarily renounced the defence of the order, and revoked their retractations; that the latter had escaped from his prison and fled, and that the former could not be admitted to defend the order, as he had been degraded at the council of Sens. The knights reiterated their refusal and retired. The commissioners then proceeded in their labours without them, and continued the examination of witnesses till the 26th May, 1311.
The whole number of persons examined before the commission amounted to 231, for the far greater part serving-brethren. Of these about two-thirds acknowledged the truth of the principal charges against the order. The denial of Christ and spitting on the cross were very generally confessed, but many said they had spitten beside it, not on it, and also that they had denied God with their lips, not with their hearts.
With respect to the head which the Templars were said to worship, as it was of some importance to prove this offence, in order to make out the charge of heresy, it was testified to by a few. Some said it was like that of a man with a long white beard, others that it was like that of a woman, and that it was said to be the head of one of the 11,000 virgins. One witness gave the following account of it, which he said he had had from a secular knight at Limisso, in Cyprus.
A certain nobleman was passionately in love with a maiden. Being unable, however, to overcome her repugnance to him, he took her body, when she was dead, out of her grave, and cut off her head, and while thus engaged he heard a voice crying—Keep it safe, whatever looks on it will be destroyed. He did as desired, and made the first trial of it on the Grissons, an Arab tribe, which dwelt in Cyprus and the neighbouring country, and whenever he uncovered the head and turned it towards any of their towns, its walls instantly fell down. He next embarked with the head for Constantinople, being resolved to destroy that city also. On the way his nurse, out of curiosity, opened the box which contained the head. Instantly there came on a terrific storm, the ship went to pieces, and nearly all who were on board perished. The very fish vanished from that part of the sea.
Another of the witnesses had heard the same story. The common tradition of the East, he said, was, that in old times, before the two spiritual orders of knighthood were founded, a head used to rise in a certain whirlpool named Setalia, the appearance of which was very dangerous for the ships which happened to be near it. We are to suppose, though it does not appear that the witnesses said so, that the Templars had contrived to get possession of this formidable head.
We are to observe that the witnesses who thus deposed had been picked and culled in all parts of France, by the king's officers, out of those who had confessed before the different prelates and provincial councils, and who were, by threats and promises, engaged to persist in what they had said. The terror they were under was visible in their countenances, their words, and their actions. Many of them began by saying that they would not vary from what they had deposed before such a bishop or such a council; yet even among these some were bold enough to revoke their confessions, declaring that they had been drawn from them by torture, and asserted the innocence of the order. Others retracted their confessions when brought before the commissioners, but shortly afterwards, having probably in the interval been well menaced or tortured by the king's officers, returned and retracted their retraction.
The case of John de Pollencourt, the thirty-seventh witness, is a remarkable instance. He began in the usual way, by declaring that he would persist in his confession made before the Bishop of Amiens, touching the denial of Christ, &c. The commissioners, observing his paleness and agitation, told him to tell the truth and save his soul, and not to persist in his confession if it had not been sincere, assuring him that neither they nor their notaries would reveal any thing that he said. After a pause he replied:—