Doorway of the Temple Church.
The outline of the Round Church was never probably a perfect circle. Excavations have been made, and some foundations have been discovered underground on the east side of the church, which seem to shew that an apse existed nearly fifty feet long. This, of course, contained the altar. Even so, however, the church must often have been inconveniently crowded, and the spaciousness of the later addition shows how much this inconvenience had been felt. The middle opening between the two churches is probably the original arch by which the apse was entered, since it does not, like the two side arches, break into the line of arcading. In passing from the earlier to the later church, we pass from Transitional Norman to a pure example of Early English style, the details of which closely remind us of Salisbury Cathedral. That cathedral, which was not finished till 1258, was begun in 1220, and the foundations of the Temple choir cannot have been laid very long after this. Matthew Paris (died 1259) tells us that "the noble church of the New Temple, of a construction worthy to be looked at," was consecrated on Ascension Day, 1240, in the presence of Henry III. and many great men of the realm. As the king looked round the new church during the consecration ceremony, it is quite conceivable that he turned over in his mind the idea of rebuilding the east end of Westminster Abbey in this same style—a design which he proceeded to put into execution five years later. The combination of the two Temple Churches into one harmonious whole is a stroke of genius on the part of the unknown architect. It might have been a failure had there been any violence of contrast. As it is, we feel that we are only moving one step forward in the evolution of church-building. The general effect of the columns and arches is much the same throughout, and the view from either church into the other pleases the eye.
To realise the full beauty of this great choir we must in thought sweep away the present seats and pulpit, and reconstruct the two side altars dedicated to St. John and St. Nicolas, which flanked the high altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Traces of this original arrangement are still to be seen in the restored aumbreys and piscina on the north and south walls. The height of these niches seems to show that the side altars were some four or five steps above the level of the present floor. The three aumbreys over the high altar are unfortunately hidden by the incongruous reredos which was put up in 1841. In these locked cupboards some of the church plate was kept. The inventory of 1307 contains various priced items of silver-gilt plate, together with numerous relics, unpriced—among them "the sword with which the Blessed Thomas of Canterbury was killed, and two crosses of the wood on which Christ was crucified." The safe custody of these treasures must have been a source of anxiety. Opening out of the staircase which leads to the triforium a small chamber has been constructed in the thickness of the wall, lighted by two loop-holes, one of which looks towards the altar, the other across the church. This has been supposed to be a penitential cell for disobedient Templars, but it was more probably a watcher's chamber, used as a safeguard against possible theft. The three altars seem to have been at first entirely open to the body of the church, the idea being that the whole building was a chancel or choir. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, however, the space round the high altar seems to have been enclosed by a screen with gates, thus forming a separate chancel. The side altars were presumably removed soon after the Reformation, and in Puritan days the communion table was for a time brought down from the east end and placed longitudinally on the floor in the body of the church. Probably about this time the old stained glass was wrecked, and the marble columns were white-washed. The only pre-Reformation monument which has survived in the choir is the recumbent figure of a bishop, supposed to be Silvester de Everdon, Bishop of Carlisle, who was killed by a fall from his horse in 1254. A good many brasses seem to have disappeared. "Divers plates of brass of late times have been torn out," says Dugdale (1671), who gives one or two epitaphs in French. Of post-Reformation monuments but two now remain in the body of the church—those of Richard Hooker (died 1600) and John Selden (died 1654). The rest have been placed in the triforium.
Little else of the Templars' work now survives. Below the pavement outside the south wall of the Round Church are the remains of the crypt of St. Ann's Chapel, built about 1220. There is enough left to show that the building was in the Early English style, and corresponded in its details with the choir church. Parts of the upper chapel still existed in a ruined state, hidden among encroaching buildings, as recently as 1825. On the west side of the Inner Temple Hall, which occupies the site of the Templars' Refectory (or perhaps, we should say, one of their refectories, for in the inquisition of 1337 two halls are mentioned), are two ancient chambers, one above the other, the roofs of which are supported by intersecting arches, rising from the four corners of the floor. This work is perhaps a little older than the Round Church. The lower chamber has been supposed to be what is called in the records "the Hall of the Priests." With these exceptions the church alone remains as a monument of the greatness and the glory of the Templars. For a century and a half at the New Temple they were a power in the land. Men deposited treasure in their custody. Popes conferred upon them exceptional privileges. They stood high in royal favour. Henry II. and Richard were benefactors. John was a frequent guest. It was while he was holding his court at the Temple on the Epiphany feast of 1215 that the Barons came before him in full armour to announce their ultimatum, and his signing the Magna Carta was partly due to the influence of the then Master of the Temple. Henry III. at one time intended to be buried in the Temple Church. His subsequent change of mind perhaps marks some decline in the popularity of the Templars. But their downfall in England (1308) was mainly owing to Papal pressure. Edward II. resisted as long as he could, and the more serious charges against them, which were based on confessions extracted by torture, are now generally regarded by historians as unfounded.
The premises of the Temple were eventually (1340) granted to the Knights Hospitallers, the rivals and bitter enemies of the fallen Order. They held the property for two hundred years, but they had their own settlement at Clerkenwell, and the Temple did not mean to them what it had meant to the Templars. About 1347 they leased all but the consecrated buildings and ecclesiastical precincts to "certain lawyers," who had already become tenants of the Earl of Lancaster and others, on whom in the first instance Edward II. had bestowed the premises. Great interest attaches to this settlement of lawyers, but much remains obscure about it. Some of the early documents may have been destroyed during Wat Tyler's insurrection (1381). A manuscript (quoted by Dugdale) describes the scene in the law-French of the day.
"Les Rebells alleront a le Temple ... et alleront en l'Esglise, et pristeront touts les liveres et Rolles de Remembrances que furont en lour huches deins le Temple de Apprentices de la Ley, et porteront en le haut chimene et les arderont."
This, however, is not the full extent of the loss which has been sustained. The records of the following 120 years up to 1500 are missing, both in the Inner and the Middle Temples.[73] One result of these losses is that there is nothing to show when the two Inns became separate societies, on the assumption that they were not independent bodies from the outset. Chaucer's well-known description (about 1390) of "a gentil manciple of the [or perhaps the true reading is 'a'] Temple" is not decisive.
"Of maisters had he mo than thries ten
That were of lawe expert and curious,
Of which there was a dosein in that hous
Worthy to ben stewardes of rent and lond
Of any lord that is in Englelond."
An entry in the books of Lincoln's Inn incidentally mentions the Middle Temple in 1422, and in one of the Paston Letters, dated 1440, we read "qwan your leysyr is, resorte ageyn on to your college, the Inner Temple." It is generally admitted now that neither society can establish any claim of priority or precedence over the other. Appeal has been made to the badges, but they throw no light on the question. The Agnus of the Middle Temple is apparently not mentioned till about 1615, and the Pegasus of the Inner Temple not before 1562. It is still a matter of dispute whether the Templars' emblem of a horse with two knights on its back can have been altered into a horse with two wings by the ignorance or ingenuity of some workman.