The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07

by Unknown

HE loss of Palestine led indirectly to the ruin of the order of the Templars. The record is one of the dark episodes of history, encompassed with contradictions, full of surprises, painful to contemplate, whatever view may be taken, whichever side espoused.

It is difficult to understand how an order of men who for nearly two hundred years earned the thanks and praise of Christendom for their bravery and devotion; who had shed blood like water to defend the places dearest to all Christian hearts; who had been recruited from the noblest families in every country in Europe, and had had princes of royal blood in their ranks; who claimed to act upon the purest and most exalted Christian principles; and who proved the sincerity of their professions by their lives of self-sacrifice, and their deaths, for the cause they had taken up; who had been honored and favored and dowered with gifts and privileges, in gratitude for their exploits—should suddenly have fallen into the blackest crimes. So it is no less difficult to understand how public opinion should turn against them as it did, and how all Europe should set itself to disgrace and despoil, to malign and execrate, those who had so long been its favorites and its champions. It is not easy to understand this, and it is painful to read the story in its sad and miserable details.

But there are other pages of history that more or less correspond with this; and there are well-known characteristics of human nature that explain how such revulsions of feeling come about. It has never been found difficult to get up a case against those whom the great and powerful have made up their minds to destroy. The best men are fallible and have their weak side. Large bodies of men must contain some unworthy members. A long history can hardly be without blots, mistakes, and crimes. No man's life, if narrowly scrutinized by an unfavorable and prejudiced criticism, but will afford ground for accusation. Then, too, facts may be perverted, circumstances may be made to bear a meaning that does not really belong to them, and fear and torture may force the weak to say anything that they are required. And, finally, the evidence and the judgment of those who have everything to gain by the condemnation of those whom they accuse, must always be viewed with suspicion by sober and truth-loving minds. Moreover, in judging the Templars, we must not forget the lapse of time and the change of circumstances that separate our age from theirs.

After the loss of Acre a chapter of the surviving Templars was gathered, and James de Molay, preceptor of England, was elected grand master. One more attempt was made to recover a footing in the Holy Land, but it was defeated with great loss to the order, and all hope of restoring the Latin kingdom in Palestine seems to have been abandoned. The occupation of the Templars was gone. They had been banded together to fight upon the sacred soil of Palestine, and to defend pilgrims, but now they had been driven out of the country, and they could no longer execute their mission or fulfil their vows. We soon hear of them being engaged in civil or international wars, which seems to be a violation of their oath not to draw sword upon any Christian. Thus we read of Templars fighting on the side of the King of England, in the battle of Falkirk, 1298, and similar occurrences are recorded in the French wars of the time. Those against whom the Templars fought would not be slow to complain of them.

But the real cause of the downfall of the Templars was probably the enormous wealth of the order. There had not been wanting indications for some years of covetous eyes and itching hands turned toward the possession of the Knights. Sometimes complaints were made because the rents of their estates were all sent out of the country; sometimes the grievance alleged was that they were exempted from paying taxes and other levies, civil and ecclesiastical. Sometimes open acts of spoliation were committed upon their property, and that even by royal hands.

But it was in France that the final attack was made. Philip the Fair was king at this time, a man of bad character and unscrupulous as to the means by which he attained his ends. The country was exhausted and the treasury empty, and the idea seems to have occurred to him, as it did later to Henry VIII of England under similar circumstances, that an easy way to fill his own purse was to put his hand into the purses of others. But even kings cannot appropriate the property of a religious order without offering some apology or justification to the world. And so it began to be whispered that the Holy Land would never have been lost to Christendom if its sworn defenders had not failed in their Christian character. The whole blame of the defeat of the crusades was laid upon the Templars. It was said they had treacherously betrayed the Christian cause, that they had treated with the enemy, and by their personal sins, especially by secret, unhallowed rites, had provoked the just wrath of God, and so brought about the ruin of the dominion of the Cross in the East.

When Ahab has determined to put Naboth to death, that he may seize his coveted vineyard, it is not difficult to find witness that he is a blasphemer of God and a traitor to the King; and so Philip found his first tool in a man guilty of a multitude of crimes, who secured his own pardon by a denunciation of the Templars.

But even a king could not ruin a great religious order without the aid of the ecclesiastical authorities. The Templars had always been favored and protected by the popes, and nothing was in itself so likely to evoke that protection again as an attack upon the order by the secular powers. But Philip was prepared for this. The Pope of the day, Clement V, had been a subject of his own. As bishop of Bordeaux, he owed his election to the pontificate to Philip's own intrigues, and had been easily induced to quit Rome and live in France, so as to be more completely under the dictation of the King. Moreover, the majority of the cardinals were also French and entirely devoted to the King's interests.

Clement V was one of the worst of those miserable men who have from time to time disgraced the papal chair, and was guilty of almost every crime. There are, indeed, authorities worthy of credit who assert that before his election he had been made to promise to perform six favors to the King, and that the last was not to be divulged till the time for its execution came. This last was then found to be the suppression of the order of the Templars. There was no difficulty, under these circumstances, in getting the so-called sanction of the Church for an inquiry into the crimes of which the Templars were accused.