Templar trial
The Templar trials are a series of ecclesiastical and secular judicial proceedings that were initiated by the French crown in 1307 and ended in 1312 with the dissolution of the Knights Templar by papal decree .
Chronology of the various procedures and their backgrounds
The arrest and the first trial 1307
The trial against the Templars began in the Kingdom of France . Philippe IV decided to arrest the Templars in his empire in accordance with his council on September 14, 1307, which coincides with the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross . Letters were sent to all vassals and officials of the kingdom detailing the instructions for the police operation scheduled for Friday October 13th. In his arrest warrant, King Philippe IV relied on rumors and denunciations that forced him to react. The letter speaks of a vehement suspicion of heresy and specifies the first four charges against the Templars. The declaration of the vehement suspicion and the infamy thus pronounced justified the opening of canonical proceedings since the 13th century . The fact of infamy published in this way also included the excommunication of the accused. With this, the king created a precedent before the actual opening of the trial. In violation of the privileges of the order and also of canon law, the first interrogations of the friars took place before officials of the king. Only a few records of this first trial have survived: from Beaucaire, Bigorre, Caen, Cahors, Carcassonne and Nîmes.
- The first articles of indictment and their probable origins
The arrest order for the Templars, issued by the French King Philip IV in September 1307, contained the first charges: during their profession ceremony, the friars were to deny Christ three times, spit three times on a crucifix, and kiss each other three times on “the end of the spine “( Osculum infame ), the navel and the mouth, commit themselves to homosexuality with their vows. (This point was reinforced by the fact that two knights sat on a horse on the Templar seal. The Templars wanted to express that they used to live in poverty, as the name of the order suggests, but the knights were accused of that this should express homosexuality.) Moreover, they would have "forsaken God and worshiped demons". These are the accusations made against Muslims in literary and historical works throughout the Middle Ages. These, it was alleged, force their Christian prisoners to deny their faith and spit on the cross, and they did so themselves. These allegations against the Muslims of the Crusades may in part correspond to the historical truth - the charge is idolatry but purely legendary. There are also parallels between the charges brought against the Templars and those against Pope Boniface VIII , which were also made at Philip's orders. The accusation of indecent kisses probably comes from popular belief, where stories about anal kisses as a sign of the oath to the devil were in circulation. But perhaps this point is also a simple reversal of general liturgical practices, which knew the kiss on the mouth and a kiss on the chest as a sign of peace.
These first articles of indictment formed the basis for the first two trials in the trial. Philip IV had ordered his gendarmes to particularly insist on the confession of Christ's denial - if necessary, with the help of torture .
Involvement of the Inquisition and the problem of the "summary procedure"
As of October 19, 1307, the Inquisition was consulted in a second process . Some fragments of the protocols recorded in Chaumont, Troyes and Renneville have survived. The 138 prisoners in the Temple of Paris , whose transcripts also still exist, all but five brothers confessed to the crimes they were accused of. On October 24th the first interrogation of the master Jacques de Molay by the Dominican inquisitor Guillaume Imbert took place in Paris.
During these first two trials, a procedural mode was used that was not yet clearly defined and that would later be called “summary trial”, in which the rights of the accused were severely restricted compared to traditional forms of trial. The protocols that still exist show strong parallels between the individual confessions, but only in the local context of a series of protocols. On the other hand, statements made by one and the same person are different in the various proceedings. The cause of these parallels is the practice of interrogation and the formalization of the protocols within the respective proceedings.
The protest Pope Clement V and the bull "Pastoralis Praeeminentiae"
On October 27, 1307, Pope Clement protested against the arrest of the Templars, the torture used and the confiscation of the goods. On October 28, King Philippe IV had the Master Jacques de Molay and several other brothers perform before a gathering of prelates and doctors from the university. The master publicly recognized all crimes accused of the order and even sealed a letter in which he asked all Templars to confess. The reasons for this action are unknown. Perhaps Jacques de Molay wanted to protect his confreres from further torture, trusting that the Pope would declare the illegal process null and void anyway. The following weeks passed with secret negotiations between Clement V and King Philippe. They ended on November 22nd with the Bull Pastoralis praeeminentiae , which ordered the arrest of the Templars in all countries, but also their transfer to the Church. Pope Clement sent two cardinals to Paris to reopen the procedure. Before them both Jacques de Molay and the other great dignitaries - Hugues de Pairaud , visitor to France - revoked ; Godefrois de Charny , provincial master of Normandy and Godefrois de Gonneville , provincial master of Poitou - their previous confessions. At the beginning of 1308 Pope Clement suspended the power of the inquisitors in the Templar affair on the grounds of their unauthorized and premature intervention. King Philippe then tried to obtain the theoretical basis for his intervention from the doctors at the university. In addition, he summoned the Estates General to Tours, building on the support of the bourgeoisie. Threatened by the king's propaganda, as it were, with charges of supporting heresy , the Pope agreed to negotiate with Philippe IV on May 29, 1308.
The Poitiers Proceedings 1308
The third trial of the Templar Trial took place from June 28th to July 1st. 72 Templars from all over the kingdom, selected by the king's agents, were presented to the Pope and a cardinal commission. The members of this commission - Pierre, Bishop of Palestrina , Béranger Frédol the Elder , Bishop of Béziers , as well as Thomas de Sainte-Sabine, Étienne de Suisy , Landulph and Pietro Colonna - sat separately before the interrogations. 33 minutes have survived. They contain the confessions of 19 servientes (= Order members non-noble / knightly ancestry. Affiliated in "fighter" and "craftsman." Documents the same rule as the Knight brothers), including three commanders , 10 knights, including seven commanders and 4 Former Templars who were already expelled from the order, including a priest. In a text comparison, the confessions do not offer a homogeneous picture, as the witnesses largely orientated themselves on their earlier confessions made before the officials of the king or the Inquisition (in cases where these are still preserved, these concurrences can be established). Only when the witnesses repeated their earlier confessions was the excommunication on them lifted. The master and the dignitaries were imprisoned in the castle of Chinon and questioned by the cardinals in August of the same year.
After this farce, the Pope seemed convinced of the crimes of the Order. In any case, he lifted the suspension of the Inquisition and ordered the canonical process against the Templars and their order with the Bull Subit assidue . From then on it was incumbent on the bishops and archbishops of the individual church provinces to take action against the persons of the order in diocesan councils. The investigation into the Order as an organization was turned over to another papal commission. The bull Faciens misericordiam , published August 12, 1308, contained a detailed list of new articles of indictment and precise instructions for the work of the diocesan commissions. On the same day, Clement V called a general council in Vienne with the Bull Regnans in Caelis for the year 1310 .
The Pontifical Commission of Paris and the Defense of the Order
The papal commission to investigate the order as a whole was constituted in Paris parallel to the diocesan commissions that were supposed to take action against the individual persons of the order at the diocese level. Its members were Gilles Aycelin , Archbishop of Narbonne, Guillaume Durant, Bishop of Mende, Raynald de Laporte, Bishop of Limoges, Guillaume de Trie, Bishop of Bayeux, Matthew of Naples, Notary Apostolic, John of Mantua, Archdeacon of Trento, Jean de Montlaur, Archdeacon of Maguelonne and Guillaume Agarni, provost of the cathedral chapter of Aix-en-Provence. Not only the Templars, but all persons who wanted to make a statement are this time invited to the papal commission through public citation. For the first time, a defense is also called for. But it wasn't until the spring of 1309 that the two cops were sent to all countries. Due to disputes over competence and the belated announcement of the summons to the Templars themselves, the papal commission did not begin its work until November 1309. Jacques de Molay was first questioned before the Commission on November 26th. He agreed to defend the order and asked for the necessary means for this defense. Master's second interrogation took place two days later. This time he asked the commissioners to let him speak to the Pope himself, but was not allowed to do so.
From February 1310, a large number of Templars presented themselves in Paris who wanted to defend the order. Eventually their number reached 560. In a second session from April to March 1310, the papal commission questioned the witnesses about a new list of 128 charges. On March 2nd, Master was brought before the tribunal for the third time. On March 28, the defenders gathered in the garden of the episcopal palace in Paris again declared themselves ready to testify. Because of their large number, the Commission decided that they should elect representatives. They appointed Pierre de Bologne, formerly procurator of the Templar Order at the Holy See, Rainald de Provins, Commander of Orleans, and the knight brothers Guillaume de Chambonnet and Bertrand de Sartiges. These brothers were given the freedom to organize the defense, to visit the prisoners and to represent them before the papal commission. But on May 12, 1310, the Archbishop of Sens Philippe de Marigny - chairman of the diocesan commission, under whose jurisdiction the diocese of Paris and thus the Templars who stayed there also fell - condemned 54 friars who had revoked their previous confessions and declared that they would be granted the order papal commission wanting to defend to death at the stake.
As a result, the papal commission was forced to cease its work on May 30th. In December of the same year she took her on again, but she was in a lost position: on March 18, 1311 Pope Clemens ordered all ecclesiastical and secular princes to use torture more rigorously in order to persuade the Templars who had not yet confessed. Many of those who had previously exonerated the Order now made at least partial confessions. Most of the minutes recorded by the papal commission date from this last session to May 1311, when work was definitively stopped on the orders of the French king. The minutes are very brief, rarely containing more than the answer to the main accusation articles rather than a full 128-point catalog of questions. The parallels that one can discover between the statements when examining the protocols result from the fact that the witnesses who were brought to Paris and held captive are based on earlier statements made to their respective diocesan commissions. In this way one can discover similarities between Templars interrogated in the Limousin , even if they were admitted to the order by very different personalities, whereas the examination of the admissions of the order by a certain person - which of course not only took place in the Limousin - shows a wide range. The formalization of the protocols continued to be a unifying factor. Today 193 of them still exist. It is the testimony of 177 servants, among them a large number of committees, 16 knights and 20 priests.
The process of diocesan commissions outside the French crown lands
The extended charges of the diocesan commissions
The Templars' confessions from the first two trials in France, first before the king's officials, then before the Inquisition, served as the basis for the formulation of a list of 88 charges, which was edited in 1308 for the diocesan commissions of all countries in Europe in the third trial. In this list you can now find different variants for the denial, the profanation of the cross and, above all, the most diverse descriptions of the alleged idol. In their testimony, the witnesses evidently fall back on descriptions of idols that they knew from hagiography, from biblical stories or from the iconographic program of churches. For example, a three-headed Antichrist appears in the French Bible Moralisée. Descriptions and images of idols can also be found in the medieval papal prophecies ascribed to the monk Joachim von Fiore: in this case it is a head or bust of a bearded man. The second list of charges also contains many new theological accusations against the Templars, which were supposed to help the episcopal commissioners to classify the alleged heresy of the friars. For example, you will find questions about faith and the sacraments of the Church, especially the Eucharist. For the first time on this second list of charges, the charge of worshiping a cat also appears, an element that stems from the German anti-heretical tradition. The 88 articles were included in the list of the papal commission of the fourth procedure meeting in Paris. Only the questions about the spread of heresy in the order were elaborated further.
Northern Italy
The process in northern Italy, like all proceedings outside France , was initiated by the bull Faciens misericordiam of 1308. We know of three commissions that led the proceedings against the Order as an institution as well as against the individual friars: the Commission for Lombardy and Tuscany, chaired by the Archbishop of Pisa, the Bishop of Florence and a canon from Verona; the Commission for Romagna, chaired by the Archbishop of Ravenna ; the Commission for the Patrimony of Petri - the Papal States - and the Duchy of Spoleto , chaired by the Archbishop of Sutri. The commissions took place in conjunction with a provincial council . A letter from the Lombard / Tuscan Commission from 1311 mentions only 13 Templars imprisoned in the entire region. The first round of proceedings took place in Florence in 1310 and yielded no results. After the Pope's order to use torture more strictly, the second trial took place in 1311. But even now only six of the Templars made partially incriminating confessions, which are recorded in the still existing protocol. These six confessions alone were sent to the Provincial Council, not the exonerating statements. The process in Romagna did not begin until November 1310 with the questioning of two Templars in Cesena by the Archbishop of Ravenna, Rinaldo da Concorezzo. January 1311 the diocesan commission was opened in Ravenna. In mid-June 1311 the archbishop heard 7 Templars from Piacenza, including a commander, 5 from Bologna, including a provincial master, one from Faenza and 19 non-religious witnesses. All the Templars denied the alleged crimes. The archbishop asked the council whether the Templars should be tortured in order to gain confessions. They spoke out against it and for the innocence of the Templars - with the exception of the Dominicans who were present. The members of the Council believed that the Templars should purify themselves from the accusations by means of a “canonical purgatio”: an oath of purification . The innocent brethren should be graduated and the guilty punished according to canon law. Unique to the entire process: the Ravenna Commission considered those who had confessed out of fear of torture and subsequently withdrawn their confessions as innocent, as well as those who were evident that they had not revoked just because they feared further torture. The minutes of the Ravenna Commission were sent to the Pope, who immediately ordered Archbishop Da Concorezzo to use the torture which he had "neglected". However, Rinaldo da Concorezzo did not carry out a new investigation. For this reason he was later excluded from the commission on the Knights Templar at the Council of Vienne . The minutes of the Venice Commission are lost, but it seems that they too turned out to be favorable to the Templars.
Patrimony of Petri and Spoleto
The proceedings of the Commission for the Patrimony of Petri and Spoleto began in Rome in October 1309 in the monastery of S. Bonifacio ed Alessio. In December 1309 two messengers were sent to the papal prison in Viterbo, where five Templars were held (a priest and four servants). The prisoners declined to testify before the commission. In April 1310, the leadership of the commission transferred its seat to Aquila. There she interrogated 11 non-religious members. At the end of April an old Templar was interviewed in Penna. The Commission then returned to Rome. But in May 1310 messengers were sent to Viterbo again. Now the four surviving witnesses agreed to testify. They confessed to various crimes. Perhaps after the torture was used, they reinforced their confessions a few days later. At the end of July, another old Templar was questioned in Palombara . The protocols of the interrogation of these witnesses still exist and, as expected, give a very variable picture of the heresy accused of the order. Some external witnesses testified before the commission in Segni and Velletri, what appears to be in favor of the Order.
Kingdom of Naples and County of Provence
The Templars in the Kingdom of Naples and in the county of Provence, territories of Charles II. D'Anjou, were arrested in the spring of 1308 following the French example. In the Kingdom of Naples, the first interrogations were carried out by the Archbishop of Brindisi without any confessions being obtained. In 1310 the Pope sent three inquisitors to continue the trial. The subpoena may not have been properly published. Because only two servants testified before the commission. However, one can also assume that the exonerating statements of the Templars were not laid down, as was unfortunately the case almost everywhere. The commission basically finished its work with no result. But still Pope John XXII. had to deal with the Templars imprisoned in Naples. The case files of the county of Provence cannot be found. We only know that in 1308 twenty-seven Templars from Aix and Grasse were imprisoned in Mayronicis, and 32 others from Arles, Marseille, Avignon and Nice in Pertuis.
Leon, Castile and Portugal
In August 1308, members of the Leon, Castile and Portugal commissions were also appointed. The chairmen were the Archbishops of Toledo, Santiago de Compostela, Palencia and Lisbon. It is known that the Archbishop of Compostela questioned 30 Templars and three external witnesses in Medina del Campo without obtaining incriminating confessions. There were also no results in the sense of the indictment in the proceedings of the Archbishop of Lisbon against four external witnesses in Medna del Campo. He finally questioned another 28 Templars and 6 non-religious who also denied all charges. Only in a fragment of a protocol that contains the statements of 5 non-Templars are some unfavorable things about the order, but no confirmation of the crimes accused of it. In July 1310, the Archbishop of Toledo called a council to decide on the Templar question, but no documents have survived. In October 1310 a council in Salamanca spoke out for the innocence of the order and rehabilitated its members.
In Navarre, united with the French crown since 1284 and ruled by a son of Philip IV, the Templars were imprisoned in 1307 following the French example. At the request of the provincial master of Aragon / Catalonia, the King of Aragon Jaime II succeeded in at least obtaining the release of the Aragonese Templars. The further development of the matter and the fate of the brothers in Navarre are unknown.
Aragon
In Aragon, the Templars began to put their castles in a state of defense after King Jaime II had not spoken out clearly enough for the protection of the order. On December 1, 1307, Jaime II in turn ordered the arrest of the friars and the sequestration of their property in Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia. The summons of the Templars before the Inquisition Tribunal remained without result. Jaime then ordered the siege of the Order's fortresses. The first to fall was Peníscola , then Burriana, Coves and several other small castles in Aragon and Catalonia. The king's correspondence shows that he wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to seize the castles of the order. The besieged in the remaining fortresses, primarily the deputy provincial master, Raimon de Guardia, tried to negotiate in favor of the prisoners, but failed. Miravet surrendered at the end of October 1308, Monzón and Chalamera in May 1309 , and Cantavieja in August. With that all fortresses were in the hands of the king. The friars were imprisoned in Gardeny, Bellver, and other of their own homes. The trial began in the spring of 1310 before the diocesan commissioners. We know of a commission headed by the bishops of Valencia and Saragossa, from which more than 30 Templars were heard in Lerida from February to March 1310. 34 minutes (from 19 servants, 9 knights and 4 chaplains) are still preserved. All are favorable for the order. A few days later, the outside witnesses - all clerics - wrote some amusing anecdotes. The Franciscans spoke out for the innocence of the Templars. Further proceedings took place in Oleto and Stella. All statements exonerated the order. January 1310, the Bishop of Elne in Troilas led a case against 25 Templars of the Commandery of Mas-Dieu and their branches (18 servants, 3 knights, among them Raimon de Guardia, and 4 chaplains). He too received only favorable certificates. As early as March 1311, the commissions in Aragon and Catalonia had finished their work and sent the minutes to the Pope. The same order to use the torture arrived a few days later. The final tenure of the Council of Vienne in 1312 was finally already spoken when a provincial council in Tarragona negotiated again about the guilt of the Templars. Eight brothers were sent to the tribunal, questioned one last time under torture, but confessed to nothing. The Council Fathers did not find any of the heretical crimes accused of the Order and acquitted them all. Because of the repeal of the order by the Pope in the meantime, the Council Fathers granted the Templars a pension from the income of the former religious goods. In 1331 Pope John XXII allowed them to join other monastic orders .
England
After the Templars were arrested in France, King Philippe IV ordered them also to King Edward II of England . However, he initially showed disbelief and waited. He even wrote to the kings of Castile, Aragon and Portugal about the great reputation that the order enjoyed in England and the religious services it provided. He asked not to believe the slanderers of the order and protected the Templars. But already at the beginning of the next year he softened and in turn ordered the imprisonment of the Templars, although he did not specify, as it had happened in France, that they were imprisoned in the dungeon or in their own houses under the worst conditions. About 150 Templars were arrested in England, including the provincial master of Auvergne, Himbert Blanc, and the provincial master of England, William de la More, in London. Both stuck to the confession of innocence until their death. The treatment of prisoners was not as severe as in France and torture was not used. However, the Archbishop of Canterbury announced the solemn excommunication against all those who helped Templars flee or who sheltered them - apparently a common case. October 1309 the proceedings of the commissions against the persons on the one hand and the order as an institution in London, Lincoln and York were opened. The prisoners were sent there from all over the kingdom. The determining persons within these tribunals were, besides the Archbishop of York, two French chaplains, who in three dioceses carried out the inquisition procedure in agreement with the prelates. From October to November 1309 43 Templars were interviewed in London, but they confessed nothing. In December 1309, at the request of the inquisitors, the king permitted the use of torture, but the use of it remained problematic in England. From January to March 1310, 34 other Templars were examined in London, without being tortured and therefore without receiving incriminating confessions. These first trials were interrogated according to the indictment of the Faciens misericordiam bull . In the same year a council was held in York, presided over by the archbishop, to decide the Templar question. However, none of the friars responded to the summons, so the Council Fathers regarded them as “stubborn heretics” and reserved the judgment for a later meeting. In the summer of 1310, the French inquisitors complained that the trial was not progressing. Pope Clement accused the English prelates of negligence and again called for the strict application of torture. The Canterbury Provincial Council, held in September of that year, decided to repeat the procedure, this time using torture. So the Templars imprisoned in London were turned over to the sheriffs. The king also ordered all Templars imprisoned in his kingdom to be brought to London in preparation for a planned provincial council. No confessions are known of during this period of the English trial. In the spring of 1311, in any case, the commissions decided a new course of action, in which new articles of indictment should be used, which for example contained the denial of Eternal Bliss and the denial of transubstantiation . But the statements of 11 interviewed external witnesses revealed nothing but a general suspicion - and this had already been stirred up in the course of the trial and could therefore not be counted as evidence. In April 1311 the commission in London received the testimony of a large number of lay people and members of the mendicant orders . During this session, the minutes were edited, which show us some colored Templar legends today, which however lack any reference to reality. But the commissioners gave the defendants the opportunity to defend themselves. The provincial master of England and his companions, who were imprisoned in London, professed their Catholic faith.
In 1311 a second council was called in York, during which the Templars questioned confirmed the general suspicion of heresy against their order - of course, after 5 years of various proceedings, such a council existed across Europe. The defendants received absolution and were distributed to various monasteries to repent there. In June and July another council took place in London, at which three incriminating confessions were (finally) obtained. The professors were two former Templars and the treasurer of the Temple of London. These are believed to be the only confessions in the whole process in England. The Order was condemned in England on its basis. Most of the Templars were sent to monasteries after the last verdict, only the two provincial masters of England and the Auvergne remained in custody. Guillaume de la More died in 1312, Himbert Blanc after 1313.
Ireland
The Templars in Ireland were also imprisoned in January 1308 on the orders of King Edward and their estates were confiscated. Some people, like the Crown Treasurer for Ireland, took the opportunity to usurp some goods. It appears that all the friars were detained in Dublin, where the diocesan commission, chaired by the archbishop and the inquisitors sent by the pope, met. The interrogations began in January 1310 in Saint Patrick's Cathedral. 15 Statements by the Dublin Templars are the only records that have survived. Possibly this group consisted only of Comturs, because there are around 15 religious houses in Ireland, which could not possibly have been occupied by 8 men ... These 15 Templars, among them the provincial master Henry Tanet and his chaplain, denied the charges. The commission then questioned 42 external witnesses, 39 of whom were from other orders. They mostly told general hearsay rumors and legends. Two witnesses stated that they saw Templars who did not look at the host at the elevation. That's all. The Dublin Commission ended its work in June 1310. The prisoners' care was extremely difficult, despite the royal orders that they were to be supported with income from their estates - but by then the prisoners were often in dubious third and fourth hands. In 1311 the Irish provincial master asked for his release on bail to ensure the livelihood of his brothers. The King did not accept the request, but entrusted the Justiciar of Ireland with the management of the former Templar estates and the care of the prisoners. After the abolition of the order by the Bull Vox in excelso , the Templars imprisoned in Dublin were released, the provincial master on bail.
Scotland
In Scotland only two Templars were arrested and these two confessed nothing. 41 external witnesses did not make any incriminating statements either. Numerous later folklore and Freemason legends report that the friars enjoyed official protection in Scotland - but the evidence is still lacking.
Germany
The German King Albrecht I did not comply with the demands made by the French King in 1308. He did not have the Templars arrested. The German prelates were not hostile to the order either, with the exception of the Archbishop of Magdeburg Burchard III. Nevertheless, the ordered procedure began here too. Pope Clemens ordered Peter von Aspelt , the Archbishop of Mainz , and his suffragans to take action against the individual persons of the order, but they should abstain from any judgment about the order as an institution and also about the provincial master of Germany. The archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Magdeburg, Prague, Riga and the bishops of Basel, Constance, Breslau and Uppsala should preside over the individual diocesan commissions. Despite the express order of the Pope, the Archbishop of Magdeburg had the provincial master Friedrich von Alvensleben imprisoned, as well as several other brothers in the province. The escaped Templars sought refuge with some friends in the castle of Beyernaumburg, located in the Diocese of Halberstadt. Thereupon Burkhard tried to conquer the place by force, an act for which Albrecht I of Anhalt , the Bishop of Halberstadt , excommunicated him. Ultimately, the Archbishop of Magdeburg was forced to sign a contract with the Templars in which he promised them security. The files of the German proceedings are lost. Nevertheless, it is known that the order had many friends here, because in September 1309 the Archbishop of Mainz Peter von Aspelt wrote in a letter that the inquisition proceedings had begun against the beneficiaries of the Templars. In May 1311 a provincial council took place in Mainz, during which around 20 armed friars and their commander suddenly appeared and protested against the unjust proceedings in France. The Archbishop promised to turn to the Pope on this matter and dismissed them without attempting to arrest them. In the course of this council another 49 witnesses, including 37 Templars, were probably heard who testified in favor of the order. The Council of Mainz decided the innocence of these persons and - against the order of the Pope - also the innocence of the entire order. For this reason, Clemens V canceled the Mainz sentence. Nothing is known about the further fate of the German Templars. After the Council of Vienne they were forced to leave their estates.
Cyprus
In March 1308, the Bishop of Limassol and administrator of the Church of Nicosia in Cyprus received the papal order to open the trial of the Templars. Realizing that the brothers were determined to defend themselves, even if by force of arms, the bishop turned to Amaury of Tire , regent of the island. A month later, Amaury had succeeded in disarming the Templars - less with force than with skill and promises, presumably, because the order was its old ally in the battle for the crown. Amaury confiscated the goods and had the templar churches closed. But the deposed King Henri II protested and thus obtained the reopening of the churches and the opportunity for the brothers to celebrate mass. Amaury's protests to the Pope had no effect. Clement V sent his legate to initiate proceedings against the Cypriot Templars. Nevertheless, this began only in May 1310, under the presidency of the bishops of Famagusta and Limassol. By May 5th, the statements of 21 external witnesses were recorded, among them relatives of the deposed King Henri II - hostile to the Templars, it was assumed. From May 5th to May 31st, 76 friars were interviewed (47 brothers knight, among them the marshal of the order Ayme d'Oiselier and the provincial master of Apulia Odo de Villarote; 26 servants and 3 chaplains from all provinces of the order). From June 1 to 19, further external witnesses from all social classes were heard. All Templars denied the charges and defended the order. And the external witnesses, including Henri II's relatives, did not make any incriminating statements. They recalled the Templars' great devotion to the Holy Cross, their heroic defense of the Holy Land and underlined that the rumors began only after the charges were made public. One of the witnesses even reported a miracle of the host to confirm the Catholic faith of the friars.
The bull “Vox in excelso” from 1312 and the last act in Paris 1314
The diocesan commissions continued their work against the persons of the order even after its official repeal, which was pronounced at the General Council of Vienne with the Bull Vox in excelso on March 22, 1312. The bull Ad providendam of May of the same year awarded almost all goods of the Templar order to the Knights of St. John . The proceedings against the master and the other top dignitaries imprisoned in France were entrusted to a cardinal commission in December 1312. She passed her sentence, which was life imprisonment, on March 18, 1314. Jacques de Molay and the provincial master of Normandy, Godefrois de Charny, then publicly revoked all their previous confessions and declared the order's innocence. King Philippe IV had them burned on an island in the Seine that same evening. The other two superiors of the order, the former great visitator Hugues de Pairaud and the order master of Aquitaine, Godefroi de Gonneville, remained silent and were sentenced to life imprisonment. Pairaud was imprisoned until at least 1321 and was asked again that year about the missing Templar treasure. An official guilty verdict within the meaning of canon law was never made - the repeal was only given on the grounds of the general unrest and infamy that had resulted from the trial.
The Templar Trial in Contemporary Chronicles
Sources from the German-speaking area
The Salzburg Annals , written around 1315, consider the accusations of the French king to be true (source: MGH SS rer. Ger. IX, p. 818).
The Cistercian abbot Johann von Viktring, Carinthia , (d. 1347) reports that the Johanniter refused to accept the Templars because the Templars were wrongly destroyed, at most a few people were missing, but the order was "glorious and brightly shining on Firmament of the Church “. There is no evidence to support this claim about the Johanniter. (Source: MGH SS rer.Ger. XXXVI). The Königssaaler Chronik , written by the Cistercian Abbot Peter von Zittau around 1339, tells how the Pope destroyed the most powerful and famous order in all of Christianity by attributing many errors to it. In the opinion of many, however, it was not heresy but rather the desire of bad people for the possessions of the order that caused its destruction.
The Magdeburg Schöppenchronik , created around 1350, names heresy and arrogance as the reason for the fall of the Templars. The Bavarian continuator of the Saxon World Chronicle from the 13th century passed a harsh judgment on Pope Clemens V because of the Templar trial. Clemens only destroyed an honorable order out of attachment to the French king and out of greed. The Thuringian continuator of the chronicle even lets Pope Clement die weeping and lamenting over his sin of destroying the Knights Templar. (Source: MGH Deutsche Chroniken II, p. 314 and p. 334).
Sources from the Italian area
In his Divina Commedia (Purgatorio XX, 91), Dante laments the destruction of the Templar order without any real legal basis and compares Pope Clement with the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, known from the story of the Passion. As a result, he also presents Clemens as having fallen prey to damnation - by the way, even before his actual death.
The Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani (d. 1348) reports in great detail about the trial and destruction of the order and explains that the French king acted out of greed and seduced by his officials, and that the Pope was tried by the king against his predecessor Boniface VIII . Blackmailed into taking action against the Templars. The ashes of the Templars who were ultimately burned in Paris were collected by the people as relics of the martyrs and King Philip and his sons had to suffer many adversities as punishment from God for their sin. (Nuova Chronica Liber 9, c. XCII)
(to be continued)
The Templar Trial - Causes and Responsibilities
The fight between King and Pope - State and Church / Harbingers
The question of why King Philip IV of France launched a huge blow against the Knights Templar by means of his campaign of infamation must be considered against the background of his overall political situation and, above all, his state-building measures. Almost from the beginning of his reign, Philip IV steered an autocratic-absolutist course, which aimed at the independence of the state from the church, or at a subordination of the latter to the state and thus the king. In 1287 Philip excluded the clergy from court administration, and in 1291 he reorganized parliament. The enforced taxation of the clergy caused an uproar and in 1296 for the angry publication of the bull " Clericis laicos " by Pope Boniface VIII , in which he excommunicated every "Christian without church office" who claims church property. The General Chapter of the Cistercians solemnly protested against taxation at a meeting in Paris. The dispute escalated very quickly. Among other things, the bishop of the newly founded diocese of Pamiers, Bernard de Saisset, who openly speaks out against the king's policies, fell victim to him in 1301. He is imprisoned and tortured, in a complaint submitted to the Pope, Saisset is accused of lese majesty as well as blasphemy, fornication and heretical ideas. After examining the matter, Pope Boniface VIII speaks out in favor of the imprisoned bishop's innocence, revokes the privilege according to which French kings are not to be excommunicated and calls a council in Rome. The king replied to the Abbot General of the Cistercians, John III., Who wanted to travel to Rome following the papal call for a council, with the order to 'confiscate all goods of disobedient prelates' - an order that mainly concerned the Cistercians. The sharply worded bull Bonifatius VIII ("Ausculta fili"), with which he wants to clarify the fronts between spiritual and secular violence, remains unheard: Saisset remains in custody, the ban on French clerics from traveling to the convened council in Rome and that The export ban on precious metals from France is not lifted. In 1302 the Pope reaffirmed the excommunication of Philip IV if the prelates were not allowed to leave immediately. For their part, the royal legal advisors Guillaume de Plaisians and Guillaume de Nogaret respond by convening the so-called Estates General (a national assembly made up of the clergy, the nobility and representatives of the cities). Among other things, the Cistercian Abbot General Johann III. protests against this action, whereupon he is transported as a prisoner to Châtelet. On November 13, 1302, Pope Boniface VIII published the bull "Unam sanctam", the most clearly formulated claim in church history to the supremacy of the clergy over secular power. The Pope demanded an immediate penance from Philip to Rome in order to avert the impending excommunication. Philip IV's reaction is legendary: not only did he have an indictment drawn up and published against the Pope, accusing him of usurping the office, the devil's allegiance, fornication and heresy, but he finally even lets Boniface VIII on September 7th In 1303 in Anagni, where the Pope believed he could get himself to safety, attacked and arrested. Shortly after his liberation through a popular riot, the Pope dies. Johann III. von Cîteaux was released again in 1304, but abdicated in order to protect his order from persecution. Interestingly, the Knights Templar did not stand out as a particular opponent of the royal aspirations at this time - probably also because it was still absorbed by activities in the Orient.
Financial problems of the French crown
The state restructuring, as Philip IV practiced it, was very expensive. In addition, there were several wars: against Aragon (1286–1288), against England (1294) and especially against Flanders (1297–1305), for which the financial means were simply lacking. In 1291 the king had the local Lombard moneylenders arrested and only released them again for substantial ransom. In 1306 Philip IV drove the Jews out of France and confiscated their goods after he had already subjected them to a special tax in 1292, 1295, 1299, 1302 or imprisoned important representatives and extorted ransom. The attempt to tax the church as well has already been mentioned above. In addition to these, the king also took other measures to save or procure money: the introduction of new taxes, a reduction in the gold and silver content of the coins - both of which led to several revolts among the people and above all the traders.
The "Temple" of Paris as the financial center of France
Before its blow against the Templar Order, the French crown had two state coffers: one in the Louvre and a depot in the main Templar house, the 'Temple' of Paris, where the Court of Auditors was also located. The religious house was therefore not only a safe depository for the state treasure, but a real financial center from which transactions took place in the name of the crown, which was used as a 'bank', into which the kingdom's income was sent and its treasurer, a Templar, three times a year an account of the king submitted. All of this because of privileges that previous French kings had granted the order.
The resources in Paris in the hands of the Templars (i.e. the Templar treasure , if not wholly owned by them) were thus extensive; Added to this were the real estate and the income from it. This could not have escaped Philip IV - he seems to have wanted to free himself from the dependence on the order. By setting in motion a previously used mechanism of heresy accusation against the Templars, he evidently believed that he was tackling the solution to several problems: on the one hand, the financial emergency, on the other hand, the autarchy of various orders, which was exempt from state power and subject to the Pope, and ultimately independence the Roman Catholic Church itself. Whether Philip IV actually believed at any point in the process that the order was permeated by heretical ideas remains to be seen, but it can be highly doubted: because he tried his best to eliminate any possibility of defense from the outset , or to discredit them in retrospect, and he extorted Pope Clement V several times in order to obtain pleasant decisions regarding the condemnation of the Templars.
Internal reasons?
Why the Templars? There are several reasons for this, some of which have already been cited above: In contrast to the Cistercians, who were also important in terms of church politics and were directly subordinate to the Pope, or the mendicant orders, a) financial power and b) military power, the king, should not be underestimated Philip IV stood in the way of his state-political intentions or which he at least thought could stand in his way under certain circumstances. The order also had the misfortune of not being able to meet its real raison d'etre, the defense of Christians and the holy places in Palestine. The last attempt at recapture with the participation of the order master Jacques de Molay failed miserably in 1302; new crusades remained in the planning stage. And while the Hospitallers succeeded in conquering a new base of operations with a focus on the Orient on the island of Rhodes, the Templars unfortunately relocated the seat of the order to Paris.
A decline in the attractiveness of the order as an addressee for donations and conversions can only be ascertained insofar as all 'traditional' orders suffered losses during this period before the 'modern' forms of mendicant orders. An increasing impoverishment of the nobility also had an impact here. Nevertheless, there are entries into the Knights Templar up to the year 1307, as well as gifts and privileges from ecclesiastical and secular sources - the reputation does not seem to have suffered any noticeably large losses BEFORE the staged infamation by King Philip.
What is certain is that both the simple brothers and the leadership of the order were completely overwhelmed by the process initiated against them with its new, not even approved form. With the first indictment and the first unlawful trial before the king's officials, the trial had been given a direction from which it was difficult for individuals to escape.
Was King Philip ultimately successful?
As far as the financial side was concerned, one can only speak of a partial success, because the Pope assigned the majority of the property of the Templar Order to the Knights of St. John (Bull “Ad providendam” 1312). Alternatively, 200,000 livres for the goods and 60,000 livres as 'compensation for expenses' for imprisonment and proceedings were ascribed to the king; a rather meager yield. From the side of propaganda and defamation of the order, the king did not fully achieve what he wanted. Numerous contemporaries and authors of later centuries saw very well that Philip had not led a necessary crusade against a heresy, but rather sacrificed the raison d'être and private greed. Not only do numerous chroniclers testify to this in France, but above all outside of it, but also Dante, for example, in his “Divina Commedia”. However, there was always a small line of tradition that argued pro-royally, and which over the centuries portrayed the crimes ascribed to the Templars more and more fantastically (one of their highlights: the “Chronique de Saint-Denis” from Paris). A certain suspicion, a hint of “and if so?” Passed down in various currents, which for example spread in the 18th century in Freemason mythology, or in the 20th century in sometimes extremely obscure and radical sects. "Templar" is often a synonym for secret in modern culture, used by novelists, television directors and others. The nature of the “mystery” has shifted from those medieval charges more in the pantheistic-esoteric direction.
In this respect, one can say that King Philip was successful: The order did not go down in history as a “normal” Christian order (such as the Johanniter, the Franciscans, the Benedictines etc.), but as a community that is something, whatever that had to be hidden, and which stood in some way outside of the established Catholic teaching. Considerable - and certainly not intended by Philip IV - was the damage on the ecclesiastical and spiritual level of Christianity that the trial caused. It is no coincidence that the Templar Trial leads into the era of the Avignon papacy and finally the Great Schism and the Reformation. Values previously understood as the basis of the world order had been irrevocably destroyed.
However, the only thing that has really been proven is the Pope's attitude towards the allegations that were made against the Templars. According to sources, he was convinced of the Templars' innocence. However, the Pope could not prevail against King Philip, u. a. also because the papal seat was in France at that time.
Primary literature: text sources for the Templar trial
- Annales Paulini, in: RS 76, I, 264.
- Annales Prioratus de Wigornia (Annales monastici), in: RS 4, 560;
- Chronicles of the reigns of Edward I and Edward II, in: RS 76, I, Londres 1882, 264 et II, Londres 1883, 32.
- Commendation lamentabilis, in: RS 76, II, 32.
- Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae II, ed. Wilkins, D., 329-401.
- The french chronicle of London, AD 1259 to 1343, ed.Riley, HT, London 1863. (Trial in England)
- Bini, T.:Dei Templari e del loro processo in Toscana, Accademia Lucchese 13 (1845).
- Finke, H .: Papacy and Fall of the Templar Order, I & II, Münster 1907. (pour les procès de l'inquisition à Caen, en Languedoc)
- Gilmour-Bryson, A .: The Trial of the Templars in Cyprus, Leiden-Boston-Cologne 1998. (Trial in Cyprus).
- Gilmour-Bryson, A .: The trial of the templars in the Papal State and the Abruzzi, Rome 1982.
- Guggenbühl, G., Weiss, O .: The Abolition of the Templar Order, in: Sources for the general history of the Middle Ages, Zurich 1946, 200f.
- Ilieva, A .: The suppression of the Templars in Cyprus according to the chronicle of Leontios Makhairas, in: The Military-Orders I, ed. Barber, M., Aldershot 1994, 212-219.
- Michelet, J .: Le procès des Templiers, 2 tomes, Paris 1851. (Procedure of the Dominican acquisition 1307/8 in Paris, papal commission 1309-1311 in Paris Diocesan commission of Elne 1310).
- Schottmüller, K .: The Fall of the Templar Order, Berlin 1887. (Diocesan proceedings in Europe).
Secondary literature: monographs and articles
- Malcolm Barber: The Trial of the Templars. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 1978, ISBN 0-521-21896-9 (In German: The Templar Trial. The end of an order of knights. From the English by Harald Ehrhardt. Patmos, Düsseldorf 2008, ISBN 978-3-491-35020- 5 ).
- Marie Luise Bulst-Thiele : The trial against the Templar order. In: Josef Fleckenstein , Manfred Hellmann (Hrsg.): The spiritual knight orders of Europe (= Constance working group for medieval history. Lectures and research. 26). Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1980, ISBN 3-7995-6626-0 , pp. 375-402.
- Toby Burrows: The Templar 'Case for their Defense in 1310. In: The Journal of Religious History. Vol. 13, No. 3, 1985, ISSN 1467-9809 , pp. 248-259, doi : 10.1111 / j.1467-9809.1985.tb00200.x .
- Vincent Challet: Entre expansionisme capétien et relents d'hérésie: le procès des templiers du Midi. In: Les ordres religieux militaires dans le Midi (XIIe - XIVe siècle) (= Cahiers de Fanjeaux. 41). Éditions Privat, Toulouse 2006, ISBN 2-7089-3444-9 , pp. 139–168.
- John Edwards: The Templars in Scotland in the Thirteenth Century. In: The Scottish Historical Review. Vol. 5, No. 17, 1907, ISSN 0036-9241 , pp. 13-25, JSTOR 25517908 .
- Alain Demurger: Les Templiers. Une Chevalerie Chrétienne au Moyen Âge. Éditions du Seuil, Paris 2008, ISBN 978-2-7578-1122-1 .
- Alain Demurger: La persécution des templiers. Journal (1305-1314). Payot, Paris 2015, ISBN 978-2-228-91407-9 (In German: The Persecution of the Templars. Chronicle of Destruction. 1307-1314. From the French by Anna Leube and Wolf Heinrich Leube. Beck, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-406-70665-3 ).
- Alan J. Forey: The Beginnings of the Proceedings against the Aragonese Templars. In: Derek W. Lomax, David Mackenzie (Eds.): God and Man in Medieval Spain. Essays in Honor of JRL Highfield. Aris & Phillips, Warminster 1989, ISBN 0-85668-443-0 , pp. 81-96.
- Barbara Frale : Il papato e il processo ai Templari. L'inedita assoluzione di Chinon alla luce della diplomatica pontifica (= La corte dei papi. 12). Viella, Rome 2003, ISBN 88-8334-098-1 .
- Barbara Frale: You catharisme à la sorcellerie: les inquisiteurs du Midi dans le procès des templiers. In: Les ordres religieux militaires dans le Midi (XIIe - XIVe siècle) (= Cahiers de Fanjeaux. 41). Éditions Privat, Toulouse 2006, ISBN 2-7089-3444-9 , pp. 169–186.
- Johannes Fried : Will, voluntariness and confession around 1300: for the assessment of the last Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay. In: Historical yearbook . Vol. 105, 1985, pp. 388-425.
- Anne Gilmour-Bryson: Vox in excelso and Vox clamantis, bulls of suppression of the Templar Order, a correction. In: Studia Monastica. Vol. 20, No. 1, 1978, ISSN 0039-3258 , pp. 71-76.
- Anke Krüger: Guilt or Prejudice. The protocols of the Templar trial in text comparison. In: Historical yearbook. Vol. 117, 1997, pp. 340-377.
- Georges Lizerand (ed.): Le dossier de l'affaire des Templiers (= Les classiques de l'histoire de France au Moyen Age. 2, ZDB -ID 844492-4 ). Champion, Paris 1923.
- Georges Lizerand: Les Depositions du grand maître Jacques de Molay au procès des Templiers (1307-1314). In: Le Moyen Âge. Series 2, Vol. 27, 1913, ISSN 0027-2841 , pp. 81-106.
- Andreas Meyer: The last Templars. 2 volumes. IL-Verlag, Basel 2014;
- Volume 1: The history of the Templars and the motives of the protagonists of the Templar trial from the perspective of historical research. 2014, ISBN 978-3-905955-95-8 ;
- Volume 2: Humanities research and background information on the origin, destruction and development of the Templar impulse. 2014, ISBN 978-3-905955-96-5 .
- Guillaume Mollat : Dispersion définitive des Templiers aprés leur suppression. In: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Comptes Rendus des Séances. Vol. 96, No. 3, 1952, ISSN 0065-0536 , pp. 376-380, doi : 10.3406 / crai.1952.9957 .
- M. Morillon: Un épisode tragique de notre histoire: le procès et la dissolution de l'Ordre des Templiers. In: Les Amis du pays Civraisien. No. 97, 1994, ISSN 0337-8454 .
- Clarence Perkins: The Trial of the Knights Templars in England. In: The English Historical Review . Vol. 24, No. 95, 1909, pp. 432-447, JSTOR 550361 .
- Georges Roman: Le procès des Templiers. Essai de critique juridique. Causse, Graille et Castelnau, Montpellier 1943, (Montpellier, Droit, Thèse de doctorat, 1943).
- Just-Jean-Étienne Roy: Les Templiers. Histoire et Procès. Structures de la France mediévale. Bonnot, Paris 1995.
- Josep M. Sans i Travé: La desfeta del Temple. In: L 'Avenç. No. 161, 1992, ISSN 0210-0150 , pp. 56-61, ( digital version (PDF; 3.9 MB) ).
- Josep M. Sans i Travé: El procés dels templers catalans. In: Robert Vinas, Laure Verdon, Gauthier Langlois, Pierre-Vincent Claverie, Josep Maria i Travé, Joan Fuguet Sans: Les Templiers en pays catalan (= Collecció "historia". 9). Llibres del Trabucaire, Perpinyà 1998, ISBN 2-912966-06-X , pp. 131-157.
- Joachim Seiler: The abolition of the Templar order (1307-1314) according to recent investigations. In: Journal of Church History . Vol. 109 = Episode 4, Vol. 47, 1998, pp. 19-31, ( digital version (PDF; 740.53 KB) ).
- Julien Théry: A Heresy of State: Philip the Fair, the Trial of the "Perfidious Templars," and the Pontificalization of the French Monarchy. In: Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures. Vol. 39, No. 2, 2013, ISSN 1947-6566 , pp. 117-148, ( online ).
- Julien Théry-Astruc: The Flight of the Master of Lombardy (13 February 1308) and Clément V's Strategy in the Templar Affair: A Slap in the Pope's Face. In: Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia. Vol. 70, No. 1, 2016, ISSN 0035-6557 , pp. 35-44, ( online ).
- Lilian Wetzel: Le concile de Vienne 1311-1312 et l'abolition de l'Ordre du Temple. Dervy, Paris 1993, ISBN 2-85076-542-2 .