117 



TKMPLARS. 



TKMl'I.ARS. 



i> rmKtcd it to receive u member* any spiritual persons who were not 

 bound by previous rows. These spiritual mernben were called Chap- 

 lain*. They did not fight, nor take the military TOW ; but, in lieu of 

 that duty, they not only celebrated nut* and other religious offices in 

 the house* of the order, but unially also acted as secretaries to the 

 chapter. Alexander's bull also allowed the order to have its own 

 burial-ground* ; released it from all spiritual obedience, except only to 

 the holy see ; freed it from the payment of tithes, and even authorised 

 U to receive them if the bishop gave his consent ; and prohibited any 

 one who had once become a Templar from ever leaving the order unless 

 to enter into a stricter one. 



At a date a little later the society still farther extended its scheme 

 and its influence, by admitting as members many persons who were 

 not knights or of noble birth, but who were desirous of participating 

 in the advantages of belonging to so powerful a body, on condition of 

 acting as the squires and servant* of the knights. These were styled 

 Serving Brethren ; and in this class were sometimes found individuals 

 both of great wealth and eminent station, though not of high birth or 

 knightly rank. The serving-brethren, however, could not be pre- 

 ceptors, or hold any of the higher offices in the order. Latterly, they 

 were divided into two classes those of arms and those of trades ; the 

 former attending the knights to the field as esquires ; the latter exer- 

 cising various handicrafts in the houses or on the lands belonging to 

 the order. The order also associated to itself many persons under tin- 

 name of Affiliated Members, who took no vows, assumed no peculiar 

 dress, nor became subject to any duties or services ; but, continuing to 

 pursue their ordinary secular occupations, merely purchased enrolment 

 in the ranks of the powerful and highly-privileged soldiery of the 

 Temple for the sake of the protection and other advantages, both tem- 

 poral and spiritual, which even such a mere nominal membership 

 ensured. The affiliated comprehended women as well as men. 

 Finally, there were the Donati and the Oblati, consisting of children 

 dedicated to the order by their parents or other relations ; and also 

 of persons of all ranks, both laity and clergy, who, without entering 

 the order, pledged themselves to stand by it, and to maintain it 



The history of the Knights Templars would embrace the history of 

 the wars of the Christians against the Infidels in the East for all the 

 time they lasted after the establishment of the order. For more than 

 a hundred and seventy years the soldiers of the Temple formed the 

 most renowned portion of the Christian troops, and almost every 

 encounter with the enemy bore testimony to their unequalled prowess 

 and daring. But it may nevertheless be questioned whether the 

 establishment of this and the other religious military orders proved 

 advantageous to the attempt so perseveringly made to wrest the Holy 

 Land from the dominion of the Infidels. The Templars and Hospi- 

 tallers probably damaged and weakened the cause for which they 

 fought, as much by their rivalry, jealousies, and frequently open con- 

 tention, as they aided it by their valour. Then, the immense wealth 

 and worldly power which the Templars in particular speedily acquired, 

 altogether changed the original character and spirit of their institution 

 long before it was half a century old. Within thirty or forty years 

 from the origin of the order, two at least of the four vows which tho 

 members still continued to take had become a mockery and a profana- 

 tion ; instead of poverty and chastity, they were already distinguished 

 by their pomp and pride, and the general luxury and licentiousness of 

 their lives. But the vast material forces of the association, the extent 

 to which it had projected its ramifications in all directions, and it 

 other elements of strength, might have long withstood the principle of 

 corruption thus at work within it, if it had not drawn upon itself an 

 assault from without by which it could not fail to be overpowered. 



The destroyer of the Templars was the resolute and vindictive 

 Philip IV. of France. Philip, who came to the throne in 1285, at tho 

 age of seventeen, was the enemy of the church by education, by 

 temper, and by circumstances. He had already proceeded to extremi- 

 ties in a quarrel with Pope Boniface VIII., which was terminated only 

 with the life of that pontiff. His successor, Benedict XI., is supposed 

 to have been poisoned at the instigation of Philip. Benedict was suc- 

 ceeded by Clement V., who is believed to have purchased his elevation 

 from Philip on condition, among other compliances, of co-operating 

 with him in the destruction of the Templars. This was in 1305. In 

 1806, Jaques de Molay , the Master of the Temple, was drawn to Europe 

 by a summons from the pope, who professed a desire to consult with 

 him on the expediency of a union of the two orders of the Templars 

 and the Hospitallers. The following year, while Molay was at Paris, 

 the fimt distinct accusations against the Templars were made by two 

 individual! lying in prison under sentence of death ; Squin de Flexian, 

 who bad formerly been a member of the order and prior of Mont- 

 fauoon, but had been ejected for heresy and other offences, and a 

 Florentine called Noflb Dei, also, according to one account, a degraded 

 Templar, by general admission a person of the worst character. They 

 made their revelations to Philip himself, and were immediately libe- 

 rated from prison. Their charges, imputing to the order the systematic 

 practice and encouragement of all sorts of secret immoralities, as well 

 as the strangest confusion of heresy, idolatry, and infidelity, are far too 

 absurd for examination. Very soon after this, on the 12th of Septem- 

 ber, 1807, royal letters were issued, sealed, to all the governors of 

 towns and other officers of the crown in authority throughout the 



kingdom, and transmitted along with orders to them to arm themselves 

 sad the persons under their command on that day month, and then to 

 open the letters in the night, and to act as they should find themselves 

 therein directed. The result was, that the next day (Oct. 13) nearly 

 all the Templars in France, De Molay included, were in custody. Their 

 houses and goods were also everywhere seized ; the vast stronghold 

 of the Temple at Paris, the chief seat of the order in that kingdom, 

 was entered and taken possession of by Philip himself. 



An act of accusation was forthwith published ; and Philip at the 

 same time wrote to the pope, and also to the king of England, inti- 

 mating what he had done, and calling upon them to second him. 

 Edward II., on receiving letters from Clement, yielded, and the English 

 Templars were seised and thrown into confinement about the end of 

 December. Meanwhile, the examinations had been going on in France 

 under the direction of the king's confessor, Imbert, a Dominican priest, 

 and, as such, the inveterate enemy of the order of the Templars. Con- 

 fessions, in many cases incredible from their inherent absurdity, were 

 extracted from many of the knights at Paris and elsewhere by the 

 most savage tortures. This went on for many months. In August, 

 1308, Clement, whose person Philip had now contrived to get com- 

 pletely into his power, issued a bull, calling upon all Christian princes 

 and prelates to aid him in examining into the guilt of the order ; and 

 about the same time his holiness appointed a commission, consisting of 

 the archbishop of Narbonnc and other prelates and dignitaries of the 

 church, to meet at Paris to try the case. This commission, however, 

 did not commence its sittings till the 7th of August, 1309. A few 

 months later, examinations under judges, deputed or nominated by the 

 pope, commenced in England and other countries. Altogether many 

 hundreds of knights were examined by these commissions during the 

 years 1309, 1810, and 1311 ; but it was only in France, where torture 

 was made use of, that any admissions were obtained of the crimes laid 

 to the charge of the order, except such as were manifestly unworthy 

 of regard. Even the Paris commission, however, did not satisfy the 

 impatience of Philip : on its requisition a great number of knighU 

 stood forward to defend the order, among whom were several of those 

 who had confessed and afterwards retracted. Philip, having forced 

 the pope to nominate Philip de Marigni, bishop of Cambray, the 

 brother of Enguerrand de Marigni, his prime minister, to the arch- 

 bishopric of Sens, which had just become vacant, and then ii; 

 the diocese of Paris, got the new archbishop to convoke his provincial 

 council in the capital, on Sunday, the 10th of May, 1310 ; and this 

 body, on the Wednesday morning following, had fifty-four of the 

 defenders of the order, who had formerly made confession, brought out 

 as " relapsed heretics " to a field behind the abbey of St. Antoine. and 

 there committed to the flames. They all died asserting their inno- 

 cence and that of the order. These proceedings and others of a like 

 kind in the provinces of Rheims and Sens, put a stop to the attempt 

 at defending the order : the rest of the knights who had undertaken 

 this task now all declared their renouncement of it. Meanwhile, a 

 general council met by order of Clement at Vienne, October 13, 1311, 

 but it was not found so compliant as Philip and the pope had expected ; 

 and Clement, having put an end to the session, assembled the cm 

 and a few other prelates upon whom he could depend, in a secret con- 

 sistory, and abolished the order by his own authority, on the 22nd of 

 March, 1312. The bull of abolition was formally published on the 

 2nd of May following. On the 18th of March, 1314, Molay, the grand 

 master, and Quy, commander or grand prior of Normandy, who had 

 all this while remained in prison at Paris, were brought before the 

 archbishop of Sens, condemned to death, and burned on one of the 

 small islands in the Seine, about the spot where the statue of Henry IV. 

 is now erected on the Pont Kent'. 



After all, Clement and Philip, the former of whom died suddenly 

 about a month, and the latter, of a fall from his horse, within a year 

 after the martyrdom of I >e Molay, were able to secure to themselves 

 only a small portion of the plunder which they had probably ho] 

 The king of France seized and kept, or divided with his confederate, 

 the moveable property of the Templars in that country ; but there, 

 and also in England, and throughout the rest of Europe, with the 

 exception of Spain and Portugal, it was found necessary to transfer 

 their landed possessions to the Hospitallers, or Knights of St. John 

 (at this time commonly known, from the place where they had fixed 

 their head residence, as the KnighU of Rhodes). In Spain, the lands 

 of the Templars were bestowed upon the Knights of Our Ladjr of 

 Montesa, a new order, founded in 1317; and in Portugal the society 

 merely took the new name of the Order of Christ, which still subsists. 



It has been calculated that the entire revenues of the order when it 

 was dissolved did not fall short of six millions sterling, though it seems 

 impossible that this should not be a great exaggeration. Their pos- 

 sessions in England were even at a comparatively early period of great 

 extent and value, as may bo seen from an " inqnisiao, or account of 

 their lands, taken by royal authority in the year 1185, which Dugdale 

 has printed in his ' Monastiuon ' (vol. vi., pt. ii.). They are supposed 

 to have been settled in the Old Temple, at London, which stood on the 

 south side of Holborn, near the present Southampton Buildings, by 

 the beginning of the reign of Stephen : they removed to their new 

 house at the western extremity of Fleet Street, the site of which still 

 retains the name of the Temple, in 1185. This was the chief seat of 

 the order in England. 



