expressing his disbelief in the charges against the order, and, though promising an inquiry, doing his best to procrastinate. Philip determined to force his hand. All France was at this time under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, and the Inquisition could act without consulting the pope. The grand inquisitor of France, William of Paris, was Philip’s confessor and creature. The way was thus open for the king to carry out his plan by a perfectly legal method. His informers denounced the Templars to the Inquisition, and the grand inquisitor—as was the customary procedure in the case of persons accused of heresy—demanded their arrest by the civil power. On the 14th of September 1307, accordingly, Philip issued writs to his baillis and seneschals throughout the kingdom, directing them to make preparations to arrest the members of the order on the following 13th of October.
The Templars had for some time past been aware of the charges against them. On the 6th of June 1306 Pope Clement had summoned Jacques de Molay, the grand master, from Cyprus to France, in order to consult him on the projected crusade. He had obeyed the call, and, in an interview with the pope, had taken the opportunity to demand a full inquiry. They had, however, taken no measures to defend themselves; the sudden action of the king took them wholly by surprise; Arrest of the Templars. and on the night of Friday, the 13th of October 1307, their arrest was effected without difficulty, Jacques de Molay himself with sixty of his brethren being seized in Paris. Next day they were haled before the university of Paris, to hear the recital of their crimes; on Sunday the populace was collected in the royal gardens, where preachers inveighed against the iniquities of the order.
The Templars were caught in toils from which there was no escape. To force them to confess, they were first tortured by the royal officials, before being handed over to the inquisitors to be, if need were, tortured again. In Paris alone thirty-six died under the process.[1] The result was, at the outset, all that the king could desire. Of 138 Templars examined in Paris between the 19th of October and the 24th of November, some of them old men who had been in the order the greater part of their lives, 123 confessed to spitting on (or “near ”) the crucifix at their reception. Many of the prisoners, on the other hand, confessed to all the charges, however grotesque. But the most damning confession was that of the grand master himself, publicly made with tears and protestations of contrition and embodied in a letter (October 25) sent to all the Templars in France. He had been guilty, he said, of denying Christ and spitting on the cross; the grosser charges he indignantly repudiated.[2]
To the pope, meanwhile, the proceedings in France were to the highest degree unwelcome. He had, indeed, become convinced, if not of the general guilt of the order, at least of the guilt of some of its members. But the affair was one which he desired to reserve for his own judgment; Philip’s action he interpreted, rightly, as an encroachment of the civil power on the privileges and property of the Church, and his fears were increased when the French king, without consulting him, sent letters to King James of Aragon, Edward II. of England, the German king Albert and other princes, calling upon them to imitate his example. On the 27th of October Clement issued letters suspending the powers of the Inquisition in France. What followed is not clear, for the documentary evidence for these months is very defective. On the 17th of November James of Aragon wrote to Philip, in answer to his letter and the report of the proceedings in Paris forwarded to him,[3] expressing his surprise at the charges against the Templars, who had done himself and his forefathers great service against the infidel, but promising to proceed against them since required to do so by the Church.”[4] In Portugal no action was taken at all. Edward II. of England replied that he must first receive information as to the charges from his officials in Agen (whence the charges had originated), and on the 5th of December he wrote to the kings of Aragon, Castile, Portugal and Sicily begging them not to believe the evil reports against the order (Prutz, p. 159). But meanwhile, on the 22nd of November, Pope Clement had issued a bull calling on all kings and princes to arrest the Templars everywhere, his motive probably being (according to Finke) to forestall the probable action of the secular powers and keep the affair in his own hands. All scruples and hesitations now vanished. In England the Templars were arrested on the 10th of January 1308, in Sicily on the 24th of the same month, in Cyprus on the 27th of May; in Aragon and Castile the process was less easy, for the knights, forewarned, had put their fortresses into a state of defence, notably their strong castle of Monzon, which was only taken after a long siege on the 17th of May, while the last of the Templars strongholds, Castellat, did not fall until the 2nd of November.[5]
Meanwhile, on the 26th of May, Philip had made his solemn entry into Poitiers, where the pope and cardinals had already assembled for the purpose of conferring with the king on the matter. The debates that followed were protracted and stormy; but Philip was in a position to back his argument for the suppression of the order by pressing other and more dangerous claims: the canonization of Celestine V., the condemnation of Boniface VIII. for heresy, the absolution of Guillaume de Nogaret, the executer of the outrage at Anagni, the summoning of a general council, the settlement of the papacy at Avignon. At last, on the 27th of June, an arrangement was come to. The king agreed to handover to the papal commissioners the property[6] and persons of the Templars; Clement, for his part, withdrew the sentence of suspension against the grand inquisitor of France (July 5) and ordered an inquisition into the charges against individual Templars by the diocesan bishops with assessors nominated by himself. The examination of the grand master, of the grand visitor of France, and of the grand preceptors of Cyprus, Normandy and Aquitaine he reserved to himself. Inquisition was to be made into the conduct of the order in each country by special papal commissions; and the fate of the order as a whole was to be decided by a general council.[7]
These decisions were at once acted on. At Poitiers Clement had already heard the confessions of seventy-two Templars, carefully selected from the royal prisons (June 29 to July 1).[8] The grand master and the three preceptors were re-examined at Chinon, and renewed their old confessions (20th August). Lastly, the bull Regnans in Coelo summoned a great council at Vienne for the 1st of October 1311, when the question of the guilt of the order might be considered. Meanwhile the pope and cardinals had elaborated the organization of the new inquisition. In this the actual inquisitors, though admitted, played a quite subordinate part: the commissions centred round the diocesan bishops, who had as assessors prelates, abbots, priors and canoeists. These commissions were twofold, usually—though erroneously—distinguished as papal and episcopal (both were in fact papal); the first were charged with the inquisition into the accusations against the order itself and the grand preceptors of the various countries, the second with
- ↑ Michelet, Procés, i. 36.
- ↑ Jacques de Molay’s confession was partly due to fear of torture, partly to secure the withdrawal of a specific charge of unnatural crime brought against him by the Templar Guillaume de Giac (Gmelin ii., Tab. i. No. 12). But he continued to demand access to the pope, declaring that he could satisfactorily explain the practices of the order.
- ↑ Text in Finke ii. The writer, Romeuse de Brugaria, of the University of Paris, boldly declares that the proceedings were taken domini papae assensu precedente.
- ↑ Text in Finke ii. 55.,
- ↑ Finke i. 302 ff. Some of the Spanish Templars turned Mahommedan and joined the king of Granada in an invasion of Aragon (Finke ii. 188, No., 105).
- ↑ This was to be devoted to the cause of the Holy Land. In fact its administration fell into the hands of Philips confidants a-nd the greater part remained -in his possession (Finke i. 227).,
- ↑ For a detailed account of the negotiations see Finke i. 200 ff. He holds that Clement, though now convinced of the Templars guilt, was anxious to treat them leniently and, if possible, to save the order (p. 215).
- ↑ See Gmelin ii., Tab. vii. and viii.
