The
Templars: Used and Abused by Philip the Fair
Tafi
Olsen
Senior
Thesis
Professor
Rampton
May
7, 2000
By the eleventh century, the persecution of
heretics in Europe became very important. The focus of the Church shifted from
the threat of paganism to the threat of heresy. Heresy was by 1200 thought to
be a terrible disease which could spread through Europe and infect the populous
with wrong belief. The Inquisition were actively seeking out wrong believers
and prosecuting them. Heresy was a dangerous charge that could be used to
destroy one’s enemies, and when King Philip IV of France, called the Fair,
heard a vague rumor about the Knights Templar, a military monastic order formed
during the Crusades, he had an opportunity to do just that. Though the Templars
could hardly be called his enemies, they were a threat to his power and an
obstacle between him and the money he so desperately needed.
The Templars were a likely target for heresy
charges. The Rule of the Order made them secretive and ritualistic. This in
turn, made them highly suspicious and contributed to the destruction of the
Order. Secrecy implied wrong doing and heresy to the people of the Middle Ages.
Philip knew a heresy charge would bring in the Inquisition, over which he had
control in France. In order to profit from the prosecution of the Templars, he
needed to prove the Templars, as a group, were heretics. Philip was well aware
of the religious hysteria surrounding heresy and consciously used the charge as
a method of state building. He was trying to create a unified France with
himself at the head of a strong government. The Templars were a threat to his
power and a monetary obstacle to his goal of state-building. The focus of this
work is to show how Philip expertly manipulated the accusations of heresy
against the Templars and legitimized control over the arrest and prosecution of
the Order by utilizing religious institutions and societal beliefs to build a
Nation State.
Many historians have studied the arrest and
trial of the Templars, and most have come to the conclusion that the Templars
were innocent of the charges stemming from shrewd maneuvering on the part of
King Philip. Henry Charles Lea, in A History of the Inquisition of the
Middle Ages and The Guilt of the
Templars, provides an interesting
narrative on the prosecution of the Templars. Lea is a firm believer in the
innocence of the Order. He takes a positivist approach to the sources by using
them at face value to come to the conclusion of the Templars’ innocence. Also,
he shows his positivist perspective by discussing mainly the powerful men
involved, ignoring the other classes of people not mentioned in the sources.
Others, such as G. Legman, believe the Templars were innocent of the
accusations. Legman claims the Grand Master of the Templars was a homosexual
and that the Order was guilty of usury. On the whole though, most historians
would agree the Templars were innocent of the charges levied at them.
Two works which have greatly influenced my
thinking on the trial of the Templars are Norman Cohn’s Europe’s Inner
Demons and R. I. Moore’s
groundbreaking book, The Formation of a Persecuting Society which is an important study on the persecution of
Jews, lepers, and heretics. He alleges that these three categories of people
were subjected to the same stock charges throughout the Middle Ages. Moore
believes it was necessary for Europe’s rulers to persecute the
"other" through governmental institutions in order to secure control
over the population. By using the defining characteristics of the groups, and
making those characteristics dangerous, their persecutions were justified.
Consequently, the government, which controlled the menacing group became
stronger. Moore also believes European monarchs used persecution to gain power
by suppressing those who could question their authority. Moore feels it was
necessary for rulers to make a given group of people the enemy in order for the
rest of the people to get behind the ruler. Persecution then becomes a
mechanism of the state. This idea is relevant to my thesis because King Philip
persecuted the Templars due to the fact that they were powerful and wealthy.
Also, by singling out the Templars as heretics, he created a feeling of
"us" versus "them."
Norman Cohn is influenced by the annalist
perspective in looking at Templar history. He incorporates all aspects of the
Templar life from warfare to economic matters to personal stories of the
torture and trials. Cohn differs from Lea in that he does not just focus on the
leaders of the Templars and the two important men in the Order’s story, King
Philip and Pope Clement. He also discusses lower members of the Order and
peasant reaction to the trial.
Like Cohn’s work, this paper will be
approached through a new historicist perspective in that I will look at other
documents around the Templar text to understand the full context of the
prosecution of the Order. The Templars’ story is one of persecution by the
state, to strengthen the state. The ruling class used an easily definable group
to gain control.
In order to fully understand how Philip was
able to manipulate the prosecution of the Templars, we must first examine the
background of the Order. Throughout the Crusades (1097-1291), pilgrims traveled
to the dangerous Holy Land, and military orders such as the Order of the
Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, also called the Hospitallers, provided aid
to the travelers. A knight, Hughes de Payens, was inspired to militarily
protect the pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land and established the Poor
fellow-soldiers of Christ and of the Temple Solomon. They became simply known
as the Templars. The Templars were knights who took the monastic vows of
obedience, chastity, and poverty. At the Council of Troyes in 1128, the pope
recognized the Templars as an official monastic order. Following the Templars’
example of monks who fight, the Hospitallers took on a more military role and
became rivals with the Templars. This rivalry would later bring problems for
the Templars under the rule of King Philip IV of France.
Although the Templars were not allowed to
individually hold money or property, the Order as a whole was allowed to
accumulate wealth. Nobles from all over Europe gave vast amounts of wealth and
property to them. This could be because originally noble knights, princes, and
dukes joined the Order. Over the years, the Templars became very wealthy. Not
only did secular authorities give money to the Templars, but the papacy and the
state bestowed various privileges upon them. For example, the Templars did not
have to pay taxes, tolls, or tithes and they were subject to no authority
except the pope.
The Templars’ seemingly limitless wealth was
apparent when in 1147 King Louis VII of France borrowed a large amount of money
from them and repaid them with tracts of land in Paris. The Paris Temple became
the headquarters of Europe’s finances. There, important jewels and money were
held for monarchs. Consequently, the Templars established a system of
international banking.
The Paris Temple was an important financial
center. Not only did the Templars provide a system of banking for the European
nobility, they also had dealings with local merchants. Because of their special
papal privileges, they were exempt from local taxes which created an unfair
advantage over merchants. They were an autonomous group, above secular law or
authority and were perceived as arrogant.
In 1291, the last Crusader stronghold fell
to the Muslims in Acre, which signified the end of the Crusades. The Templars
were consequently left without a military role. This left them in a precarious
situation. They had made many enemies over the years due to their special
privileges and vast wealth. Many were upset the Templars were not fulfilling
their military duties by going back to the Holy Land and fighting the Muslims.
This is reflected in a poem by Rostan Berenguier written sometime after the
fall of Acre:
Since many
Templars now disport themselves on this side of the sea, riding their grey
horses or taking their ease in the shade and admiring their own fair locks;
since they so often set a bad example to the world; since they are so
outrageously proud that one can hardly look them in the face: tell me, Batard,
why the Pope continues to tolerate them; tell me why he permits them to misuse
the riches which are offered them for God’s services on dishonourable and even
criminal ends. They waste this money which is intended for the recovery of the
Holy Sepulcre on cutting a fine figure in the world; they deceive people with
their idle trumpery, and offend God; since they and the Hospital have for so
long allowed the false Turks to remain in possession of Jerusalem and Acre;
since they flee faster than the holy hawk; it is a pity, in my view, that we
don’t rid ourselves of them for good.
This poem is a reflection of one person’s
thoughts about the Templars. It is unclear how much Berenguier’s poem reflects
public opinion, but it is likely some were bitter about the Templars lack of
military service after the fall of Acre and their vast wealth. In the poem, the
Templars’ wealth is frowned upon because they were given money and property to
help in the wars against the Muslims. Furthermore, the Order is seen as
cowardly because it was no longer fighting. Basically, this poem reflects a
negative view of the Templars as rich, proud, and useless.
Philip manipulated the charge of heresy to
destroy the Order of the Templars. Although the definition of heresy has
changed throughout the history of the Catholic Church, heresy basically means
any unorthodox or dissenting idea or belief that is condemned in this case, by
the Catholic Church. A heretic, in theory, was a "dissenter formally
condemned by an accepted ecclesiastical authority." In the case of the
Templars, the Inquisition was the authority involved in determining the guilt
of the Order. Heresy was thought to be extremely threatening to the Catholic
Church in the late Middle Ages (1250-1450). Often it was perceived as a disease
which could spread through and harm communities. Pope John XXII described
heresy as "a most pestilential disease besides growing stronger and
increasingly serious, grievously infests the flock of Christ throughout the
world. Heresy was a problem for the Church because it led to contrary claims to
church offices and could possibly lead to division in the Church.
As early as the legalization of Christianity
in 313, there existed people who thought differently than those with
ecclesiastical authority. Arianism, which distinguished the relationship
between God the Father and Christ, started as a local controversy. Arians did
not believe God and Christ were equal and thought Christ inferior to God the
Father. The argument grew until Emperor Constantine called together the Council
of Nicaea in 325 to resolve the matter. This established the policy of heresies
being addressed and adjudicated in church councils. After the Arian heresy,
most major heretical sects were condemned in church councils which made
canonical laws prohibiting them. Arius of Alexandria, the eponym of Arianism,
wrote to Eusebius of Nicomedia "The bishop greatly wastes and persecutes
us, and leaves no stone unturned against us. He has driven us out of the city
as atheists, because we do not concur in what he publicly preaches . . ."
Already those with dissenting beliefs were being publicly persecuted. The
Council of Nicaea formed the Nicene Creed to establish the universal orthodox
beliefs. Right after the legalization of Christianity, heretics were being
sought and persecuted.
Occasionally, the bishops needed an outside
authority, usually the Roman Emperor, to resolve differences in the church
councils. Consequently, Roman Emperors after Constantine saw it as their duty
to be arbitrators of Church policy. They involved themselves in ecclesiastical
laws. Emperors instituted anti-heretical laws in the fifth and sixth centuries.
They, a secular authority, established a tradition the Inquisition, an
ecclesiastical authority, would follow of absolving the guilt of heretics if
they confessed and were brought back into the Church. The Theodosian Code of
438 contains laws regarding the prosecution of heretics by secular authorities.
One section of the Code states "if any heretics . . . should embrace, by a
single confession, the Catholic faith and rites . . . We decree that they shall
be absolved from all guilt . . ." Later Roman Emperors made laws that
assigned death and property confiscation to heretics. These are good examples
of how there was a tradition of secular authorities taking control of
persecuting and absolving or punishing religious heretics.
After the eleventh century, the Church took
the lead in seeking out heresy. Pope Lucius III, in 1184, issued the decretal Ad
abolendam which ordered bishops to
find heretics in their area. This is most likely because new forms of religious
dissent had been forming in the twelfth century. Dualism, which argued the
existence of two gods, one benevolent and the other malevolent, is one example.
In Languedoc, in Southern France, dualist heretics took the name Cathars or
Albigensians. Dualist ideas were spreading all over Europe. Ecclesiastical
authorities were writing canonical laws about punishing heretics. Pope Innocent
III wrote the decretal Vergentis
in 1199 which allowed for the goods and property of convicted heretics to be
confiscated. Finally, in 1209, the fear that heresy was spreading led the
papacy to launch a crusade against the Albigensians. The Albigensian Crusade
lasted from 1209-1229 and ended with the slaughter of many heretics, but did
not fully destroy all dualist heresy.
To fully understand both why and how Philip
prosecuted the Templars, we must examine Philip’s past relationship with the
Order and his financial problems. Prior to his knowledge of the accusations against
the Templars, Philip had relied heavily upon the Order. In 1304, Philip granted
them new privileges which turned them into a virtually autonomous city in
Paris. He spoke well of them and had previously sought refuge from the
Courtille Barbette riot in the Paris Temple. Philip originally wanted to join
the Templars and the Hospitallers into one military order to recapture
Jerusalem in a new Crusade and make himself king. To accomplish this, he needed
these two major military groups to unite. Others had tried before to combine
the two groups and failed. For instance, in 1274, Pope Gregory X tried to
combine the two military orders at the Council of Lyons without success. The
two orders were rivals and both wealthy, consequently they refused to be united.
Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Templars, did not want to combine
with the Hospitallers because he argued, the competition between the two Orders
made them more efficient and he predicted problems in the details of the union.
Because the Templars were virtually autonomous, very wealthy, and powerful,
they most likely did not want to share their privileges.
Philip was also in a difficult financial
situation. He desperately needed the Templars’ money. When Philip began his
reign as king in 1285, the royal finances were already strained. He married
Jeanne of Navarre the same year and gained the counties of Champagne and Brie.
This was a major accomplishment toward his goal of state building because he
gained territory over which he could rule, but this further strained his
finances. Philip needed money to fight the English in Gascony and the Flemish
in Flanders. He was defeated in Flanders in 1302, but had finally been able to
assert his authority in 1305. This added the territory of Flanders to his
lands, helping him to create a strong state. Flanders was constantly rebelling
and Philip needed to control the revolting people which took money.
Consequently, Philip taxed the people regularly to control his lands and add to
his territory. He was building a Nation State which put a huge burden on his
finances. Furthermore, Philip had borrowed five hundred thousand livres from
the Templars for his sisters’ dowry. He had taxed people into revolt, debased
the coinage, and had previously confiscated the money of the French Jews and
expelled them from the kingdom in 1306. Even with the Jews’ money, he still
needed the Templars’ wealth. When the Templars and Hospitallers failed to
unite, Philip decided the best action would be to destroy the Templars. He could
then use their money to go to Jerusalem and become king. Philip could also take
the wealth of the Templars to gain territory and to control his newly acquired
lands. The Templars’ money would allow him to achieve his ambitions.
While Philip was still struggling with his
finances, an opportunity arose to destroy the Templar Order. Prior to 1300, the
Templars had not been accused of any heretical acts. In 1305, an account began
circulating that a Templar had confessed to a number of blasphemous and
heretical acts in prison to a Frenchman, Esquiu de Floyran. This man gained
access to King Philip and told him of the confessed evils. Philip was a shrewd
politician who most likely realized the charges could be used to destroy the
Order. He then made Pope Clement V aware of them on November 14, 1305. Nothing
else was done about the accusations until August 1307 when Clement wrote back
to Philip asking for proof of the charges and telling Philip he would look into
them. Philip acted quickly upon receiving Clement’s letter. On the premise that
the Templars would flee, he secretly sent letters out all over France on
September 14, 1307, asking that the Templars be arrested and their property
seized. This occurred on October 13, 1307.
The accusations against the Templars
consisted of 127 charges. These were a composite of charges from all members
arrested. Most of them center around the initiation ceremony. These can be
divided into five separate categories. First, the initiate was told to spit on
the cross and renounce Christ three times. He was then stripped naked and the
initiator kissed the initiate three times; on the mouth, on the navel, and on
his lower back. The initiate was then made aware that sodomy is practiced in
the Order and he should engage in it if a fellow brother asked him. The next
accusation is that the cord which the Templars wore around their waists had
been consecrated by an idol which looked like a human head with a beard. This
idol contained a book with secret chapters, which only the Grand Master of the
Templars and the elders knew. The last accusation was that the host was not
consecrated in the Templars’ mass.
These charges were for the most part
standard charges used against several other groups such as Jews, heretics, and
lepers. All those groups were victims of an enthusiasm for persecution in
Europe at the time. From the time of the first Crusade, Jews were associated
with "sex, sorcery, and the devil." This theme was repeated in
regards to other groups like lepers and heretics. The Templars were also
accused of having abhorrent sexual practices and worshipping the devil through
idolatry.
The lack of evidence surrounding the
accusations leads most scholars to believe the Templars were innocent of these
charges. Henry Charles Lea, in A History of the Inquisition of the Middle
Ages, does not support their
validity because the confessions the Templars made under torture were mostly
different from each other. There was not one universal confession made by all
members of the Order. These Templars were also confessing under some of the
worst torture of the Middle Ages. At least twenty-five Templars died under
torture. The only proof of the accusations against the Templars was the
confessions they made while being tortured. In addition, Lea writes that had
the Templars been trying to start a new religion of idol worship, they would
most likely have carefully chosen their initiates. Also, would not all the
Templars know the new dogma? In the confessions, all descriptions of this
supposed new religion were different. Throughout the confessions, some said
they renounced God, others said they renounced Christ. Some said they saw the
idol and it was black, others said white. Although Lea’s views date back to the
1950s, most scholars still seem to feel the same way he did. However, some
historians disagree.
For instance, G. Legman, author of The
Guilt of the Templars, believes they
were guilty of the accusations. To begin with, he asserts that Jacque de Molay,
the Grand Master of the Templars at the time of the arrest, was guilty of the
charge of sodomy because he actually was a homosexual. He alleges Molay made a
deal with the prosecutor that he would confess to sacrilegious charges if he
was not accused of sodomy. It is pointless to argue if Molay was or was not a
homosexual because the charges were against the group as a whole. It was
imperative to prove the Templars were guilty, not one individual. Only with the
whole Order guilty of the charges could Philip destroy the Templars. Legman
also claims they were guilty of usury, which, although true, was not one of the
formal accusations made against them. Usury is the practice of lending money
and charging interest. Usury was looked down upon because it was against the
Catholic dogma and yet it was practiced by Jews. This charge was not part of
the accusations, most likely because it was not related to a heresy charge and
consequently unimportant. He also concedes that none of the Templars agreed on
what the idol they supposedly worshipped looked like. Legman also insists the
charges against the Templars were not stock charges because they were not
accused of everything the Jews were. He claims this is why the Templars were
guilty. It seems more likely the Templars were innocent of the accusations due
to the fact the confessions differ and previously the Templars had not been
accused of any heretical acts.
Ultimately, the evidence suggests the
Templars were innocent because it does not make sense that the Templars were
starting a heretical sect. Also, the confessions forced out of the Templars
through extreme torture do not all say close to the same thing, it appears they
were confessing to anything due to the severe physical pain. Further, the
charges against the Templars reflect stock charges made against other prosecuted
groups. It appears Philip manipulated a heresy charge to accomplish his goal of
destroying the Templars. Consequently, it seems the Templars were innocent of
the charges.
The charge of heresy was believable, partly
because the Templars were a secretive and ritualistic order. Their Rule,
assigned to them at the Council of Troyes in 1128, called for them to wear
specific clothes:
We command that
all brothers’ habits should always be of one colour, that is white or black or
brown. And we grant to all knight brothers in winter and in summer if possible,
white cloaks; and no-one who does not belong to the aforementioned Knights of
Christ is allowed to have a white cloak, so that those who have abandoned the
life of darkness will recognize each other as being reconciled to their creator
by the sign of the white habits: which signifies purity and complete chastity
The Rule is very specific about what the
members can and cannot wear. It also prohibits "pointed shoes and
shoe-laces and forbid[s] any brother to wear them . . . For it is manifest and
well known that these abominable things belong to pagans." By forcing the
Order to wear specific clothing, and not allowing other orders to wear white
mantels, the Templars were then distinguished as a group set apart. The group
was allowed to have long beards, even though the Templars were religious men,
to whom beards were normally forbidden. These attributes seemed to make them
separate and implied a cult-like status. Because only Templars could wear white
mantles and have beards, it made them seem special and above others.
During the trial, when a Knight Templar
confessed, he was then forced to shave his beard and remove his white Templar
mantle. By removing the dress that set them apart, they were stripped of their
membership from the Templar Order. Their ritual dress contributed to the
suspicion against the Order. Because the group was already distinguished from
other groups, they were a likely target for persecution. Like others who were
persecuted, including Jews and lepers, they had distinguishing characteristics
that could make them different from the average person. Because the elites
(meaning Philip in the case of the Templars) made the rules, they could
manipulate what was deviant. Philip used the general definition of deviance in
order to establish the Templars as heretics. The Templars were set apart from
society by their dress. This allowed them to be targeted by Philip, as wrong
and different. He used their defining characteristics, like their dress and secrecy,
to prove the Order’s guilt. Their distinctive look made them stand out as the
"other" in medieval society because no one else was allowed to dress
like the Templars.
The Knights Templar were also a secretive
group. They held chapter meetings where all outsiders were excluded and even
the cracks in the walls were filled to make sure others could not see what was
happening during their meetings. It was reported that a Templar would rather
die than tell what happened behind the sealed walls. This added to the feeling
that the Templars were a group set apart. They also held their meetings at
night, which many believed was the practice of witches and heretics. Paul of
St. Pere de Chartres described heretics at Orleans in 1022: "They met on
certain nights . . . each holding a light in his hand, and called a roll of the
names of demons." Because outsiders were not allowed at the meetings,
people could misinterpret what the Templars did that needed such secrecy. The
initiation ceremony was held in the dark in complete secrecy. If any Templar
talked about it, he was expelled from the Order. This explains why most of the
accusations against the Templars center around the initiation ceremony. Also,
there was thought to exist a secret book in the chapel of the Templars that
contained some type of evil.
Secrecy has long been associated with evil.
Throughout the history of the Catholic Church, many have been persecuted
because they worshipped in secret. Heretics were accused of "holding
obscene rites in secret, dark places . . . " In the Middle Ages, society
believed evil avoided light. Secrecy and blasphemy were mostly connected to any
heresy accusation. St. Bernard, in a sermon in 1144, claimed heretics said
" . . . let us not make known our secret . . . " He also said:
"They are said to practice in secret things obscene and abominable . . .
" This is coming from a religious man, trying to warn parishioners against
the evils of heresy. Society believed the many evil practices of heresy
happened at night in secrecy. Also, all heretical sects were thought to have
secret doctrines. The Templars’ secrecy made them a suspicious group. Because
no outsiders were allowed to see what happened behind Templars’ walls, people
could only speculate. Due to the ongoing religious hysteria concerning heresy,
the Templars’ secrecy made them a likely target for a heresy accusation. Philip
capitalized on society’s concern over heretics and utilized a heresy charge to
arrest the Templars. Consequently, when the Templars were arrested, most
believed they were guilty. Their secrecy led many to believe evil of the
Templars and rumors concerning their secretive behavior became common during
their arrest.
Several rumors surrounded the Templars after
their initial arrest. An interesting rumor concerning the Order was that they
would cook the bodies of babies and use the fat to anoint their idol. This is a
rumor that surrounded many witches and heretical groups. For example, Paul of
St. Pere de Chartres describes the heretics at Orleans in 1022:
They met on
certain nights . . . and each of them grabbed whatever woman came to hand . . .
and the child who was born of this foul union was put to the test of the flames
after the manner of the ancient pagans, and burned. The ashes were collected .
. . There was such power of diabolic evil in this ash that anyone who had
succumbed to the heresy and tasted only a small quantity of it was afterwards
scarcely ever able to direct his mind away from heresy and back to truth.
Another example of this use of children is
found in the witches of Simmenthal who, in the fourteenth century, "stole
children, killed them, and then cooked and ate them, or else they drained them
of their juices in order to make ointment." Because the burning of
children is one of the worst practices in the eyes of Christians, the rumor
surrounding the Templars reflects the evils of which people thought the Order
was capable. The intrinsic characteristics of the Templars, like their ritual
dress and secrecy, made them a group set apart. Their seclusion from others and
especially their night rites created an idea that the Templars were performing
evil. Philip manipulated the fact that the Templars were set apart and
secretive into a heresy accusation. He consciously used the society’s fear of
heresy (the threat within) and projected it onto the Templars.
Why did Philip attack the Templars and not
the Hospitallers? The Hospitallers were a monastic military order just as the
Templars. First, the Templars were already thought of as ruthless, not trusted
by either ecclesiastical authority (local bishops) who were possibly jealous of
the Templars’ wealth and privileges, and secular authority, some of whom owed
them a great deal of money. Second, the Templars were a secretive group which
made them seem suspicious and therefore a more likely target for the accusation
of heresy. Third, after the fall of Acre, the Hospitallers turned into a naval
force and kept up their military duties. The Templars, on the other hand, did
not find a new military role and were therefore, useless in that capacity.
Finally, the accusations from Esquiu de Floyran appeared at the right time.
During the trial of the Templars, Esquiu de Floyran assisted the Inquisition in
the torture of the members which suggests he had some stake in destroying the
Order. There seems to be no indication to suggest that Philip was the
originator of the accusations against the Templars. It appears to simply have
been convenient timing for Philip who grabbed hold of the accusations and
manipulated them into heresy accusations. He consciously used the supposed
evils of the Templars for his own purposes.
It is important to understand that as a
secular ruler, Philip used religious institutions to destroy the Templars’
order. Once Philip had heard of the accusations levied against the Templars, he
understood he had to take control of the arrest and prosecution of the Knights
Templar to accomplish his goal of destroying the Order. By arresting the
Templars, Philip was fulfilling his duty as both a secular ruler and a
Christian because he was turning over heretics to ecclesiastical authorities.
However, heresy charges were usually discovered by the Church through the
wandering mendicant orders (friars) and then turned over to the Inquisition to
be tried. Once found guilty, the heretics would sometimes be turned over to the
secular authorities for punishment. Pope Innocent III’s Cum ex officii
nostri (1207) says, "Whatsoever
heretic . . . shall be found therein, shall immediately be taken and delivered
to the secular court to be punished according to law." Philip, on the
other hand, "discovered" the supposed heresy of the Templars, and in
order to direct their destruction, turned them over to the Inquisition. Philip
used the Inquisition, a religious institution, to secure the destruction of the
Order. The Fourth Lateran Council, a general ecclesiastical council held in
1215, made it punishable for secular authorities not to turn over heretics. The
third canon says: "But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested
and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this
heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other
bishops of the province." On the threat of excommunication by the Church,
Philip and other rulers in Europe, had to prosecute all heretics in their
territories. The church councils reflect the real fear of heresy throughout
Europe. The Church was so threatened by heresy, it had to propose
excommunication to rulers to insure their cooperation in ridding Europe of this
terrible disease. The third canon would legitimize Philip’s actions because it
was his duty to scourge his land of harmful heretics. On the other hand, Philip
was supposed to obey the commands of the Church, especially the Pope, instead
of over-stepping his bounds and taking control of the situation. By initiating
the arrest of a religious group subject to no one other than the pope, Philip
was indicating he was more powerful than Pope Clement. But, it could be said in
Philip’s defense, that the councils did threaten rulers with excommunication if
they did not do everything in their power to rid Europe of heresy. It is
unclear if Philip was aware of this canon, but he must have known it was his
duty to aid the Inquisition in punishing heretics. Since the establishment of the
Inquisition in 1184 by Pope Lucius III, secular rulers had been involved in
sentencing those found guilty of heresy. In essence, the Fourth Lateran Council
gave Philip permission to rid his lands of heretics, but, instead of following
the dictates of the Church in dealing with heretics, he took control of
religious institutions and in a sense, asserted his authority over the pope.
Philip initiated the arrest of the Templars
before the pope could react to the accusations because he knew he could use the
accusations to bring about a heresy charge. This meant the Templars would be
brought before the Inquisition, an institution Philip controlled in France.
Philip’s own confessor, Guillaume Imbert of Paris, was the Grand Inquisitor of
France and would be in charge of the Templar trial. Imbert’s job was to make
the suppression of the Templars legitimate. He had to prove they were an evil
heretical sect. It was the duty of the Inquisitors to ask the temporal, or
secular authority for help. Consequently, Philip was involved. Philip could
then be legitimized for already arresting the Templars because the Inquisition
asked for him to aid them in their prosecution. Philip, in a sense, used the
Inquisition to aid him in destroying the Order. Therefore, Philip was able to
use this ecclesiastical organization to convict the Templars of heresy without
the pope’s consent.
After their arrest, the jailed Templars were
tortured and asked to confess to their alleged crimes. They were subjected to
severe torture. For example, one of the Templars, a man by the name of Bernard
de Vado, was tortured by fire so badly that bones in his feet burnt off. This
harsh torture produced quick confessions which Philip used to his advantage. He
sent transcripts of them to Clement who had previously sent Philip a letter
discussing his indignation at the French king because he had arrested monks
subject to no one other than the pope himself. Clement asked Philip to turn
over the Templars and all their possessions to two cardinals, Berenger de Fredole
and Etienne de Suissi. Philip used the confessions brought about by torture as
evidence, to show the pope the Templars were guilty. By sending the confessions
to Clement, he reinforced the necessity of arresting the Templars without the
pope’s consent. Because the Inquisition could use torture, confessions were
quickly obtained. Philip could then use the religious institution of the
Inquisition to prove the Templars’ guilt. The members of the Order had
confessed through the Inquisitions’ use of torture, not Philips’. Philip,
however, had the confessions sent to Clement which shows how he consciously
manipulated the arrest and trial of the Templars. By taking charge and
arresting the members of the Order without the knowledge of the pope, and using
his power over the Inquisition, Philip got the Templars to confess their guilt.
This forced Clement to admit the Order’s guilt also.
The confessions resulted in the pope sending
out a papal bull on November 22, 1307 to all the rulers in Europe, asking them
to imprison the members of the Order and hold their property. By forcing
Clement to take a stand and using the confessions achieved by torture, Philip
put Clement in a bad position and thereby manipulated power over the pope. Even
though Clement did not believe in the guilt of the Templars, he had been forced
by Philip into making a difficult decision. Pope Clement had to ask the rulers
of Europe to seize the Templars to be investigated. But, by doing this, he was
trapped into assuring their condemnation. The pope’s bull made the Templars
appear guilty. Once having them arrested for heresy, he could not take back the
warrant. Because the Templars had already confessed their guilt, even though it
was under torture, if the pope decided later they were innocent, he himself,
would be committing heresy. The Third Lateran Council of 1179 says:
"Heretics and all who defend and receive them are excommunicated."
The Fourth Lateran Council also says: "We decree that those who give
credence to the teachings of the heretics, as well as those who receive,
defend, and patronize them, are excommunicated . . . " At this time in the
Middle Ages, it was thought that all who defended heretics were heretics
themselves. This reflects the widespread fear of heresy. The pope was powerless
to stop Philip’s prosecution of the Templars because he had been forced to
issue a bull due to the fast arrest and the extraction of confessions under
torture from the Templars by Philip. Philip was able to accomplish this through
the use of religious institutions.
Through the use of religious institutions,
Philip was able to destroy the Templars and help build a Nation State with
Philip himself as the head of a strong government. Philip also used propaganda
to sway public opinion to get the support of the people. Although historians
question how public opinion can be legitimately used, we can begin to
understand why it was important for Philip to have the people behind him. After
Philip’s brilliant maneuvers, Clement did not want to condemn the Templars and
consequently suspended the Inquisition in 1308. The Templars, though, had
already been found guilty by their own confessions and Clements’ bull. The pope
tried to take charge of the investigation, but Philip had used propaganda
against the Templars. In October 1307, Philip announced the guilt of the
Templars in front of the University of Paris, bishops, and other royal
officials. He then had people gather in front of the royal palace gardens to
explain what had happened and again pronounced the Order’s guilt. This happened
all over France so the guilt of the Templars could be spread. Philip also sent
letters to princes announcing the Templars were guilty of heresy and asking for
aid as the king. The Templars were also made to stand in front of large groups
of people and proclaim their guilt and ask for forgiveness from the crowds.
This use of propaganda legitimized Philip’s actions against the Templars and
made it seem he was acting out of religious zeal in the accusation and
prosecution of the Templars.
When the accusations against the Templars
were publicly announced, Philip was portrayed "not as accuser or
prosecutor but as the hero of a battle for the faith, the victor of a spiritual
conflict which had already been won by the spontaneous confessions made by the
guilty enemies of true religion." Philip was, at this time, working to
build a strong Nation State and needed to build up a sense of "us"
versus the "other." This was a necessary step to bring about a
feeling of unity. With the people behind him, he could persecute those who
would poison the others with their wrong beliefs. Philip made it seem he was
protecting the public from heresy. It was important Philip appear to be saving
society from heresy because he needed to have the French people behind him
after having angered them for debasing the coinage and issuing harsh taxes.
With the Templars’ secrecy, it was not difficult to convince the people the
Templars were heretics because the people were already suspicious of them.
Around this time (1250-1400) and for
centuries after, there was a growing fear or public hysteria towards hysteria.
After the Crusades ended, the Church was no longer focusing on conversion of
pagans, but wanted to stop the threat within the Church, heresy. There had been
many large heretical sects. As previously mentioned, the Albigensians held
dualist beliefs which spread throughout Europe. This threatened the Church
which ordered a Crusade against the heretics. They wanted to stop the
threatening spread of heresy. Consequently, when Philip cited the Templars as
heretics, he was viewed as a savior of the people. Philip, in turn, could use
this support to help unify his lands into a Nation. As R.I. Moore explains, the
state was trying to exert its authority by prosecuting victimless crimes or
offenses against morality. The government was using organizations, such as the
Inquisition, to prosecute those who could challenge its authority. Because the
Templars were very wealthy, had ties to ruling families throughout Europe (the
knights were elites), and were exempt from state rule, they were a threat to
Philip’s power. Philip was creating a Nation State with a strong central
government and used persecution to destroy those who threatened his authority.
Persecution rallied the people behind the government. Philip was seen as saving
the people from the evil heresy. The common people could join Philip in
persecuting another group. Because the Templars were set apart, they were
likely targets for this persecution and were used in Philips’ attempts at state
building.
Philip employed this propaganda to sway
public opinion and the nobility to view the Templars as heretics. In France,
there existed a growing middle class with economic power. Philip recognized
this and established the Estates General, giving that class some political
power. This was another institution he could use for his own purposes. Philip
realized he needed public opinion to sanction his trial of the Order. He knew
"avowed appeals to public opinion might be made to groups whose support
was desirable on one ground or another." This was usually accomplished in
pamphlets or tracts. Pierre Dubois was a member of the Estates General and
wrote pamphlets agreeing with the king. He wrote several treatises calling for
the consolidation of the military orders, attacking the Templars, and asking
for support of Philip’s policies. Previously, when Philip wanted to combine
military orders, Pierre Dubois wrote:
The Hospitalers,
Templars, and other orders founded to aid and protect the Holy Land have many
resources, goods, and property on this side of the Mediterranean which have so
far been of little benefit to the Holy Land . . . their houses have been
exposed to derision and consequent scandal . . . it is desirable and advisable
to combine them into one order as regards appearance, habit, rank, and
property, as the holy council shall see fit.
This was written specifically to be
distributed to sway others to Philip’s opinions. It was spread around to
persuade people of Philip’s ideas. Philip used the institution of the Estates
General to promote his ideas and also to defend his actions concerning the
Templars. In 1308, Philip convened the Estates General and asked the members to
vote on what should be done with the Order. Almost all the members voted to
execute the Knights Templar. They most likely had to agree with what Philip
wanted because he was establishing a powerful government and the Estates
General probably needed to side with the king so they would not later suffer
consequences for their derision. This is an example of how Philip swayed
opinion and legitimized his policies.
Even
though Philip paraded his actions as though he were just a dutiful Christian
turning over heretics to ecclesiastical authority, we can see that money was
behind Philip’s actions. We know he had financial difficulties and was most
likely destroying the Order to acquire their money. As previously mentioned,
Philip had fought with Gascony and Flanders to pull the areas into his rule. He
needed more money to subdue and forcibly add the territories to his land.
Philip also needed wealth to go to Jerusalem and take back the Holy Land from
the infidel. He was expanding his land to create a nation. In order to
accomplish it, he required money. Previously, in 1306, he had turned on the
Jews in order to seize their resources. He had them arrested, took their
property, and exiled them from the kingdom. Some Jews were wealthy because for
centuries they had been pigeonholed into the role of merchant and money-lender.
Jews, like the Templars, were likely targets
because of their distinguishing characteristics. Even after acquiring the money
of the Jews, Philip still needed the vast fortune of the Templars. Others were
not oblivious to this at the time of the arrest. A few weeks after the arrests,
Cristiano Spinola, a Genoese politician, realized Philip’s ultimate reason for
attacking the Templars. He believed it was in the hopes of seizing their wealth
and uniting the two military orders so he could control them. If this was obvious,
then how was Philip able to persecute the Templars? Because the Knights Templar
were subject to no authority other than the pope, Philip had to manipulate the
accusation of heresy and use institutions to accomplish this task. Also,
Philip’s agenda was perhaps more obvious to Cristiano Spinola because he also
was a politician. The average person would most likely not realize Philip’s
political agenda. This is especially true because of Philip’s use of propaganda
to sway public opinion for the benefit of creating a strong nation.
Philip expertly used the heresy charges
against the Templars and asserted power over the institution of the papacy in
order to accomplish his goal of destroying the Templar Order. We have already
seen how Philip used the confessions of a man in prison to lodge a heresy
charge against the Templars and then used torture to make them confess. Philip
also deftly wielded power over the papacy. To start with, Pope Clement V was
French and had been elected pope with the strong support of Philip. The
chronicler of Pierre Dubois suggests there was an agreement between Philip and
Clement that Philip would pressure French cardinals to elect Clement pope if
Clement would help Philip and side with him on issues. When Philip had the
Templars arrested without Clements’ knowledge, he was able to go over the
pope’s authority because Clement was weak both politically and physically and
could not stand up to him. Clement was fully aware of the game Philip was
playing but could only delay the inevitable.
At a meeting at Poitiers in May 1308, Philip
tried to persuade Clement to totally disband the Order. To exert pressure on
Clement, Philip had a large crowd of French nobles and clergy aggressively
pursue the topic with the pope. Philip then hinted that if Clement did not act
soon, he would be suspected of heresy. Later, on October 1, 1310, the Council
of Vienne was convened to decide the Templars’ fate. Their property was placed
in the hands of a commission. It was important the whole Order be condemned as
heretics so the property, as a whole, could be confiscated. A commission was
assigned and the Templars were allowed to defend the Order, though none were
prepared on how to do this. On March 28, 1310, 546 Templars assembled to defend
themselves. Because Philip had been invited to help the Inquisition, over which
he had power, he did not allow those Templars to be heard and at the Council of
Sens in April 1310, had 54 Templars condemned as relapsed heretics and burned
before they could even retract their confessions. The council had four more
Templars burned a few days later to discourage others from defending the Order.
The rest either confessed and were reconciled to the Church or spent the rest
of their days in jail until they were burned.
Philip had pushed Clement into an
uncomfortable position by forcing the Templars to confess and showing the
confessions to Clement. When the pope sent out that papal bull in November
1307, he could not retract his assertion of their guilt. By doing so, as stated
earlier, he would have been guilty of heresy. Consequently, when other Templars
came to him to defend the Order, he had to destroy them to save himself. After
the Council of Sens, seven others came forward to defend themselves and Clement
had them thrown in jail before hearing them. On March 19, 1314, the leaders of
the Templars, including the Grand Master Jacques de Molay, were brought forth
from jail. They publicly retracted their confessions. This angered Philip who
had them burned without a trial as relapsed heretics. Philip had the power to
do this because the Order had already been condemned as a whole and it was
written in the church councils that secular authority had the power to punish
heretics after they had been proven guilty by the ecclesiastical authority. The
Fourth Lateran Council says : "Those condemned, being handed over to the
secular rulers or their bailiffs, let them be abandoned, to be punished with
due justice." Philip therefore had legitimate authority to burn relapsed
heretics.
In other countries the Templars were not
prosecuted, although they were ordered by the pope to be taken into custody. In
England, King Edward II wrote to Clement begging him to ignore the accusations
and to " . . . resist the calumnies of envious and wicked men." He
was referring to Philip and was possibly threatened by Philip’s method of state
building. He also wrote to Europe’s other rulers and asked that they ignore the
accusations also. However, because Pope Clement had sent them a papal bull,
Edward was forced to seize the Templars’ property, but the members of the Order
were not put into prison. English law did not incorporate torture and
consequently, the Inquisition had no power there to force confessions from the
Templars. Later, the inquisitors got permission from the king to use torture
"in accordance with ecclesiastical law." The Inquisition was never
successful in England, most likely because they did not have a driving force
behind the accusations like Philip. In Scotland, Ireland, and Germany, not much
was done to the Templars. Some of their property was seized but later there
were accounts that the Hospitallers were complaining the Templars still had
their property. The fact that other kings did not prosecute the Templars
suggests that Philip did have an agenda other than just punishing heretics when
he had the Templars arrested because he manipulated the publics’ fear of heresy
and asserted power over religious institutions to help create a strong Nation
State. The rulers in other countries who did not have anything to gain by the
prosecution of the Templars, ignored the accusations.
In the end, most of the Templars’ property
was given to the Hospitallers, and the Order was abolished. It was decreed that
those who would thereafter assume the Templar habit would be excommunicated.
Philip did accomplish his goal of destroying the Order and collecting their
money. He did not have to pay back the debts he owed them and reclaimed
treasure that was supposedly France’s royal treasure. Ultimately though, Philip,
not the Hospitallers, remained in possession of the Templars’ property until
his death in 1314.
Philip succeeded in destroying the Templars
by manipulating the public’s fear of heresy and using religious institutions to
help create a stronger nation. He was able to legitimize his actions by
controlling Church and state organizations and by using propaganda.
Additionally, the Rule of the Templars, including their ritual dress and
extreme secrecy, contributed to the suspicions that the Templars were actually heretics.
Heresy was a powerful charge in the Middle Ages. After the eleventh century,
the Church was very much involved in seeking out and destroying heretics who
could pollute communities with their wrong beliefs.
Philip brilliantly took charge of the arrest
of the Templars in order to assure their condemnation. He knew he could feed
the Templars to the Inquisition under the guise of heresy and control the
proceedings. The Inquisition could implement torture to draw out confessions.
Philip then trapped Pope Clement into a corner by forcing him to send out a
papal bull to arrest the Templars. Later, the pope could not defend the Order
without danger to himself. Clement was not as powerful as Philip and
consequently could not save the Templars from Philip’s malicious actions.
Philip could legitimize his attack on the
Templars through the use of secular and ecclesiastical organizations. By
controlling the Inquisition, he could also manipulate the papacy into proving
the Order’s guilt. Philip usurped the pope’s power by arresting the Templars
without his permission. He ultimately accomplished his goal of destroying the
Templars and possessing their wealth. Philip’s actions against the Templars are
an example of how a ruler could consolidate power by using religious
institutions and by targeting a group who threatened the ruler’s authority.
Philip used the public’s fear of heresy to help destroy the Order. The Templars
were easily definable and set apart, making them a likely target for
prosecution. Philip used the Templars to help build a strong Nation State and
get the support of the people after he had debased the coinage and taxed the
people into revolt. Through his actions, Philip was successful in achieving his
goals of destroying the Templars, acquiring their wealth, and using the
persecution of the Order in building his nation.
WORKS
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Peters, Edward. Heresy and Authority in
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"The Primitive Rule of the
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