The History of the Knights Templars, the Temple Church, and the Temple

King Henry the Third was a great benefactor to the Templars. He granted them the manors of Lilleston, Hechewayton, Saunford, Sutton, Dartfeld, and Halgel, in Kent; several lands, and churches and annual fairs at Baldok, Walnesford, Wetherby, and other places, and various weekly markets.³¹⁰

William de

Beaujeu.

A.D. 1273.

The Grand Master, Thomas Berard, was succeeded by Brother William de Beaujeu,³¹¹ who came to England for the purpose of obtaining succour, and called together a general chapter of the order at London. Whilst resident at the Temple in that city, he received payment of a large sum of money which Edward, the young king, had borrowed of the Templars during his residence in Palestine.³¹² The Grand Master of the Hospital also came to Europe, and every exertion was made to stimulate the languid energies of the western Christians, and revive their holy zeal in the cause of the Cross. A general council of the church was opened at Lyons by the Pope in person; the two Grand Masters were present, and took precedence of all the ambassadors and peers at that famous assembly. It was determined that a new crusade should be preached, that all ecclesiastical dignities and benefices should be taxed to support an armament, and that the sovereigns of Europe should be compelled by ecclesiastical censures to suspend their private quarrels, and afford succour to the desolate city of Jerusalem. The Pope, who had been himself resident in Palestine, took a strong personal interest in the promotion of the crusade, and induced many nobles, princes, and knights to assume the Cross; but the holy pontiff died in the midst of his exertions, and with him expired all hope of effectual assistance from Europe. A vast change had come over the spirit of the age; the fiery enthusiasm of the holy war had expended itself, and the Grand Masters of the Temple and Hospital returned without succour, in sorrow and disappointment, to the East.

A. D. 1275.

William de Beaujeu arrived at the Temple of Acre on Saint Michael’s Day, A. D. 1275, and immediately assumed the government of Palestine.³¹³ As there was now no hope of recovering the lost city of Jerusalem, he bent all his energies to the preservation of the few remaining possessions of the Christians in the Holy Land. At the expiration of the ten years’ truce he entered into a further treaty with the infidels, called “the peace of Tortosa.” It is expressed to be made between sultan Malek-Mansour and his son Malek-Saleh Ali, “honour of the world and of religion,” of the one part, and Afryz Dybadjouk (William de Beaujeu) Grand Master of the order of the Templars, of the other part. The truce is further prolonged for ten years and ten months from the date of the execution of the treaty, (A. D. 1282;) and the contracting parties strictly bind themselves to make no irruptions into each other’s territories during the period. To prevent mistakes, the towns, villages, and territory belonging to the Christians in Palestine are specified and defined, together with the contiguous possessions of the Moslems.³¹⁴ This treaty, however, was speedily broken, the war was renewed with various success, and another treaty was concluded, which was again violated by an unpardonable outrage. Some European adventurers, who had arrived at Acre, plundered and hung nineteen Egyptian merchants, and the sultan of Egypt immediately resumed hostilities, with the avowed determination of crushing for ever the christian power in the East. The fortress of Margat was besieged and taken; the city of Tripoli shared the same fate; and in the third year from the re-commencement of the war, the christian dominions in Palestine were reduced within the narrow confines of the strong city of Acre and the Pilgrim’s Castle. A. D. 1291. In the spring of the year 1291, the sultan Khalil marched against Acre at the head of sixty thousand horse and a hundred and forty thousand foot.

“An innumerable people of all nations and every tongue,” says a chronicle of the times, “thirsting for christian blood, were assembled together from the deserts of the East and the South; the earth trembled beneath their footsteps, and the air was rent with the sound of their trumpets and cymbals. The sun’s rays, reflected from their shields, gleamed on the distant mountains, and the points of their spears shone like the innumerable stars of heaven. When on the march, their lances presented the appearance of a vast forest rising from the earth, and covering all the landscape.”… “They wandered round about the walls, spying out their weaknesses and defects; some barked like dogs, some roared like lions, some lowed and bellowed like oxen, some struck drums with twisted sticks after their fashion, some threw darts, some cast stones, some shot arrows and bolts from cross-bows.”³¹⁵ On the 5th of April, the place was regularly invested. No rational hope of saving it could be entertained; the sea was open; the harbour was filled with christian vessels, and with the galleys of the Temple and the Hospital; yet the two great monastic and military orders scorned to retire to the neighbouring and friendly island of Cyprus; they refused to desert, even in its last extremity, that cause which they had sworn to maintain with the last drop of their blood. For a hundred and seventy years their swords had been constantly employed in defending the Holy Land from the profane tread of the unbelieving Moslem; the sacred territory of Palestine had been everywhere moistened with the blood of the best and bravest of their knights, and, faithful to their vows and their chivalrous engagements, they now prepared to bury themselves in the ruins of the last stronghold of the christian faith.

William de Beaujeu, the Grand Master of the Temple, a veteran warrior of a hundred fights, took the command of the garrison, which amounted to about twelve thousand men, exclusive of the forces of the Temple and the Hospital, and a body of five hundred foot and two hundred horse, under the command of the king of Cyprus. These forces were distributed along the walls in four divisions, the first of which was commanded by Hugh de Grandison, an English knight. The old and the feeble, women and children, were sent away by sea to the christian island of Cyprus, and none remained in the devoted city but those who were prepared to fight in its defence, or to suffer martyrdom at the hands of the infidels. The siege lasted six weeks, during the whole of which period the sallies and the attacks were incessant. Neither by night nor by day did the shouts of the assailants and the noise of the military engines cease; the walls were battered from without, and the foundations were sapped by miners, who were incessantly labouring to advance their works. More than six hundred catapults, balistæ, and other instruments of destruction, were directed against the fortifications; and the battering machines were of such immense size and weight, that a hundred wagons were required to transport the separate timbers of one of them.³¹⁶ Moveable towers were erected by the Moslems, so as to overtop the walls; their workmen and advanced parties were protected by hurdles covered with raw hides, and all the military contrivances which the art and the skill of the age could produce, were used to facilitate the assault. For a long time their utmost efforts were foiled by the valour of the besieged, who made constant sallies upon their works, burnt their towers and machines, and destroyed their miners. Day by day, however, the numbers of the garrison were thinned by the sword, whilst in the enemy’s camp the places of the dead were constantly supplied by fresh warriors from the deserts of Arabia, animated with the same wild fanaticism in the cause of their religion as that which so eminently distinguished the military monks of the Temple. On the fourth of May, after thirty-three days of constant fighting, the great tower, considered the key of the fortifications, and called by the Moslems the cursed tower, was thrown down by the military engines. To increase the terror and distraction of the besieged, sultan Khalil mounted three hundred drummers, with their drums, upon as many dromedaries, and commanded them to make as much noise as possible whenever a general assault was ordered. From the 4th to the 14th of May, the attacks were incessant. On the 15th, the double wall was forced, and the king of Cyprus, panic-stricken, fled in the night to his ships, and made sail for the island of Cyprus, with all his followers, and with near three thousand of the best men of the garrison. On the morrow the Saracens attacked the post he had deserted; they filled up the ditch with the bodies of dead men and horses, piles of wood, stones, and earth, and their trumpets then sounded to the assault. Ranged under the yellow banner of Mahomet, the Mamlooks forced the breach, and penetrated sword in hand to the very centre of the city; but their victorious career and insulting shouts were there stopped by the mail-clad Knights of the Temple and the Hospital, who charged on horseback through the narrow streets, drove them back with immense carnage, and precipitated them headlong from the walls.

At sunrise the following morning the air resounded with the deafening noise of drums and trumpets, and the breach was carried and recovered several times, the military friars at last closing up the passage with their bodies, and presenting a wall of steel to the advance of the enemy. Loud appeals to God and to Mahomet, to heaven and the saints, were to be heard on all sides; and after an obstinate engagement from sunrise to sunset, darkness put an end to the slaughter. On the third day, (the 18th,) the infidels made the final assault on the side next the gate of St. Anthony. The Grand Masters of the Temple and the Hospital fought side by side at the head of their knights, and for a time successfully resisted all the efforts of the enemy. They engaged hand to hand with the Mamlooks, and pressed like the meanest of the soldiers into the thick of the battle. But as each knight fell beneath the keen scimitars of the Moslems, there were none in reserve to supply his place, whilst the vast hordes of the infidels pressed on with untiring energy and perseverance. The Marshall of the Hospital fell covered with wounds, and William de Beaujeu, as a last resort, requested the Grand Master of that order to sally out of an adjoining gateway at the head of five hundred horse, and attack the enemy’s rear. Immediately after the Grand Master of the Temple had given these orders, he was himself struck down by the darts and the arrows of the enemy; the panic-stricken garrison fled to the port, and the infidels rushed on with tremendous shouts of Allah acbar! Allah acbar! “God is victorious.” Three hundred Templars, the sole survivors of their illustrious order in Acre, were now left alone to withstand the shock of the victorious Mamlooks. In a close and compact column they fought their way, accompanied by several hundred christian fugitives, to the Temple, and shutting their gates, they again bade defiance to the advancing foe.

Gaudini.

A. D. 1291.

The surviving knights now assembled together in solemn chapter, and appointed the Knight Templar Brother Gaudini Grand Master.³¹⁷ The Temple at Acre was a place of great strength, and surrounded by walls and towers of immense extent. It was divided into three quarters, the first and principal of which contained the palace of the Grand Master, the church, and the habitation of the knights; the second, called the Bourg of the Temple, contained the cells of the serving brethren; and the third, called the Cattle Market, was devoted to the officers charged with the duty of procuring the necessary supplies for the order and its forces.

The following morning very favourable terms were offered to the Templars by the victorious sultan, and they agreed to evacuate the Temple on condition that a galley should be placed at their disposal, and that they should be allowed to retire in safety with the christian fugitives under their protection, and to carry away as much of their effects as each person could load himself with. The Mussulman conqueror pledged himself to the fulfilment of these conditions, and sent a standard to the Templars, which was mounted on one of the towers of the Temple. A guard of three hundred Moslem soldiers, charged to see the articles of capitulation properly carried into effect, was afterwards admitted within the walls of the convent. Some christian women of Acre, who had refused to quit their fathers, brothers, and husbands, the brave defenders of the place, were amongst the fugitives, and the Moslem soldiers, attracted by their beauty, broke through all restraint, and violated the terms of the surrender. The enraged Templars closed and barricadoed the gates of the Temple; they set upon the treacherous infidels, and put every one of them, “from the greatest to the smallest,” to death.³¹⁸ Immediately after this massacre the Moslem trumpets sounded to the assault, but the Templars successfully defended themselves until the next day (the 20th.) The Marshall of the order and several of the brethren were then deputed by Gaudini with a flag of truce to the sultan, to explain the cause of the massacre of his guard. The enraged monarch, however, had no sooner got them into his power than he ordered every one of them to be decapitated, and pressed the siege with renewed vigour. In the night, Gaudini, with a chosen band of his companions, collected together the treasure of the order and the ornaments of the church, and sallying out of a secret postern of the Temple which communicated with the harbour, they got on board a small vessel, and escaped in safety to the island of Cyprus.³¹⁹ The residue of the Templars retired into the large tower of the Temple, called “The Tower of the Master,” which they defended with desperate energy. The bravest of the Mamlooks were driven back in repeated assaults, and the little fortress was everywhere surrounded with heaps of the slain. The sultan, at last, despairing of taking the place by assault, ordered it to be undermined. As the workmen advanced, they propped the foundations with beams of wood, and when the excavation was completed, these wooden supports were consumed by fire; the huge tower then fell with a tremendous crash, and buried the brave Templars in its ruins. The sultan set fire to the town in four places, and the last stronghold of the christian power in Palestine was speedily reduced to a smoking solitude.³²⁰ A few years back the ruins of the christian city of Acre were well worthy of the attention of the curious. You might still trace the remains of several churches; and the quarter occupied by the Knights Templars continued to present many interesting memorials of that proud and powerful order.

CHAPTER IX

The downfall of the Templars – The cause thereof – The Grand Master comes to Europe at the request of the Pope – He is imprisoned, with all the Templars in France, by command of king Philip – They are put to the torture, and confessions of the guilt of heresy and idolatry are extracted from them – Edward II. king of England stands up in defence of the Templars, but afterwards persecutes them at the instance of the Pope – The imprisonment of the Master of the Temple and all his brethren in England – Their examination upon eighty-seven horrible and ridiculous articles of accusation before foreign inquisitors appointed by the Pope – A council of the church assembles at London to pass sentence upon them – The curious evidence adduced as to the mode of admission into the order, and of the customs and observances of the fraternity.

 
En cel an qu’ai dist or endroit,
Et ne sait a tort ou a droit,
Furent li Templiers, sans doutance,
Tous pris par le royaume de France.
Au mois d’Octobre, au point du jor,
Et un vendredi fu le jor.
 

Chron. MS.

James de

Molay.

A. D. 1297.

A. D. 1302.

It now only remains for us to describe the miserable fate of the surviving brethren of the order of the Temple, and to tell of the ingratitude they encountered from their fellow Christians in the West. Shortly after the fall of Acre, a general chapter of the fraternity was called together, and James de Molay, the Preceptor of England, was chosen Grand Master.³²¹ He attempted once more (A. D. 1302) to plant the banners of the Temple upon the sacred soil of Palestine, but was defeated by the sultan of Egypt with the loss of a hundred and twenty of his brethren.³²² This disastrous expedition was speedily followed by the downfall of the fraternity. Many circumstances contributed to this memorable event.

With the loss of all the christian territory in Palestine had expired in Christendom every serious hope and expectation of recovering and retaining the Holy City. The services of the Templars were consequently no longer required, and men began to regard with an eye of envy and of covetousness their vast wealth and immense possessions. The privileges conceded to the fraternity by the popes made the church their enemy. The great body of the clergy regarded with jealousy and indignation their exemption from the ordinary ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The bull omne datum optimum was considered a great inroad upon the rights of the church, and broke the union which had originally subsisted between the Templars and the ecclesiastics. Their exemption from tithe was a source of considerable loss to the parsons, and the privilege they possessed of celebrating divine service during interdict brought abundance of offerings and alms to the priests and chaplains of the order, which the clergy looked upon as so many robberies committed upon themselves. Disputes arose between the fraternity and the bishops and priests, and the hostility of the latter to the order was manifested in repeated acts of injustice, which drew forth many severe bulls and indignant animadversions from the Roman pontiffs. Pope Alexander, in a bull fulminated against the clergy, tells them that if they would carefully reflect upon the contests which his beloved sons, the brethren of the chivalry of the Temple, continually maintained in Palestine for the defence of Christianity, and their kindness to the poor, they would not only cease from annoying and injuring them, but would strictly restrain others from so doing. He expresses himself to be grieved and astonished to hear that many ecclesiastics had vexed them with grievous injuries, had treated his apostolic letters with contempt, and had refused to read them in their churches; that they had subtracted the customary alms and oblations from the fraternity, and had admitted aggressors against the property of the brethren to their familiar friendship, insufferably endeavouring to press down and discourage those whom they ought assiduously to uphold. From other bulls it appears that the clergy interfered with the right enjoyed by the fraternity of collecting alms; that they refused to bury the brethren of the order when deceased without being paid for it, and arrogantly claimed a right to be entertained with sumptuous hospitality in the houses of the Temple. For these delinquencies, the bishops, archdeacons, priests, and the whole body of the clergy, are threatened with severe measures by the Roman pontiff.³²³

The Templars, moreover, towards the close of their career, became unpopular with the European sovereigns and their nobles. The revenues of the former were somewhat diminished through the immunities conceded to the Templars by their predecessors, and the paternal estates of the latter had been diminished by the grant of many thousand manors, lordships, and fair estates to the order by their pious and enthusiastic ancestors. Considerable dislike also began to be manifested to the annual transmission of large sums of money, the revenues of the order, from the European states to be expended in a distant warfare in which Christendom now took comparatively no interest. Shortly after the fall of Acre, and the total loss of Palestine, Edward the First, king of England, seized and sequestered to his own use the monies which had been accumulated by the Templars, to forward to their brethren in Cyprus, alleging that the property of the order of the Temple had been granted to it by the kings of England, his predecessors, and their subjects, for the defence of the Holy Land, and that since the loss thereof, no better use could be made of the money than by appropriating it to the maintenance of the poor. At the earnest request of the pope, however, the king afterwards permitted their revenues to be transmitted to them in the island of Cyprus in the usual manner.³²⁴ King Edward had previously manifested a strong desire to lay hands on the property of the Templars. On his return from his victorious campaign in Wales, finding himself unable to disburse the arrears of pay due to his soldiers, he went with Sir Robert Waleran and some armed followers to the Temple, and calling for the treasurer, he pretended that he wanted to see his mother’s jewels, which were there kept. Having been admitted into the house, he deliberately broke open the coffers of the Templars, and carried away ten thousand pounds with him to Windsor Castle.³²⁵ His son, Edward the Second, on his accession to the throne, committed a similar act of injustice. He went with his favourite, Piers Gavaston, to the Temple, and took away with him fifty thousand pounds of silver, with a quantity of gold, jewels, and precious stones, belonging to the bishop of Chester.³²⁶ The impunity with which these acts of violence were committed, manifests that the Templars then no longer enjoyed the power and respect which they possessed in ancient times.

As the enthusiasm, too, in favour of the holy war diminished, large numbers of the Templars remained at home in their western preceptories, and took an active part in the politics of Europe. They interfered in the quarrels of christian princes, and even drew their swords against their fellow-Christians. Thus we find the members of the order taking part in the war between the houses of Anjou and Aragon, and aiding the king of England in his warfare against the king of Scotland. In the battle of Falkirk, fought on the 22nd of July, A. D. 1298, seven years after the fall of Acre, perished both the Master of the Temple at London, and his vicegerent the Preceptor of Scotland.³²⁷ All these circumstances, together with the loss of the Holy Land, and the extinction of the enthusiasm of the crusades, diminished the popularity of the Templars in Europe.

At the period of the fall of Acre, Philip the Fair, son of St. Louis, occupied the throne of France. He was a needy and avaricious monarch,³²⁸ and had at different periods resorted to the most violent expedients to replenish his exhausted exchequer. On the death of Pope Benedict XI., (A. D. 1304,) he succeeded, through the intrigues of the French Cardinal Dupré, in raising the archbishop of Bourdeaux, a creature of his own, to the pontifical chair. The new pope removed the Holy See from Rome to France; he summoned all the cardinals to Lyons, and was there consecrated, (A. D. 1305,) by the name of Clement V., in the presence of king Philip and his nobles. Of the ten new cardinals then created nine were Frenchmen, and in all his acts the new pope manifested himself the obedient slave of the French monarch. The character of this pontiff has been painted by the Romish ecclesiastical historians in the darkest colours: they represent him as wedded to pleasure, eaten up with ambition, and greedy for money; they accuse him of indulging in a criminal intrigue with the beautiful countess of Perigord, and of trafficking in holy things.³²⁹

A. D. 1306.

On the 6th of June, A. D. 1306, a few months after his coronation, this new French pontiff addressed letters from Bourdeaux to the Grand Masters of the Temple and Hospital, expressing his earnest desire to consult them with regard to the measures necessary to be taken for the recovery of the Holy Land. He tells them that they are the persons best qualified to give advice upon the subject, and to conduct and manage the enterprize, both from their great military experience and the interest they had in the success of the expedition. “We order you,” says he, “to come hither without delay, with as much secrecy as possible, and with a very little retinue, since you will find on this side the sea a sufficient number of your knights to attend upon you.”³³⁰ The Grand Master of the Hospital declined obeying this summons; but the Grand Master of the Temple forthwith accepted it, and unhesitatingly placed himself in the power of the pope and the king of France. A. D. 1307. He landed in France, attended by sixty of his knights, at the commencement of the year 1307, and deposited the treasure of the order which he had brought with him from Cyprus, in the Temple at Paris. He was received with distinction by the king, and then took his departure for Poictiers to have an interview with the pope. He was there detained with various conferences and negotiations relative to a pretended expedition for the recovery of the Holy Land.

Among other things, the pope proposed an union between the Templars and Hospitallers, and the Grand Master handed in his objections to the proposition. He says, that after the fall of Acre, the people of Italy and of other christian nations clamoured loudly against Pope Nicholas, for having afforded no succour to the besieged, and that he, by way of screening himself, had laid all the blame of the loss of the place on pretended dissensions between the Templars and Hospitallers, and projected an union between them. The Grand Master declares that there had been no dissensions between the orders prejudicial to the christian cause; that there was nothing more than a spirit of rivalry and emulation, the destruction of which would be highly injurious to the Christians, and advantageous to the Saracens; for if the Hospitallers at any time performed a brilliant feat of arms against the infidels, the Templars would never rest quiet until they had done the same or better, and e converso. So also if the Templars made a great shipment of brethren, horses, and other beasts across sea to Palestine, the Hospitallers would always do the like or more. He at the same time positively declares, that a member of one order had never been known to raise his hand against a member of the other.³³¹ The Grand Master complains that the reverence and respect of the christian nations for both orders had undeservedly diminished, that everything was changed, and that most persons were then more ready to take from them than to give to them, and that many powerful men, both clergy and laity, brought continual mischiefs upon the fraternities.

In the mean time, the secret agents of the French king industriously circulated various dark rumours and odious reports concerning the Templars, and it was said that they would never have lost the Holy Land if they had been good Christians. These rumours and accusations were soon put into a tangible shape.

According to some writers, Squin de Florian, a citizen of Bezieres, who had been condemned to death or perpetual imprisonment in one of the royal castles for his iniquities, was brought before Philip, and received a free pardon, and was well rewarded in return, for an accusation on oath, charging the Templars with heresy, and with the commission of the most horrible crimes. According to others, Nosso de Florentin, an apostate Templar, who had been condemned by the Grand Preceptor and chapter of France to perpetual imprisonment for impiety and crime, made in his dungeon a voluntary confession of the sins and abominations charged against the order.³³² Be this as it may, upon the strength of an information sworn to by a condemned criminal, king Philip, on the 14th of September, despatched secret orders to all the baillis of the different provinces in France, couched in the following extravagant and absurd terms:

“Philip, by the grace of God king of the French, to his beloved and faithful knights … &c. &c.

“A deplorable and most lamentable matter, full of bitterness and grief, a monstrous business, a thing that one cannot think on without affright, cannot hear without horror, transgressions unheard of, enormities and atrocities contrary to every sentiment of humanity, &c. &c., have reached our ears.” After a long and most extraordinary tirade of this kind, Philip accuses the Templars of insulting Jesus Christ, and making him suffer more in those days than he had suffered formerly upon the cross; of renouncing the christian religion; of mocking the sacred image of the Saviour; of sacrificing to idols; and of abandoning themselves to impure practices and unnatural crimes. He characterises them as ravishing wolves in sheep’s clothing; a perfidious, ungrateful, idolatrous society, whose words and deeds were enough to pollute the earth and infect the air; to dry up the sources of the celestial dews, and to put the whole church of Christ into confusion.

“We being charged,” says he, “with the maintenance of the faith; after having conferred with the pope, the prelates, and the barons of the kingdom, at the instance of the inquisitor, from the informations already laid, from violent suspicions, from probable conjectures, from legitimate presumptions, conceived against the enemies of heaven and earth; and because the matter is important, and it is expedient to prove the just like gold in the furnace by a rigorous examination, have decreed that the members of the order who are our subjects shall be arrested and detained to be judged by the church, and that all their real and personal property shall be seized into our hands, and be faithfully preserved,” &c. To these orders are attached instructions requiring the baillis and seneschals accurately to inform themselves, with great secrecy, and without exciting suspicion, of the number of the houses of the Temple within their respective jurisdictions; they are then to provide an armed force sufficient to overcome all resistance, and on the 13th of October are to surprise the Templars in their preceptories, and make them prisoners. The inquisition is then directed to assemble to examine the guilty, and to employ torture if it be necessary. “Before proceeding with the inquiry,” says Philip, “you are to inform them (the Templars) that the pope and ourselves have been convinced, by irreproachable testimony, of the errors and abominations which accompany their vows and profession; you are to promise them pardon and favour if they confess the truth, but if not, you are to acquaint them that they will be condemned to death.”³³³