The Knights Templar on Trial E-Book

Helen J Nicholson

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 531

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

The trial of the Templars in the British Isles (1308-1311) is a largely unexplored area of history. Unlike the trial in France, where the Templars were tortured into confessing to unspeakable activities, in the British Isles there were no burnings and only three confessions after torture. Several Templars went missing, most of whom later reappeared. Outsiders told stories of abominable Templar rituals, secret meetings and murders at the dead of night, but all these tales turned out to be mere rumour. This book is based on extensive research into the records of the trial of the Templars and other unpublished medieval documents recording their arrest, imprisonment and trial, and the surveys of their property. It traces the course of this, the first heresy trial in the British Isles, from the arrests in January 1308 to the dissolution of the Order, and shows how, by judicious selection of material, the inquisitors made the scanty evidence against the Templars appear convincing. The book includes a list of all the Templars in the British Isles at the time of the arrests, and a gazetteer of the Templars' major properties in the British Isles.

Leseprobe

Contents

Title Page

Abbreviations

List of Illustations

Preface

Introduction

1 The Beginning of the Trial of the Templars

2 The Arrests in the British Isles

3 The Templars’ Lands in Royal Hands

4 The Interrogations in England

5 The Trial in Scotland: Mixed Reactions

6 The Trial in Ireland: ‘All the Templars are Guilty’

7 The End of the Trial in the British Isles

Conclusion The Council of Vienne and the End of the Templars

Appendix 1 Templar Brothers in the British Isles in 1308–1311

Appendix 2 Templar Properties in the British Isles that were Mentioned during the Trial

Further Reading

Copyright

Abbreviations

CCR

Calendar of the Close Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office

CDRI

Calendar of Documents relating to Ireland, preserved in Her Majesty’s Public Record Office

, ed. H.S. Sweetman

et al.

, 5 vols (London, 1875–86)

CPR

Calendar of the Patent Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office

Easson

D.E. Easson,

Medieval Religious Houses in Scotland, with an Appendix on the Houses in the Isle of Man

(London, 1957)

Gooder

Eileen Gooder,

Temple Balsall: the Warwickshire preceptory of the Templars and their fate

(Chichester, 1995)

G&H

Aubrey Gwynn and R.N. Hadcock,

Medieval Religious Houses in Ireland

(London, 1970)

IEP

Irish Exchequer Payments, 1270–1446

, ed. Philomena Connolly (Dublin, 1998)

K&H

David Knowles and R. Neville Hadcock,

Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales

, 2nd edn (Harlow, 1971)

Lees

Beatrice Lees,

Records of the Templars in England in the Twelfth Century: The Inquest of 1185 with illustrative Charters and Documents

(London, 1935)

L&K

The Knights Hospitallers in England: Being the Report of Prior Philip de Thame to the Grand Master Elyan de Villanova for

A.D.

1338

, ed. Lambert B. Larking, introduction by John Mitchell Kemble, Camden Society First Series, 65 (1867)

Lord

Evelyn Lord,

The Knights Templar in Britain

(London, 2002)

MacNiocaill

G. MacNiocaill, ‘Documents relating to the Suppression of the Templars in Ireland’, in

Analecta hibernica

, 24 (1967), pp. 183–226

MS A

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley MS 454

MS B

London, British Library, Cotton MS Julius B xii

MS C

Vatican, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, MS Armarium XXXV 147

MS D

London, British Library, Cotton MS Otho B iii collated to British Library, Additional Manuscripts MS 5444

ODNB

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

(Oxford, 2004; online edn, May 2005)

Pevsner

Nikolaus Pevsner, general ed.,

The Buildings of England

(Harmondsworth, 1951–)

Schottmüller

Der Untergang des Templerordens mit urkundlichen und kritischen Beiträgen

, ed. Konrad Schottmüller, 2 vols (Berlin, 1887, repr. Vaduz, Liechtenstein, 1991), vol. 2

TNA:PRO

The National Archives of the UK: Public Record Office, at Kew, London.

VCH

The Victoria History of the Counties of England

, ed. William Page,

et al

. (London, 1901–)

Wilkins

Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae

, ed. David Wilkins (London, 1737), vol. 2

Wood

Herbert Wood, ‘The Templars in Ireland’, in

Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy

, section C, 25 (1906–1907), pp. 363–75

List of Illustrations

Maps

1.  Locations in the British Isles mentioned in the text

2.  Locations in England and east Wales mentioned in the text

3.  Locations in London mentioned in the trial proceedings

4.  Locations in Dublin mentioned in the trial proceedings

Preface

This book is based on my new edition of the trial proceedings against the Templars in the British Isles, which has been produced with the assistance of a British Academy/ Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship in 2003–4, and will be published in two volumes.

I have included here two appendices based on unpublished medieval records. The first is a list of all the Templars who were in the British Isles at the time of the arrests at the beginning of 1308. It is based on the information in the manuscripts of the trial proceedings, the records which the royal sheriffs made of the arrests, the accounts kept by the custodians of the Templars’ lands, and information recorded in the bishops’ registers. The second, based on the same sources, lists all the Templars’ properties in the British Isles that were mentioned during the course of the trial proceedings, giving their location and explaining what happened to these properties after the Templars were dissolved: whether they passed to the Hospitallers, as the pope had ordered, or fell into other hands. Because many of these sources have not yet been published, much of this information will be completely new to most readers. I have included full references, so that readers may check the information here to the original documents. Unless otherwise stated in the notes, all translations from Latin and Old French are my own, and should not be used by other writers without acknowledgement.

I have incurred many debts in the research and writing of this study. My greatest debts are to the staff of the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the British Library, London; the Archivio Segreto Vaticano (Vatican Secret Archives); and The National Archives: Public Record Office, London, for their assistance during my research. I am grateful to the following for permission to use unpublished material: Archivio Segreto Vaticano for permission to cite my transcription of MS Armarium XXXV 147; the librarian of Trinity College, Dublin, for permission to cite: ‘The Memoranda Roll of the Irish Exchequer for 3 Edward II’, 2 vols, ed. David Victor Craig, unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Dublin, 1984, and Niav Gallagher, ‘The mendicant orders and the wars of Ireland, Scotland and Wales, 1230–1415’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Dublin, 2005; Seymour Phillips of University College, Dublin, for allowing me to see Martin Messinger’s unpublished M.Phil. thesis, ‘The Trial of the Knights Templar in Ireland’, University College Dublin, 1988; Maeve B. Callan for allowing me to use her unpublished Ph.D thesis, “‘No such art in this land”: Heresy and Witchcraft in Ireland, 1310–1360’, Northwestern University, Evanston IL (2002); Simon Phillips for allowing me to refer to his unpublished Ph.D thesis, ‘The Role of the Prior of St John in Late Medieval England, c. 1300–1540’, University College Winchester (2005) and Clive Porro for allowing me to cite his unpublished paper on the trial of the Templars in Portugal.

I am also very grateful to the following for their assistance (in alphabetical order): Richard Armitage, Malcolm Barber, Jochen Burgtorf, Richard Copsey O. Carm., Paul Crawford, Alain Demurger, Peter Edbury, Alan Forey, Robin Frame, Beth Hartland, Balázs Major, Elizabeth Matthew, Colmán Ó Clabaigh OSB, José María Pérez de las Heras, Denys Pringle, John Walker and Jack Wallace. Many others who have given assistance on specific points are mentioned in the notes at the appropriate place. I offer my heartfelt thanks to the staff of the museums, archives, libraries and other institutions which supplied many of the pictures for this book and/or gave permission for them to be used here; a full list can be found in the list of plates. In addition, I thank the individuals who have allowed me to use their photographs: Jochen Burgtorf, Paul Crawford, Gawain and Nigel Nicholson and Denys Pringle. Regretfully, recent changes at the publishing company led to a late change in contractual terms which has meant that I have not been able to use all the pictures I initially hoped to use. The maps were produced by Nigel Nicholson, based on my own sketches.

My thanks are due to everyone who has given support to my project on the trial of the Templars in the British Isles over the last eight years. In particular, I thank Nigel and Gawain for their patience in seeing this book to publication.

Introduction

The trial of the Templars in France (1307–12) is notorious for cruel tortures which forced confessions, and the burning at the stake of those Templars who retracted their confessions. The Templars’ trial in the British Isles was a much smaller-scale affair. There were only 144 Templars in the whole of the British Isles at the time of the arrests in early 1308, and rather fewer by July 1311 when the Order in Britain was dissolved. The confessions were unimpressive – only three Templars confessed to personal involvement in the most serious accusations: denial of Christ and spitting on the cross. No Templars were burned at the stake and there were no Templar curses. Several Templars went missing, most of whom later reappeared – two returned from Ireland, where they had been living openly and collecting government pensions alongside the Irish Templars. In 1311 the Templars were sent to monasteries to perform their penance and live on a small pension.

King Edward II of England (plate 1) was clearly unconvinced by the charges. Throughout the trial, he remained at a distance from proceedings. When the trial began in London in October 1309 he was in York, and he did not return to Westminster until the start of December, when the bulk of the initial investigations was complete. He left London again on 26 July 1310 and headed north for Scotland, which he reached in September, and remained in Scotland or on the Anglo-Scottish border until the beginning of August 1311, after the Templars in Britain had been disbanded.1

Past studies of the Templars’ trial in the British Isles have been brief; there have been no in-depth analyses as have been produced on the trial in France, Aragon or Cyprus.2 Yet the trial in the British Isles is as important in the Templars’ history as the more spectacular and tragic events elsewhere. The Templars’ testimonies from the British Isles show the distrust felt by the Templars in England towards Templars from France and the regional differences between those in different parts of England. The records also display the Scots’ suspicion of anyone of English origin, and the dislike held by the Anglo-Irish in Ireland towards anyone from ‘the other side of the sea’ – that is, the Irish Sea.

The Templars in the British Isles did not produce much scandalous material, but non-Templars did. While some of these tales may contain a germ of truth, the main message that they carry is that Templar houses in the British Isles were not closed to outsiders and Templars were familiar travellers on the roads, guests at banquets and hosts to their varied friends. This is important, as it shows that the accusations of Templar secrecy were baseless.

This trial also gives us the opportunity to read in bulk the (admittedly, edited) views of people in the early fourteenth century who were not members of the high aristocracy or of the clergy. In the course of the trial, around 935 Templars,3 most of them not of the knightly classes, were asked for details of their religious beliefs and their sex lives. While the Templars’ testimonies from France are of dubious value because they were given as a result of torture or under fear of torture, those from the British Isles were, for the most part, given freely and offer some evidence of what these men saw as important in their religious faith. Interestingly, when questioned on their sex lives, the Templars in the British Isles all insisted that they avoided all sexual activity.

The trial in the British Isles also sheds valuable light on the value of the Templars’ depositions in France. The government and leading churchmen in the British Isles quickly realised the political necessity of co-operating with the papacy to obtain a conviction. The Templars were repeatedly interrogated in an attempt to get some definite evidence for the Church Council that the pope had summoned to Vienne, in what is now southern France, to decide the case. The official transcript of the trial states that every effort was made to encourage, threaten, persuade or bully them into confessing.4 The Templars had plenty of opportunity to explain themselves and to give a rational account for the charges against them, if there was a rational explanation – such as the so-called abuses in the admission ceremony being an obedience test, as some historians have suggested. Yet they did not. Until June 1311, when torture finally had some effect, the Templars in the British Isles refused to confess to any of the major charges. The obvious conclusion to draw is that there was no rational explanation for the charges against them, because the charges were false.

Finally, the trial of the Templars was the first large-scale heresy trial in the British Isles. Unlike other parts of western Europe, there had been very few charges of heresy in these islands in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Cathars who had come to England in the mid-twelfth century had been outlawed and perished in the winter cold; heretics who drew attention to themselves were arrested by the sheriff alongside other evildoers.5 The papal inquisitors who arrived in Britain in autumn 1309 found that the kingdoms of England and Scotland lacked the machinery required to investigate heresy. Generally in Catholic Christian Europe heresy was wholly a matter for the Church, and torture was routinely used to extract confessions from suspects. In England, the sheriff was responsible for the arrest and custody of suspected heretics, and torture was not used as a means of interrogation. The inquisitors sent by the pope to conduct the trial in the British Isles were shocked by these differences in procedure, and suspected a plot by the king and his cronies to foil their efforts. It was largely because they could not find anyone prepared to torture the Templars in the British Isles that they were unable to get any substantial evidence against them. Not until the end of June 1311, after torture had been used, did three brothers in England produce confessions which allowed the Provincial Church Council at London to conclude the case.

Evidence for the Trial of the Templars in the British Isles

A great deal of evidence survives for the trial of the Templars in the British Isles, but much of it has not yet been published.

There are four manuscripts recording the trial proceedings against them. Two give a full version of the testimonies. One of these two is now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (referred to in the notes to this book as MS A), while the other is a fragment in the British Library, London (MS B).6 The other two manuscripts are summaries, of which one survives in the Vatican Archives (MS C), while the other was copied into a set of fourteenth-century annals about the city of London (MS D).7 A summary of MS A was published by the Prussian historian David Wilkins in 1737,8 but he left out a great deal of valuable material. The two summaries were published in the late nineteenth century.9 I am currently completing a new, complete edition of all four manuscripts.10

The majority of studies on the trial of the Templars in the British Isles from the nineteenth century onwards have relied on David Wilkins’ summarised edition. Only the American scholar Clarence Perkins, writing in the first decade of the twentieth century, used all the original manuscripts for his study of the trial in the British Isles; and he never published his findings in full.11 As this book is based on the original manuscripts, even readers who are already familiar with the Templars’ trial in the British Isles will find plenty of information which is new to them.

In addition to the records of the trial proceedings, the English government produced many documents relating to the trial, now preserved in the United Kingdom’s National Archives at the Public Record Office in Kew, London. The correspondence between King Edward II and his officials regarding the Templars in individual counties, including the instructions to arrest the Templars, the sheriffs’ inventories of the Templars’ property at the time of the arrests, and royal grants of Templar lands to individuals, form a collection of small bundles of parchments of various size, filed with the exchequer records (E) under ‘142’ – ‘extents, investigations and valuations of lands forfeited to the Crown’. The royal keepers’ accounts for the Templars’ lands, as presented at the English exchequer at Easter and Michaelmas each year, are recorded in three large rolls of parchment, filed under E/358 – ‘miscellaneous exchequer documents’.12 Other government records for the years 1308–11 also contain a great deal of information about the Templars’ lands and their produce.13 Very little of this material has been published, although Eileen Gooder’s study of Temple Balsall indicates where some material can be found, while Evelyn Lord has produced a summary of the Templar records in the Public Record Office.14

The Hospitallers, who inherited most of the Templars’ lands in the British Isles, went to enormous lengths to recover all the former Templar property and rights. To help them in their struggle they kept detailed records. The cartulary (charter-collection) of the English Hospitallers is preserved in London in the British Library, MS Cotton Nero E vi.15

Many English episcopal registers from this period survive and have been published, although the register from the diocese of Lincoln has not.16 There are also a number of contemporary or near-contemporary chronicles that refer to the trial in the British Isles.17 The most useful of these, written by a contemporary of events, is in the continuation of the chronicle of Walter of Guisborough (formerly known as Walter of Hemingburgh). Walter stopped writing in 1305; this later section was possibly written by a monk at Durham.18

The material for Ireland is sparser than that for England. Many of the medieval records of the Anglo-Irish administration in Ireland were destroyed in 1922 in an explosion at the Four Courts building in Dublin. However, some of the contemporary or post-trial evidence relating to the Templars’ properties in Ireland had been published by Herbert Wood in 1906–7,19 and some material survived outside Ireland. In 1967 G. MacNiocaill published some records of Templars’ property in Ireland, which had been sent to King Edward II of England and are now in the Public Record Office at Kew.20 Some of the exchequer documents produced by the Anglo-Irish government in Dublin have survived and are now being published.21

The evidence for Scotland is even sparser than for Ireland: as the Anglo-Scottish war was in progress, no Scottish government records relating to the trial of the Templars survive, and neither apparently do any relevant bishops’ registers. The best guide to the Templars’ properties in 1308 is the Hospitallers’ rental of 1539–40, which includes many properties called ‘Temple lands’ but in some cases this may simply mean that they had ‘Temple rights’ of tenure and privileges of not paying certain dues.22 It is clear that, although sources for the Templars’ trial in the British Isles are abundant, much research remains to be done.

Notes

1The Itinerary of Edward II and his Household, 1307–1328, ed. Elizabeth Hallam, List and Index Society 211 (London, 1984), pp. 52–4, 62–76.

2  The most important are: Clarence Perkins, ‘The Trial of the Knights Templars in England’, English Historical Review, 24 (1909), pp. 432–47; Anne Gilmour-Bryson, ‘The London Templar Trial Testimony: “Truth”, Myth or Fable?’, in A World Explored: Essays in Honour of Laurie Gardiner, ed. Anne Gilmour-Bryson (Melbourne, Australia, 1993), pp. 44–61; Eileen Gooder, Temple Balsall: The Warwickshire Preceptory of the Templars and their Fate (Chichester, 1995; henceforth cited as ‘Gooder’), pp. 87–129; J.S. Hamilton, ‘Apocalypse Not: Edward II and the Suppression of the Templars’, Medieval Perspectives, 12 (1997), pp. 90–100; Evelyn Lord, The Knights Templar in Britain (Harlow, 2002; henceforth cited as ‘Lord’), pp. 191–203; Eileen Gooder, ‘South Witham and the Templars. The Documentary Evidence’, in Excavations at a Templar Preceptory: South Witham, Lincolnshire, 1965–67, ed. Philip Mayes (Leeds, 2002), pp. 80–95; Alan J. Forey, ‘Ex-Templars in England’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 53 (2002), pp. 18–37. For France, see: Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 2006); for Aragon, see: Alan Forey, The Fall of the Templars in the Crown of Aragon (Aldershot, 2001); for Cyprus, see: Anne Gilmour-Bryson, The Trial of the Templars in Cyprus: A Complete English Edition (Leiden, 1998).

3  Gilmour-Bryson, Trial of the Templars in Cyprus, p. 9.

4  Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 454 (henceforth cited as MS A), folio 170r (published in Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, ed. David Wilkins, vol. 2 (London, 1737), p. 393; henceforth cited as ‘Wilkins’); Clarence Perkins, ‘The Trial of the Knights Templars in England’, English Historical Review, 24 (1909), pp. 432–47: here p. 443.

5Heresies of the High Middle Ages: Selected Sources Translated and Annotated, ed. Walter L. Wakefield and Austin P. Evans (New York, 1991), pp. 245–7; see also Matthew Paris, Historia Anglorum, ed. Frederic Madden, Rolls Series 44, 3 vols (London, 1866–9), vol. 2, p. 194; Frederick Pollock and Frederic William Maitland, The History of English Law before the time of Edward I, 2nd edn, vol. 2 (Cambridge, 1923), pp. 547–9.

6  London, British Library Cotton MS Julius B xii.

7  Vatican, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, MS Armarium XXXV 147; London, British Library, Cotton MS Otho B iii. This last was virtually destroyed in the Cotton fire of 1731; a copy survives in the British Library, Additional Manuscripts MS 5444.

8  Wilkins, pp. 329–93.

9  MS C by Konrad Schottmüller, Der Untergang des Templerordens mit urkundlichen und kritischen Beiträgen, 2 vols (Berlin, 1887, repr. Vaduz, Liechtenstein, 1991), vol. 2 (henceforth cited as ‘Schottmüller’), pp. 78–102; MS D by William Stubbs, as Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, vol. 1: Annales Londonienses and Annales Paulini, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series 76 (London, 1882), pp. 180–98.

10The Trial of the Templars in the British Isles, 1308–1311, 2 vols (Aldershot, Hants., and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, forthcoming).

11  Perkins, ‘Trial of the Knights Templars in England’, based on his unpublished Ph.D. thesis, ‘The history of the Knights Templars in England’, Harvard University, 1908.

12  The National Archives: Public Record Office (TNA:PRO) E142/10–18 and 89–118, totalling 358 membranes; the keepers’ accounts are at TNA:PRO E358/18–20, totalling 130 rolls.

13  For example, TNA:PRO E368/78 and E368/79 are the lord treasurer’s remembrancer: memoranda rolls for Michaelmas 1307 to Trinity 1309. Some material from the government records was published in: Foedera, conventiones, literæ, et cujuscunque generis acta publica, inter reges Anglicæ, ed. Thomas Rymer (London, 1704–1717), revised by Robert Sanderson, Adam Clarke and Frederic Holbrooke, 4 vols in 7 (London, 1816–69), vol. 2, pt 1; some material has been summarised in: Calendar of the Close Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office, prepared under the Superintendence of the Deputy Keeper of the Records (henceforth cited as CCR) Edward II, AD 1307–1313 (London, 1892); Calendar of the Patent Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office, prepared under the Superintendence of the Deputy Keeper of the Records (henceforth cited as CPR) Edward II, AD 1307–1313 (London, 1894).

14  Gooder, pp. 147–50, 156–61; Lord, pp. 238–9. Material for some specific areas has been published, for example, P.M. Ryan, ‘Cressing Temple: its History from Documentary Sources’, in Cressing Temple: A Templar and Hospitaller Manor in Essex, ed. D.D. Andrews (Chelmsford, 1993), pp. 11–24; Victoria County History (henceforth cited as VCH), Leicester, ed. W. Page, W.G. Hoskins et al, vol. 2, pp. 32, 172–3; VCH, Cambridge and the Isle of Ely, ed. L.F. Salzman et al., vol. 10, p. 308. Selections have been published in, for example, ‘Original Documents Relating to the Knights Templars’, in The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Review, new series 3 (1857), pp. 273–80, 519–26; and ‘Inventory seized by the Sheriffs of London of Templars and their goods seized in the Temple Church and Temple, London’, in T.H. Baylis, The Temple Church and Chapel of St. Ann, etc., An Historical Record and Guide (London, 1893), pp. 131–46.

15  Michael Gervers has published the records relating to Essex: Michael Gervers, The Hospitaller Cartulary in the British Library (Cotton MS Nero E vi) (Toronto, 1981); The Cartulary of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in England. Secunda Camera: Essex, ed. Michael Gervers (Oxford, 1982), pp. 52–6, nos 83–5 (London, British Library, Cotton MS Nero E vi, fols 302v–304); The Cartulary of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in England, part 2. Prima Camera: Essex, ed. Michael Gervers (Oxford, 1996), pp. 39–42, no. 30 (Cotton MS Nero E vi, fols 105–106); see also Records of the Templars in England in the Twelfth Century: the Inquest of 1185 with Illustrative Charters and Documents, ed. Beatrice A. Lees (London, 1935; henceforth cited as ‘Lees’), pp. lxxxix, 171–2 (Cotton MS Nero E vi, fols 56v–57r).

16Calendar of the Register of John de Drokensford, Bishop of Bath and Wells (A.D. 1309–1329), ed. E. Hobhouse, Somerset Record Society, 1 (1887); Registrum Ricardi de Swinfield, episcopi Herefordensis, A.D. MCCLXXXIII–MCCCXVII, ed. W.W. Capes, Canterbury and York Society, 6 (London, 1909); Registrum Radulphi Baldock, Gilberti Segrave, Ricardi Newport et Stephani Gravesend, episcoporum Londoniensium, A.D. MCCCIV–MCCCXXXVIII, ed. R.C. Fowler, Canterbury and York Society, 7 (London, 1911); The Register of John de Halton, Bishop of Carlisle, A.D. 1292–1324, ed. W.N. Thompson, Canterbury and York Society, 12–13 (London, 1913); The Register of Walter Reynolds, Bishop of Worcester, 1308–1313, ed. R.A. Wilson, Dugdale Society, 9 (London, 1928); The Register of William Greenfield, Lord Archbishop of York, 1306–1315, ed. W. Brown and A.H. Thompson, Surtees Society, 145, 149, 151, 152, 153 (1931–40); Registrum Simonis de Gandavo diocesis Saresbiriensis, A.D. 1297–1315, ed. C.T. Flower and M.C.B. Dawes, Canterbury and York Society, 40–41 (Oxford, 1934); Registrum Henrici Woodlock, diocesis Wintoniensis AD 1305–1316, ed. Arthur Worthington Goodman, Canterbury and York Society, 43 (London, 1940); Registrum Roberti Winchelsey, Cantuariensis Archepiscopi, ed. Rose Graham, Canterbury and York Society, 51, 52 (Oxford, 1952–6); Records of Antony Bek, Bishop and Patriarch, 1283–1311, ed. C.M. Fraser, Surtees Society, 162 (1957); The Register of Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 1296–1321, ed. J.B. Hughes, Canterbury and York Society, 91, 97 (Woodbridge, 2001–7).

17The Chronicle of Walter of Guisborough, previously edited as the Chronicle of Walter of Hemingford or Hemingburgh, ed. H. Rothwell, Camden Society, 3rd series, 89 (London, 1957); Flores Historiarum, ed. Henry Richards Luard, Rolls Series 95 (London, 1890), vol. 3, pp. 143, 144–48 (Westminster manuscript); pp. 331–4 (Tintern manuscript); Vita Edwardi Secundi, re-edited text with new introduction, new historical notes, and revised translation based on that of N. Denholm-Young by Wendy R. Childs (Oxford, 2005), pp. 80–1; Continuatio Chronicarum Adæ Murimuth, ed. Edward Maunde Thompson, Rolls Series, 93 (London, 1889), pp. 13–17; Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke, ed. Edward Maunde Thompson (Oxford, 1889), pp. 5–6.

18  John Taylor, ‘Guisborough, Walter of (fl. c.1290–c.1305)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004; henceforth cited as ODNB), vol. 24, pp. 316–17.

19  Herbert Wood, ‘The Templars in Ireland’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, section C, 25 (1906–1907); henceforth cited as ‘Wood’, pp. 363–75.

20  G. MacNiocaill, ‘Documents relating to the Suppression of the Templars in Ireland’, Analecta hibernica, 24 (1967); henceforth cited as ‘MacNiocaill’, pp. 183–226.

21  ’The Memoranda Roll of the Irish Exchequer for 3 Edward II’, 2 vols, ed. David Victor Craig, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Dublin, 1984; Irish Exchequer Payments, 1270–1446, ed. Philomena Connolly (Dublin, 1998; henceforth cited as IEP); Maeve B. Callan, “‘No such art in this land”: Heresy and Witchcraft in Ireland, 1310–1360’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern University, Evanston IL (2002), p. 55 n. 133, cites Philomena Connolly’s forthcoming edition of the justiciary roll for 6–7 Edward II.

22The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in Scotland, ed. Ian B. Cowan, P.H.R. Mackay and Alan Macquarrie, Scottish History Society 4th series, 19 (Edinburgh, 1983), pp. 11, 12, 14, 17–20, 25–6, 28–31, 35.

1

The Beginning of the Trial of the Templars

The Order of the Temple was a religious-military institution originally founded by a group of warriors in Jerusalem in the decades following the First Crusade.1 The function of this group was approved both by the king of Jerusalem and by the patriarch (head of the Christian Church in the kingdom) at a Church Council at Nablūs in 1120. It was to protect Christian pilgrims on the roads to the pilgrimage sites around Jerusalem, while its members also helped to defend the territories that the crusaders had conquered. In January 1129, at a Church Council at Troyes in Champagne, in what is now north-eastern France, the Templars were given papal approval and acknowledgement as a formal religious Order, with an official uniform or ‘habit’, and a rule of life. As members of a religious Order, the members of the Order made three vows: to obey their superior officer, to avoid sexual activity and to have no personal property. They became known as ‘Templars’ after their headquarters in Jerusalem, which westerners believed had been King Solomon’s Temple but in fact was the Aqsa mosque, constructed from the seventh century AD onwards.2

Western European Christians gave the Templars extensive gifts of land and money and privileges (such as tax concessions and legal rights) to help them in their work of fighting on behalf of Christendom, and the members of the Order also traded and acted as government officials for the rulers of western Christendom. On the frontier between Christian and Muslim rulers in the Iberian Peninsula they conducted military operations, but elsewhere in Europe they lived a peaceful life, very similar to members of other religious orders. For nearly two centuries the Templars were an everyday sight; they farmed their lands, lodged travellers in their houses and looked after the valuables of merchants and rulers. Their estates in Europe were divided into provinces, each administered by a grand commander, while the individual houses in each province were grouped into commanderies, each under a commander (in Latin, a preceptor). Each province had an annual general meeting of commanders, known as a ‘chapter meeting’ – the traditional monastic term for house management meetings – at which their incomes were collected together to be forwarded to the East, business was discussed and problems resolved. The grand commanders were summoned less frequently to a general chapter meeting, which was generally held at the Order’s headquarters in the Levant.

But although in the Iberian Peninsula their military operations alongside the Christian kings of the Peninsula were largely successful, in the Middle East – where they were facing increasingly well-organised, militarily efficient opponents – it became clear by the second half of the thirteenth century that even the military skills of the Templars and their sister military orders the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights could not protect the crusader states forever. The Latin (Catholic) Christians finally lost control of Jerusalem in 1244, and the new capital of the kingdom, Acre, was conquered by al-Ashraf Khalīl, Mamluk sultan of Egypt, in May 1291. The Templars and the Hospitallers who survived the heroic final defence of Acre moved their headquarters to Cyprus and set about trying to organise a new crusade. They were still involved in fighting the Turks of Anatolia and the Mamluks in Syria, as well as the Muslim rulers of the kingdom of Granada in the south of the Iberian Peninsula. But various factors conspired to prevent their launching a new expedition to recover the territories in the Middle East.

Nearly two decades later, during the trial of the Templars in France, John Cenaudi, sergeant-brother and commander of Chalons-sur-Saône in the diocese of Clermont in the Auvergne, France, stated that he had taken part in a general chapter meeting which had taken place at Nicosia in Cyprus in the year which Acre fell, with 400 brothers present.3 As there were not as many as 400 brothers on Cyprus, this must have included brothers from overseas. The obvious reason for assembling such a large meeting would be planning for a new crusade. Shortly after this meeting, the newly-elected Templar grand master Jacques de Molay travelled to the West to see the leader of Catholic Christendom, Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), and discuss the possibilities for a new crusade. Encouraged by the pope’s support, he then went on to visit the kings of France (Philip IV) and England (Edward I). Edward I had begun his reign when he was on crusade to the East in 1271–2; Philip IV came from a long line of crusading kings. But as these two kings were currently at war against each other in Aquitaine they were not able to promise any military aid.

Jacques de Molay was in England between late 1293 and early summer 1294, where he presided over a provincial chapter meeting. He then moved on to the kingdom of Aragon, which he reached by the end of August 1294. He eventually returned to the East with promises and privileges, but no actual military aid.4

The Templars were still active in military affairs in the East, but on a small scale. At the start of the fourteenth century they maintained a garrison on the island of Arwad, called Ruad by the Franks, which is just off the coastal city of Tortosa (plate 7). But the island is too small to be defensible, and in October 1302 the naval forces of the Mamluk sultan of Egypt sacked the island and took the Templars there prisoner or killed them.5 The scandal of this defeat clearly had a serious impact on the Order, as the grand commander of Ireland, Henry Danet, referred to it during the trial of the Templars in Ireland.6

Although no new crusade materialised, Jacques de Molay continued his planning. The Templars’ operations continued as usual, with the grand commanders of the Order’s provinces in western Europe being summoned to consult with the grand master and convent, while the official known as ‘the visitor’ travelled around the western provinces checking that high standards of discipline were being maintained. According to Brother William Middleton – one of the two Templars in Scotland in 1308 – Brother Hugh Peraud, the visitor, came to England when Brother William de la More, the grand commander of England, was out of the country meeting the grand master Jacques de Molay. Hugh Peraud removed some commanders from their posts and substituted others. This would have been in 1304.7 As well as reorganising the management of the Order in England, Hugh Peraud apparently collected money in large quantities. During the trial of the Templars in Ireland, Brother Ralph of Bradley was asked about the duties of the visitor. He replied: ‘that he has never seen the visitor, but he has heard tell from a great many brothers that he sells grain and timber and having accumulated money he transports it to overseas parts; and he does nothing else, as far as he has heard.’8

Pope Boniface VIII died in October 1303 after a serious dispute with King Philip IV of France, which saw the pope arrested by King Philip’s leading minister Guillaume de Nogaret and members of the Colonna family, the pope’s political enemies. The next pope, Benedict XI, died within a year. His successor was selected because he was acceptable both to the king of France and to his opponents. Bertrand de Got, who took the name Clement V, had been born in France; but he was not a direct subject of the king of France because he was from Gascony, which was the king of England’s hereditary fief. Clement V was crowned pope at Lyon in what is now southern France on 14 November 1305. Preferring to avoid the factional disputes in Rome, Clement never went to the traditional papal home, but remained within what is now France.9

King Edward I of England died on 7 July 1307. Renowned across Europe for his military skills and courage and a patron of chivalry, he had long been a friend of the military religious Orders of the Temple and the Hospital. While he lived, the Templars could hope that he would sponsor a new crusade to the east; but Edward died en route to another military expedition to Scotland, with his latest crusading vow unfulfilled. King Philip IV of France might talk of crusades, but he had no money to launch one. Clearly no other European monarch was about to embark on such an enterprise.

The Beginning of the Trial of the Templars

Instead, by the summer of 1307, some monarchs of western Europe had decided that the Templars’ property could be put to better use. Clive Porro has recently shown that on 18 August 1307 King Dinis of Portugal initiated legal proceedings against the Templars in his kingdom. He claimed from them certain lands which had been given to them by his ancestors, but (he said) the lands had been granted only temporarily because the Templars were in the king’s service. Now he wanted those lands back.10 In France, King Philip IV took far more drastic measures. On 13 October 1307 all the Templars within the kingdom of France were arrested on charges of heresy, and their property confiscated. The Templars were imprisoned and interrogated. They were told that witnesses had already told the pope and king about the heretical practices at the Templars’ reception ceremonies, and that unless they confessed they would be killed. Philip’s instructions to his officials were that torture should be used if necessary to obtain confessions.11 If the Templars were found guilty of heresy, then the king could legally keep their property.

Philip needed money. His financial problems had already led to riots – notably in Paris in 1306, where the king himself had had to hide from the rioters in the Templars’ tower (plate 9). But he could not simply take the money he needed from his subjects, because he had to abide by the law and precedent. The machinery of the heresy trial offered him a means of bypassing the law. He could show his subjects that he was an effective Christian ruler while at the same time resolving his financial problems.12

The success of the king’s plan relied on the use of torture to extract confessions. Since 1252 the papacy had allowed torture to be used in the interrogation of heretics in order to obtain confessions, and it had become normal procedure when suspects refused to confess.13 The most common form of torture used at this time was the strappado: the accused’s hands were tied behind his or her back and attached to a rope which was thrown over a beam; the accused was hauled into the air and allowed to hang there, then lowered to the ground, then hauled into the air again. The rack was also used: this was a triangular frame on which the accused was tied, the ropes holding the accused were attached to a windlass, the windlass was turned and the ropes tightened until the accused’s joints were dislocated. Lesser tortures included tying the accused’s hands tightly to cut off the circulation of the blood, preventing the accused from sleeping, or simply starving the accused by keeping him or her on a diet of bread and water for several weeks.14

There were strict rules about the use of torture: it should not cause death or permanent injury, a medical expert should be present, and a notary had to keep a record of what was done.15 Yet the Templars of France claimed that these procedures were not always followed during the trial of their Order. When the papal investigation into the Templars’ affair in France got under way in 1309, the papal commissioners heard many cases of the misuse of torture. Bernard of Vado, a priest from Albi, told the papal commissioners that his feet had been rubbed with fat and then held in front of a fire, so that the skin of his toes burned, and a few days later two bones fell out of his feet.16 John of Cormeilles, serving-brother, had lost four teeth through being tortured during his interrogation at Paris.17 Other Templars had not suffered permanent physical injury, but had lied because of the torture.18

Against this background of torture and intimidation it is not surprising that out of 138 Templar testimonies which survive from the interrogations in Paris in October–November 1307, only four Templars did not immediately confess to the charges. Of ninety-four Templar testimonies which survive from other provinces of France in this period, the majority confessed to the charges.19 However, a contemporary writer pointed out that thirty-six Templars in the Parisian house alone had died under torture rather than confess to the charges.20 Apparently, the interrogators in France did not always record the testimonies of those who refused to confess.

King Philip IV had been successful in obtaining confessions, but he had stepped outside his own jurisdiction. The prosecution of heresy was not the responsibility of a secular ruler but a spiritual matter, and so the business of the Church. In August 1307, Pope Clement V had written to the king that when he first became pope in November 1305 he had heard rumours about heresy within the Order of the Temple, which he had been inclined to dismiss; but he had at last decided to launch an investigation. Now Clement was furious that Philip had gone ahead with his own enquiry without his authority or permission. However, the Templars in France had confessed to the charges of heresy, and even though those confessions had been obtained by force they could not simply be set aside. Again, as Clement was then staying near Poitiers, within the kingdom of France, his freedom to act against the French king was limited. Accepting Philip’s actions as a fait accompli, on 22 November 1307 he sent out letters to the kings of Catholic Christendom, telling them to arrest and interrogate the Templars.21

King Edward II of England had already told his father-in-law-to-be what he thought about the charges against the Templars. Philip had sent Bernard Pelet, one of the original denouncers of the Templars, to England with details of the appalling heresies of which the Templars were accused. But Edward had replied that he was not prepared to believe the accusations, for the Templars had always faithfully served his ancestors and protected the Holy Land.22 On 4 December 1307 he wrote on the same lines to the pope, to his allies King James II of Aragon and King Dinis of Portugal, and to his relatives, King Ferdinand of Castile and King Charles II of Naples.23 Yet Edward did undertake to investigate the affair, and on 16 November 1307 he wrote to William de Dene, royal seneschal in Agen (the general area where the charges had originated), instructing him to come to Boulogne at Christmas to brief him about the Templars’ case.24

In the long run Edward could not oppose the pope’s commands, because in England his position was unstable. He owed vast sums of money, debts left to him from the wars of his father, King Edward I;25 he was unpopular with his nobles, who despised his friendship with Piers Gaveston, a knight from Gascony,26 and who believed that the gifts, favour and influence the young king gave to his friend would be better given to themselves; he was losing the war in Scotland against Robert Bruce, whom the pope had excommunicated, and he wanted to retain papal support on that front; and also he was due to marry King Philip IV of France’s daughter Isabelle, a ceremony which took place at Boulogne in what is now northern France on 25 January 1308.27

King James II of Aragon and Albert of Habsburg, emperor-elect of Germany and Italy, were also sceptical,28 but like Edward II they could not withstand events. But while these rulers set about organising the arrest of the Templars within their realms, Pope Clement Vdemanded that the French trial be put into the hands of the Church. Jacques de Molay and the other high dignitaries of the Templars in France then withdrew their confessions, claiming that they had confessed only out of fear of being tortured. In February 1308 Clement V called a halt to the trial.29

As he had done against Pope Boniface VIII, King Philip IV attempted to muster the support of the French Church and people behind him, attacking the pope’s reputation and arguing that it had been his duty as a good Christian monarch to arrest the Templars. In early May 1308, Philip called representatives of the ‘three estates’ of his kingdom – the clergy, nobles and townspeople – to a meeting at Tours. Representatives went with the king to the pope at Poitiers to urge him to continue the trial.30

In June 1308 Clement V decided to hear the Templars’ testimonies for himself. Seventy-two Templars were sent to Poitiers by King Philip IV, and the pope listened as they repeated the confessions that they had made to the king’s interrogators.31 After further discussion with King Philip, Clement agreed that the investigations against the Templars should continue, but that the bishops – who had always held primary responsibility for investigating heresy in their dioceses – should lead the investigations. Each bishop should be assisted by two canons (priests) of his cathedral church, two Dominican friars and two Franciscan friars.32

In August the pope sent three of his cardinals to Chinon to hear the confessions of the leading Templars then in France. The details of these confessions are now well known. A manuscript in the Vatican Archive containing a summary of them was published by Heinrich Finke in 1907, while in 2003 Barbara Frale published a more detailed record, known as ‘the Chinon Parchment’. A facsimile version of that manuscript was published in 2007 in commemoration of the 700th anniversary of the trial of the Order.33

The Confessions at Chinon: Testimonies, Torture and Truth

In August 1308 Pope Clement V sent out a series of papal bulls. One, which began with the words Regnans in coelis (reigning in Heaven), summoned a Church Council for 1 October 1310 to discuss the Templars’ case. This council was to meet atVienne, in the Rhône valley south of Lyon. A second bull, beginning Deus, ulcionum dominus (God, Lord of punishments), assigned the Templars’ properties to the care of the Church authorities. The revenues were to be kept for the Holy Land. In a third, which began with the words Faciens misericordiam (acting mercifully), Pope Clement explained that the leading officials of the Temple in France – the grand master, the visitor and the grand commanders of Outremer (the Holy Land), Normandy and Aquitaine – had confessed to the charges against them, recanted and been absolved. The date on the bull is 12 August, but as the interrogations described were not actually completed until 20 August, the true date was probably over a week later.34

The pope did not actually set out the details of these testimonies in Faciens misericordiam, but the records of the proceedings published by Finke and by Frale show that the confessions were not as complete as Faciens misericordiam implies. None of these leading Templars confessed to all of the charges against their Order, and they claimed that if they had committed any of the alleged errors during their admission into the Order, they had done so in words only, not from the heart. None of them expressed any support for the alleged errors. Two claimed that they had already confessed their actions and had been absolved and given penance.35 Apparently, the pope exaggerated the strength of the confessions to make the Templars appear to be worse heretics than these French brothers had admitted.

All the witnesses denied being threatened with torture and, when their confessions were read back to them, confirmed that they were correct. It was normal procedure in heretical investigations, when heretics confessed and abjured heresy, that they should state that their confession had been made freely and without coercion.36 This was because, under Romano-canon law, a confession made under torture was not enough on its own to secure a conviction.37 Some contemporaries of the trial of the Templars expressed doubts over the use of torture as a means of revealing the truth. In particular, the commentators who cast doubt on the confessions extracted during the trial of the Templars in the French king’s dominions emphasised the fact that those confessions had been extracted through torture.38 Professor Malcolm Barber has argued that in fact all the leading Templars mentioned in Faciens misericordiam had either been physically tortured or subjected to ‘other methods of a less crude kind to wear down any resistance’.39

But did the use of torture during the French interrogations really invalidate the French Templars’ confessions, or can torture do what its supporters claim: force the accused to tell the truth? Historians of the trial of the Templars do not agree. The majority of historians of the Templars and their trial – such as Malcolm Barber, Marian Melville, Norman Cohn, Peter Partner and Elena Bellomo – believe that confessions extracted under torture are not good legal evidence. But the eminent crusade historian Jonathan Riley-Smith has recently argued that the Templars were guilty as charged – while admitting ‘torture seems to have been applied quite often’ during the Templars’ trial – basing his argument almost entirely on evidence acquired under torture or the threat of torture. In his recent revised history of the Templars, the French historian Alain Demurger has offered a more nuanced discussion, concluding that the charges represented an ‘initiation test’ of new recruits, but not that the Templars were heretics. Similar arguments have been advanced by Arnaud de la Croix and Barbara Frale. But if the ‘confessions’ were not true, these theories collapse.40

As Pope Clement V in Faciens misericordiam specifically stated that the Templar trial was dealing with heresies,41 it would be reasonable to consider this trial in the context of other medieval heresy trials. John Arnold has argued that inquisitorial records from medieval heresy trials are a ‘discourse of power’, which cannot be regarded as objectively true; these records show the ‘truth’ which the inquisitors wished to impose on those under interrogation, not what those under interrogation actually believed.42 In this case, the testimonies from the Templar trial tell us what the inquisitors believed about them, not what the Templars themselves believed. Again, James Given, considering the work of the inquisitors in the Languedoc area of southern France, summed up the trial of the Templars in France as ‘the most famous example of the inquisitorial ability to bend truth to its needs … the medieval inquisitors had perfected techniques by which the very fabric of reality could be altered.’43 If the inquisitors were altering reality, the Templars’ testimonies from France tell us nothing about the real Order.

Another aspect of the problem which modern historians of the Templars’ trial could consider is the opinion of legal experts. Some argue that torture does sometimes gain useful information: ‘it is hard to believe that it is always and everywhere ineffectual: if it were, we would not have to spend so much time debating it.’44 According to this viewpoint, torture is justified in emergency situations. The counter-argument is that even if torture does produce information, it is impossible to know whether that information is reliable.45 In a judgement published on 9 December 2005, the UK Law Lords ruled that evidence obtained by torture is inadmissible in UK courts. They stated that the common law rejects the use of torture, due to ‘the inherent unreliability of the confessions or evidence so procured’.46 In April 2008, the British courts refused to allow the deportation of terrorist suspects to countries in which evidence against them may have been extracted by torture, as they could not then receive a fair trial.47

If torture produces inherently unreliable information, the French Templars’ recorded confessions cannot be relied on as a source of information about the internal life and organisation of the Templars in the early fourteenth century. These confessions contain much circumstantial detail which apparently offers additional insights into the Order,48 and some Templars held to their confessions even when the papal commissioners gave them the opportunity of retracting them. Yet modern scientific research has revealed that these are characteristics of false, as well as true, confessions.

In the UK, the Runciman Report of 1993 considered the problem of false confessions which had ‘led or contributed to serious miscarriages of justice’. The report referred to ‘four distinct categories of false confession’. These have been summarised as:

‘fantasy confessions’ made by people suffering from severe mental problems which prevent them from distinguishing fact from reality; what may be termed ‘diversionary confessions’ made in the attempt to protect someone else from interrogation and prosecution; ‘coerced-compliant confessions’ made by those who desperately want to escape the stress caused by police interviews; and ‘coerced-internalized confessions’ made by the highly suggestible who, though entirely innocent and sometimes even physically incapable of having done what is alleged, nevertheless [come to believe that they have committed the crime].49

It would be an interesting exercise to attempt to allocate the confessions made by the French Templars to each of these categories.

The Runciman Report referred to the scientific research of Gisli H. Gudjonsson, a clinical psychologist, who worked alongside the late Dr Jim MacKeith, forensic psychiatrist, on the cases of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six – ten individuals convicted through false, forced confessions whose convictions were eventually quashed. Considering the problem of false confessions, Gudjonsson set out to discover how it could come about that ‘suggestible innocent people may be led to believe that they are in fact guilty’, and showed that even in modern western democracies legal interrogations can produce false confessions. In fact, in a significant minority of confessions which were later found to be false, the confessor actually confessed to a crime which had not taken place.50 The fact that a great deal of circumstantial detail is included in the confession does not mean that it is more likely to be true. All the examples of false confessions discussed by Gudjonsson contained considerable circumstantial detail and were sufficient to lead to a conviction, yet turned out to be miscarriages of justice.51 Gudjonsson also noted that a ‘strong tendency to comply with people in authority, and language problems’ could ‘contribute in varying degrees’ to an accused’s ability to cope with interrogation.52 Both these factors would have affected the Templars’ ability to cope with interrogation, as they were trained to obey those in authority, while the charges against them and the record of their testimony were written in Latin, a language very few of them knew.53

Gudjonsson discussed how interrogators could quite unintentionally influence the responses given by those under interrogation. Simply by asking certain questions, interrogators shape the form of the response they expect from the accused.54 In the same way, the fact that the French Templar confessions form ‘a broad pattern’ or that ‘certain themes run through’ the confessions55 does not demonstrate that there was any truth to them, because the inquisitors worked together. From the 1240s, those involved in the investigation of heresy had kept registers of testimonies and compared notes with each other.56 During the trial of the Templars, the inquisitors in England obtained from their French colleagues evidence from French Templar confessions, which they presented to the English Templars in an attempt to make them confess to similar things.57 It is very likely that the inquisitors in France followed the same procedure, presenting Templars who were under interrogation in France with the confessions of their fellow-Templars and urging them to make similar confessions. The purpose of the interrogation was to obtain confirmation of the charges, rather than to obtain the truth; in effect, interrogators were directing those under interrogation to create a ‘guilty’ identity for themselves, even if that identity had little connection with actuality.58

A ‘devil’s advocate’ might suggest that the Templars who confessed in France and elsewhere had not necessarily been tortured, for many of the French Templars told the papal commissioners that they had not. Yet some of these later admitted that they had in fact been tortured,59 while at least one brother admitted that he had confessed at the simple threat of torture and without it actually having been applied.60 Moreover, the definition of torture was not always clear: a Templar who did not confess during torture or immediately after but only after three weeks in prison on bread and water was recorded as having confessed ‘of spontaneous free will without any force’.61

There were also other reasons why those who confessed as a result of torture might deny that torture had been the cause of their confession. As under Roman Law torture should normally be applied only to slaves and persons of low birth,62 it was deeply demeaning for free men and especially for knights to have to admit to having been tortured, still more to admit to having been forced under torture to give false testimony.63 As if in a desperate attempt to defend their self-esteem, some Templars told the papal commissioners at Poitiers that although they had confessed under torture, it was not the torture which had caused them to confess.64

All in all, because torture was permitted as a means of interrogation in the dominions of the king of France, no modern scholar can be confident that any Templar’s confession in those dominions was voluntary and accurate – even if he himself claimed that it was. Modern scholarly study of inquisitorial procedure in other medieval heresy trials, set alongside modern expert legal opinion and rigorous scientific psychological studies, indicate that the French Templars’ confessions do not prove their guilt. As these confessions formed the pope’s justification for ordering the trial of the Templars in the British Isles and throughout Europe, the whole basis of the trial was fundamentally flawed.

When they had confessed and abjured or ‘sworn off’ all heresy, the leading Templars in France were reconciled to the Church. They would then have been given penance to perform. The fact that the pope absolved the Templars does not mean that he thought that they were innocent of heresy, or that their sins were insignificant.65 In fact, absolution was normal procedure in heresy cases, but only after the accused had confessed, repented and sworn to abandon all heresy.66 A person accused of heresy who insisted on maintaining his or her innocence could not be absolved; the accused had to admit guilt before the Church could give absolution.

Faciens misericordiam shows that the pope regarded the Templars’ confessed crimes as extremely serious. The crimes, he said, were disgusting and shameful, orribilia et inhonesta. He said nothing to support the modern theory that the crimes were an initiation test. On the contrary, he stated that they were a terrible offence which had to be fully investigated and eradicated, and he gave instructions for investigations to proceed throughout the rest of Christendom. He specified which bishops were to be involved in the trial, which clergy he was sending to help them, and ordered that a Provincial Council should assess the evidence and either absolve or condemn the Templars. The inquisitores pravitatis heretice (investigators of heretical depravity) he sent to conduct the trial in England, Scotland, Ireland and Scandinavia were Dieudonné, abbot of Lagny in the diocese of Paris, and Sicard de Vaur, canon of Narbonne and papal chaplain. He also drew up a list of English clergy who should act as judges, and stated that he had appointed separate inquisitors to investigate the grand commander in England.67 But although the pope made these decisions in August 1308, his inquisitors did not arrive in England until September 1309.

The Charges Against the Templars in the British Isles

The interrogations in the British Isles were based on a short list of around eighty-eight charges against the Templars, which the pope devised for use in episcopal inquiries, and which was also used in Aragon and Castile. A longer list, comprising some 127 charges, was used in France by the papal commissioners, in the Papal States, in Brindisi and in Cyprus.68 The short list used in England contained the following charges:

1–4