between 1139 and 1145, by Innocent II, Celestine II, and Eugenius III, exempting them
from paying tithes and even from the effects of ordinary papal decrees. In spite of papal
recognition and a strong defense by Bernard of Clairvaux in his De laude novae militae
(ca. 1136), the privileges granted the Templars and their increasing wealth and influence
aroused the virulent opposition of such contemporary moralists as John of Salisbury,
William of Tyre, Walter Map, and Isaac of Stella.
As long as the crusading spirit was strong, attacks on the Templars were unsuccessful.
However, the fall of Jerusalem to the Muslims in 1187 signaled the beginning of the
decline of the order. As repeated crusades failed to recapture the city, crusading fervor
began to wane and support for the Templars and other military orders, whose primary
raison d’être was defense of the Holy Land, declined. After the fall of Acre in 1291,
many Templars hired themselves out as mercenaries to the highest bidders. The order
maintained a strong presence in France, centering their activities in Paris, where their
Temple became the depository of the royal treasury. Relations with King Philip IV the
Fair (r. 1285–1314) remained normal for some twenty years, although the king was
constantly debt-ridden and no doubt jealous of the Temple’s wealth. Sometime ca. 1306,
for reasons that have continued to evoke debate among historians, Philip determined to
bring them down. He blamed the Templars for the loss of the Holy Land, accused them of
heretical practices and obscene acts, notably in their highly secret initiation rites, and
persuaded Pope Clement V (r. 1305–14), who owed his election to Philip, to investigate
the entire order. Without waiting for papal adjudication, Philip ordered all the Templars
in France, about 2,000 of them, arrested on the same day, October 13, 1307, and their
property confiscated. After stirring up public opinion against them, Philip’s royal
ministers, nominally under the leadership of the inquisitor for France but actually acting
on royal orders, brought the Templars to trial. Using torture, they extracted confessions
from the leading Templars, including the grand master, the Burgundian Jacques de
Molay. Although Templars in all other countries were judged innocent of all charges and
the Council of Vienne (1311) voted overwhelmingly against suppression of the order, in
France and in all areas under French domination (Provence, Naples, and even the papal
states), they were found guilty as charged, and a vacillating and weak Clement V
dissolved the order by papal decree in 1312. Still not satisfied, Philip had Jacques de
Molay and other leading Templars burned at the stake on March 18, 1314. It was
popularly believed that Jacques repudiated his confession and summoned Philip and Pope
Clement to meet him within the year before the judgment seat of God. The Temple’s vast
holdings, being church property, were turned over to the Hospitalers, who in 1318 settled
Philip’s claims for compensation and expenses. The Templars’ archival records were lost
in their entirety, perhaps when the Ottoman Turks overran Cyprus in 1571. A disaster for
histo-rians, this has been a boon for students of the occult and conspiracy theorists.
Grover A.Zinn
[See also: BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX; CRUSADES; ISAAC OF STELLA; JOHN
OF SALISBURY; KNIGHTHOOD; NOGARET, GUILLAUME DE; PHILIP IV THE
FAIR]
Barber, Malcolm. The Trial of the Templars. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
——. The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994.
Delisle, Léopold. Mémoire sur les opérations financières des Templiers. Paris: Académie des
Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, 1889.
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1708