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The trial and dissolution of the Knights Templar in 1307–1312 was one of the most dramatic episodes of the medieval Church. The suppression of the Order was carried out by King Philip IV of France with the eventual acquiescence of Pope Clement V, and it was motivated by a complex mixture of political, financial, and religious factors. The trial of the Templars was marked by brutal torture and extracted confessions of outrageous offenses, and the dissolution of the Order was a major event in the history of the medieval Church. The trial and dissolution of the Templars have been a subject of historical and literary interest for centuries, and they have been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories and mythologies in the modern era.
The standard English-language treatment is Malcolm Barber, “The Trial of the Templars” (Cambridge, 1978). The Processus contra Templarios (the published trial records) is the primary source. The bull Vox in excelso of Clement V (1312), suppressed at the Council of Vienne, is the dissolution document.
The Background to the Trial
The background to the trial of the Templars is rooted in the complex political and financial situation of France in the early fourteenth century. King Philip IV of France — known as Philip the Fair — was a powerful and ambitious ruler who sought to extend the authority of the French crown over the Church and the aristocracy. Philip was in financial difficulties, and he had accumulated significant debts to the Templars and to the Italian bankers of Florence and Lombardy. Philip was also in conflict with Pope Boniface VIII over the taxation of the clergy and the jurisdiction of the papal court in France, and he saw the suppression of the Templars as a way of weakening the papacy and strengthening the crown.
The Templars were particularly vulnerable to Philip’s attack in the early fourteenth century. The Order had lost its military purpose with the fall of Acre in 1291 and the end of the Crusader States in the Holy Land, and it was vulnerable to accusations of corruption and decadence. The Order was also deeply in debt to Philip, and the Templars’ wealth was a tempting target for the financially pressed king. The Templars were also perceived as a threat to the royal authority in France, and Philip saw the suppression of the Order as a way of consolidating his power and eliminating a potential rival.
The Arrests of 1307
The arrests of the Templars took place on Friday, October 13, 1307, when Philip IV ordered the simultaneous arrest of all Templars in France and the seizure of their property. The arrests were carried out with great secrecy and speed, and the Templars were taken completely by surprise. The arrested Templars were charged with a series of outrageous offenses — heresy, blasphemy, sodomy, and the worship of a demon called Baphomet — and they were subjected to brutal torture to extract confessions.
The accusations against the Templars were outrageous and unsubstantiated, and they were likely fabricated by the royal authorities to justify the suppression of the Order. The accusations included claims that the Templars worshipped a demon called Baphomet, that they kissed the rear of the Grand Master at their receptions, that they denied Christ and spat on the cross at their initiations, and that they practiced sodomy as a ritual practice. The accusations were clearly fabricated, and they were designed to discredit the Order and to justify its suppression.
The Confessions Under Torture
The arrested Templars were subjected to brutal torture to extract confessions of the offenses with which they were charged. The tortures included the rack, the strappado (suspending the prisoner by the wrists with the arms tied behind the back), the boots (crushing the feet with wedges), and various other forms of physical torture. Many of the Templars confessed to the offenses under torture, and their confessions were used to justify the suppression of the Order.
The confessions extracted under torture were later retracted by many of the Templars who survived the torture and who were eventually brought to trial in regular canonical proceedings. The retractions of the confessions were a major source of embarrassment to the papal authorities, and they contributed to the papal reluctance to proceed with the suppression of the Order. The retractions also contributed to the later rehabilitation of the Templars in some quarters, and they have been a major argument in the modern defense of the Order.
The Papal Response
The papal response to the arrests of the Templars was initially reluctant. Pope Clement V, who was based at Avignon and who was under pressure from Philip, initially resisted the suppression of the Order. Clement suspended the proceedings against the Templars in November 1307, and he called for a church council to consider the matter. The council was eventually convened at Vienne in southern France in 1311–1312, and it debated the matter for several months before reaching a decision.
The Council of Vienne eventually decided to suppress the Order, but it did so without explicitly condemning the Templars as heretics. The papal bull Vox in Excelso, issued in March 1312, formally suppressed the Order and transferred its property to the Knights Hospitaller. The bull asserted that the Order was suppressed not because of the guilt of its members but because of the scandal that the Order had become and the need to protect the honor of the Church. The bull thus preserved a certain ambiguity about the Templars’ guilt or innocence, and it has been a subject of historical debate ever since.
The Fate of the Last Grand Master
The last Grand Master of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, was arrested in 1307 and subjected to torture by the French authorities. De Molay initially confessed to the charges against him, but he later retracted his confession and defended the Order. De Molay was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1314, but the French authorities feared that his continued defense of the Order would encourage resistance to the suppression, and they ordered that he be burned at the stake as a relapsed heretic. De Molay was burned at the stake on March 18, 1314, on a small island in the Seine River in Paris (the Île de la Cité).
According to legend, de Molay summoned Philip and Clement to appear before the tribunal of God within the year. Clement died in April 1314, and Philip died in November 1314, a coincidence that contributed to the mythology of the Templars. The coincidence was widely interpreted as a divine judgment on Philip and Clement for their treatment of the Templars, and it became a major theme of the subsequent literary and legendary tradition about the Templars.
The Aftermath of the Suppression
The aftermath of the suppression of the Templars was significant. The property of the Order was transferred to the Knights Hospitaller, and the Templars who survived the persecution were required to join the Hospitallers or to enter monastic life. The property of the Order in France was eventually seized by the French crown, and the Templars’ banking operations were liquidated. The Hospitallers inherited the military tradition of the Templars in the Holy Land, but the Crusader States were already lost, and the Hospitallers eventually moved to Cyprus and then to Rhodes and Malta.
The suppression of the Templars was a major event in the history of the medieval Church and in the history of the medieval state. The suppression demonstrated the power of the royal state to suppress even the most powerful ecclesiastical institutions, and it set a precedent for the later conflicts between Church and state in the early modern period. The suppression also contributed to the decline of the Crusading ideal in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and it was a major factor in the decline of the papal monarchy in the late medieval period.
The Legacy of the Trial
The trial and dissolution of the Templars has been a subject of enduring historical and literary interest. The trial has been the subject of numerous historical studies that have explored the political, financial, and religious motivations of the suppression and the legal and procedural issues of the trial. The trial has also been the subject of numerous literary and popular treatments that have romanticized the Templars as martyrs of the faith and victims of royal tyranny.
The mythology of the Templars is a major subject of modern interest, and it has produced a vast literature of novels, films, and documentaries that explore the mysteries and the legends of the Order. The mythology includes claims about hidden treasure, secret rituals, the survival of the Order in various forms, and connections to various mystical and esoteric traditions. Most of the mythological claims have little historical basis, but they testify to the enduring fascination that the Templars continue to exercise on the modern imagination.
The trial and dissolution of the Templars is a major subject of modern historical and theological study, and it remains a subject of ongoing debate in the modern era. The trial is a cautionary tale about the dangers of torture, the limits of due process, and the tensions between Church and state in the medieval world. The trial is also a subject of ongoing historical inquiry that continues to illuminate the complex relations between religion, politics, and finance in the medieval world.
Sources
Principal sources used in this article:
- Malcolm Barber, The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple (Cambridge, 1994).
Further reading:
- Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant (Palgrave, 2012).
For a recent single-volume synthesis with full scholarly apparatus, see the relevant chapter of Barbara H. Rosenwein, A Short History of the Middle Ages (University of Toronto Press, 2014).