The Order of the Knights Templar are about to be exonerated, posthumously, of heresy. In a new book about to be published by the Vatican's secret archive, a record of the Templar's trial in front of Pope Clement and includes the judgment of the Pope that the knights were not guilty. The record had been misfiled and lost for many years.
A new book, Processus contra Templarios, will be published by the Vatican's Secret Archive on Oct 25, and promises to restore the reputation of the Templars, whose leaders were burned as heretics when the order was dissolved in 1314.
The Knights Templar were a powerful and secretive group of warrior monks during the Middle Ages. Their secrecy has given birth to endless legends, including one that they guard the Holy Grail.
Recently, they have been featured in films including The Da Vinci Code and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
The Order was founded by Hugues de Payns, a French knight, after the First Crusade of 1099 to protect pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem. Its headquarters was the captured Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount, which lent the Templars their name.
But when Jerusalem fell to Muslim rule in 1244, rumours surfaced that the knights were heretics who worshipped idols in a secret initiation ceremony.
In 1307, King Philip IV "the Fair" of France, in desperate need of funds, ordered the arrest and torture of all Templars. After confessing various sins their leader, Jacques de Molay, was burnt at the stake.
Pope Clement V then dissolved the order and issued arrest warrants for all remaining members. Ever since, the Templars have been thought of as heretics.
Most histories I have seen on this event pretty much concluded that the whole thing was a money grab by King Philip IV, who needed funds desperately and happened to owe a lot of money to the Templars. But it's nice that the truth is finally out about it, even if it doesn't do the victims any good after all these years.
I’ve been waiting for this for a long time!
Thanks, Gaius, for covering the most interesting news.
Yes thanks for the update.
There is agreement that the Templars fell victim to King Philip IV because he owed them money. They were the first to use “checks” instead of money.
They also owned a lot of land.
One bit of information I just discovered was that Philip had once tried to join the Templars and had been rejected.
Do you have a citation for that, Pete?
Thanks for the kind words.
This paper mentioned it on the second page.
http://www.wfu.edu/~philbj6/templarpaper.pdf
It appeared well researched.
Thanks, Pete. I’ll read it in a bit.
This move appears to be in response to the annual campaign by modern-day followers of the Templar tradition.
A letter to the Pope from living descendents of the Templars appeared in the press in 2004: “We shall witness the 700th anniversary of the persecution of our order on 13th October 2007,” the letter said. “It would be just and fitting for the Vatican to acknowledge our grievance in advance of this day of mourning.”
On 25 October 2007, exactly 13 days from the morning of the anniversary, an official document will be released by the Vatican absolving the Knights Templar and confirming their innocence.
Full story with sources and additional reading material:-
http://www.theinsider.org/news/article.asp?id=2623
Interesting stuff, Jaques. Thanks.
Although Philip IV wanted him to, Pope Clement refused to dissolve the order, on the grounds that he hadn’t the power to do so since the Church had not established it. It began as a secular order, which was later adopted by the Church at the Council of Troyes, on the recommendation of St. Bernard of Clairveaux. What the Pope (then living in Avignon, France) did do in 1312 to placate the King of France, and to avoid possible schism, was to remove the Order from the protection of the Church. Although later absolved of heresey, they were not restored to that protection, and had already been ravaged by a number of monarchs greedy for their lands and imagined wealth, and had been scattered to the winds. In the interim the French secret police had done their worst. Many French Templars, who had escaped the Friday the 13th raids and mass arrests found refuge in Scotland, Switzerland and other places. The Kings of Spain and Portugal had created new orders into which only Templars were invited. Many were secretly welcomed, as individual knights, into the Order of the Hospitalers of Saint John of Jerusalem (“joined the Hospital”), exchanging their white mantles with red crosses for the black mantle with the white Maltese Cross of the Hospitalers. Some, surely, went underground…
Hospitalers = Knights of Malta = Sovereign Military Order of Malta (which sovereign territory, today, consists of one city block in Rome)
see “The Knights Templar” by Stephen Howarth (London: Oxford University Press, 1972; reprinted by Barnes & Noble in 1992).