Templars, The.

J. McCabe, Rationalists Encyclopaedia

An abbreviation of the name of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon. Although it is still the general custom to speak of the high qualities of the knights of the Middle Ages, whose almost universal corruption is attested by the historical authorities [see Chivalry and Crusades], the undisputed story of the founding of the various orders of religious knights plainly tells of this corruption. The nobles and knights of the First Crusade, for whom at least religious writers claim real devotion, became so loose in their conduct in a few years that one genuinely religious knight at Jerusalem prepared to found a society of those who wished to lead straight lives and continue to fight the Moslem. He found that only eight out of all the Knights who survived in the East were willing to join him. These were the original Poor Soldiers of the Temple. The number slowly increased, and in 1128 they were incorporated as a monastic order with the usual three vows and the title of Knights of the Temple of Solomon or (from their device) the Red Cross Knights. They were barbaric in fighting - "just brutal, pious, simple-minded men," says Professor Langlois - and in their houses they followed a modification of the Cistercian Rule. Their rare example of piety and asceticism attracted alms from all parts, and the communities, as is usual in the history of all monastic bodies, became wealthy and relaxed their rules. They established recruiting centres, which became opulent houses, in all parts of Europe, as the Temple district and church remind us in London to-day. In the twelfth century they owned all the land from Whitefriars to Essex Street, and there was a correspondingly large and rich estate at Paris (le Temple). By 1200, they were very rich and luxurious. Two of the popular phrases for heavy' drinking were "He drinks like a Pope" or "like a Templar." They rivalled the Jews in banking, and had thousands of large estates and an enormous trade. It is estimated that their income was £6,000,000 a year, and, though Jerusalem had been won back by the Moslem, they did not stir a finger to regain it. Rome had received constant complaints about their luxury and vices since the middle of the twelfth century, but it shared the loot and took no effective step until Pope Clement V got the tiara through the French Court on condition that he initiated a trial of the preceding Pope Boniface VIII [see], and of the Templars. Catholic writers try to mitigate the situation, and throw doubt on the trials (in 1309) by protesting that the greedy monarch wanted the wealth of the Templars. It is true; though the spectacle of these thousands of idle and corrupt men living luxuriously in religious dress makes this "greed" not inexcusable. It is said also that, as horrible torture was used to extort confessions from the knights, we cannot trust the results. It is, again, true that they were tortured; and we are fortunate here that the apologist concedes, in his own supposed interest, the barbarism of the age - the beginning of the fourteenth century - which he usually denies. The feet of the accused were oiled and fired, splinters were driven under their toe - and finger-nails, weights were tied to their genital organs, and so on.
      Some underwent torture six or seven times. A large number, including the Grand Master and three other leading Masters, confessed and were burned alive. The charges were the general practice of sodomy in all houses, obscenity in the admission of novices, etc. A religious monk would, of course, have faced any agony rather than admit such things if the charge were false; and all would know, in that Age of the Inquisition, that confession would be followed automatically by the death-sentence. After the recent revelation of general sodomy in German monasteries [see Monks] it is idle to say that the details are incredible. The French Court was of the highest character, and the Pope endorsed the verdict by suppressing the order. The other military orders (Hospitallers, etc.) fell into the same vicious and luxurious ways. Dean Milman has a long account of the trial in his History of Latin Christianity (1864, VII, 220-52), and see, for the whole subject, F. C. Woodhouse, Military Religious Orders of the Middle Ages (1879).

 

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