1095 Pope Urban preaches for the first Crusade. 1099 Crusaders capture Jerusalem. 1128 the Order of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon was founded. 1180 Pope Alexander III condemns the Waldensians. 1187 Saladin captures Jerusalem. 1204 Third Crusade sacks Constantinople. 1305 The Papacy moves to Avignon.
Siege Perilous:
One can hardly imagine the privations of those who had entered the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon. After giving up their lands, their freedom and their family and friends, they took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to the Church and Pope - a vow was a vow and they pledged their life to the most difficult of tasks for as long as they might live, by the grace of God! They ate little, prayed much, and were religious ascetics in all their behaviour. When not enduring extremely dangerous battles and sieges in heavy metal armour, they were facilitating sea crossings, avoiding piracy and shipwreck dangers, and travelling with baggage trains through arduous and perilous countryside with responsibility for often sick animals, and for unprepared pilgrims who I suggest might well have felt very disillusioned on reaching the destiny of their many months of immensely strenuous efforts. Pilgrimages were immense hardships but battles were even harder. The mortality rate was high as was the sickness, accident and disease rate. Any crimes were dealt with with brutality. They were thrown into a body of water? If they sank they were innocent. If they floated, they were guilty. Did they spit on a crucifix, one wonders! Their lives were of little importance. Their soul had an immense price. They lived each hour, maintaining the purity of the soul so when they died, which could be at any moment, their soul would be welcomed into heaven. Every deed was closely examined, the smallest omission of commission could mean hell fires for eternity.
The established belief in winning against an enemy was that God was on the side of the Christians. When battles were lost, the reason was given that God had forsaken Christians - and this was because they were sinners. As heresy was the most feared type of sinfulness, the Templars were accused of this as the reason for their failure to re-gain the Holy Land. Matthew Paris, Bishop of St Albans, and others were chief antagonists.
Love amongst monks!
Letters written by Anselm, the Benedictine Archbishop of Canterbury half a century prior to the formation of the Order describe ‘kiss for kiss, embrace for embrace’ though homosexuality was considered a sin more serious than sexual intercourse with a woman. They showed devotion (not worship) to Mary, Mother of Jesus from the start of the Order. Lady Chapels were dedicated to her, houses, such as Richerenches were called 'the House of the Blessed Mary'.
Accusations:
There are records of 9 Templars expelled for simony, murder, theft, heresy, conspiracy, cowardice and desertion. The Templars were dedicated under the Order’s title deed to be Soldiers of Christ, not Soldiers of John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene or any pagan god! They attended Mass daily, adhered to canonical hours as prayer time and took the sacraments in public. Any suspected heretic would have been immediately excluded from the Order. They were not allowed adornments, and were allowed no omissions of the many hundreds of rules they were subject to.
The Chinon Parchment is the third document to describe the absolution of Templars from the charges of heresy when they were incarcerated in Chinon Castle. It was discovered in the Vatican Archives by Barbara Frale in 2001. She subsequently wrote a book about this matter. The Templars had been imprisoned for many years and were too unwell to travel to the Pope’s court, so Cardinals were sent to Chinon to try them. Acts of ‘heresy’ were confessed by each member and in return for the confession, Pope Clement V absolved them and in 1308, they were ‘restored to the sacraments’. They were now no longer imprisoned, tortured and accused of heresy. They could now live out their lives in peace and freedom - but the slur of heresy on their great family names, and on the Order for which many great heroes were slaughtered on the battlefield would be forever blackened! Not only were these matters of great significance, but the men had lied under torture put their eternal soul in danger of hellfire. They could not go to heaven to be with Jesus, the one for whom they had bestowed their lands, given their oaths and laid down their lives.
127 charges were made against the Order. A Templar priest who heard their confessions over 25 years had never heard any confessions with such sins. After signing the accusations of heresy under both physical and psychological torture, the greatest of the tortured knights withdrew their confessions. This withdrawal of a confession of heresy meant that they were now ‘relapsi’ and were condemned to die by being burnt at the stake under the powers of the Inquisition. For this act of great heroism, the leader of the Templar Order retained the honourable name of the Order that for almost 200 years had fought for the Church, had supplied it with great riches to build the cathedrals, and had supplied them with highly valuable relics. The Grand Master, James of Molay came from a noble family of the Franche -Compte area, part of the post Carolingian Middle Kingdom of Lotharingen that had supplied many knights to the Order. James Bernard, reduced to the common name of Jacques, was the son of John of Longwy and related to the distinguished Rohan family through his mother. The estate of Molay was in the diocese of Besancon. He was received into the Order in 1265 by the eminent Humbert of Pairaud, Master of England and Amauri of La Roche, Master of France. He had spent most of his life in Outremer. He was arrested when in his 70s - and those who chose to heroically die with him, demonstrated that they and the Order were innocent of heresy, blasphemy and sodomy. They tortured mercilessly to obtain their confessions of acts against Jesus, the son of God. He said to a commission shortly before his death that “The liturgy in the Templar churches was more beautiful than any churches other than cathedrals; that the order had been lavish in its charitable donations, and that no Order had shed its blood so readily in defence of the Christian faith.” His advice to the Count of Artois saved his life, and Templar Knights werechosen as the courageous advance guard of the St Louis army on the Nile. He stated he believed in one God and in a Trinity of Persons and in other things pertaining to the Catholic faith… and when the soul was separated from the body, then it would be apparent who was good and who was bad and each of us would know the truth.
Ref: http://www.inrebus.com/chinon.php
Horses and mules:
Spurs were given to a new recruit in a ceremony marking their admittance to the Templar Order. The knight would need to be responsible for several horses, all who needed 4 gallons of water per day and considerable time to eat. They had pack horses/mules to carry necessary items for long and difficult travel, a horse for general travel, frequently needed for unwell pilgrims, and the knight’s most precious and highly trained war stallions. These war horses were the knights greatest weapon and would be trained to respond to the riders immediate commands, to kick and bite, and to withstand broken bones and other injuries they sustained during battle. The horses moved forward in battle, ‘so close that not a rabbit could survive between them’. Their names have come down to us in poetry and legend as much as the names of swords that were said to be magical.
Last Grand Master, Molay.
In 1104, Hughes of Payens, the first Grand Master, visited the Holy Land (he lived a few miles along the Seine River from Troyes). This land was owned by Count Hugh of Champagne who was a relative and probably employed him in his household. (Count Hugh later joined the Order). The small band of knights and servants dug in the ruins of the Jerusalem thinking the stables were those of the Temple of Solomon. Solomon’s Temple was the first temple and was sacked 1,500 years prior to the Templars’ arrival. What they saw was Herod’s Temple. Whether they discovered anything is debatable as nothing remains of their discoveries. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was their main site of devotion, not the Al-Aqsa Mosque area on southern edge of Temple Mount, known as the Temple of Solomon, where they billeted and stabled their equines. They took their vows on Christmas Day in 1119. That year, a party of several hundred pilgrims had been taken hostage by the saracens. Such setbacks were considered to be divine chastisement! Count Hugh had given a tract of land to Bernard, a young Burgundinian nobleman. The foundation, Clairvaux, was an offshoot of Abbey of Citeaux from which the Cistercian’s got their name. Citeaux had been founded by a Benedictine abbot. The estate at Cluny was the largest in the world as it was a staging post on the Compostella pilgrimage route in North West Spain. Special knights guarded this route.
Molay joined the Order when he reached 21 yrs, the minimum age to join. He probably gave up land and wealth to join. At his trial he said he was unable to read or write and was “poor”, that is, unable to employ a lawyer to represent him. Though the Knights of St John, the Hospitallers, had lawyers, the Templars had none at their trial, suggesting extreme poverty. How interesting that their Temple Church in London was given to lawyers as their church still exists to this day within the Inns of Court. Molay’s early life within the Order, led to his position of Master of the Temple in London where he was awarded the title and duties of the Grand Marshal. He succeeded Tibald Gaudin in 1292 as Templar Grand Master and was a reformer due to the lack of funds and interest in fighting for the Temple after so many failures. The Order was not in good standing as the Holy Land was lost to the Mamluks and finances were in crisis. The Fall of Acre in 1292 caused the Marshalls of both the Knights of Christ and the Knights of St John to be killed and both Grand Masters were mortally wounded. Molay re-introduced the rigourous demands of an extremely long list of rites and arduous observances and there was competition between The Templars and Hospitallers. War against the Muslims was thought to be no longer possible. In 1292, Molay tried to encourage a new crusade. He maintained a force on the island of Arwad but the Mamluk army took this in 1303.
King Philip the Fair of France was keen to influence the Pope Boniface VIII and a war of the direst words ensued with the king accusing the pope of blasphemy, heresy, murder and homosexuality and commanding dark spirits to do his will. Pope Boniface was roughed up by the king's men and died five weeks later. The new pope, Pope Benedict XI died shortly after his installation of poison. Philip the Fair chose his successor as Clement V, in the Bishop of Bordeaux, an old friend, and insisted he move from the Vatican to Avignon. The king wanted to amalgamate the two Orders, of Templars and Hospitallers under the auspices of the Hospitallers and both Grand Masters were invited to attend a meeting. The Grand Master of the Hospitallers could not attend due to an uprising in Rhodes. Molay was in Cyprus and with 60 of his knights and with 150,000 gold florins, set sail to meet Philip the Fair but, prior to doing so, he was a pallbearer at the funeral of Catherine de Courtenay, wife of Count Charles of Valois and sister in law of King Philip. Molay expected a considerable welcome from the king, as he had graciously become godfather to the king's son, Robert. Molay drew up and presented a document that would enable the continuance of an exclusive Templar Order. There were 15,000 Templars in France! The king's henchman, Nogaret had the previous year arrested the Jewish community. He sent out sealed instructions, not to be opened until Thurs 12, October 1307 that all Templars were to be arrested the following morning. One Templar, Flexian, was in prison and had been found guilty of heresy and it was he who, for his pardon and release, accused all others. The foot oven was put into operation as feet were placed over a brazier and this brought about many confessions. Molay was imprisoned, tortured until he confessed, and burned at the stake outside Notre Dame de Paris in March 1314, one of their own most magnificent churches, dedicated to Our Lady, the Mother of Jesus who acts as an intermediary between Christians and Christ.
The Chinon Parchment discovered in the Vatican Archives 2001 by Barbara Frale documented that 17-20 August 1308, Pope Clement V absolved Molay and granted him absolution. This was prior to him retracting the confession he made under torture. He was known as a ‘relapsi’, one who has relapsed back into heresy and this sealed his fate to be burnt at the stake though he spent another 6 years in prison. All who died under the inquisition were denied burial in consecrated ground but Molay’s bones were crushed to prevent relics being taken.
Mary Magdalene was considered to be a prostitute at this time over a confusion of the number of women of that name in the New Testament. She was not given the status of a saint, so the St Mary churches were dedicated to the mother of Jesus not the Magdalene.
Article by Wendy Stokes https://wendystokes.co.uk
Addenda: Chingford Earls had been leased to the Knights Templar between 1270 -1308 and renamed Temple Hall. Their estate was then granted to the Knights Hospitaller who were repressed at the Reformation.
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