The Trial Of The Templars

Barber's classic account endeavours to tackle the unresolved controversies surrounding the consequences of the trial.

Seven hundred years after the dissolution of the order, the trial of the Templars still arouses enormous controversy and speculation. In October 1307, all the brothers of the military-religious order of the Temple in France were arrested on the instructions of King Philip IV and charged with heresy and other crimes. In 1312, Pope Clement V, at the Council of Vienne, dissolved the order. Since the 1970s, there has been increasing scholarly interest in the trial, and a series of books and articles have widened scholars' understanding of causes of this notorious affair, its course and its aftermath. However, many gaps in knowledge and understanding remain. What were the Templars doing in the months and years before the trial? Why did the king of France attack the Order? What evidence is there for the Templars' guilt? What became of the Templars and their property after the end of the Order? This book collects together the research of both junior and senior scholars from around the world in order to establish the current state of scholarship and identify areas for new research. Individual chapters examine various aspects of the background to the trial, the financial, political and religious context of the trial in France, the value of the Templars' testimonies, and consider the trial across the whole of Europe, from Poland and Cyprus to Ireland and Portugal. Rather than trying to close the discussion on the trial of the Templars, this book opens a new chapter in the ongoing scholarly debate.

The definitive account of history's most infamous trial, following the doomed Order of the Knights Templar from scandal to suppression. The trial of the Knights Templar is one of the most infamous in history. Accused of heresy by the king of France, the Templars were arrested and imprisoned, had their goods seized and their monasteries ransacked. Under brutal interrogation and torture, many made shocking confessions: denial of Christ, desecration of the Cross, sex acts, and more. This narrative follows the everyday reality of the trial, from the early days of scandal and scheming in 1305, via torture, imprisonment and the dissolution of the order, to 1314, when leaders Jacques de Molay and Geoffroy de Charnay were burned at the stake. Through first-hand testimony and written records of the interrogations of 231 French Templars, this book illuminates the stories of hundreds of ordinary members, some of whom testified at the trial, as well as the many others who denied the charges or retracted their confessions. This is a deeply researched and immersive account that gives a striking vision of the relentless persecution, and the oft-underestimated resistance, of the once-mighty Knights Templar.

This major study includes a translation of all testimony heard during the Templar trial in Cyprus in 1310 or 1311. The trial is of immense importance to the study of the history of the order because of the large number of Templar witnesses, seventy-six, many of high rank, and the ancillary testimony of fifty-six noblemen, burghers, and members, of the regular and secular clergy. What makes the trial especially significant is that torture appears not to have been used, allowing witnesses to give their opinion of the order free of the usual constraint. A large amount of testimony omitted from the Latin edition appears here for the first time. Witnesses are cross-referenced to other Templar trials, or to Cypriot notarial documents. The work is completed by photographs, maps, an exhaustive index, lists of witnesses, and bibliography.

The trial of the Templars in the British Isles (1308-1311) is a largely unexplored area of history. Unlike the trial in France, where the Templars were tortured into confessing to unspeakable activities, in the British Isles there were no burnings and only three confessions after torture. Several Templars went missing, most of whom later reappeared. Outsiders told stories of abominable Templar rituals, secret meetings and murders at the dead of night, but all these tales turned out to be rumour. This book is based on extensive research into the records of the trial of trial of the Templars and other unpublished medieval documents recording their arrest, imprisonment and trial, and the surveys of their property. It traces the course of this, the first heresy of trial in the British Isles, from the arrests in January 1308 to the dissolution of the Order, and shows how, by judicious selection of material, the inquisitors made the scanty evidence against the Templars appear convincing. The book includes a list of all the Templars in the British Isles at the time of the arrests, and a gazetteer of the Templars' major properties in the British Isles.

Seven hundred years after the dissolution of the order, the trial of the Templars still arouses enormous controversy and speculation. In October 1307, all the brothers of the military-religious order of the Temple in France were arrested on the instructions of King Philip IV and charged with heresy and other crimes. In 1312, Pope Clement V, at the Council of Vienne, dissolved the order. Since the 1970s, there has been increasing scholarly interest in the trial, and a series of books and articles have widened scholars' understanding of causes of this notorious affair, its course and its aftermath. However, many gaps in knowledge and understanding remain. What were the Templars doing in the months and years before the trial? Why did the king of France attack the Order? What evidence is there for the Templars' guilt? What became of the Templars and their property after the end of the Order? This book collects together the research of both junior and senior scholars from around the world in order to establish the current state of scholarship and identify areas for new research. Individual chapters examine various aspects of the background to the trial, the financial, political and religious context of the trial in France, the value of the Templars' testimonies, and consider the trial across the whole of Europe, from Poland and Cyprus to Ireland and Portugal. Rather than trying to close the discussion on the trial of the Templars, this book opens a new chapter in the ongoing scholarly debate.

Barbara Frale gives us an explosive, exhaustively researched history of the medieval world’s most powerful military order, the Templars. At its height, the Order of the Knights Templar rivaled the kingdoms of Europe in military might, economic power, and political influence. For 700 years, the tragic demise of this society of warrior-monks amid accusations of heresy has been plagued by controversy, in part because the transcript of their trial by the Inquisition—which held the key to the truth—had vanished. Templar historian Barbara Frale happened to be studying a document at the Vatican Secret Archives when she suddenly realized that it was none other than the long-lost transcript! It revealed that Pope Clement V had absolved the order of all charges of heresy. The Templars chronicles the spectacular rise and fall of the organization against a sweeping backdrop of war, religious fervor, and the struggle for dominance, and finally lifts the centuries-old cloak of mystery surrounding one of the world’s most intriguing secret societies.

Foreword by Piers Paul Read For centuries, historians and novelists have portrayed the Knights Templar as avaricious and power-hungry villains. Who were these medieval monastic knights, whose exploits were the stuff of legend even in their own day? Were these elite crusaders corrupted by their conquests, which amassed them such power and wealth as to become the envy of kings? Indignant at the discrepancies between the fantasies, on which "writers on history of every kind and hue have indulged themselves without restraint", and the available evidence, RTgine Pernoud draws a different portrait of these Christian warriors. From their origins as defenders of pilgrims to the Holy Land to their dramatic finish as heretics burned at the stake, Pernoud offers a concise but thorough account of the Templars' contribution to Christendom.