Knights Templars

The fall of the Order of the Knights Templar, though an outstanding and extraordinary event, ultimately reveals much about the nature of heretical accusations in the fourteenth century. It mirrored standard inquisitorial procedures and the way that accusations were used politically, and provides an insightful contrast to ordinary trials in how it differed. This essay will outline the complex reasons behind the accusation and arrest of the Templars, and explore what the event reveals to modern historians about heresy in the early fourteenth century.
It would be easy to list the charges the Templars faced as the basis of the heresy accusation, but this would be grossly misleading. The charges against the Templars were a façade, a political tool …show more content…
Spinola was likely correct in this assessment; Philip first raised the issue of combining the Orders at the second Council of Lyon in 1274, frustrated with the Templars’ lack of conformity to crusading policies and seeking to bring the Order under French royal jurisdiction. By fusing the Orders, thus bringing the Church-controlled Templars under his authority, Philip sought to assert his dominance over the Catholic Church and the newly-instated Pope Clement V; Julien Théry refers to this as the “pontificalisation of the French monarchy.” Philip’s fractured relationship with the Catholic Church and the power struggle between the two bodies dated back to his conflict with Pope Boniface VIII and his arrest of the Bishop of Pamiers, Bernard Saisset. In discovering the Templars’ heresy and bringing down the Order, Philip took for himself the role of defender of the Church and earned praise for combatting heresy, consequently undermining the papal authority that he struggled with and “serv[ing] to construct a royal almightiness”, according to Julien Théry. Despite the myriad political reasons for Philip’s attack on the Templars, it must be acknowledged that there were contemporary fears of magic and devil worship that played a role in the …show more content…
Inquisitors answered only to the Pope, and it was through this authority that lay courts were able to try and prosecute suspected heretics. Philip IV acted against basic church law and pre-empted papal authority in his actions against the Templars, using lay agents to arrest and interrogate brothers. It was, in part, for this reason that he exerted such pressure over Clement V, needing the Pope’s authority and support to legitimise his actions. Despite the support that he had of the Inquisitor of France at the time which meant that he acted, technically, with the approval of the Church, Philip’s attack was distinctly illegal. To justify himself, Philip also needed irrefutable proof, explaining the “shocking” brutality of the torture that his interrogators subjected the arrested Templars to, which Théry contrasts with the “usually slow” heresy investigations and trials. This highlights and elucidates the speed and force with which Philip forced action against the Templars that – alongside their widely believed innocence – sets the trial apart from other fourteenth century heresy trials; having acted illegally, he needed to find justification,

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