The charge against the Templars was heresy. When being inducted into the order, initiates were required to deny Christ, spit on the cross and place obscene kisses about the body of their receptor. They were also obliged to indulge in sexual relations with other members of the order if requested, and they wore a small belt which had been consecrated by touching a strange idol which looked like a human head with a long beard called Baphomet (possibly an Old French distortion of Mohammed).
The arrest and charging of the Templars was unusual in that though authorised by the Papal Inquisitor in France, the action was effected not by the Church but by the king. The normal procedure in heresy cases at this time was for the Church to make the arrests and try the accused heretics under Church law, only releasing them to the secular authorities for punishment if this was the verdict of the court. fet here was a military order which for nearly two hundred years had owed its loyalty directly and solely to the Papacy, from which it had enjoyed complete protection, and suddenly its brothers were arraigned by a secular power. This alone must have come as a shock to the arrested Templars.
That Philip was able to arrest and charge the Templars was owed to a loophole in the law going back to the time of the Cathars and their trials nearly eighty years before. So serious was the spread of the Cathar heresy that in 1230 Pope Honorius III had bestowed extraordinary powers on the Inquisitor in France, extending his reach even to the exempt orders, the Templars, the Hospitallers and Saint Bernard’s Cistercians, whenever there was a suspicion of heresy. After the Cathar heresy was eradicated this grant of powers was forgotten by the Papacy, but it was never revoked. This meant that the Templars, though otherwise untouchable, were vulnerable to the charge of heresy-a discovery made by Philip IV’s assiduous lawyers, who now used it to devastating effect.
Heresy was the one possible charge that the king could successfully level against the Templars, and so heresy It had to be. The royal lawyers gathered Information about the Inner life of the Templar order with the aim of selecting and extrapolating from their proper context those elements which could be presented as crimes against religion. These were then put together In such a form that they created the Impression of a coherent heretic creed. The royal lawyers then presented this evidence to the French Inquisitor, a Franciscan called William of Pahs who was In connivance with the king, who denounced the Templars as heretics.
The accusations against the Templars were also calculated to exploit a degree of residual hostility towards the order after the fall of Acre and the loss of the Holy Land In 1291, while the mere charge of heresy had the Immediate effect of blackening the order’s reputation. No time was wasted In mounting the propaganda campaign against the Templars: the king’s minister William of Nogaret announced the heresy before a large crowd In Paris, and the Franciscans spread the news In their sermons under Instructions from the Inquisitor, Brother William of Paris.
The Charges Against the Templars
The charges made against the Templars at the time of their arrest on 13 October 1307 can be summarised
As follows: ij! The Templars held their reception ceremonies and chapter meetings In secret and at night.
I During the reception ceremony Initiates were required to deny Christ;
Ij! to spit, piss or trample on the cross or Images of Christ;
I to exchange kisses with the receiving official on the mouth, navel, base of the spine, and sometimes on the buttocks or the penis; and i to agree to submit to homosexual practises as required within the order, which practised Institutionalised sodomy.
I The brothers did not believe In the sacraments and the Templar priests did not consecrate the host.
Ij! The brothers worshipped an idol in the form of a head ora cat called Baphomet.
I Though not ordained by the Church, high Templar officials, including the Grand Master, absolved brothers of their sins.
I The Templars failed to make charitable gifts as they were meant to do, nor did they practise hospitality.
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