The Suppression of the Templars

Since 1308 Pope Clement had been intending to hold an ecumenical council at Vienne in the Rhone-Alps region of France to consider three great matters: the Templars, the Holy Land and the reform of the Church. Originally scheduled for October 1310, it had to be postponed a year because the Pope’s contest with the king of France over the Templars was dragging on. Now in the summer of 1311 Clement had gathered information about the Templars from investigations all round France and abroad to present at the council. What he found was that only in France and in regions under French domination or influence were there substantial confessions from Templars-that is areas where the French authorities and their collaborators had applied ferocious tortures to their victims, or where their testimony was deliberately distorted to turn admitted irregularities into heresy. Clement was becoming eager to wind up the Templar matter before its controversies caused wider and deeper troubles for the Church.

Clement had senior advisors who argued that no time should be wasted on discussion or defence, and that the Pope should use his executive powers to abolish the Templars forthwith. One said that the Templars had ‘already caused the Christian name to smell among unbelievers and infidels and have shaken some of the faithful in the stability of their faith’. He added that suppression of the order should take place without delay in case ‘the capricious spark of this error ignites in flames.

Which could burn the whole world’. But then in late October a dramatic event occurred which did much to counter the arguments of those in favour of swift abolition-seven Templars appeared at the council to argue for the defence of the order. The Pope reacted swiftly and had them locked up.

But this was not a matter that the overwhelming majority of the clergy attending the council was prepared to overlook. As Henry Ffykeis, an Englishman attending the council, wrote home to the bishop of Norwich on 27 December 1311: ‘Concerning the matter of the Templars there is great debate as to whether they ought in law to be admitted to the defence. The larger part of the prelates, indeed all of them, excepting five or six from the council of the King of France, stand on their behalf. On account of this the Pope is strongly moved against the prelates. The King of France more so; and he is coming in a rage with a great following’. Indeed Philip was soon demonstrating his usual technique of intimidation by appearing at various places upriver from Vienne, creating the powerful sensation in the Pope that the king was about to descend upon him. On 2 March 1312 the king sent a thinly veiled ultimatum to the Pope, reminding him of the crimes and heresies of the Templars, ‘Which is why, burning with zeal for the orthodox faith and in case so great an injury done to Christ should remain unpunished, we affectionately, devotedly and humbly ask Your Holiness that you should suppress the aforesaid order’. Just in case Clement did not get the message, on 20 March the king with his brothers, sons and a considerabie armed force arrived at Vienne.

On 3 Aprii, having siienced the members of the councii on pain of excommunication, and with the King of France sitting at his side, the Pope made pubiic his decision, aiready committed to writing tweive days eariier in the form of a buii. Vox in Excelso, dated 22 March 1312, that the Tempiars, though not condemned, were suppressed on the grounds that the order was too defamed to carry on. Under the circumstances it was probabiy the best that Ciement couid do. Another buii. Ad Providam, dated 2 May, granted the Tempiars’ property to the Knights Hospitaiier. Soon after, Phiiip extracted a huge sum of money from the Hospitaiiers in compensation for his costs in bringing the Tempiars to triai.