Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Brief History Of The Religious And Military Order Of The Knights Templars Of St. John Of Jerusalem.
heads of the military orders to appear , in order , as was pretended , to confer on the measures to be adopted for a new expedition to Palestine . Here he paid great respect to the Grand Master of the Templars , and gave him two memorials to be considered ; the one on the best means of conducting a croisade , and the other containing reasons for uniting the Templars and Hospitallers into one bod . The Grand
y Master replied to these memorials with great precision and ' piety . Against the last proposition he urged many weighty objections which satisfied the Pope , or , at least , induced him to lay aside the project . The only ground on which he adopted it , appears to be a wish to evade the cruel engagement which he had entered into with the French King , who was urgent with him to fulfil it .
That perfidious prince had formed a series of charges against the Order , so flagrantly horrid that the strongest prejudice cannot but shrink from yielding accedence to them . The chronicles of the period do indeed relate these charges , and the consequent sufferings of a set of men who had been so popular and certainly so deserving ; but they relate their story without
observation , they exhibit no enquiry into the credibility of the reports , nor do they remark on the contrariety of evidence ; every thing is left in a painful obscurity . Still the unbiassed observer of those insi pid and ill-arranged narrations , can discern the injustice which marked the prosecutions of these reli gious Knights . Philip had procured certain informers of infamous characterssome
, of them-apostatized Templars , and others who pretended to great intimacy with the Order , to discover that the body were guilty of every crime that can sink the human mind into the lowest state of villany . Robbery and murder were some of the least in the catalogue of iniquities charged against them . It was averred that they were not Christians , that , at his admission , every Knight was bound by the
most tremendous oaths of secrecy , and that afterwards he was to abjure Jgsus Christ , and to spit upon the cross as a proof of his detestation . To recount half of the -accusations would be tedious , and even less than half would be disgusting . The Pope , however , was not yet quite so abandoned , but that he felt some reluctance to ruin an Order that had done such signal services to the Christian cause
. . Though urged repeatedly by the king to suppress the institution , he still kept tiie matter at a distance . He saw that the covetous and . vengeful monarch had his eye fixed upon their estates , and he was not willing that the church should lose so valuable a portion of its interests . Philip , spurred on by avarice and enraged" at the Pope ' s delays , proceeded to dispatch the business without him ; accordingly he " caused the Grand Master and all the
Knights in his territories to be seized and committed to prison . ¦ A Monkish chronicler fixes the date of this memorable affair at Oci t ' ober 13 , 1307 , but others have brought it lower . All Europe was struck with consternation at so extraordinary a measure : 'the Pope was in a rage , but his power was gone , for he was , in a manner , a prisoner-himself ; not being permitted to quit that part of France where .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Brief History Of The Religious And Military Order Of The Knights Templars Of St. John Of Jerusalem.
heads of the military orders to appear , in order , as was pretended , to confer on the measures to be adopted for a new expedition to Palestine . Here he paid great respect to the Grand Master of the Templars , and gave him two memorials to be considered ; the one on the best means of conducting a croisade , and the other containing reasons for uniting the Templars and Hospitallers into one bod . The Grand
y Master replied to these memorials with great precision and ' piety . Against the last proposition he urged many weighty objections which satisfied the Pope , or , at least , induced him to lay aside the project . The only ground on which he adopted it , appears to be a wish to evade the cruel engagement which he had entered into with the French King , who was urgent with him to fulfil it .
That perfidious prince had formed a series of charges against the Order , so flagrantly horrid that the strongest prejudice cannot but shrink from yielding accedence to them . The chronicles of the period do indeed relate these charges , and the consequent sufferings of a set of men who had been so popular and certainly so deserving ; but they relate their story without
observation , they exhibit no enquiry into the credibility of the reports , nor do they remark on the contrariety of evidence ; every thing is left in a painful obscurity . Still the unbiassed observer of those insi pid and ill-arranged narrations , can discern the injustice which marked the prosecutions of these reli gious Knights . Philip had procured certain informers of infamous characterssome
, of them-apostatized Templars , and others who pretended to great intimacy with the Order , to discover that the body were guilty of every crime that can sink the human mind into the lowest state of villany . Robbery and murder were some of the least in the catalogue of iniquities charged against them . It was averred that they were not Christians , that , at his admission , every Knight was bound by the
most tremendous oaths of secrecy , and that afterwards he was to abjure Jgsus Christ , and to spit upon the cross as a proof of his detestation . To recount half of the -accusations would be tedious , and even less than half would be disgusting . The Pope , however , was not yet quite so abandoned , but that he felt some reluctance to ruin an Order that had done such signal services to the Christian cause
. . Though urged repeatedly by the king to suppress the institution , he still kept tiie matter at a distance . He saw that the covetous and . vengeful monarch had his eye fixed upon their estates , and he was not willing that the church should lose so valuable a portion of its interests . Philip , spurred on by avarice and enraged" at the Pope ' s delays , proceeded to dispatch the business without him ; accordingly he " caused the Grand Master and all the
Knights in his territories to be seized and committed to prison . ¦ A Monkish chronicler fixes the date of this memorable affair at Oci t ' ober 13 , 1307 , but others have brought it lower . All Europe was struck with consternation at so extraordinary a measure : 'the Pope was in a rage , but his power was gone , for he was , in a manner , a prisoner-himself ; not being permitted to quit that part of France where .