The Trial of the Knights Templar

The Dissolution of the Order

Mass Arrest in France

The Dissolution of the Order

Mass Arrest in France

"Avignon had been the seat of Pope Clement V - who had been crowned at Lyons in 1305 in the presence of King Philip of France...It also been Clement V who had order the arrest of the Templars throughout Christendom in 1307." "...There is evidence that he [Philip IV] began to plan his operation against the Templars about a year in advance of its implementation (i.e. in 1306) and there is also evidence that on several occasions during that year he discussed his plans with Pope Clement." - Graham Hancock, The Sign and the Seal

"King Philip the Fair of France developed a similar idea of making himself ruler of a vast Christian empire centred at Jerusalem. He also needed money. First he seized all the Jews in his kingdom and forced them to give up their futures by removing one of their eyes and threatening to remove the other." Then he moved against the Templars to seize their riches. - Peter Tompkins, The Magic of Obelisks

Jacques de Molay was the last Templar Grand Master. "On the night of Thursday, 12 October 1307, Philip's troops broke in to arrest Molay with sixty brethren, incarcerating some in royal prisons, others in the Temple's own dungeons. By the morning of Friday, 13 October, 15,000 people had been seized: knights, chaplains, sergeants confratres, and retainers - even labourers on the Order's arms. Probably not more than 500 were full members, less than 200 were profess brethren. By the weekend popular preachers were denouncing the Poor Knights to horrified crowds all over France.

"The arrest was illegal; the civil authority could not arrest clerics responsible only to Rome. But Philip hoped to substantiate certain charges: denial of Christ, idol worship, spitting on the crucifix, and homosexuality - unnatural vice was a practice associated with the Albigensians and all these accusations were the stock in trade of heresy trials. The French Inquisition staffed by Dominicans, 'Hound of the Lord', was expert at extracting confessions. The brethren, unlettered soldiers, faced a combination of cross-examining lawyers and torture chambers whose instruments included the thumbscrew, the boot, and a rack to dislocate limbs. Men were spread-eagled and crushed by lead weights or filled with water through a funnel till they suffocated. there was also 'burning in the feet'. Probably the most excruciating torments were the simplest - wedges hammered under finger nails, teeth wrenched out and the exposed nerves prodded. The Templars would have resisted any torment by Moslems but now, weakened by confinement in damp, filthy cells and systematic starvation, they despaired when the torture was inflicted by fellow Christians." - Desmond Seward, The Monks of War

"...There were only fourteen knights among the 138 Templars heard by the grand Inquisitor, and only eighteen knights among the 546 prospective 'defenders' of the Order in 1310. Perhaps between fifty and a hundred knights were involved; this is a far cry from the army of 2000 knights which some supposed to have constituted a military danger to the French monarch." - Peter Partner, The Murdered Magicians