Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Preface to the First Edition
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Participants
- 2 The Arrests
- 3 The Papal Intervention
- 4 The Papal and Episcopal Inquiries
- 5 The Defence of the Order
- 6 The End of Resistance
- 7 The Charges
- 8 The Trial in Other Countries
- 9 The Suppression
- 10 Conclusion
- Chronology of the Trial of the Templars
- Recent Historiography on the Dissolution of the Temple
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - The Papal and Episcopal Inquiries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2015
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Preface to the First Edition
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Participants
- 2 The Arrests
- 3 The Papal Intervention
- 4 The Papal and Episcopal Inquiries
- 5 The Defence of the Order
- 6 The End of Resistance
- 7 The Charges
- 8 The Trial in Other Countries
- 9 The Suppression
- 10 Conclusion
- Chronology of the Trial of the Templars
- Recent Historiography on the Dissolution of the Temple
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The public harassment of the pope, the climax of six months of intensive activity by the French government, had not succeeded in forcing Clement to revoke his decision to suspend the activities of the inquisitors in the trial. Despite the fact that King Philip effectively controlled both the persons and the property of the Templars, and despite the fact that the papal inquisitor in France, together with most of the north French episcopate, could be mobilised on behalf of the French government, Clement's stubbornness was still an implacable barrier to further progress in the proceedings. This is testimony to the continued importance of the papacy, and indeed of the personalities of individual popes in European politics, and suggests that caution should be exercised before charting prematurely the decline of papal power after the disasters of the pontificate of Boniface VIII. Philip IV still needed Clement V, for all the outrageous language of William of Plaisians.
The king therefore decided to make a placatory public gesture. On 27 June he had seventy-two Templars brought to Poitiers so that they could testify in person before the pope. Philip maintained that the previous December he had not been able to release any of the Templars when they had been demanded by the pope, seemingly because of the problems presented by the fact that they were scattered all over the kingdom. Between 29 June and 2 July these Templars appeared before the pope and the cardinals concerned with the case, at first in secret, and then, on 2 July, in public, when their depositions were read out and translated in full consistory. Not all these depositions have survived, but it is possible to trace the names of fifty-four of the Templars concerned, of whom forty have left full depositions confessing to some or all of the crimes of which the Order was accused; and three others in a later testimony in 1310 admitted that they also had made confessions before the pope and cardinals at Poitiers.
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- Information
- The Trial of the Templars , pp. 116 - 140Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006