The downfall of the Knights Templar was initiated by King Philip IV of France. Philip, who was heavily in debt due to his lavish policies and military endeavours, saw eliminating the Templars as a way of alleviating his financial hardship and at the same time eliminating a powerful rival. In addition, the Templars were difficult to control by secular authorities due to their international networks and their special rights, which placed them directly under the Church, which Philip perceived as a threat. At the same time, Philip had been embroiled in a bitter conflict with Pope Boniface VIII over the question of the division of power between the Church and the Crown. After Boniface's death and the election of the French Pope Clement V, Philip saw his opportunity to further extend his control over ecclesiastical affairs.
On Friday 13 October 1307, Philip had numerous Templars arrested in France, including the Grand Master Jacques de Molay. The arrests came as a surprise and took place simultaneously, which was made possible by careful planning. The Templars were accused of serious offences, including heresy, blasphemy, idolatry, homosexual practices and financial corruption. These accusations were most likely contrived to mobilise public opinion against the order and secure ecclesiastical approval for its actions.
Pope Clement V was initially reluctant to take action against the Templars, as they were directly subordinate to the Church and had been loyal for centuries. However, under the strong influence of Philip IV and his threats, Clement felt compelled to act. In November 1307, he issued the papal bull Pastoralis praeeminentiae, which ordered the arrest of the Templars throughout Europe. In the following years, ecclesiastical and royal investigations took place in various countries to examine the accusations against the order. While some countries, such as England and Portugal, treated the Templars less harshly, the procedure in France was particularly rigorous, as Philip had control over the trials there.
In 1312, the Order of the Knights Templar was finally officially dissolved by the papal bull Vox in excelso. This decision was made during the Council of Vienne, where the accusations against the Templars were discussed. Although many of the accusations could not be clearly proven, Clement decided in favour of Philip and dissolved the order for political reasons in order to end the conflict with the French king. The Templars' enormous fortune was officially transferred to the Order of St. John, but much of it ended up in the hands of secular rulers, particularly in France.
Origins The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Jesus Christ, commonly known as the Knights Templar, originally began 1120, when a group of eight Christian Knights approached Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem and requested permission to defend the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Baldwin II of Jerusalem gave them quarters in the Temple of Solomon. Hugues de Payens was elected their master and the Patriarch Warmund charged them with the duty of keeping the roads safe from thieves and others who were routinely robbing and killing pilgrims en route to Jerusalem, which they did for nine years until the Council of Troyes in 1129, when they became a military order sanctioned by the Church encouraged substantially by the patronage of Bernard of Clairvaux, a leading churchman of the time. The Rule of the Order was based on that of the Cistercian Order, that of obedience, poverty and chastity. Their role was eventually expanded to fight in the Crusades. The Crusades wound down, and crusaders were eventually expelled from the area.
Throughout these years, the Templar order became wealthy and powerful. They received massive donations of money, manors, churches, even villages and the revenues thereof, from kings and European nobles interested in helping with the fight for the Holy Land. The Templars, by order of the Pope, were exempt from all taxes, tolls and tithes, their houses and churches were given the right to asylum and were exempt from feudal obligations. They were answerable only to the Pope.
Events in France
Prelude
While the Templars had started off well and were at times considered the model of Christian knighthood, it was not long before resentment of their privileges, of their being "rich as kings", and criticism of some of their actions in war began to surface. For example, at the siege of Damascus in 1148, the Templars and Hospitallers were accused of accepting bribes to convince King Conrad III of Germany to abandon the effort. There was other criticism of their actions as well. Following the disastrous battle at the Horns of Hattin and the subsequent fall of Jerusalem, which some blamed on the Templars, they were left with almost no discernible military purpose in the Holy Land. Other critics also questioned their morals. The chronicler William of Tyre was often critical of the order and in one instance accused them of ransoming Nasr-al-Din, the sultan's son, for 6,000 gold florins. When Grand Master Odo de St Amand died in 1179, William called him "a wicked man, haughty and arrogant, in whose nostrils dwelt the spirit of a fury, one who neither feared God nor revered man" and that he was "mourned by no one". When the Templars took up banking and lending, the criticism only increased. Both Walter Map and John of Salisbury accused the Templars of avarice. Matthew Paris sometimes praised them while at other times was severely critical of the Templars. The loss of the last foothold in Syria, Tortosa in 1302, was yet another failure that left them vulnerable to their critics. As the obvious surprise and shock of their arrests in 1307 indicate, nobody thought the Order was flawed to the point it needed disbanding.
During this time period the power of the papacy had declined and most of the popes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries found themselves either fleeing Rome or not allowed to enter at all. Also at this time antipopes backed by the German Emperors were common fixtures in the Emperors' bitter struggle with the Church. One of the last thirteenth century popes was Peter Morrone, an old man selected to be pope as a compromise, who as Pope Celestine V proved too old and too ineffective to rule the Church and upon realizing this himself, he abdicated. This caused a tremendous protest throughout the western Church and had a divisive effect on the next pope, Boniface VIII.
Pope Boniface was in many ways the opposite of his predecessor in that he was very capable, determined and even bold, but many held that a pope could not abdicate and that Celestine remained the true pope. Boniface in turn captured the old pope, who had sought nothing more than to retire in peace, imprisoning him until his death in 1296. Boniface VIII continued to impose his control on secular authorities, Edward I of England and Philip IV of France, who both protested against his authority, but Philip IV of France proved his most formidable opponent. Philip attempted to tax the church, which Boniface refused, beginning a long series of struggles between the two. Finally in 1303 Guillaume de Nogaret, Philip IV's lawyer, drew up a list of 29 charges including black magic, sodomy, heresy and blasphemy against Pope Boniface. In turn Boniface announced that he intended to place the Kingdom of France under interdict. This threat to Philip might have led to revolution, so de Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna, leading a force of 1600 men, attacked Anagni where the pope was in residence. They captured Boniface and held him prisoner for three days. After four days, however, the residents of Anagni rose up and expelled the invaders and took Boniface to Rome in triumph. But the ordeal had been too much for the 86‑year‑old pope and he died days later. Philip IV was determined not to have a pope interfere with his plans again and after a year the conclave was still unable to decide, so an outsider was suggested in the person of Bernard de Goth, Archbishop of Bordeaux. He had been a supporter of Boniface, but Philip arranged a meeting promising to support him as pope if he would agree to certain conditions, including reconciliations between France and the Church and absolution for any of Philip's men who had fought and captured Boniface. Bernard de Goth became Pope Clement V on 14 November 1305.
Philip IV of France, like his predecessors, employed Templars in his royal treasury in Paris to oversee a variety of financial functions of the French kingdom. There was little to indicate he had less than full trust in their integrity. In 1299, the Order loaned Philip the substantial sum of 500,000 livres for the dowry of his sister as well as his need of funds to fight the Flemish War, at which time he imposed taxes until his subjects were in revolt. When he debased the coinage, it led to an insurrection in Paris. The Knight Templar defended and gave the king refuge during the incident. But Philip had a history of seizing property and persons when it suited his needs, such as from the Lombards in 1291 and the Jews in 1306. In a meeting between Grand Master Molay and the pope, in either March or April 1307, the discussion revolved around problems in the order. In turn, in a letter to the King, Clement V told Philip that he intended a full investigation of the Templar order (Latin: on/concerning the state of the Templars) in mid-October later that year. About a week before his planned formal investigation Clement V received a surprising message that members of the order had been arrested, imprisoned and charged with heresy by an inquisition the pope had not convened.
Plan and the arrest On 14 September 1307, all bailiffs and seneschals in the Kingdom of France were sent secret orders from King Philip IV ordering preparations to be made for the arrest and imprisonment of all members of the Order of Templars; the arrests were to be executed a month later. At dawn on 13 October 1307, the soldiers of King Philip IV then captured all Templars found in France. Clement V, initially incensed at this flagrant disregard for his authority, nonetheless relented, and on 22 November 1307, issued the papal bull Pastoralis praeeminentiae, which ordered all monarchs of the Christian faith to arrest all Templars and confiscate their lands in the name of the Pope and the Church. The order went out to England, Iberia, Germany, Italy and Cyprus. The leader, Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay, and Hugues de Pairaud, a Templar, referred to in various documents as "the visitor of France", who was the collector of all of the royal revenues of France owing to the Order, were both arrested, as were many other Templars in France.
Philip used his ministers and agents Guillaume de Nogaret and Enguerrand de Marigny who collected a list of charges against the Templars. Other witnesses were said to have been made up of expelled Templar members, previously removed for their misdeeds. Under the orders of the French king, they were arrested and severely tortured.
Soon after, in 1307, the Pope sent two cardinals to interview Jacques de Molay and Hugues de Pairaud. At that time they recanted their confessions and told the other Templars to do the same.
The specific charge of heresy