Sketch of the History of the Knights Templars. Burnes James

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СКАЧАТЬ In vain did the bishops assembled at Vienne propose to hear those members who came forward as the defenders of the Order. A Bull of the Pope was fulminated against the Order,22 and transferred its possessions to the Knights of St. John, who, however, had to pay such enormous fines to the King and Pope before they could enter on them, as almost ruined them; so that if Philip did not succeed to the utmost of his anticipations, he had little reason to complain of his share.23 The members of the society of the Templars were permitted to enter that of the Hospitallers, – a strange indulgence for those that had spitten on the cross, and practised horrible vices.

      But the atrocious scene was yet to come which was to complete the ruin of the Templars, and satiate the vengeance of their enemies. Their Grand Master, Molay, and three other dignitaries of the Order, still survived: And, though they had made the most submissive acknowledgments to their unrelenting persecutors, yet the influence which they had over the minds of the vulgar, and their connection with many of the Princes of Europe, rendered them formidable and dangerous to their oppressors. By the exertion of that influence, they might restore union to their dismembered party, and inspire them with courage to revenge the murder of their companions;24 or, by adopting a more cautious method, they might repel, by uncontrovertible proofs, the charges for which they suffered; and, by interesting all men in their behalf, they might expose Philip to the attacks of his own subjects, and to the hatred and contempt of Europe. Aware of the dangers to which his character and person would be exposed by pardoning the surviving Templars, the French Monarch commanded the Grand Master and his Brethren to be led out to a scaffold, erected for the purpose, and there to confess before the public, the enormities of which their Order had been guilty, and the justice of the punishment which had been inflicted on their brethren. If they adhered to their former confession, a full pardon was promised to them; but if they should persist in maintaining their innocence, they were threatened with destruction on a pile of wood, which the executioners had erected in their view, to awe them into compliance. While the multitude were standing around in awful expectation, ready, from the words of the prisoners, to justify or condemn their King, the venerable Molay, with a cheerful and undaunted countenance, advanced, in chains, to the edge of the scaffold; and, with a firm and impressive tone, thus addressed the spectators. – "It is but just, that in this terrible day, and in the last moments of my life, I lay open the iniquity of falsehood, and make truth to triumph. I declare then, in the face of heaven and earth, and I confess, though to my eternal shame and confusion, that I have committed the greatest of crimes; but it has been only in acknowledging those that have been charged with so much virulence upon an Order, which truth obliges me to pronounce innocent. I made the first declaration they required of me, only to suspend the excessive tortures of the rack, and mollify those that made me endure them. I am sensible what torments they prepare for those that have courage to revoke such a confession. But the horrible sight which they present to my eyes, is not capable of making me confirm one lie by another. On a condition so infamous as that, I freely renounce life, which is already but too odious to me. For what would it avail me to prolong a few miserable days, when I must owe them only to the blackest of calumnies."25 In consequence of this manly revocation, the Grand Master and his companions were hurried into the flames, where they retained that contempt for death which they had exhibited on former occasions. This mournful scene extorted tears from the lowest of the vulgar.26 Four valiant Knights, whose charity and valour had procured them the gratitude and applause of mankind, suffering, without fear, the most cruel and ignominious death, was, indeed, a spectacle well calculated to excite emotions of pity in the hardest hearts. Humanity shudders at the recital of the horrid deed; and if the voice of impartial posterity has not, with one accord, pronounced the unqualified acquittal of the Templars, it has branded with the mark of eternal infamy the conduct of their accusers and judges.

      CONTINUATION OF THE ORDER

      CHAP. IV.

      The Continuation of the Order

      But the persecution of the Templars in the fourteenth century does not close the history of the Order; for, though the Knights were spoliated, the Order was not annihilated. In truth, the cavaliers were not guilty, – the brother hood was not suppressed, – and, startling as is the assertion, there has been a succession of Knights Templars from the twelfth century down even to these days; the chain of transmission is perfect in all its links. Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master at the time of the persecution, anticipating his own martyrdom, appointed as his successor, in power and dignity, Johannes Marcus Larmenius of Jerusalem, and from that time to the present there has been a regular and uninterrupted line of Grand Masters. The charter27 by which the supreme authority has been transmitted, is judicial and conclusive evidence of the Order's continued existence. The charter of transmission, with the signatures of the various chiefs of the Temple, is still preserved at Paris, with the ancient statutes of the Order, the rituals, the records, the seals, the standards, and other memorials of the early Templars.

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      1

      "The Greek Convent adjoins the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. From the terrace of this Convent, you see a spacious enclosure, in which grow two or three olive trees, a palm tree, and a few cypresses. The house of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem formerly occupied this deserted spot." – Chateaubriand

1

"The Greek Convent adjoins the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. From the terrace of this Convent, you see a spacious enclosure, in which grow two or three olive trees, a palm tree, and a few cypresses. The house of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem formerly occupied this deserted spot." – Chateaubriand.

2

At a subsequent period, the war-dress of the Knights Hospitallers was a scarlet tunic, or sopra vest, on which was embroidered the sacred emblem of the Order. In the Convent, they wore a black robe similarly adorned, with a cap of dignity. The knights were authorised to wear these dresses by a Bull of Pope Alexander IV, in 1259. The other insignia were, —First, A star which was worn on the left breast, in the form of a cross patée, having eight points, symbolical of the eight beatitudes and the eight languages, which composed the Order; Second, A badge formed of a white enamelled cross, having the angles charged with the supporters, or principal device, of the respective kingdom to which the language belonged. This, surmounted by an imperial Crown, was worn originally suspended from the neck by a gold chain, latterly by a black ribband; to these were added the sword, scarf, spurs, &c. As an armorial distinction, the knights were privileged to augment their family arms with a chief, gules, charged СКАЧАТЬ