The Knights Templar on Trial

The Trial of the Templars in the British Isles 1308-1311

Helen J Nicholson

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780750946810
• eBook ISBN: 9780752469836
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

The trial of the Templars in the British Isles (1308-1311) is a largely unexplored area of history. Unlike the trial in France, where the Templars were tortured into confessing to unspeakable activities, in the British Isles there were no burnings and only three confessions after torture. Several Templars went missing, most of whom later reappeared. Outsiders told stories of abominable Templar rituals, secret meetings and murders at the dead of night, but all these tales turned out to be mere rumour. This book is based on extensive research into the records of the trial of the Templars and other unpublished medieval documents recording their arrest, imprisonment and trial, and the surveys of their property. It traces the course of this, the first heresy trial in the British Isles, from the arrests in January 1308 to the dissolution of the Order, and shows how, by judicious selection of material, the inquisitors made the scanty evidence against the Templars appear convincing. The book includes a list of all the Templars in the British Isles at the time of the arrests, and a gazetteer of the Templars' major properties in the British Isles.

1

The Beginning of the Trial of the Templars

The Order of the Temple was a religious-military institution originally founded by a group of warriors in Jerusalem in the decades following the First Crusade.¹ The function of this group was approved both by the king of Jerusalem and by the patriarch (head of the Christian Church in the kingdom) at a Church Council at Nablūs in 1120. It was to protect Christian pilgrims on the roads to the pilgrimage sites around Jerusalem, while its members also helped to defend the territories that the crusaders had conquered. In January 1129, at a Church Council at Troyes in Champagne, in what is now north-eastern France, the Templars were given papal approval and acknowledgement as a formal religious Order, with an official uniform or ‘habit’, and a rule of life. As members of a religious Order, the members of the Order made three vows: to obey their superior officer, to avoid sexual activity and to have no personal property. They became known as ‘Templars’ after their headquarters in Jerusalem, which westerners believed had been King Solomon’s Temple but in fact was the Aqsa mosque, constructed from the seventh century AD onwards.²

Western European Christians gave the Templars extensive gifts of land and money and privileges (such as tax concessions and legal rights) to help them in their work of fighting on behalf of Christendom, and the members of the Order also traded and acted as government officials for the rulers of western Christendom. On the frontier between Christian and Muslim rulers in the Iberian Peninsula they conducted military operations, but elsewhere in Europe they lived a peaceful life, very similar to members of other religious orders. For nearly two centuries the Templars were an everyday sight; they farmed their lands, lodged travellers in their houses and looked after the valuables of merchants and rulers. Their estates in Europe were divided into provinces, each administered by a grand commander, while the individual houses in each province were grouped into commanderies, each under a commander (in Latin, a preceptor). Each province had an annual general meeting of commanders, known as a ‘chapter meeting’ – the traditional monastic term for house management meetings – at which their incomes were collected together to be forwarded to the East, business was discussed and problems resolved. The grand commanders were summoned less frequently to a general chapter meeting, which was generally held at the Order’s headquarters in the Levant.

But although in the Iberian Peninsula their military operations alongside the Christian kings of the Peninsula were largely successful, in the Middle East – where they were facing increasingly well-organised, militarily efficient opponents – it became clear by the second half of the thirteenth century that even the military skills of the Templars and their sister military orders the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights could not protect the crusader states forever. The Latin (Catholic) Christians finally lost control of Jerusalem in 1244, and the new capital of the kingdom, Acre, was conquered by al-Ashraf Khalīl, Mamluk sultan of Egypt, in May 1291. The Templars and the Hospitallers who survived the heroic final defence of Acre moved their headquarters to Cyprus and set about trying to organise a new crusade. They were still involved in fighting the Turks of Anatolia and the Mamluks in Syria, as well as the Muslim rulers of the kingdom of Granada in the south of the Iberian Peninsula. But various factors conspired to prevent their launching a new expedition to recover the territories in the Middle East.

Nearly two decades later, during the trial of the Templars in France, John Cenaudi, sergeant-brother and commander of Chalons-sur-Saône in the diocese of Clermont in the Auvergne, France, stated that he had taken part in a general chapter meeting which had taken place at Nicosia in Cyprus in the year which Acre fell, with 400 brothers present.³ As there were not as many as 400 brothers on Cyprus, this must have included brothers from overseas. The obvious reason for assembling such a large meeting would be planning for a new crusade. Shortly after this meeting, the newly-elected Templar grand master Jacques de Molay travelled to the West to see the leader of Catholic Christendom, Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), and discuss the possibilities for a new crusade. Encouraged by the pope’s support, he then went on to visit the kings of France (Philip IV) and England (Edward I). Edward I had begun his reign when he was on crusade to the East in 1271–2; Philip IV came from a long line of crusading kings. But as these two kings were currently at war against each other in Aquitaine they were not able to promise any military aid.

Jacques de Molay was in England between late 1293 and early summer 1294, where he presided over a provincial chapter meeting. He then moved on to the kingdom of Aragon, which he reached by the end of August 1294. He eventually returned to the East with promises and privileges, but no actual military aid.⁴

The Templars were still active in military affairs in the East, but on a small scale. At the start of the fourteenth century they maintained a garrison on the island of Arwad, called Ruad by the Franks, which is just off the coastal city of Tortosa (plate 7). But the island is too small to be defensible, and in October 1302 the naval forces of the Mamluk sultan of Egypt sacked the island and took the Templars there prisoner or killed them.⁵ The scandal of this defeat clearly had a serious impact on the Order, as the grand commander of Ireland, Henry Danet, referred to it during the trial of the Templars in Ireland.⁶

Although no new crusade materialised, Jacques de Molay continued his planning. The Templars’ operations continued as usual, with the grand commanders of the Order’s provinces in western Europe being summoned to consult with the grand master and convent, while the official known as ‘the visitor’ travelled around the western provinces checking that high standards of discipline were being maintained. According to Brother William Middleton – one of the two Templars in Scotland in 1308 – Brother Hugh Peraud, the visitor, came to England when Brother William de la More, the grand commander of England, was out of the country meeting the grand master Jacques de Molay. Hugh Peraud removed some commanders from their posts and substituted others. This would have been in 1304.⁷ As well as reorganising the management of the Order in England, Hugh Peraud apparently collected money in large quantities. During the trial of the Templars in Ireland, Brother Ralph of Bradley was asked about the duties of the visitor. He replied: ‘that he has never seen the visitor, but he has heard tell from a great many brothers that he sells grain and timber and having accumulated money he transports it to overseas parts; and he does nothing else, as far as he has heard.’⁸

Pope Boniface VIII died in October 1303 after a serious dispute with King Philip IV of France, which saw the pope arrested by King Philip’s leading minister Guillaume de Nogaret and members of the Colonna family, the pope’s political enemies. The next pope, Benedict XI, died within a year. His successor was selected because he was acceptable both to the king of France and to his opponents. Bertrand de Got, who took the name Clement V, had been born in France; but he was not a direct subject of the king of France because he was from Gascony, which was the king of England’s hereditary fief. Clement V was crowned pope at Lyon in what is now southern France on 14 November 1305. Preferring to avoid the factional disputes in Rome, Clement never went to the traditional papal home, but remained within what is now France.⁹

King Edward I of England died on 7 July 1307. Renowned across Europe for his military skills and courage and a patron of chivalry, he had long been a friend of the military religious Orders of the Temple and the Hospital. While he lived, the Templars could hope that he would sponsor a new crusade to the east; but E...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• List of Illustations
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 The Beginning of the Trial of the Templars
• 2 The Arrests in the British Isles
• 3 The Templars’ Lands in Royal Hands
• 4 The Interrogations in England
• 5 The Trial in Scotland: Mixed Reactions
• 6 The Trial in Ireland: ‘All the Templars are Guilty’
• 7 The End of the Trial in the British Isles
• Conclusion The Council of Vienne and the End of the Templars
• Appendix 1 Templar Brothers in the British Isles in 1308–1311
• Appendix 2 Templar Properties in the British Isles that were Mentioned during the Trial
• Further Reading
• Copyright