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'guy ~~I(k RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA

in the East were divided into five chief provinces; Jerusalem, Tripolis, Antioch, Cyprus, and Roma-

nia-Mores. In the West, its headGrowth, quarters were France, the Spanish Power, and kingdoms, Portugal, and England. It

Constitu- was not so strongly represented in tion. Germany, nor had it any possessions in the northern lands. The larger sta tions were called " temple courts," " preceptories of the Templars," priorates preceptories; the smaller ones, commanderies and bailiwicks. Owing to the papal privileges, the order became a firmly cemented institution, with extensive property holdings, dy namic organization, vast range of administration, and its own corps of clergy, so that it aroused the jealousy of bishops and the enmity of princes. As appears from extant statutes (arts. 77-V5, which date from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries), the order's constitution had expanded still further. According to these data, the core of the order was composed of the knights, who were to be of noble birth, of pure wedlock, guilty of no grave crime, mentally and bodily sound. Reception into the order was not subject to novitiate; it was accorded by the presiding dignitary, in chapter assembled, in solemn form, and exclusive of outsiders. The knights wore the white mantle with an octagonal red cross. They were attended by the serving brothers, of lower rank. From the time of the bull of Alexander III. (1163) the chaplains of the tem ple formed the third class in the order.

At the head of the order stood the grand master, with princely rank, who had the power of appointment to the inferior offices. His authoritative posi-

tion was limited by the chapter genOrganiza- eral, in which alone lay the right over

tion and war and peace with the Saracens. Character. During a vacancy in the office of grand

master, the order was directed by the grand commander. The grand master was chosen by majority vote of thirteen duly qualified electors. The knight's vocation ill consorted with the monk's task of prayer; and consequently the statutes disclose a continually emphasized subordination of the latter duty. What passed in the chapter had to be kept strictly secret. The penalties imposed for the member's transgressions were generally milder than in other monastic orders. Offenses, however, such as simony, murder of a Christian, theft, sodomy, perjury, riot, cowardly flight from the enemy, desertion to the Saracens, involved exclusion from the order. The order evinced both unselfishness and valor in the prosecution of its allotted task of defending the Holy Land. Not a single real betrayal of the Christian cause can be brought against it; though in the thirteenth century complaints were produced on account of arrogancies and extravagances. Hence in 1291, when Acco, the last position in the Holy Land, succumbed, this defeat was unwarrantably charged to the rivalry between the Templars and the Knights of St. John; and Pope Nicholas V. was desirous that the two orders be united. After the conquest of the Holy Land, the Templars, from 1291 on, made their headquarters in Cyprus, which was transformed into a stronghold that was intended to check the

Teller Templars

onset of Mohammedanism on its passage to the West.

The Templars in France were a formidable obstruction against centralization of power in the hands- of the king. After the victory of Philip IV.

(1285-1314) over Pope Boniface VIII., Destruction the French king designed to establish

of the himself in the opulent possessions of Order. an order so little to his convenience, and directly after the enthronement of Clement V. at Lyons, in Nov., 1305, he planned action against the Templars. On June 6, 1306, the masters of the orders of St. John and of the temple were invited by Clement to a conference at Avig non, with reference to a projected crusade. The grand master of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, accepted this invitation but, in a later interview in 1307, declined a proposition to fuse the Hospitallers and the Templars. Pope Clement then consented to an investigation of the charges against the Tem plars. But before the investigation had come to pass, Philip, Sept. 14, 1307, resolved upon the arrest of the Templars and the seizure of their goods. Throughout all France, the Templars were therefore arrested, Oct. 13, 1307. The charges against the order were the denial of Christ by spitting upon the crucifix, indecent kisses, and the sufferance of re volting immorality. On Oct. 15, 1307, the grand master, with several knights, confessed to several accusations; then Philip felt so secure that he ad dressed letters to the princes of Christendom urging them to imitate his example. Inquisitorial proc esses went on in France under the warrant of Sept. 14; those who confessed received pardon on return ing to the faith of the Church, the others were sen tenced to death. Clement protested against the king's action, Oct. 27, requesting the surrender of certain knights and their goods to himself, doubt less with a selfish object. By the bull Pastorales prceeminente, Nov. 22, however, he made common cause with the king, and commanded all princes to seize the Templars and their goods. But in Feb., 1308, he again attempted to cheek proceedings by suspend ing the inquisitors' powers, and in May Philip con vened an assembly to rally the national support to himself against the pope. In August, the pope and the king agreed upon measures against.the order, the bull Faciens misericordiam, Aug. 12, 1308, con vened a council at Vienne to make final disposition of the matter, the council to meet Aug. 1, 1310. General proceedings against the order went on throughout Europe, and Cyprus from Aug. 7, 1309, till May 26, 1311; 127 test questions were proposed to the members; but previous admissions were re tracted as extorted by torture. However, fifty-four Templars were burned at the stake as backsliding heretics by order of the archbishop of Sens, May 12, 1310; thereafter the spirit of the order was broken and whatever was asked was admitted. Wherever outside France governments and bishops opposed torture, the pope quashed the opposition. Confes sion was extorted by the rack; but in Portugal, Sicily, Cyprus, and parts of Germany the innocence of the accused came to light.

The Council of Vienne, opened Oct. 16, 1311, declared the order entitled to vindication; but the