Among the European monarchs indebted to the Templars was the England's King Henry A historic document describing the abolition of the Knights Templar s
Most Templars confessed that they didn't believe in Jesus because they held him to be "a false prophet"; that they had committed acts of homosexuality during the admission ceremony as well as afterwards, that they worshipped idols and practiced Satanism. All these admissions entered the court records, and following their trial, most of the Templars were imprisoned.
Much has been said about the Templars' homosexual practices, and it has been suggested that their insignia-of two riders on the back of one horse-represented this custom. In his novel Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco extensively touches upon this aspect of the Templars.39
After their confessions in the courts of the French King, the Pope himself interrogated 72 of the Templars. They were asked to swear an oath to tell the truth and then, proceed to confirm that their previ-
ous confessions were truthful: that they rejected belief in Jesus, that they spat on the holy cross and committed all the other acts of perversion they'd admitted to. They then knelt down and asked for forgiveness.
The interrogation of the Templars culminated in the dissolution of their order. In 1314, Grand Master Jacques de Molay was burned at the stake. Templars who had managed to escape arrest by fleeing to other countries were pursued throughout the whole of Christendom. Other countries including Italy and Germany followed suit, arresting and interrogating the Templars they could apprehend. But for various reasons, some countries offered the Templars refuge. On November 10, 1307, England's Edward II wrote the Pope that he would not persecute the Templars and that in his country, they would remain safe. But two years later, after interrogating the Templars, the Pope issued a Papal Bull declaring that the Templars' "unspeakable wickednesses and abominable crimes of notorious heresy" had now "come to the knowledge of almost everyone." Upon reading it, King Edward agreed to prosecute the Templars.
Finally, at the Council of Vienne in France in 1312, the Order of the Knights Templar was officially declared illegal in all of Europe, and captured Templars were punished. On March 22nd, Clement V issued a Papal Bull under the name of Vox in Excelso (A Voice from on High), in which the order was declared to be dissolved and-on paper, at least-its existence erased from the official records:
... Hark, a voice of the people from the city! a voice from the temple! the voice of the Lord rendering recompense to his enemies. The prophet is compelled to exclaim: Give them, Lord, a barren womb and dry breasts. Their worthlessness has been revealed because of their malice. Throw them out of your house, and let their roots dry up; let them not bear fruit, and let not this house be any more a stumbling block of bitterness or a thorn to hurt.
. . . Indeed a little while ago, about the time of our election as supreme pontiff before we came to Lyons for our coronation, and afterwards, both there and elsewhere, we received secret intimations against the master, preceptors and other brothers of the order of Knights Templar of Jerusalem and also against the order itself.
. . . [T]he holy Roman church honoured these brothers and the order with her special support, armed them with the sign of the cross against Christ's enemies, paid them the highest tributes of her respect, and strengthened them with various exemptions and privileges; and they experienced in many and various ways her help and that of all faithful Christians with repeated gifts of property. Therefore it was against the lord Jesus Christ himself that they fell into the sin of impious apostasy, the abominable vice of idolatry, the deadly crime of the Sodomites, and various heresies.40
