Secret Societies of the Middle Ages

he had been kept a month in solitary confinement on bread and water before he made any confession.

Gerard de St. Martial, who confessed to having denied Christ, and spitten beside the cross, said that he had been cruelly tortured, being at first ashamed to acknowledge these facts, although they were true.

Deodat Jafet had been tortured, but it was the inspiration of God and the blessed Virgin Mary, and not the rack, which had made him confess. He acknowledged every crime imputed to the order. Speaking of the idol, he said, "I was alone in a chamber with the person who received me: he drew out of a box a head, or idol, which appeared to me to have three faces, and said, Thou shouldst adore it as thy Saviour and that of the order of the Temple. We then bent our two knees, and I cried, Blessed be he who will save my soul, and I worshipped it." Yet Jafet afterwards retracted this deposition, and stood forth as one of the defenders of the order.

Iter de Rochefort, though he said he had confessed, had been tortured repeatedly, with a view to extracting more from him. He declared that, having been received in the unlawful way, he had confessed himself to the patriarch of Jerusalem, who had wept bitterly at hearing of such wickedness. As Raynouard very justly observes, the patriarch, who could hardly be a friend to the Templars, was not very likely to content himself with shedding a few useless tears had the knowledge of such a heresy come to his ears.

Pierre de Conders had confessed at the sight of the rack.

Raymond de Stéphani had been severely tortured at Carcassonne. Being asked why he did not then tell the truth, he replied, "Because I did not recollect it; but I prayed the senechal to allow me to

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