Source: “Custodians of Truth : The Continuance of Rex Deus”, by Tim Wallace-Murphy and Marilyn Hopkins, Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC, 2005.
Templar Decline and Fall and Survival.wav
This podcast details the decline and suppression of the Knights Templar, attributing their downfall partly to the devastating defeat by Saladin at the Horns of Hattin, which weakened their presence and purpose in the Holy Land. King Philippe le Bel of France, burdened by debt and resentment towards the Templars' wealth and independence, orchestrated their arrests on fabricated charges, using the Pope as a figurehead to lend legitimacy to his actions. While the Templars as an organization were never judicially convicted, the papal bull Vox in excelso suppressed the order, allowing Philippe to seize their assets. However, many Templars survived, finding refuge in places like Scotland and Spain, and continued to exert Rex Deus influence by joining and even creating new chivalric orders, demonstrating the long-term survival of their traditions and wealth, potentially contributing to institutions like Swiss banking and the Scots Guard.
Topic 1 The decline of the Knights Templar was not a sudden event but the culmination of a series of circumstances. Significant occurrences like the eventual fall of the order did not arise out of nowhere but were built upon foundational events. A key factor in the weakening of the Templars was the rise of powerful Muslim leaders who challenged the Christian presence in the Holy Land. A pivotal figure was Salah-al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, known as Saladin, who was born in 1138. Saladin was a skilled general's son who excelled in learning before pursuing a military career under Nur-el-Din. By 1185, Saladin had successfully unified disparate factions of the Muslim world through diplomacy, political realism, and military prowess. His lifelong ambition was to wage jihad, or holy war, against the Christian forces in the kingdom of Jerusalem. The loss of their bases in the Holy Land removed the primary reason for the Templars' existence and demonstrated their vulnerability to determined opponents.
Topic 2 Saladin achieved a significant victory over the largest Christian army ever assembled in the Holy Land at the Battle of the Horns of Hattin in 1187. This defeat marked the beginning of the final decline of crusader power in the region. While Saladin's meticulous planning and superb skill were crucial, the Christian defeat was also attributed in part to the ill-tempered strategic incompetence of the Templar Grand Master at the time, Gerard de Ridefort. The scale of the defeat was enormous. Following the battle, Saladin ordered the execution of all 230 surviving knights from both the Templar and Hospitaller orders. He expressed a desire to purify the land of these two orders, viewing their practices as useless and believing they would never abandon their hostility or serve as slaves.
Topic 3 Saladin was aware that the rules of the warrior monk orders, such as the Templars and Hospitallers, forbade their members from being ransomed. Consequently, after the knights captured at the Horns of Hattin were given the opportunity to convert to Islam, which they predictably rejected, they were handed over to Sufis for execution by beheading. The sources note that people have wondered why Sufis, whose beliefs seemingly had much in common with the Templars, performed this task. The simple explanation given is that Sufis believed that all warriors who died for their faith went directly to paradise. Similarly, the Knights Templar and Hospitallers saw themselves as Christian martyrs who would go straight to heaven, removing the fear of death for them. The Sufis, acting as obedient soldiers, carried out the orders, believing that instant entry into paradise was a more noble and merciful fate for the knights than a lifetime of slavery.
Topic 4 Saladin's conduct when his army captured Jerusalem later in 1187 contrasted sharply with the actions of the Christian armies when they took the city in 1095. The first capture by crusaders in 1095 resulted in a bloodbath where Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike were killed indiscriminately, reportedly with the horses of the conquering knights wading knee-deep in blood. In stark contrast, when Saladin's forces recaptured the city, he negotiated a peaceful surrender. The inhabitants were offered the chance to be ransomed rather than being massacred. After the fall of Jerusalem, the remaining crusader states in the Holy Land managed to persist for over a century, but they were gradually diminished. The Christian forces lost their last significant strongholds in the region with the fall of Acre, Beirut, and Sidon in 1291. This final loss of territory in the Holy Land meant that the warrior-monks of the Templar order lost the principal justification for their existence.
Topic 5 Any organization as large and powerful as the Knights Templar, benefiting from papal backing, economic success, and popular respect earned through their actions in the Holy Land, was bound to provoke envy from others. The Templars' power and independence often fostered arrogance. The extensive papal privileges they enjoyed, such as not having to pay tithes, caused lasting resentment among the episcopate and secular clergy. The exemption from tithes resulted in a significant loss of revenue for the local church, as tithe payments ceased on lands donated to the order. The Church also lost potential income from burials. Associate members of the order, including confreres, consores, their families, servants, employees, and craftsmen, or anyone who donated property, goods, or money to the Templars, were buried on Templar lands by the order's own priests, bypassing the secular clergy. Furthermore, powerful vested interests, including nearly every crowned head in Europe who owed money to the Templars, had their own reasons for animosity towards the order.
Topic 6 The situation concerning the Templars' power, wealth, and the resentment they generated came to a head around the election of a new Grand Master in 1293. There were allegations of irregularities in this election, and unusually, the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller was invited to advise the chapter of their rivals during the closely contested election. This process resulted in the election of Jacques de Molay, described as an elderly and reputedly illiterate knight from northern France, as the 23rd Grand Master. Most accounts depict him as brave and strict, but not particularly intelligent. Shortly after the fall of Acre, Pope Nicholas IV died, leading to a period of papal history marked by scandal and corruption. A succession of improperly elected popes, forced abdications, bribery, and violence characterized this time. Eventually, accusations, including murder, idolatry, simony, sodomy, and heresy, were leveled against Pope Boniface VIII. Under the significant influence of King Philippe le Bel of France, a cunning and unscrupulous monarch, a French archbishop, Bertrand de Goth (Archbishop of Bordeaux), who was not a cardinal, was elected Pope Clement V. Clement became, in effect, a compromise candidate chosen to prevent civil conflict between powerful Roman families. He chose to reside in Avignon, away from Rome, where he ruled while seemingly heavily influenced by King Philippe.
Topic 7 King Philippe IV, known as Philippe le Bel, ascended the French throne in October 1285. Despite France being a large kingdom with recent territorial gains like Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and the county of Toulouse, the country faced severe financial difficulties. These issues were made worse by the costs of the various wars Philippe waged. In the 1290s, Philippe began implementing harsh financial measures. He levied a 10 percent tax on the Church in the last decade of the 13th century and imposed punitive financial measures on Languedoc. Forced loans were frequently used between 1294 and 1297 during the war with England. From 1295 to 1306, Philippe repeatedly debased the currency. These actions eventually provoked riots against the king, forcing him at one point to seek refuge in the Paris temple, the headquarters of the Knights Templar. He targeted groups to whom he owed money, such as the Lombard bankers, despoiling them and seizing their assets to cancel debts and generate income. Lombards in France faced seizures, fines, and expulsions throughout the 1290s, culminating in the appropriation of their debts and imprisonment in 1311. The Jews of France were also targeted. In 1295, their "usurious profits" were confiscated, and they were forced to reveal their financial affairs. In July and August 1306, all Jewish property across France was seized, and the dispossessed owners were expelled from the country. Many Jewish families fled to places like Moorish Spain, Alsace, Burgundy, northern Italy, and the Muslim-controlled Holy Land. The sources indicate that no one was safe from the financial demands of this desperate monarch, particularly those to whom he owed substantial amounts.
Topic 8 Leading up to the arrests, King Philippe le Bel had reportedly extracted a high price from Bertrand de Goth for his election as Pope Clement V. This included the right for the king to retain Church tithes collected in France for five years and a promise that the new pope would reside in Avignon under his influence. Twelve of the king's preferred clergy were made cardinals, and some sources suggest a secret condition was imposed that was never publicly revealed. In 1306, Pope Clement V invited the Grand Masters of the Templars and the Hospitallers to France to discuss a potential merger of the two orders. They were instructed to travel as secretly as possible with a small retinue. William de Villaret, the Hospitaller Grand Master, declined, citing his ongoing assault on Rhodes, which was public knowledge. Jacques de Molay, the Templar Grand Master, however, did not have a ready excuse. Defying the pope's instructions for secrecy, he sailed to the Templar port of La Rochelle with a fleet of eighteen ships. On board were sixty senior knights, 150,000 gold florins, and a large amount of silver bullion requiring twelve packhorses. De Molay believed he might need to resort to bribery if arguments against the merger failed, thus arriving at the Paris temple with a considerable train of knights, packhorses, and transport, where he was welcomed by the king. De Molay prepared arguments against the merger, planning to state that both orders had served the Church well, that forcing a merger might be blasphemous as members chose their orders under God's guidance, and that combining their vast properties and wealth could cause disputes. However, he could not reveal the secret tradition that the Templar Order was a military creation of descendants of the high priests of the original temple in Jerusalem. The proposed amalgamation was seemingly just an excuse to lure the Grand Master from the safety of Cyprus to France. At the funeral of the king's sister-in-law on October 12, 1307, Jacques de Molay sat in a place of honor near the king, a position he would dramatically lose within twenty-four hours.
Topic 9 The orchestrated fall of the Templars began dramatically on Friday, 13 October 1307. King Philippe le Bel's agents throughout France opened sealed orders that had been distributed nearly a month earlier. Acting on these instructions, French soldiers simultaneously raided Templar properties across the kingdom. The Templar Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, the sixty knights of the inner circle, and all but twenty-four other members of the order residing in France were arrested. Gerard de Villiers, the preceptor of France, was the only senior Templar figure who managed to escape. To justify this widespread action, charges were leveled against the Templars, describing the alleged crimes in extremely negative terms, such as "a bitter thing," "horrible to contemplate," "detestable crime," and "almost inhuman." The Templars were accused of inflicting "injuries more terrible than those he endured on the cross" upon Christ, a charge reminiscent of those made against the Cathars. The sources note a striking similarity and formulaic nature to charges of heresy throughout European history, suggesting accusers sometimes lacked originality in framing them despite their creativity in devising tortures.
Topic 10 Following the arrests, the Templars were subjected to interrogation, often preceded or accompanied by threats and acts of torture, particularly in France. The sources state that Inquisitors were scrupulous in documenting that the accused had confessed the "pure and entire truth for the safety of his soul," despite evidence of intimidation and torture. Out of 138 depositions from the Paris hearings in October 1307, including those of Jacques de Molay and his leading knights, only four indicated that men had been able to endure the horrors they faced without confessing. Similar results were reported in other parts of France. The inquisitorial records show consistency with the papal policy ecclesia non novit sanguinem (the Church shall not shed blood), meaning the Church itself did not perform executions, but standard tortures that had proven effective over the years were applied. The source refutes claims by some authors that the Inquisition crucified Jacques de Molay, stating there is no credible evidence they ever used crucifixion on any victim at any time, and that fanatical Dominicans would have considered it the ultimate blasphemy. While King Philippe acted through the Inquisition and Guillaume de Paris, the chief Inquisitor and the king's confessor, the sources suggest Philippe was the primary driver, with the Inquisition acting as an arm of the state, not solely at the pope's direction. Philippe apparently did not seek the pope's explicit consent for the arrests beforehand.