The Collected Prose

by Zbigniew Herbert

  HIGH JURY: AFTER THIS extensive but necessary introduction, the defense will address itself to the central issue: that is, to the trial of the Templars (then led by the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay) staged by the grandson of Louis IX, Philip the Fair14, King of France. His hard-handed rule was dictatorial almost in the modern sense of the word, and he is justly considered as a prototypical European autocrat. His numerous wars exhausted the state treasury. His rule was characterized by a series of profound economic crises. Almost from the day he was enthroned, Philip was in conflict with the Holy See, which, as we know, led to the Pope’s captivity in Avignon. These political elements played a decisive role in the trial of the Templars.

  The trial was conducted, High Jury, in order to eliminate an autonomous power independent of the state. It was conducted in order to plunder—I shall not hesitate to use the word—the Order’s wealth. It was conducted, thirdly, in order to prevent the Templars, who were the third power, and an international power to boot, from siding with the Vatican in the confrontation between the King and the Pope. We shall attempt to demonstrate that the religious, moral, and ideological accusations leveled at the Order during the trial were but a smokescreen for the political motives of the entire operation.

  Despite the loss of their properties in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Order was a force which every realistically-minded sovereign had to take into account. Twenty thousand armed Templars could decide the fate not only of battles, but of wars. They had properties and castles not only in France, but also in Italy, Sicily, Portugal, Castile, Aragon, England, Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, and even in Poland, where they kept two battalions and supported the armies of King Henry the Pious15 in the Battle of Legnica16. Two centers, however, had special importance: Cyprus—a strategic center and base for expeditions to the East, and Paris—the political center.

  In the French capital the walled Templars’ quarter was a true city within a city, with separate jurisdiction, administration, and the right of asylum. Philip the Fair’s relations with the papacy were clear and wholly unscrupulous. He viewed the papal bulls flying at “our dear son,” and the persuasive Ausculta fili as if they were exotic birds from a distant epoch. The ultimatum issued by the Council of Rome in 1302 had only one effect: the King established the Estates General which would accept his politics “in the name of the nation.” What is the theory of two swords to someone who trusts only one, the one in hand? Philip’s response to Boniface VIII’s proposed excommunication was to send an envoy, Guillaume de Nogaret, to Italy to bring the Pope to France by force.

  What was the Templars’ attitude toward Philip? The prosecutor has told us that according to numerous proofs, retired officers (that is how one could describe the Order’s situation after the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem) like to plot. The facts, however, testify to their deep loyalty to the French sovereign, and at least give him their financial, but quite decisive, support in his doings. Nothing foreshadows the conflict, there are no warning signs, but in the inner circle of royal counselors a plan of attack ripens. In the same year that the King declares “our genuine and particular attachment” to the Order, an occasion arises to provide the necessary pretext for the affair to begin. As the High Jury has probably guessed, we are talking about a secret denunciation.

  At the beginning of 1305, a certain Noffo Dei, a Florentine and let us add, a criminal, gives a deposition in prison, which accuses the Templars of apostasy and immoral conduct. Moreover the King is feverishly collecting information from brothers expelled from the Order. The castles and homes of the Templars are invaded by an army of spies.

  At the same time, without any connection to the denunciations, the new Pope, Clement V, proposes a merger of the Templar Order with the Order of the Hospitallers17. The purpose was to join forces before a new crusade, which was not in fact ever launched. The Grand Master Jacques de Molay rejects this suggestion. One can guess that his decisive motive was not just pride but the difficulty of reconciling two rules. This move would prove tragic in its results.

  When we reflect, High Jury, on the trial of the Templars, we should note that Philip the Fair was not acting solely on cold calculation. His attitude towards the Order contained an element of authentic passion. It is a psychological moment not without importance. We shall try to explain.

  Towards the end of 1305, after the third currency devaluation, the petit peuple of Paris rebelled. The upheavals reached such a state that the endangered King and his family were forced to escape to the Templars’ fortress, the famous “Tour du Temple,” where he endured a humiliating siege by the “mob.” Within a few days the leaders of the rebellion were hanged at the gates of Paris, but the taste of defeat was bitter. Nothing humiliates a monarch more than the feeling of gratitude, especially towards those whom one is about to pronounce criminals. In the same year Philip conducted an operation which was like a dress rehearsal for the trial of the Templars. The object of the maneuvers was a defenseless nation, the Jews, whose property was confiscated, they themselves cruelly tortured, and finally condemned to banishment.

  Philip the Fair knew that in a widespread action the political police should act swiftly to eliminate any danger of resistance. The thunderbolt must strike before the victim sees the lightning.

  On Thursday, October 12, 1307, Jacques de Molay walked beside the King in the mourners’ procession at the funeral of the wife of Charles of Valois. On Friday at dawn, the very next day, all the Templars in France were arrested. We must bow, High Jury, in sad admiration of this unprecedented mastery of the police machine.

  The prosecutor has said that the imprisonment of the Templars surprised no one, that charges against them were voiced many times, that they were so to speak in the air. He added that Philip the Fair conferred with Pope Clement V over this matter, but again he omitted the background of these talks. For it is known that these negotiations concerned a new crusade. The Pope wanted to send as its leader the dangerous papal kidnapper, Nogaret, who was under a curse, in the hope of breaking his political career and returning him to the path of virtue. The idea of a crusade, however, was totally alien to Philip. He presented its difficulties, claiming trouble in the Templar Order, which, as usual, was to constitute the nucleus of the army setting out for the East. The prosecution also, has ignored the important fact that the Order’s Master Jacques de Molay himself asked the Pope for an investigation to clear the Order of frequent yet vague accusations. Clement V in turn, unable to find reliable evidence against the Templars, in September 1307 asked Philip the Fair for the results of his investigation. It is obvious, High Jury, that the King could not compromise himself by providing testimonies of criminals or obviously bribed brothers who had been expelled from the Order. One had to extract, by means of a hot iron, self-accusations from those who currently belonged to the Order.

  The warrant of arrest sent to barons, prelates, and royal officials in the provinces is a masterpiece of rhetoric: “It is a bitter thing, a lamentable matter, a matter truly horrible to contemplate, and terrible to hear about—an odious crime, an execrable evil, an appalling act, a detestable disgrace—truly inhuman deeds have reached our ears, causing our deep astonishment, and most shocked revulsion…” High Jury, please count the adjectives in this opening sentence. An abundance of adjectives is a sure sign not only of bad poetry but also of accusations weak on proof; further on the text contains nothing but the gurgle of rage.

  The investigation immediately followed the arrests and was conducted by lay authorities. Instructions for the commissioners recommend “rigorous examination of the truth, if necessary with the use of torture.” The accused are faced with the alternative: either confess to the alleged crimes and be pardoned, or die at the stake.

  Progress in civilization, High Jury, consists mainly in the fact that simple tools for splitting heads were replaced by hatchet-words, which have the advantage of psychologically paralyzing an opponent. Such words are: “corruptor of minds,” “witch”, and “heretic.” Of course t
he Templars were accused of heresy, chiefly to deprive the Pope of the possibility of intervening on their behalf. The battle was difficult from the start. Philip the Fair had force, the Holy See merely diplomacy.

  Now comes the moment most taxing for the defense, and it is hardly surprising that the prosecution placed its emphasis here. It is indeed a fact that Jacques de Molay admitted publicly, in the presence of representatives of the Church, theologians, and the University of Paris, that there was a long-standing custom practiced during the admission of new brothers: they denounced Christ and spat on the Cross. Another dignitary of the Order, Geoffroi de Charney, gave a similar testimony, stressing however that he himself was never involved in such practices, as they were contrary to the principles of the Creed. One should add that both confessions were made just twelve days after the arrests, which may suggest that they were spontaneous. Let us remember, however, that for suspects under investigation time is not measured in days, but in hours, and that conforming to royal instructions the investigative apparatus worked “rigorously.”

  It is more than probable that the Grand Master, who as the trial demonstrated was a very naive politician, was promised that public confession of guilt would save the Order as a whole. Moreover, the very act of spitting on the Cross does not indicate apostasy, but in the opinion of many experts may be an element of initiation, dialectical in character. One might recall the well-known ritual of knighting, when a symbolic slap in the face is the only affront that a knight must endure without return. As for the fact itself, the testimonies of various Templars are contradictory. Some say that they were spitting not on the Cross, but to the side. Others categorically deny the practice existed. Geoffroi de Gonneville explained that the custom was introduced by a bad Master, who having been in Saracen captivity, regained his freedom by renouncing Christ. But the same Geoffroi could not identify this bad Master.

  Brother Gerard de Pasagio declared: “A novice entering the Order was presented with a wooden crucifix and asked if that was God. He answered that it was the image of the Crucified. A receiving brother told him: ‘Do not believe it. That is but a piece of wood. Our Lord is in Heaven.’” It is evidence against idolatry, of which the Templars were accused, and a proof of the high spiritualization of their faith. In short, High Jury, the testimonies are contradictory as to the custom itself and as to its origin. Most importantly, no written records and above all no preserved rule contains such an ordinance.

  Similarly in the case of the idol, which was said to be venerated by the Templars, and on the subject of which a sea of ink was spilled, so that even if it were an angel it would have turned into a devil. The Inquisitor Guillaume de Paris18, instructed the investigative organs to quiz the accused about the statue with a human head and a long beard. Here again the statements of the accused are contradictory and vague. For some it was a statue of wood, for others of silver and leather; feminine or masculine; bare-faced or bearded; resembling a cat or a pig; it had one head, or two, or even three. Despite the confiscation of all sacred objects, nothing resembling the descriptions could be found.

  What we have here, High Jury, is a classic case of collective psychosis. And we—who know the logic of fear, the psychopathology of a hunted man, the theory of group behavior in the face of annihilation—we should not believe it. Let us remember that the medieval imagination was haunted by the devil. Who could better explain to the tortured, to those imprisoned in dark dungeons, the sense of their fate?

  What remains, High Jury, is the name of that demon. It has survived until our time, being the subject of numerous experts’ consideration. Not the object, but the word is the sole evidence in this trial. Let us at last utter this name: Baphomet.

  A German expert, the Orientalist Baron von Hammer-Purgstall, derives the origin of the demon’s name from the word Bahumid, which was supposed to mean an ox. Hence he came to the conclusion that it was a case of the cult of the Golden Calf, of which the Templars were in fact accused. This thesis did not hold water and the author himself later exchanged it for an equally unconvincing one. A student of the Templars and prominent scholar, Emil Michelet, saw in it an acronym which according to the Cabbala should be read backwards: TEMpli Omnium Hominum Pacis ABbas. It was noted also that the name could have originated from a port held by the Templars: Bapho, where in ancient times there was a temple of Astarte—Venus and Moon19, Virgin and Mother—to whom children were sacrificed. This hypothesis was mentioned by the prosecutor, who followed a line of fantastic charges against the Templars, including cannibalism.

  A rather plausible explanation, at least from a philological point of view, was provided at the beginning of the nineteenth century by an outstanding Arabist, Sylvestre de Sacy, who derived the name from the garbled name of Mahomet. This theory was supported by a poem composed by the Templar Oliver in the langue d’oc, “E Bafonet obra de son poder” (“And Mahomet flared with his might”). It is by no means proof, as the prosecution would have it, of the infiltration of the Templars’ esoteric doctrine by Islam. Though they were attracted to a certain extent to the religions of the East, no document indicates that they were a religious sect. In their minds the perspective on faith was certainly enlarged. What was an axiom for every French nobleman setting forth on a crusade—that Christianity was the only religion worthy of its name—was unsettled by new contacts and experiences. The Koran, recognizing Christ as one of the Prophets, certainly facilitated that process.

  Let us return from the East, which at the time of our story is just a memory and an echo, to France where a game is being played in which the life and honor of the Order is at stake. As becomes a modern leader, Philip the Fair could use propaganda with outstanding skill. As the tortured moan in dungeons throughout France, the King writes a letter to European sovereigns denouncing the “crimes” of the Templars. However, not all gave credence to the charges. The King of England, Edward II, saw them as calumnies and conveyed his favorable disposition towards the Templars to the kings of Portugal, Castile, Aragon, and Sicily, and to the Pope himself. One can easily deduce from this that the allegedly bad reputation of the Templars was not as universal as the prosecution would have us believe.

  After the initial self-accusation extracted from the Grand Master, the Templars had only one hope, namely that they would be entrusted to Church jurisdiction, or more precisely, that they would be judged by the Pope. And in fact toward the end of 1307 the King agreed to send the prisoners to Clement V. Hearing this news, the Templars revoked their testimonies en masse. According to tradition, Jacques de Molay did so in front of a crowd gathered in a church, showing them the marks of his torture.

  Seeing the threads of the intrigue slipping through his fingers, Philip presses the pedal of propaganda—this time internal propaganda. Letters circulate in Paris accusing the Pope of being bribed by the Templars. Nothing fosters emotion better than pecuniary arguments. Having excited the mob, the King turns towards parliament and the University of Paris for support of his anti-papal politics, demanding a statement on the Templars. The university, however, responds that matters of heresy should be judged by an ecclesiastical tribunal. This offers additional proof that not all of public opinion turned against the Order.

  The intellectuals, as usual, proved unreliable; but the parliament which assembled in May 1308 in Tours—admittedly incomplete, since many noblemen preferred to excuse their absence than to take part in the farce—after acquainting itself with the forced testimonies, declares that the Templars deserve a death sentence. Strengthened by public opinion, Philip travels to Poitiers to meet the Pope.

  Clement V confronted the King in a masterly way, immediately turning the conversation to matters of the crusade while keeping silent about the trial of the Templars. The King had no alternative but to use his faithful dignitaries of the Church, the archbishops of Narbonne and Bourges, who at a staged meeting together with royal confidants violently attacked the Order, the indifference of ecclesiastical power in the affair, sparing no offensive wo
rds against the Pope himself. Clement V maintained his position. He even remarked that some of the Templars’ testimonies seemed insufficiently plausible, and in order to gain time announced that the Council of Vienna due to gather the next year would address itself to the matter of the Order. He also demanded to see the principal defendants.

  The defendants were transported by armed convoy from Paris to Poitiers. The journey was suddenly interrupted in Chinon, on the pretext of indisposition on the part of the accused. Beyond any doubt, High Jury, it was a scheme prepared in advance. Chinon, whose somber ruins have been preserved to this day, was a very suitable place for that stopover because of its immense dungeons. When the Pope’s envoys reached the place of new torment, accompanied by the sworn enemies of the Templars, Nogaret and Plaisians, the accused kept silent or admitted their guilt. Returned to the dungeons, they could write their testament on the walls.

  Examining the dossier of the case, one easily notices how often the interrogated retract their testimonies, only to return, after some days, to the most severe self-accusations. One cannot explain it except by the use of fire, cauldron, estrapade, iron boots, and hoop-iron.

  The defense takes the liberty of quoting fragments from some of the testimonies.

  Ponsard de Gizy, November 29, 1309:

  “Asked if he was subjected to torture, he answered that three months ago when he had testified before the Lord Bishop of Paris, he was thrown into a pit with his hands tied so tightly that blood ran from his nails; he had said then that if they tormented him, he would recant previous testimonies and say everything they wanted. He was ready for anything, only to make his suffering short, a beheading, the stake, submersion in boiling water, but he could not bear the long torment he had to endure in prison for over two years.”