The Real History Behind the Templars

by Sharan Newman

  This theoretical second ceremony was spelled out in the charges: after the usual reception, the new Templar was supposedly taken aside and told to deny Christ and spit on the crucifix. Then he either kissed the master on the base of the spine and the navel or the new Templar was kissed. Reports varied. This ceremony was described mostly by Templars who had either been tortured or expected to be if they didn’t give the answers that their inquisitors wanted.12

  The problem with the reports of the interrogations is that they are all in the third person, not in the exact words of the men. Each Templar was asked if he had participated in the crimes the order was accused of. These were read out one at a time. Then the inquisitor wrote down the gist of the answer.

  The first statement of Grand Master Jacques de Molay is almost a template for these reports of a secret reception.

  On October 24, 1307, nine days after his arrest, Jacques told the inquisitors that, after he received his white cloak, he was shown a cross of bronze on which was the image of Christ and he was told to deny. And he, with much distaste (licet invictus), did it.13 Then he was told to spit on the cross, but he spat on the ground. Finally, he was asked if he had taken a vow of chastity. “Yes,” he answered. “But they told me I could unite carnally with the brothers, but I swear on my oath that I never did.”14

  Other confessions would follow this pattern. Brother Peter la Vernha, a sergeant, testified that after he received his cloak he was told to kiss the receptor between the shoulder blades, which he did. Then he was told to deny God, for that was the custom of the reception. He did this “by mouth, not in the heart” (ore, non corde).15

  Brother Steven the Cellerer only had to kiss the receptor on the navel over his clothes. He also denied Christ, also ore, non corde, and spat next to, not on, the crucifix.16

  These two confessions were made in Paris. In the Auvergne, far to the southeast, Brother John Dalmas of Artonne, a knight, said that he had been received into the order in 1299 before the preceptor, Imbart Blanc. Imbart told him that the denial of Christ was part of the regulations of the order. So John did it, again ore, non corde, and spat next to the cross.17

  The early interrogations only mention the denial of Christ, spitting on the cross, and sometimes permission to have sex with the other brothers. As the months passed, the Templar prisoners were asked about idol worship. This accusation is treated elsewhere in this book.18

  Now, many of the Templars insisted that their reception had been completely orthodox but of the ones who confessed, they all follow a pattern. The first two actions, denying Christ and spitting on the crucifix, are almost identical in each statement. The “obscene kiss” varies as to place, with the navel and the base of the spine being favorites. None of the Templars admits to being enthusiastic about it. In their hearts they all remained believers, or so they said.

  So what did the inquisitors think was the purpose of this secret initiation?

  Did they really believe that every new Templar was immediately let in on the great surprise that the order wasn’t really Christian at all, but denied Christ and defiled the crucifix? It seems odd that a new recruit, ready and eager to give his life fighting for Christ, should be told on the first day that that wasn’t the reason for the order’s existence. I also find it strange that, after they supposedly denied Christ, they were then told to worship an idol that some called Baphomet. It seems a lot to throw at a man on his first day on the job.

  Also, according to the testimonies of the Templars at their trials, after this ceremony, nothing more happened. They continued hearing the Divine Office and going to Mass, although some said that the priests omitted the words to consecrate the Host. They also continued shipping out for the Holy Land, where they fought and died.

  But for what? If they weren’t there to protect pilgrims and fight the infidel in order to gain remission of their sins and have the hope of heaven, what were they doing there? While people have come up with lots of theories, at the time of the trials, none of the men who confessed came out with a set of beliefs to replace the Christian ones.

  They didn’t say they had become Moslems. They didn’t give any of the alternate beliefs of other Christian heretics. They didn’t say that they were Cathars. They certainly didn’t tell the inquisitors that they were atheists, a concept that was barely known at this time. It is unprecedented in the history of heretical movements not to have some sort of set of beliefs. And yet, if the Templars weren’t Christian, they didn’t confess to being anything else.

  I tend to think that this was something that the accusers of the Templars slipped up on. Maybe they counted on the public to fill in the blanks with their most dreaded heresy. But it is another reason to suspect that the heretical reception ceremony existed only in the imagination of the inquisitors.

  Alan Demurger thinks that there really was some sort of unorthodox part of the ceremony, put in as an initiation test.19I don’t think it makes sense to demand that an initiate deny the very reason he wants to join a group, even as a hoax. However, I won’t completely discount this, just because of the strange things I’ve heard of modern male initiations. However, I think that the most probable answer is that there never was such a ceremony. No Templar who testified without the threat of torture confessed to a heretical reception.

  One of the most shocking accusations was that at the reception, the Templars denied Christ and spat or even urinated on the cross. Like Demurger, some scholars have assumed that this might have happened and explain it as a test of loyalty or obedience. I think that’s nonsense. This was just another of the general beliefs floating around concerning heretics.

  THE Templars opened themselves up to lurid speculations by keeping the reception secret. Why?

  The best answer I have heard is one given by Imbart Blanc, the preceptor of Auvergne, who had been captured and tried in England. Despite the testimony of John Dalmas, related above, Imbart insisted that the accusations were all lies.

  The inquisitor then asked him why the Templars kept their reception ceremonies a secret.

  His reply: “We were foolish!”

  Imbart added that there was nothing in the reception ceremony that “was not fit for the whole world to see.”20

  Rather than confess to something he had never done, Imbart died in prison in England.

  It seems to me that the mostly likely explanation is Imbart’s. For centuries people have tried to make sense of the “secret rites” of the Templars. As I mention in the section on the Templars and the Saint, there is a story told about Louis IX, grandfather of Philip the Fair. While in captivity, Louis was asked to take an oath that, if he failed to deliver his ransom, he would be an apostate who denies Christ and spits on the cross. Also, in the 1147 account of the taking of the city of Lisbon by the crusaders, the Moslem defenders of the city are supposed to have “displayed the symbol of the cross before us with mockery: and spitting upon it and wiping the filth from their posteriors with it, and finally making water upon it.”21

  Many people have imagined a religion to fit the testimony given under torture. Most of these “religions” have little or nothing to do with the statements made in the confessions. There is no place where the Templars give any doctrine of belief that goes with the rituals they are supposed to have practiced. It’s a very strange heresy that has no dogma. With the information we have, I am forced to conclude that there was probably no secret reception and that there certainly wasn’t a heretical alternate religion practiced by the Templars.

  The Templars were established to serve God and protect other Christians and that is what they lived and died believing they were doing.

  1Laurent Dailliez, Régle et Statuts de L’Ordre du Temple (Paris, 1972) p. 307. “Freres, requerés vos la compaignie de la maison?”

  2Ibid., “et qu’il veaut ester serf et esclafe de la maison a tou jors mais tous les jors de sa vie.”

  3One good way to understand this is to read the Benedictine Rule, on which most of the others are based
. It has been translated into most languages. One in English is Anthony C. Meisel and M. L. del Mastro, The Rule of St. Benedict (Garden City, 1975).

  4Dailliez, p. 307. Rule no. 659. “Sire nos avons parle a cest prodome que est defors et li avons mostré les durtés de la maison si come nos avons peu et seu. Et il dit qu’il veaut estre serf et esclaf de la maison.”

  5Ibid., p. 308. Rule no. 660. “Ire, je suis venu devant Dieu et devant vos et devant les freres, et vos prie at vos require por Dieu et por Nostre Dame, que vous m’acueilliés en vestre compaignie et en vos bienfaits de la maison come celui qui to los jors mès veaut ester serf et esclaf de la maison.”

  6Ibid., p. 308. Rule no. 661: “Biau frere, vos requires mult grand chose, quar nostre religion vos ne veés que l’escoche qui est par defors. Car lescorches se est que vos nos veé beaus chevaus, et beau hernois, at bien bovre et bien mangier, et beles robes, et ensi vos semble que vos fussiés mult aisé. Mais vos ne sav es pas le fors comandemens qui sont par dedans: quar forte chose siest que vos, qui est sires de vos meismes, que vos vos faites serf d’autrui, Quar a grant poine ferés jamais chose que vos veulles: car si vos veulleés estre en la terre deça mer, l’en vos mondera en la terre de Triple ou d’Antyoche ou d’Ermenie. . . . Et se vos vol es dormir on vos fera veillier: et se vos volés aucunes foi veillier l’envos commandera que vos ailliés en vostre lit.” I have adapted the English quote from the translation made by J. M. Upton-Ward, The Rule of the Templars (Boydell, 1992) p. 169. I only found out about this translation toward the end of my work on this book. It is very good, but occasionally her carefully literal translation is a bit hard to follow so I have gone back to the original to clarify.

  7Dailliez, Rule no. 668. “Priés nostre Seignor er madame sainte Marie, que il de doit bien faire.”

  8Ibid., Rules no. 675 and 676.

  9“Oil, sire, si Dieu plaist.”

  10Dailliez, p. 314. Rule no. 677. “Et nos de par dieu et de par Nostre Dame sainte Marie, et de par mon seignor saint Pierre de Rome, at de par nostre pere l’apostile, et de par tous les freres dou Temple, si vos acuillons a toz les bienfais de la moison qui on esté fais dès le comencement et qui seront fais jusques a la fin, . . . Et vos aussi nos acuilliés en toz les biensfais que vos avés fais et ferés. Et si vos prometon dou pain et de l’aigue et de la povre robe de la maison et de la poine et dou travail assés.”

  11Ibid., p. 315. “et le baiser en la bouche.”

  12Please see chapter 31, The charges Against the Templars.

  13Georges Lizerand, Le Dossier de l’Affaire des Templiers (Paris, 1923) p. 34.

  14Ibid., p. 37. “Interrogatus, quum vovit castitatem, si sibi aliquid dictum quod commisceret se carnaliter cum fratribus, dixt per jarmentum suum quod non nec numquam fecit.”

  15 Jules Michelet, Le Procés des Templiers Vol II (Paris, 1987; rpt. of 1851 ed.) pp. 216-17.

  16Ibid., pp. 241-42.

  17 Roger Sève and Anne-Marie Chagny-Sève, Le Procès des Templiers d’Auvergne 1309-1311 (Paris, 1986) pp. 127-28.

  18See chapter 40, Baphomet.

  19Alain Demurger, Jacques de Molay: Le Crepuscule des Templiers (Paris: Biographie Payot, 2002) p. 335.

  20Malcom Barber, The Trial of the Templars (Cambridge, 2006; 2nd. ed.) pp. 220-21.

  21Charles Wendell David, ed. and tr. The Conquest of Lisbon De Expugnatione Lyxbonensi (Columbia University Press, 1936; rpt. 2002) pp. 132-33, “atque in illam expuentes, feditis sue posteriora extergebant ex illa, sique demum micturientes in illam.” I am grateful to Malcolm Barber for pointing out this reference to me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Marguerite Porete

  The Belgian mystic Marguerite Porete may seem an odd person to include in a book about the Templars. She never went to the Holy Land. She may never have even met a Templar. But their fate affected hers in the most disastrous manner.

  Marguerite was one of a group of laypeople known as the Beguines. The movement was strongest in the Low Countries but reached all through Europe. Beguines lived in towns in communal homes, worked outside or begged for alms, and pooled their possessions for the common good. Their beliefs ranged from a completely orthodox desire to live a religious, semimonastic life to deeply mystical, sometimes heretical revelations. Although the movement was condemned at the Council of Vienne,1 it survived into the twentieth century. Some of their homes, or beguinages, have been turned into museums.

  Many Beguine mystics were revered locally and accepted by the hierarchy of the Church. Marguerite wasn’t one of these. She wandered about, preaching her belief in the Free Spirit (another heretical movement condemned at the Council of Vienne) and explaining to people that the soul can achieve union with God without the guidance of what she called “the little church.”2

  Now, first of all, no one was supposed to preach publicly without permission from the local bishop and women weren’t allowed to preach at all, at least not outside the family. Marguerite not only did so, but she also wrote a book about her mystical experiences, The Mirror of Simple Souls. The book was condemned and burned by the bishop of Valenciennes in 1306. Undaunted, Marguerite submitted the book to three scholars at the University of Paris, each of whom said that the book contained nothing heretical.3

  The masters of the university were apparently getting quite a reputation for deciding matters of religion. Philip the Fair went to them several times in his attempts to justify the arrest and trials of the Templars. So Marguerite must have felt secure in their approval as she carried on with her work.

  However, in 1308, Philip’s confessor, Guillaume de Paris, who was also the papal inquisitor, happened to get a copy of The Mirror of Simple Souls. At this point he was frustrated by Pope Clement V’s lack of enthusiasm for condemning the Templars. Unlike the masters of the university, Guillaume found several heretical passages in Marguerite’s book. He had her brought to Paris to be questioned.4

  Marguerite, who had spoken her mind to all and sundry for years, refused to say anything to the inquisitors. After a year and a half in prison without defending herself, she was condemned on June 9, 1310, and burned at the stake the next day.5

  This was less than a month after the archbishop of Sens had ordered the burning of fifty-four Templars. It has been suggested that “because of his acts of intolerance against the Templars, the king of France had angered the Pope.”6Philip may have hoped that Clement was ready to follow the king in all things but he may have worried that the burning had pushed the pope too far.

  Therefore, Philip and Guillaume needed an example of a true heretic, someone who had openly derided the authority of the Church. Marguerite was a perfect choice. She was a free spirit in many ways, not attached to a convent or to an important family. And her work could be seen as decidedly unorthodox.

  But would she have been burned if the case of the Templars hadn’t been going so badly? I suspect not. It is more likely that her book would have been burned and she would have been shut up somewhere. On the other hand, Marguerite also represented a growing interest among literate laypeople in understanding the faith on their own. This independence threatened the stability of all of society, not just that of the Church. The various reforms in the Church over the previous two hundred years had emphasized personal devotions. Many people were trying to make sense of the beliefs they had been taught. Marguerite was one of the more vocal but she was not as alone as she may have felt.

  Evidence of this is that, although all copies of The Mirror of Simple Souls were to be handed in and destroyed, several people kept them. It is a testament to her work that it was translated into English, Italian, and Latin (!). Clearly her mystical experiences touched a wide range of people.7

  Did Marguerite fall into a trap set for the Templars or were she and the Templars caught up in a general panic on the part of those in power? Were they accused of heresy because of valid evidence or because that was the charge most likely to be taken seriously, given the mood of the times?

  I honestly don’t know.
But it is something to think about.

  1Charles-Joseph Hefele and Dom H. Leclercq, Histoire des Conciles d’après les Documents Originaux Tome VI deuxième partie (Paris, 1915) p. 681. The fifth canon of the council lumps the Beguins in with the heresy of the Free Spirit and condemns both.

  2Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (d. 203) to Marguerite Porete (d. 1310) (Cambridge University Press, 1984) p. 217.

  3Catherine M. Müller, Marguerite Porete et Marguerite d’Oingt, de l’autre côte du miroir (New York: Land, 1999) pp. 14-15.

  4Ibid., p. 15.

  5Ibid.

  6Ibid.

  7Dronke, p. 217.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Who Were the Templars?

  While there are some notable men who became Templars, and occasionally one of the rank-and-file Templars was singled out for approval by a chronicler for the glory of his death, most of the time the Templars seemed interchangeable. This was intentional. Unlike secular knights, they were not supposed to be interested in personal fame. They were not just soldiers, but monks. Their lives combined the discipline of an army unit in the field with the rigor of the monastic schedule of prayer eight times a day.

  The Rule tells us what the daily life of the Templar should be. There was of course a big difference between the lives of those who were on duty in the Latin kingdoms and those who never left the West. But the Rule gives us a pattern that every Templar was supposed to follow. It is probable that when not actively in battle, most of them did their best to keep to it.