By the end of the 13th century, the Order of Knights of the Temple had received so much property as charitable gifts that they were wealthier than many kings. A large number of their members were involved not in protecting pilgrims in the Holy Land, but in managing the property, which included estates with farms and mines as well as cash invested in shipping. The Templars had become international bankers who first tried out the idea of traveling with a verified receipt for money deposited in one city’s Temple, to be withdrawn in another city’s Temple—-in other words, a banker’s cheque, or check as we say.
The end of the Order came suddenly with unexpected violence: hundreds of knights were burned alive. To understand why, we need some context of what was happening in Europe during the previous decade or so.
First, the Orders of Knights had lost their actual function when Acre fell in 1291. They hung onto a base in Limassol, Cyprus and a few islands, including the isle of Ruad just off the coast of Lebanon. The Templars and Hospitalers were using the island as a base to attack Tortosa, the nearest mainland city. In 1303, the Mamluks cleaned up a bit more, taking the fortress at Ruad from the Templars. About forty knights were captured and remained in prisons in Cairo for the rest of their lives, refusing to convert to Islam.
Second, the King in France was the grandson of King Louis IX, the great Crusader who died of dysentery at Tunis in 1271. Since the time of King Louis, France had become locked in territorial wars with England, as France tried to take portions of its Atlantic coast that had been ruled by Anglo-Norman kings. France also got drawn into war against Aragon. Philip IV (“the Fair”) inherited debt from his father and perhaps even his Crusading grandfather. He owed large sums to Jews and Templars.
Philip IV tried a number of tactics to become solvent again. He evicted the Jews in 1306, seizing their property, which included debts to other people—who now faced King Philip IV as their creditor. Next, he evicted bankers from Lombardy (northern Italy) in the same way. He minted new coins several times, cheating on the value of gold and silver to try to make a little profit. Some of that old saw about biting a gold coin to tell if it’s genuine might come from Philip’s 1295 mixture of copper with the gold, which made it harder than true gold. Currency lost so much value that riots in Paris forced the king to hide, at one point in the Templars’ headquarters.
But perhaps Philip’s most influential money scheme came first: in 1290, he tried out taxing the income of the church. They were a tempting target, since so much charitable giving in people’s wills had left them owning vast estates. But the Pope issued a bull forbidding the church to transfer any property to the French crown. Philip actually attempted to arrest the Pope near Rome. When this Pope passed away and the conclave elected a new Pope in 1305, their choice was a Frenchman who decided not to live in Rome. The new Pope Clement V set up his Papal court in Avignon, France in 1309. One of Clement’s first actions was to nullify the previous Pope’s decrees against the King of France. For the next 70 years, the Pope was always French, and always under the King’s thumb.
Pope Clement wanted to wind down the Orders of Knights; he thought maybe the Templars and Hospitallers could at least merge. The Grand Master of the Templars traveled to Avignon to discuss this with the Pope in 1307, and another small item came up on the agenda: a former Templar knight had lodged a criminal complaint against the organization. Although the Pope wasn’t inclined to believe the charges, he sent the King of France a letter about them, asking for his input.
King Philip acted quickly: he would inflate the charges to be as great as possible and use them to bring down the Temple. On Friday the 13th of October, he sent out an arrest order for the Grand Master and most of the other knights. He charged them with heresy and indecency: spitting on the Cross during secret ceremonies, worshiping idols, indecent homosexual practices, and financial fraud. Knights were questioned under torture until they admitted to anything the King wanted. In November 1307, at the King’s request, the Pope issued a bull instructing all Christian monarchs to arrest all Templars.
When Pope Clement V got involved, the torture stopped. He held trials, but some of the Templars defended themselves, and most of those who had confessed under torture recanted their confessions. This was a serious problem for Philip, so he made sure a French archbishop took control of the trials. With direct crown control restored, Philip could ensure that the original confessions were upheld as trial evidence. Those convicted were immediately burned at the stake in Paris.
Even as the King’s puppet, Pope Clement V was reluctant to continue suppressing the Templars. The King had to threaten military action, and then the Pope cooperated, outlawing the Order at the Council of Vienne (in France) in 1312. The Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, and the Preceptor of Normandy were sentenced to be burnt for heresy on March 18, 1314. Legend says that the Grand Master called out of the flames to the Pope and King, saying that God knew the right of it and would judge them. Both Pope and King did die soon, within 1314.
The Temple properties were made over to the Hospital Order, though I think the Hospital chose wisely to cancel and destroy any certificates of debt to the King of France. Many Temple knights and other staff who had not been swept up in the heresy charges became Hospitallers. These knights continued on with headquarters on the islands of Cyprus, Rhodes, and Malta.
The King of Portugal started the Order of Christ in 1317 with the remnants of the Templars in his region. He still needed them for the rest of the Reconquista. This Order still exists in Portugal.