In 1128, the Council of Troyes approved for a group of religious knights to form under the rule of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. These knights became known as the Templars and they were considered a religious military world order with religious protections (CP 62). The Templars were justified as a warrior of Christ and their job was to make sure evil did not survive. It is believed that in the 14th century, King Phillip IV of France had all of the Templars arrested because of his greed for their wealth.
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| St. Bernard of Clairvaux |
The charges included 127 articles accusing the Templars of various heretical activity. In 1312, the Templars were burned at the stake before they were even put through a legal process. For many centuries, there was no indication that the Templars were anything more than heretics that had no support from the papacy, until 2001. In 2001, Barbara Frale stumbled upon a piece of parchment within the records of the Vatican archives revealing that in 1308 Pope Clement V absolved all of the Templars of their accused heretical activity.
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| The Templars Burning |
This missing parchment is known as
The Chinon Parchment, which helped fill in the missing gap between papal support and the Templars. After finding this document, the
Processus Contra Templarios was created in 2007. This book includes exact replicas of all the documents regarding the Templars. Sadly only 799 copies were created, but Stanford library has one if you ever decide to transfer there!
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| Partial of Processus Contra Templarios |
This website contains the document of St. Bernard in support of the Templars:
In Praise of the New Knighthood
If you ever think you can afford a copy of the Processus Contra Templarios, here is a link to one on Ebay:
Processus Contra Templarios
Do you think that there was a conspiracy against the Templars? Especially if you have seen the Da Vinci Code, one wonders if the Templars had some secret agenda on behalf of the church. Maybe that's why that parchment was conveniently 'lost', giving enough evidence for their destruction in order to hide the truth! It would be interesting to do some research on this subject.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that there was a conspiracy against the Templars? Especially if you have seen the Da Vinci Code, one wonders if the Templars had some secret agenda on behalf of the church. Maybe that's why that parchment was conveniently 'lost', giving enough evidence for their destruction in order to hide the truth! It would be interesting to do some research on this subject.
ReplyDeleteDon't you love it when history discovers a missing puzzle piece? Keeps us all on our toes. It's fun to see new sides to stories. I don't think I will be transferring to Stanford, but one of these days when I have $60,000 laying around I might look into getting a copy of the Processus Contra Templarios!
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