Trial of the Knights Templar

this is a channel five documentary on the trial of the knights templar that i scraped up somewhere. enjoy people

45 min in length

Quote:

(tvthrong.co.uk)

the downfall of the Knights Templar. For 200 years these pious warriors defended pilgrims in the Holy Land and established a network of banks that made them rich and respected. But the order collapsed when its leaders were tried and executed for heresy.

This film explores the evidence against the knights and looks at the real reasons for their fall. Founded in 1095, the Knights Templar were the warrior heroes of Christendom, combining the lifestyle of monks with the bloody work of soldiers.

From a band of nine men, the order expanded rapidly as new recruits joined to march on the Holy Land. “Very quickly, tens of thousands of people – mostly people who were not soldiers, had no experience of fighting and had in fact never left their villages – answered the call of the Pope and set out to the East,” says Dr Adrian Boas, of the University of Haifa, Israel.

The Knights Templar established themselves on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and spread their influence across Europe and the Middle East. Yet the order’s reputation was shattered when, in 1307, its leaders were tried for heresy. “Nobody could believe that the Templars – who had been Christianity’s heroes for the last 200 years – had been arrested on charges of heresy,” says author Sean Martin.

The downfall of the Templars owed much to the power and wealth they had acquired, as well as the mystique and secrecy they had cultivated. “The Templars were never obliged to say what they were doing,” explains Sean Martin. “As far as everyone was concerned, they were fighting in the East. But they were also really good at making money.”

In fact, the Templars became a kind of multinational corporation, building churches and castles, and developing a rudimentary system of banking. Pilgrims would deposit money in one of the knights’ temples in return for a note, which could then be cashed at another establishment further along the road. The fees from these transactions made the knights incredibly wealthy, as did their network of businesses including wineries, vineyards and tile factories. “They were the first capitalists, if you like,” says Martin.

But even as their trade flourished, the Templars were in decline in the Holy Land. A new Muslim force under Saladin expelled the Christians from Jerusalem and, in 1291, the order abandoned the Holy Land. With their crusade over, the role of the Knights Templar became vulnerable to attack.

The order’s nemesis proved to be the French king Philip IV, an ambitious ruler with delusions of grandeur. Philip had borrowed heavily from the Templars to finance his wars and had set his sights on seizing their vast treasury in Paris. The king launched a smear campaign against the knights before arresting their leaders on a number of charges – including financial corruption, deviant behaviour and idolatry.

Philip used torture to force the Templar leaders to confess to the most heinous crimes. “He didn’t torture them so they told the truth. He tortured them so they told his truth,” says Professor Alain Demurger. The only person who could defend the order was Pope Clement V, a virtual hostage of the king and almost powerless to intercede. Curiously enough, a document only recently unearthed at the Vatican reveals that the Templar leaders chose not to recant even when questioned by the pope’s own investigators.

Nonetheless, the pope attempted to repay his loyal soldiers by absolving their sins. But when an enraged Philip IV threatened to break away from the Catholic Church, the puppet pope caved in to his demands and dissolved the order. Only a stunning twist in the story ensured that the knights would have a final victory over the king who had succeeded in destroying them...