The Knights Templar were innocent

[faceless]

Vatican book on Templars' demise

The Vatican is to publish a book which is expected to shed light on the demise of the Knights Templar, a Christian military order from the Middle Ages. The book is based on a document known as the Chinon parchment, found in the Vatican Secret Archives six years ago after years of being incorrectly filed. The document is a record of the heresy hearings of the Templars before Pope Clement V in the 14th Century.

The official who found the paper says it exonerates the knights entirely. Prof Barbara Frale, who stumbled across the parchment by mistake, says that it lays bare the rituals and ceremonies over which the Templars were accused of heresy. In the hearings before Clement V, the knights reportedly admitted spitting on the cross, denying Jesus and kissing the lower back of the man proposing them during initiation ceremonies.

However, many of the confessions were obtained under torture and knights later recanted or tried to claim that their initiation ceremony merely mimicked the humiliation the knights would suffer if they fell into the hands of the Muslim leader Saladin. The leader of the order, Jacques de Moley, was one of those who confessed to heresy, but later recanted. He was burned at the stake in Paris in 1314, the same year that the Pope dissolved the order.

However, according to Prof Frale, study of the document shows that the knights were not heretics as had been believed for 700 years. In fact she says "the Pope was obliged to ask for pardons from the knights... the document we have found absolves them".

Details of the parchment will be published as part of Processus contra Templarios, a book that will be released by the Vatican's Secret Archive on 25 October.

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This is great to hear - I've always had an interest in the Knights Templar since finding out that they were the main force in Scotland's defeat of the English at Bannockburn (also in 1314). After they were excommunicated by the Pope they moved from their headquarters in France and moved to Scotland. also, Jacques De Morlay is considered by some to be the face that's in the Turin shroud.

I'll be looking forward to seeing the extracts when they're released - of course the bits that aren't released are the real ham in that sandwich.

[luke]

you try telling david icke they're innocent

[Skylace]

Have to agree Face. What they are holding back is probably more important.

I have always thought that the Knights Templar are a prime example of the Catholic's churches ability to make history fiction and control the way things happened. Their power was to great for too long not to have this effect.

It is one of the reasons I am very against organized religion of any sort.

[Twirley]

[Skylace]

[eefanincan]

[major.tom]

It's been a while since I read it, but my recollections of Herodotus' "The Histories" also struck me as (to put it charitably) questionable at parts.

I'm no expert on the Templars, but have seen some coverage of them, as any lover of history would. I believe Monty Python's Terry Jones touched on them in his series, "Crusades."

[SpursFan1902]

This is good news and it shows the Templars were framed and forced into confessions as so many of the time were. They did start out to do good works and make nicey nicey with the locals, but they do become very militant towards the end.

[Marcella-FL]

Maybe we could all pool our resources to buy the book. It's like $8000 ...

[faceless]

$8000?! bloody hell -

how did you find that out?

[Skylace]

[eefanincan]

[Skylace]

[Mandy]

Makes me wonder how much of their mention in The Da Vinci Code is true

CLICK HERE

[Skylace]