The Secret History of Freemasonry
by Paul Naubon
This book is a paradigm shifter. A game changer. For all those teaching the mind-set of the Dark Ages I say tisk-tisk. Middle...Yes. Dark...No. Paul Naubon while enlightening the reader with a brilliant unfurling of the lineage of Freemasonry back to the coagulation of society of man from hunter gatherer to agrarian age to the industrial world, the original domino is not lost from view. In fact it gains in its energy, and with that immense sense of energy the reader is able to realize that behind the mystery of intrigue, there is a bit of truth to the simple act of connecting with the earth, the universe and being one with God.
The first domino begins with the rational for builders/masons to become a revered person in a new society where people actually pool their resources together and organize the harvest of their crops. It is then that builders became essential in building first houses, then utility buildings. An ancient mason looked at his work as he visualized the earth’s resources and transforming them into to a statement of mans existence. Hence one’s home became a spiritual place. As man began to meet with others in general assembly, the notion of Temples became a pinnacle of his work. Before he struck each rock to transform earth into a statement of himself and his extended society, he made a spiritual testament as to his purpose. While this gave meaning to his work he began to realize that this is special work that required codification, rituals, and a sense of a threshold to cross in order to enter into the practice. And hence my dear reader I introduce to you the worlds first college and trade union all in one felled swoop.
So with that introduction Naubon spends an appropriate amount of time on the history of architecture in a Western Civilization setting that clearly includes the Orient. This with extensive Muslim influence, twin to that of Byzantine world is work of the Benedictines of Cluny which really was exported to Constantinople from France, witnessed by the Basilicas built in the East, and then back to the West. The Templars became the bridge and guard as they most certainly gained their earliest knowledge of architecture, by virtue of proximity to the Masons themselves, and consequently its trade secrets, from the Benedictines and Cistercians. Secrets that were Christian in origin, influenced by Muslim minds and exported back to the Christian West. So while in the East, Persia to be more precise, The Templars benefited from Islam where they opened numerous doors for Christians toward social understanding and harmony. On the Muslim side, the principle artisans of is action were the Isaimli sects, particularly Karmates and the Assassins; all Persian, descendants of Zoroastrians and therefore Sunni converts who evolved into Shiite to find a way to accept the hostile rule of the Sunni. One has to wonder what happened to the peaceful Persians that we now refer to as Iranian? Was it 1,000 years of Islam? Or was it 1,000 years of Sunni’s influence, and then 80 years of Christan Western quasi colonization attempts? These questions do not get a any attention, raised or answered by the author. But what is clear is what the Templars adopted through their Mason builders was as a willingness for coexistence of peace with all men, something I find rare in Arab history with exception to Saladin, and ironically enough something that King Phillip of France took objection to.
Pulling the thread through time, the reader learns in order to build their church on Fleet Street, the Templars had to import an architectural brotherhood from the Holy Land and thus may well have been responsible for the formation of the original masons guild in London. To see Masons evolve to Freemasons within the covers of this book derives much more intrigue to the well founded speculation that our founding fathers of the United States were one and the same. Could it be that power still has its roots in heritage well beyond the dynasty of any King’s family? The question does not get answered, nor is it even stated or implied, but is merely the wild speculation of a novice student reader of the subject, me.
Where did this thread of power come from is answered early on in the book where one learns that the first trade union, the first college, and the first brotherhood; all speaking about the same group of men, were masons? They adopted a code of conduct, rituals and rites. Because the clergy of the church, Jewish Muslim and the royalty were equally dependent on this skill to convert the wondrous works of The Mason's minds in to the wondrous works of architecture. In making a statement of their civilization they were granted special privileges in society and as well were excused from certain civilian obligations including taxes. Early on the Church brought along all the royalties of the Holy Roman Empire and all of the Celtic Royalty to to the practice of embracing the strong arm of the Templar’s. These Templars were the protectors of the Masons which gave fertile ground for their power, not only be wielded by the sword, but through the political web and flow of commerce that came with their sheltering of the masons builders guild. Albeit this is only implied by the author; this reader took the bait to deep water.
The Templar’s actually ruled most of Paris among other cities through Masonic Order influence, which is thoroughly described in the book, a case is made for Phillip to wrest back that control through contrived cooperation with Pope Clement. So the reason for the condemnation of the Templars is not to be sought in a heretical deviation. In fact they were never condemned by the Pope – who was satisfied with simply dissolving the Order – but by temporal authority. The dissolution was forth coming from Rome in payment of a debt of gratitude owed the King of France. Be warned this drama is clearly not the main story line of the book, and only gets a couple of paragraphs. What does come out is that of the architecture and culture within “commanderis” as they were called under Templar control shaped early Paris and still has its say in the 21 century. That say is the "mind of the Middle Ages". With this in mind a tour of today’s Paris becomes that much more intriguing to a studied eye. In the course of this enlightenment, the reader cannot help at this juncture of the book to say the Dark Ages were much more enlightening than many modern scholars portray to their students. I believe it was that spiritual enlightenment that gave America’s founding fathers the courage and power to give rebirth to an ideology that King Phillip suppressed for a mere 400 years.
At the core of Masonry and its off shoot Freemasonry is found the ideology to treat all mankind as one. It is very much in keeping with the doctrine of Jesus Christ, and yet preceded him by a couple thousand years. Ironically Christ was a carpenter, Muhammed was a merchant. The signatories (of the members of builders trades, Freemasons) went on to list the two guiding principles for all the brothers activities” Love and cherish all men as if they were your brothers and kin; render to Ceaser that which is Ceasers’s and render unto God that which is God’s. Hence we pledge allegiance to the flag one nation (of many) under God. Its an idea of the masons that we are all one with the universe of the earth all animate and inanimate objects, and they were the first to make a science in molding that universe to suit an improved standard of living.
At the core of the code is the following that I took verbatim from the mind of Naubon through his well researched book. Call the rest of my review a distortion, but please as a reader of my work take the following to heart. With that came a code of ethics, found in the American Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. The code is very much Christian based as it follows the natural laws of the universe. But more so Masonic ideology is God based to include that of any faith and many trades and orders of business. I cannot improve on Naubon so I will close with his words:
Those who have faith in God don’t see him with the eyes of children, enthroned on top of a mountain of sugar between blessed rivers of honey. We refrain from talking of him too much and seeking to define him. It is preferable to envision the itinerary that allows us to approach him and to think that God constructed himself in such a way that man’s gravitation to the Spirit is, by virtue of reason, the best proof of God’s existence. This increasing number who do not believe in God or who turn him into an abstraction out of concern for tolerance, base what they deem to be just, good, and desirable on the good use of reason, on their own intelligence, and on the infinite perfectibility of humanity.
The difference between these two attitudes is essentially dependent on the value given to the origin of reason: God, still unknown to the believer; or unknown, for the nonbeliever another cause for natural laws that govern life. In one case or the other, if we use our ability to reason as best we can, to work with the certitude of the goal yet to be attained, what are we doing if not working under the auspices of and for the glory of this Unknown? And what better symbol for this Unknown than that of the Great Architect of the Universe?
Page 23: It is also worth noting that thin influence of these associations occurred in an era contemporary with that of Charles Martel, who, as legends in France and England have it and we shall see, played a prominent role in the formation of Freemasonry.
NOTES:
Page 25: Before studying the fate and evolution of their collegia, that continued to exist in those parts of Italy that remained free, as well as the collegia in Eastern Empire,, we need to look as to them in the Lombard Kingdom. This region has left behind the memory of renowned architects.
Page 33: Finally there is one important fact produced its own ramifications: The still thriving Byzantine collegia, with their traditions, rites, and symbols, were later discovered by the Arabs and the Crusaders, a discovery that both turned to their own advantage.
Page 34: at the time of the formation of Ecclesiastical formations in the Gothic regions, the Church did not merely represent a belief and form of worship, it also constituted a political organization.
Page 35: in 300 - 600 As a self contained body, the Church had retained its own rights. It remained subject to Roman laws. At this time, the Church did not merely represent a belief and a form of worship; it also constituted a political organization. As a veritable State, it exercised all the attributes of one and extended it authority over all Christian countries.
The builders from the collegia, who, as we have seen, found refuge with bishops, discovered themselves to be bound simply by close personal ties to these prelates. This was not the case for members of the collegia who were integrated into the monasteries. While their former status had vanished, they were better able to survive corporative preserving their practices and traditions and even their rites and secrets which allowed them to form veritable schools whose influence often radiated quite far.
Page 39: The Benedictine Order to which Romanesque art owes the greatest debt is definitely that of Cluny. During the twelfth century the abbey of Cluny was the center and regulator of civilization.
Page 61: in order to build their church on Fleet Street, the Templars had to import an architectural brotherhood from the Holy Land and thus may well have been responsible for the formation of the original masons guild in London.
Page 66: The Templars most certainly gained their earliest knowledge of architecture, and consequently its trade secrets, from the Benedictines and Cistercians. In fact, we have already pointed out the Romanesque Cistercian style of the basilicas built by the Crusaders in the East.
Page 67: In addition to their servant brothers, the Templars also employed Christian workers who were not officially members of the Order. These persons were sometimes Crusaders, but might also be local operatives especially in northern Syria, where the Armenian and Syrian population had remained entirely Christian and welcomed the Crusaders as liberators.
Huges Plagon, the second continuer of Guillame de Tyr, writes that in 1253 the Saracens of Damascus came to Acre, destroyed Doc and Ricordane and captured Sidon, “and slew eight hundred men and more and took prisoners, including masons as well as other folks, some four hundred persons.” This quote from a contemporary underscores the regard held for the masons on the part of the Crusaders.
Page 69: Legist of the time not only considered Roman Law as the science and law of the past. They endeavored, with deep faith, to bring these laws back to life, to restore them to common practice in both institutional and private arenas. In France, especially, government and administrative personnel were soon recruited primarily from among these legist. The evolution reached full flowering under Phillip the Fair, when French legist strove to formulate the power of the Roman emperor for the kings’s benefit.
Page 71: On the Christian side the Templars were always the most active artisans of these kinds of alliances. In 1129, the Templar grand master urged Baldwin II to come to an understanding with the Ismaili Abu Fewa. Under terms of their agreement, Baldwin exchanged Tyre for Damascus. In fact, “for some eighty years, the Templars maintained close relations with the heads of the Isamaili sect. Similarly, in 1136 the Templars of Saint John of Acre became friends with Turkish captain Unur.
Page 73: Islam opened for Christians numerous doors toward social understanding and harmony. On the Muslim side, the principle artisans of this action were the Isaimli sects, particularly Karmates and the Assassins
In the social sphere, Karmatism is characterized by the organization of labor and groups of workers into professional corporations which seem to have been in existence since the tenth century and were connected with religious brotherhoods. It is important to note the contemporary recollections of asnafs and turuq in Shiite sects emphasized both spiritually and socially education value and labor.
The Karmati movement, which is the source of these Muslim institutions, stands out both religiously and philosophically in its introduction to Islam of basic foreign assumptions – primarily those that were Hellenic, Neopaltonic, and pseudo Hermatic, and “Sabine”.
Page 75: It is this extensive Arab influence, twin to that of Byzantine world (the work of the Benidictines of Cluny), that prompted the first cultural and philosophical renaissance that took place in the West during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, especially France.
Page 78: Going beyond simple architectural instruction, the influence of the Ismailians and the Assassins also left a mark on Templar ceremonies as well as other of their customs. “Ismailism clearly seems to have been a practical model that the Templars adopted almost immediately .
It is also acceptable to believe that outside the respective dogmas of Assassins and Templars there were flexible interpretations of ideas and doctrines. … It becomes all more likely given that the faith of Eastern Christians showed such distinctive features that it was almost impossible to discern any demarcations between Christian sects and the derivatives of Islam. Both sides came closer to one shared ideal. The Fatimids of Cairo imagined the possibility of peace universalism that was the rebirth of the thought of the pharaoh Amenhotep IV.
Page 79: So the reason for the condemnation of the Templars is not to be sought in a heretical deviation. In fact they were never condemned by the pope – who was satisfied with simply dissolving the Order – but by temporal authority. … The dissolution was forth coming from Rome in payment of a debt of gratitude owed the king of France
Page80: In short, it is acceptable that the destruction of the Order was legitimized by reasons of stats; it was only the means used to accomplish this destruction that were iniquitous.
Page 90 : The religious order that appears most prominently at the origin of the franc métiers is that of Templars, a fact that has largely gone un noticed. In the jurisdiction of its commanderies, free craft was the rule, just as the bourgeois residents of Templar-controlled areas were free bourgeois. In the cities where the Templars had establishments, a distinction can be made in the same craft between franc craftsman living in the Templar domain, and artists who were merely free who worked in other quarters and were subject to royal an manorial charges and taxes as well as to their own trade regulations.
Page 91: The exemptions and privileges that craftsmen benefited from in Templar commanderies were particularly propitious for increasing the Orders’s influence and popularity. In the troubled times of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the craftsmen and bourgeois of the cities sought protection for themselves and their properties by free themselves from their cities’ control, the Temple offered them not only asylum but also the model of a free professional trade organization.
Page 101: 1.) the Templars formed monastic builders associations that possessed Greco-Roman traditions passed down by the Benedictines and Cistercians. 2.) The Templars had close ties to Christian and Muslim architectonic associations in the East and were subject to their operative and initiatory influences. 3.) In Europe the Templars were the source of the creation and development of builders associations that long enjoyed specific exemptions. The terms franc métiers and free masonry are derived from these associations. 4.) Following the dissolution of the Templar Order, a certain number of Templars were incorporated into the mastery associations.
Page 108: In Paris the Templars’ quarter, which was in full development at this time, must have been particularly appealing to them. “Because of the great hurt and great rapines they suffered in the provost-ship,” writes Joinville, “the little people dared no longer to remain on the grounds of the king, but sought instead to dwell in other provost-ships and manorial holdings; and thus it was lands of the king that became so sparse that when he held his plebiscite, no more than tem or twelve people would elect to attend
Craftsmen were all the more inspired to dwell in the Temple’s jurisdiction, for doing so, let us recall, gave those who came seeking assistance and protection the benefit of two important privileges: asylum and trade exemptions.
Page 110 Thus privileges of asylum and franchise were not common. They long made the Temple highly popular among craftsmen. It was the influx of these artisans that helped populate and enrich the Parisians establishment of the Order – so much so that is was chosen to be the Order’s headquarters when the Christians lost the Holy Land.
The Temple enclosed its population within a huge commandery, effectively a large city that manufactured everything needed to live there. The Parisian merchants, craftsman, bourgious who lived under the Temple jurisdiction were so numerous in comparison to those who were dependents of the royal provost- ship, and tutelary action of the Order was so powerful, that the Templars can be credited with the transformation of the hansa, home to the Hanseatic League of Paris, into a municipality under Saint Louis, with freedom and an administration that it helped to develop further. In support of this theory, we can note that the seat of municipal government was originall located within the Temple censive district.
My comment: and hence we detect the real reason why King Philip the Fair concocted a coup detente with a contrived story and blackmailed the pope to go along
Page 114 The Templar Order was abolished by Pope Clement V on March 22, 1312. In a bull issued on May 2 of that same year, he decreed that all Templar properties, with rights and privileges granted their owners, would be transferred to the possession of the Hospitellers of Saint John of Jerusalem. Philip the Fair ratified this transfer in France on August 24, 1212.
Page 132 The travelers of the Crusaders a Tour de France of guildsmen. Wondering the countryside echoed the rout take by those on pilgrimage, which was how they would obligatory visit Saint Baume to pay homage to Saint James, in whom they say their patron Maitre Jaques, who would have lived near Saint Magdalene and been buried in her famous cave.
They stated that their modern organization dated from the Templars and some identified Master Jacques as Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Templars.
My comment: It seems you could draw a line from these dots in history that connects our Founding Fathers, as Freemasons, to at least the origins of Christianity and possibly Christ himself.
Page 136 in a tour de Paris; To bring our stroll to an end, we cross the place de Greve and the Notre Dame bridge over the Sine. Now we are in the Cite. Here the Templars long held ownership of a large domain between Notre Dame and the palace. As we all recall, the rights of the Temple over this domain were the result of the accord concluded in 1175 by the Order and the prior of Benedictines of Saint Eloi.
Page 160 In the Purposes and Traditions of Brotherhoods; The purpose of Brotherhoods is defined as follows in an edict issued on March 1319 restoring a brotherhood of Saint James and Saint Louis that had been abolished in 1306. “to provide through one’s work the gifts of alms, to feed the indigent brothers, to have Masses sad for the living and the dead, and to busy oneself with various charitable works.” But the primary goal, not said outright here yet implied in all that was said and done was “ to elevate man to God and let him earn the Lord’s infinite grace.
We know about the organization and life of the brotherhoods thanks to eighteenth-century documents. Each trade community placed under the protection of a patron saint owned a private chapel in a church, where it held its meetings. Each had special officers who were elected to their posts-sometimes a provost and a chairman or two sworn masters would share the position.
Page 163 Of the Compagnonnages (brotherhoods, for all practical purpose); Much more than an association, it involved a state of mind, a bond and a means by which workers sharing a profession could recognize one another and thereby maintain the unity and traditions of the trade.
Page 164 But economic and social revolution soon gave the compagonnages a new purpose. More and more, the exercise of trade was becoming the privilege of masters and their sons. The journeyman could no longer move up the status to master nor buy their craft
Beaumanoir in his Costumes de Beaivais (written around 1280), considered it a serious crime to ally against the common good for the purpose of demanding a higher salary. Going on strike was punishable by prison and a fine of 60 sols.
Page 175 The signatories (of the members of builders trades, Freemasons) went on to list the two guiding principles for all the brothers activities” Love and cherish all men as if they were your brothers and kin; render to Ceaser that which is Ceasers’s and render unto God that which is God’s
Page 184 In the Organization of English Guilds; here we pause for consideration of the term free man. It is probably more effective for our purposes to use the ancient French term franc home, with connotations that we have already established: These is the franc hons who neither a serf nor a villain but has become a free bourgeois, independent of any lord Going further along these lines, we come upon the free man craftsman called a free burgess.
Page 185 In the Organization of English Guilds; As in other countries, things went differently for the professional brotherhoods that remained tied to the domain an suzerainty of the religious orders that held all rights to administer justice. This was the case in the jurisdictional areas of the Benedictine abbeys and the Templar commanderies.
My comment: this explains where Philip and Clement V fond their authority to banish the Templat Order.
Page 187 The lay mason dependent upon a guild and subsequently a ligier, lige,or vassal, could be opposed to the freemason, who is free because of his connection to the Church.
Only the Benedictines, and especially the Templars, assured trade franchises to everyone throughout the whole of their domains.
It was to the advantage of these kings to support the power and freedom of these professional associations-and it is now easier to understand the reason for the diametrically opposed policy of the French kings regarding them.
Page 191 The Cooke Manuscript dates from 1410-1420 but is a transcription of a compilation that was at least a century older. It is divided in to two parts. The first, consisting of nineteen articles, is a history of geometry and architecture. The second is a “book of duties”, including an historical introduction ; nine articles governing the organization of labor, which were allegedly promulgated at a general assembly that took place during the time of King Athelstan; nine counsels of a moral and religious nature; and four rules concerning the social life of masons. The word speculative actually appears in this document: “the son of King Athelstan was a true speculative master.” The Cooke Manuscript served as the foundation of the work of George Pyane, the second grand master of the grand lodge of London, who ensured that this organization adopted a first rule to Saint John in 1721. It also appears to have been the principal source from which Anderson drew his Book of Constitutions.
Page 206 Their religious foundation was the essential glue of all the builders groups of the Middle Ages. For the monastic brotherhoods, the propagation of the faith was the direct impulse for the construction of convents and churches. The vast brotherhoods that built the Gothic cathedrals responded to this religious inspiration. It was an era when “man looked up at the heavens with faith, in search of hope and consolation. He entrusted his misery to she who should no doubt understand it best, because she was weak and she was a woman, and she could best speak to He who could do all, because she was the Mother of God. He built the Lord of Lords; he built for Our Lady.
It is beyond doubt that religion and metaphysics were a part of the lodges’ practices, all the more so as they gave shelter to artists and scholars as well as simple craftsmen, and as the study gradually turned on a philosophy that was identical to theology.
Page 208 The hypothesis (on either side) is merely based on legend; not one historical element nor even any probability exists to accredit it. The same can also be said of similar theories suggesting that in connecting the Templars to the freemasons, the alleged heresies of one group are imputed by the other. Yes the builders associations were subject to Templar influence; this is clear. But there is no sound supporting evidence that these influences could have caused the builders, masons and carpenters to deviate from the orthodox Catholicism of that time – especially given, as we have seen that the Eastern, Muslim and Gnostic influences absorbed and transmitted by the Templars did not provide grounds enough to label them heretics.
In order to dispel any misunderstanding, it is helpful to emphasize here how the medieval mind conceives of religious orthodoxy. In the Middle Ages and up until the Reformation, though theology was the chief topic of debate, freedom of expression was quite considerable.
The apparent paradox concerning dogmas also stems from evolution-or rather change in modes of reasoning. Today’s logic finds it difficult to find a place in the framework of the dogmas and theories that medieval logic found entrance with no difficulty.
My comment: Sir Francis Bacon ushered in the change in reasoning with the dawn of modern science.
The fable that the Middle Ages were Dark Ages must be abandoned. With respect to certain crimes of intolerance, such as the Albigensian Crusade , or the condemnation of the Templars, medieval motives are much more easily explained as originating from politics rather than from any impulse to combat heresy. Heresy merely served as a pretext for seeming intolerance. True intolerance was born with the Reformation.
My comment: In this comment there is an implied indictment of the Muslim leaders of every era using religion to invoke power. The same could be applied to France, England, Germany, and Spain of the Renaissance. In modern day politics we find Muslims advocating intolerance towards Jews when really its about a hate for their supremacy in thought and entrepreneurial ism. With regard to science -v- religion it is also a fundamental struggle in politics as opposed to philosophy, when in the end the philosophy is the same study of the same universe with the same outcome.
My comment: I also find it intriguing that Martin Luther, a German brought on the dawn of true intolerance.
Page 210 It is most important to avoid viewing the audacious sculptures of the gargoyles and tympanums as merely a liberal manifestation of some satiric artists who have seen behind the scenes and grasped more than others what was really going on there. These fantasy depictions show that freedom of stone had been in practice for many centuries before freedom of the press. What was attacked were the mores of the clergy and not the religion itself.
Page 211 The international unity experienced by freemasonry was clearly displayed in the practice of the craft. The brotherhoods and communities fulfilled an educational mission insofar as each master instructed journeymen and apprentices in the craft (who transitioned across boarders, kingdom, countries).
Page 212 The Church was the sole power capable of granting and guaranteeing to builders of internationality that earned them “freedom of passage”
My comment: this was as much out of necessity of the regional power because each region did not have enough craftsmen to build their cathedral, a building that had a spiritual calling. This should not be confused with a purposeful claim to the power over the mind of the populace.
Page 213 This was why builders communities identified with monastic associations. Their ecclesiastical quality conferred upon craftsmen the privilege of inter nationality. The builders, both lay and clerical, who belonged to the Benedictine, Cistercian, and Templar brotherhoods could circulate freely, build, and settle any where in the whole of Christendom. Their freedom was guaranteed by the immunity and sovereignty of the Church to which they belonged.
More important, all craftsmen had the right to asylum and free exercise of their trade in the domains of the Templar commanderies and the popes maintained these privileged for domains held by the Knights Hospitaller or Knights of Malta until the time of the French Revolution. When we recall that the Temple numbered 900 commanderies, many of which were extensive, and 10,000 castles,, we can see how operative, especially masons who traveled widely, could be assured of finding hospitality, security, and work everywhere he went.
Mention has been made of the briefs that Popes Nicholas III in 1277 and Benoit IX in 1334 crafted with regard to mason corporations, confirming their status as a monopoly that encompassed the entire Christian world, granting them protection and an exclusive right to construct all religious edifices, and conceding to them “ the right to direct authority from only the popes” who freed them “from all local laws and statutes, royal edicts, and municipal regulations concerning conscript labor or any other obligatory imposition for all the land’s inhabitants.
My comment: you can see clearly that while Luther had a dogmatic difference to the Church of Rome/Avignon , there was a practical argument in terms of power and union busting that inspired the kings and rulers to get behind Luther’s argument. It is clearly the dogmatic argument that still prevails in the mostly Protestant prejudice over Catholics today. In intolerance that is accepted by mainstream power brokers and dealt and insensitively by the general populace (Dan Brown’s following) and received with a calloused upper lip by Catholics.
Page 214 The use of symbolism on its own constituted a universal language. Symbols were used by builders as much for spiritual teaching as for the transmission of operative craft secrets’ “During the Middle Ages,” Victor Hugo states, “the human race formed no important thought that was not set down in stone.” All form as Emile Male put it, the clothing of thought.
Page 215 The symbolism in architecture, sculpture, and staind glass, which was the work of artists under the direction of the clerics, was the expression of science and philosophy, akin to that of alchemists and Hermeticsts. Throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, philosophy, metaphysics, alchemy, and Hermeticism were closely co-mingled and these disciplines were inseparable from theology.
My thoughts: With the ushering in of Sir Francis Bacons decree of science, has his original decree morphed in to a monster of politics? Was Bacon simply wrong? Did he not evolve enough to have understood that the discovery of the universe is the discovery of heaven and is the agenda of both science and religion? One comes from the perspective of substance, the other from symbols. The migration of inanimate substance to animate beings that use inanimate materials to express thought which is neither animate nor inanimate.
Page 216 It is important to underscore that the immense symbolism, the true thought of the Middle Ages, was not only the philosophical province of great doctors and scholars; it had a universal teaching power and the Church understood how to impart it to the masses. This is why there exists such perfect unity between different works – though of course the artisans who crafted it, be they ever so humble, were admirable artists .
That masons may have benefited from outside contribution to their repertoire of symbolic expression is beyond doubt. But the terrain was prepared beforehand to receive them. Traditional symbolism was a framework that was ready to accept these diverse influences. A vital force full aware of its universal nature, it did hesitate to create the synthesis and transmutation of everything it found valid in its view as debatable syncretism, or even heresy. Furthermore, during the Middle Ages everything, even that which seems most profane to us remained within the universal vision, marked by connection between the visible and the invisible. Our modern mind, habituated as much to strictly logical method of reasoning as to crystallized dogmas, often finds it difficult to perceive such mentality.
Page 217 They have grasped the hidden meaning of their writing and have understood that the symbol is a suitable kind of approach and even an expression of truth. According to the priori of the transcendent.
Page 224 It is significant that, starting at the end of the fourteenth century, all symbolism that had been used in previous centuries to formulate the Christian truths that had experienced an apotheosis in the thirteenth century gradually fell in to misuse and became incomprehensible. …After around 1530 it no longer had any deep roots. …The Cathedral no longer took the place of all the books.
Page 225 The esoteric character of the operative ritual can be boiled down to the general symbolism of the building of Solomon’s Temple, which was one of the most popular myths of the Middle Ages. This popularity reveals an interpretation of the story that reaches far beyond the tale of the magnificent temple, which David began and Solomon completed in order to provide a dignified place to worship the Eternal One and house and house the Holy of Holies, the Ark of the Covenant containing the Tablets of the Law. To the medieval mind, Solomon’s temple was the replica of God’s true temple and must be visualized on two planes: that of the Universe and the Divine Creation and that of Man the reduced form of the Universe to which Christ’s in carnation had conferred a level of grandeur or some value sequal to it The temple was a symbol of both the universal macrocosm and the human microcosm. …symbolizing the union of heaven and earth, the uncreated and the created.
Page 229 The entire Christian doctrine can be found reinforced in this text: the immanence of God in man, the realization of the law by the Incarnation of Christ, the construction within man of God’s tru temple by obedience to the Law and by Love, the symbolic figure from the Hebrew Scriptures as a sign of the gospel. This interpretation was very familiar in the Middle Ages. Developed as early as the eight century by the Venerable Bede in his work De Tempo Solomonis, it can be found everywhere in Strabo’s Ordinary Gloss of the Bible.
Page 233 Each year at Christmas or Ephany or other religious feast days and commemorative celebrations, these figures (the prophets of Israel)and their retinues paraded in costume. The precessions they formed all entered the church or cathedral and each of them, at the call of their name stepped forth to give witness to the truth, reciting verso or monologue.
My thoughts: In the middle ages the statements carved in stone was the written word. It seemed to have an immense effect on the people, not deluged with other input from the printed word, 1600s, TV 1900’s, Internet, 2000’s. Is this the reason why new churches do not have the rich artistic message of churches even in the 1800’s?
Page 234 The mason’s legend connected to Hiram belongs within the general framework. The circumstantial and fixed death of Hiram, followed by his resurrection within his own person as well as in those who emulated him, is a reflection of the Passion in the fullness of its lesson. It is also a continuation and the Christianized spiritual finality of the ancient mysteries: the attainment of immortality and the understanding through by incorporating the divine substance within ones self and through this becoming a god.
My thoughts: becoming One with God.
Page 265
“one cannot be sensibly a Deist without being Christian, and one cannot be philosophically a Christian without becoming a Catholic”…This was both awell-intentioned and laudable beginning. Still it was necessary for Freemasonry to act as the centralizing factor of Deist sentiments and the catalyst of their transcendental unity around aspiration of betterment
Page 270
The facts, however, can speak clearly enough on hteir own to require no interpretation at all. It is necessary, of course, to connect them to the social structures of the past, but only the way we think has the power to distort how we see them
Sunday, December 12, 2010
The Templars
The Templars
By Piers Paul Read
If you are looking for proof that the Templars and the succeeding secret society of the Free Masons have something over on the Catholic Church, this book is not for you. If you want a thorough academic glimpse of a period of history that still reaches in to today, read this book. The author does a nice job putting the history in the context of the times and not only building a bridge to a current times paradigm, but he also crosses that bridge through the use of quotes from historians from intermediate eras along the way. What makes this book a prize is its collegiate delivery of the history with no appeal of hype to those looking to bash the Catholic Church by making martyrs of the Knights of the Temple. While it may have been the agenda for King Philip of France, this is one French trait that is put to rest.
As a fact finder, one would find more interest in the mechanics and strategy of civil governments on a world stage post collapse of the Roman Empire and the rise of Western Civilization and European colonialism than who hid the Lost Sea Scrolls. More intriguing than any hype about the Templars is reading how the Church became a central influence over King, Queen, Prince, Princess, Baron, Duke, Knight, and serf of philosophy and hence a defacto government including financing of all causes espoused by said philosophy. What made the read intriguing was the sorting out of the back and forth chess match of politics between kings and popes where the Knights Templar and the average man, of any era, gets either caught in the cross fire or lost in the fog. The book in the process of history conveys first the selling and financing of crusades. In that process money and power overshadow what may have been honorable ideals where church and state collude to dismantle the Templars, the very arm that brought them both. In the end the Templars have every right to take a vengeance out on first the King of France and second the Catholic Church as a reluctant accomplice. For some reason Piers Paul Read leaves hyperbole surrounding the history of Christ and his family, and any Templar vengeance to the likes of Dan Brown.
The Pitch: From the time of the Prophet Muhammad’s first razzia, the Christians’ perception was that wars against Islam were waged either in defense of Christendom or to liberate and re-conquer lands that were rightfully theirs. The selling of the first crusades began with Bernard of Clairvaux, an appointee of the King of France. Pope Urban had a voice through Bernard. But in the rise to a decision to crusade the pope did not simply dream up the idea of crusading as a case had to be made. In the Latin Church, Alexius approached Pope Urban: His Ambassadors admitted to the Council at Piacenza and the Council fathers listened to their eloquent depiction of the suffering of their fellow Christians in the East.
In the chicken and egg quandary, the cause now properly sold to the Church ‘s highest authority, Pope Urban had a strong ally in France’s King Phillip where within his ranks was a charismatic preacher from Picardy known as Peter the Hermit who claimed to have had a letter from Heaven authorizing the crusade. So we have a collision course of tyranny, authority from God directly, and the Pope secondarily, and an ambitious King taking it to the people. The French nobles gathered in Vezelay, as had been arranged. Already the knowledge that Bernard was to preach had drawn admirers from all over France. At the core of his message was that a sojourn to the Holy Land was a once in a life time penance that all Christians should make. Sojourn, as it escalated up the ranks of the gentry and then the nobles morphed into a crusade, which went back down the social ladder compelling knights, sentinels, and servants to follow their king. When he had finished his address, so many French were ready to take the Cross that Bernard had to cut his habit into strips of cloth.
While sticking to the facts with a collegiate discipline the author spends time applying the sequence of event upon canvases of character building. Of the people in general, the church held a penitentiary obligation over the heads of their parishioners to trek and or crusade to the Holy Land, and you were guilty until you trekked. It is difficult, in the late twentieth century, when a monk is seen as an oddity on the margins of society, to understand how so many belonging to their country’s elite should have chosen a life of self-abnegation. Without necessarily doubting the sincerity of each one’s conviction that the choice for a scion of a noble house, or even the minor gentry, was then and was to remain for some time, between fighting and praying, warfare and ministry, the scarlet and black. Bernard’s power did not stem simply from influential connections: in a world where so many preached but so few practiced the Christian virtues, his piety and asceticism qualified him to act as the conscience of Christendom, constantly chastising the rich and powerful and championing the poor. Having the backing of King Philip of France only gave muscle to his message. To some modern historians, living in a period when most are indifferent to what awaits them after death, Bernard comes across as a self-righteous zealot – someone who ‘saw the world with the eye of a fanatic’ and had a disquieting tendency to take it for granted that his contemporaries were evil-doers who needed to repent. However, to Bernard, surrounded by secular brutality and clerical corruption, and utterly convinced of the reality of Hell, it was impossible to do too much to save the imperiled soul until the invention of the crusade.
Funding: With the politics of crusades, whoever really did make the final decision to crusade it had to be sold to t he people so that if could be funded. Albeit it was not always the case kings could ill afford to leave their people in a stir over an unpopular cause when he himself is embroiled in that far away cause. Leaving a Court and ministry behind that would not be tempted into a coup involved intrigue that is modestly covered in this book. The history is in the book, however because this author has little agenda towards intrigue you the reader must knit the facts together and make a case.
The funding of every crusade was essential to the politics of the crusade itself. The kings would look for funding first from their taxes and then through borrowing from the Church who saw their revenues from tithing who would lend at 10% interest and typically do so if the loan were backed by the Templars. These crusades and subsequent wars incurred enormous expense beyond what was initially envisioned, and the phrase a war that will be paid for by our children becomes prevalent where for example adding to the liability upon the people that Phillip had inherited from his father’s war against Aragon was around 1.5 million livres tournois. Every expedient available to the monarch was used to raise funds. Feudal obligations were exploited to the limit, and force used to extract taxes from the towns. While the author doesn’t brand the politics totalitarian, from a kings point of view it had every appearance to be as such when it came to collecting money, save the grace of the church who coerced the people into cooperation upon the crucible of guilt.
Political intrigue: What did Philip inherit you may ask: King Louis IX ‘s zeal for justice, and his scrupulous attention to the needs of the poor established his saintly reputation and an unparallel prestige, but it was taking of the Cross that set the seal of kingship: ‘crusading still held its place as the highest expression of the chivalrous ideas of the aristocracy in the west. Once the vow had been made, Louis prepared for the crusade with the same efficiency that he had shown in subduing his rebellious vassals and reorganizing the administration of France. His first objective was to raise money to fund his expedition overseas. This added a twentieth tax on the resources of the Church and subventions from the cities. And this alone was not enough for Louis did not foresee the costs of holding his winnings.
Paralleling the politics of the king and his people, the politics of all kings each individually with the Pope singularly is made clear where the Church may have sold the idea of crusading, it was the Kings and their subjects who individually made the decision to crusade. The Kings strategy included any war upon any select Muslim army and the employment of any Order including the Knights Templar to accomplish their goals. Given that the Pope had supreme authority over military orders, it shows some restraint that there was only one instance where Popes directly employed the service of any “Order” in their wars: that being in 1267 Pope Clement IV asked for Hosptaller help against the Germans in Sicily. Clearly, whether they were in the service of the popes or kings, individual knights belonging to their military orders were expected to take up arms to protect their master’s interest. That one case aside because it was through the church that taxes were collected, and it was through the Templars that funds were secured, the arrangement found the Pope, Kings, and Templars in a triangle of intrigue. The former two students of philosophy and higher learning and the latter a student of high minded honor and chivalry. The intrigue continues for close to 300 years until you read of King Philips’ disposal of the Templars in the early 1300’s and its not until the American and French revolutions that you see a bold separation of Church and State where the second shoe drops.
Appearance are not always what they seem to be: While it appears to be all about the money, not simply to launch off into a crusade but then to sustain the crusade and then support the conquered lands against re-conquest by Muslims or by rival Christian Kings led to schemes of power bestowed upon the Templars mostly by default. Honest tax collecting alone could not stand up to such goals. In the Kingdom of Aragon for example, the kings were constantly borrowing money from the Temple and in France the Order often had difficulty in meeting the royal demands to defend the lands for which their funds are underwritten. While the Church institutions were readier to lend money to the Crown if the Temple secured the loan it appeared as though the Templars were one up over both Church and State. While power is implied, the actuality of interest bearing profit did not always follow suit. In Syria and Palestine, too, the Templars’ wealth and power increased because the nobility of Outremer/Jerusalem, whose fiefs were now confined to enclaves around costal cities, could not afford to garrison their castles and so handed them over to military orders, including the Templars. In the same way that modern charities build up investments, the Templars used their funds not just to pursue the war against the Sacacens but also to extend their own estates in the East. But one must remember the expense to fortify the liberties for the people demanded by said clientele.
The appearance of cash and its accompanying power was deceiving, rising to the top of the heap of deception was King Philip of France. Despite the evidence that the Temple often had cash in hand, their running costs were considerable: in the Latin states they garrisoned and maintained at least fifty-three castles or fortified staging posts ranging from great fortresses like Castle Pilgrim to small watch towers on pilgrim routes. Though the Temple’s wealth had led to some envy, their annual income from landed property did not exceed 4,800 livers, not enough to inspire strong feelings of jealousy or a general dislike, with the exception of King Philip who was really in a power struggle with Pope Clement. James of Molay , the head of the order who at the time of French inquisition of the early 1300s had been warmly received by King Edward I when he visited England in 1294 was caught in the middle. He did not see it coming. The politics first between Philip and Pope Clement, and then the coalesced politics of neighboring kings of Europe who fell in line left the Molay and his Templar’s as the ‘odd man out’.
Due Process? While it is often called an inquisition the legal proceedings described in the book gave much to the transcendence of Jewish to Roman law as it survived through to the 14 century. Due process did exist in a primitive sense or should I say in the same way as we experience it today. The following dominoes had to fall in order for the Templars to meet their demise. First, founded to root heresy in Languedoc, and staffed by the friars of the Order of Preachers founded by Dominic Guzman, since 1234 a canonized saint, the Inquisition in France had become an instrument of coercion in the hands of the state. The chief Inquisitor, William of Paris, was King Philip’s confessor and given the King’s piety, was no doubt privy to his plans. On Sunday after the Templar’s arrest, it was Dominican preachers who first explained the reasons for the arrests at a public meeting in the King’s garden, appearing along side the officers of the King. Who was to argue?
King Philip using political maneuvering that I have come to know as typically French, put Pope Clement on the defense as a way to coerce his cooperation in the foiling of the Templars. When the trial eventually opened Clement himself defended the record of Boniface VIII, which was at the core of King Philips intrigue, before advocates of the French King, recalling his piety, his service to the Church and the many manifestations of his orthodox faith. After this, he allowed the trial to continue but, thanks to his knowledge of Roman law, was able to spin things out, either by calling for written depositions or in December 1310, by suspending the proceedings on the grounds that he was suffering one of the reoccurring bouts of his illness, thus leaving a complete distraction to evidence of Clements’ collusion with Philip against the Templars. In the end Clement only managed to slow Philip down as he found it easier to collude with the King that the head of the Knights Templar, who was not versed in politics, than to exonerate them.
While Hospitallers and the Masonic orders engaged the services of legal counsel, the Knights Templar ‘seem to have made little effort to recruit lawyers or to raise up legal experts from within their own ranks’ despite the vigilance with which the head protected their rights an immunities….James Molay later regretted his omission. Through ignorant chivalry where no prove of any allegations could be found in due process of a trial , so guilt was garnered through torture. Said Peter of Balongna of the torture of the Templar Knights to confess upon the allegations; ‘Torture, removed any freedom of mind, which is what every good man ought to have’ ‘It deprived them of memory, knowledge and understanding’ and therefore anything said under torture should be discounted, hence my earlier ascertain of a French totalitarian state which stood in varying degrees as such until 1892. What Philip won was his power back as he was persuaded by his brother, Charles of Valois, and his chief minister, Enguerrand of Marginy, that capitulating to Pope Clement on the question of the Templar’s property was a price worth paying to secure the definitive dissolution of the Order.
The evidence: King Philip IV of France was not making things up entirely. The Templar Knight left a trail of questionable activity that enabled the ‘French connection’ and conviction. in 1143; Of the seventy-three clauses in the Rule approved by the council of Troyes for the Knights of the Temple, around thirty are based on the rule of the Benedict of Nursia. Bernard and the Council fathers seemed more anxious to make monks out of knights than knights out of monks. Hence there was always an exclusive private mystery hanging over their day to day activities. When one thinks of the Knights Templar against the setting of the average educated person one must not get confused with the stories of King Arthur. The men of the order were of all sorts as it would require an Order to be completely self sustaining. They were not a band of merry chivalrous men banging mugs of mead on the table and reading scripture from the Dead Sea scrolls while shuffling the assets within their 401K accounts.
The Knights founder, Hugh of Payns proposed the incorporation of a community of knights that would follow the Rule of religious order but devote themselves to the protection of pilgrims, The Rule they had in mind was Augustine of Hippo, followed by the cannons of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Within that Order, living very Spartan lives the members of whom were not all knights, formed a close bond. They followed rigid rituals in daily life habits that may have drawn question, however the rituals were merely aimed at healthy eating and grooming separate from what may have been an imperfect world. Not intermixing with the common folks, women folk, it was easy to perceive that perhaps they were homosexual or at least homosexual activity was taking place. If it was, it was in no way a part of any Templar policy or sanction. If, therefore, one can avoid the distortions of late-twentieth century prejudice, one can be fairly certain that there was no institutionalized sodomy in the Temple as alleged by King Philip; and at the same the truth which has emerged from recent research is that the crusader frequently sold or mortgaged all his worldly wealth in hope of a purely spiritual reward. Unlike the Muslim jihad, the crusader commitment was always voluntary.
The conspiracy…or not.
Myth and history: There are 300 plus pages in this book and nothing is brought to the fore on the Mary Magdalene or the Lost Dead Sea Scroll conspiracy. There is a tremendous amount of dialogue surrounding the anti Christ and homosexual brought out by King Philip of France, home of the suggested burial of Mary Magdalene, only to be confessed to through torture. Was the Templars’ wealth extraneous in any one persons mind is a question answered only by King Philips’ condemnation of them in a power grab. Only time allowed for the culprits escape from this world where reputations live only in history books of all genres.
King Philips’ speculation did not end with the eighteenth century; in fact it has never been more feverish than it is today, creating, in words of Malcolm Barber, Britain’s foremost Templar historian, ‘a very active little industry, profitable to scientists, art historians, journalists, publishers, and television pundits alike’. Starting with esoteric claims of the Freemasons, the Templars are claimed to have been the guardians of the Holy Grail which in turn the chalice to have been used by Christ in the Last Supper, the blood line of the Merovingian kings descended from the union of Christ with Mary Magdalene, or simply the Templars’ most precious relic the Shroud of Turin.
Intriguing though such speculation may be, they betray by their use of language the lack of a plausible historical foundation: ‘the answer would seem to lie…’; ‘it seems very likely that’…’it seems certain that’…After some research, writes Andrew Sinclair in his book The Discovery of the Grail, these fantasists put forward a hypothesis. Was Christ or the Grail buried under a mountain in the south of France? Did Jesus marry Magdalene and provide the blood line of the Merovingian” Within a few pages, the assertion becomes the actual, the idea is changed into the proof… Or as Peter Partner succinctly puts it in relation to the Templars, Templarism…was a belief manufactured by charlatans for their dupes. It is this book that finally sheds light on the real culprit of the unjust case against both the Catholic Church and the Templar Knights. The first of many intrigues of French…imperialism?
By Piers Paul Read
If you are looking for proof that the Templars and the succeeding secret society of the Free Masons have something over on the Catholic Church, this book is not for you. If you want a thorough academic glimpse of a period of history that still reaches in to today, read this book. The author does a nice job putting the history in the context of the times and not only building a bridge to a current times paradigm, but he also crosses that bridge through the use of quotes from historians from intermediate eras along the way. What makes this book a prize is its collegiate delivery of the history with no appeal of hype to those looking to bash the Catholic Church by making martyrs of the Knights of the Temple. While it may have been the agenda for King Philip of France, this is one French trait that is put to rest.
As a fact finder, one would find more interest in the mechanics and strategy of civil governments on a world stage post collapse of the Roman Empire and the rise of Western Civilization and European colonialism than who hid the Lost Sea Scrolls. More intriguing than any hype about the Templars is reading how the Church became a central influence over King, Queen, Prince, Princess, Baron, Duke, Knight, and serf of philosophy and hence a defacto government including financing of all causes espoused by said philosophy. What made the read intriguing was the sorting out of the back and forth chess match of politics between kings and popes where the Knights Templar and the average man, of any era, gets either caught in the cross fire or lost in the fog. The book in the process of history conveys first the selling and financing of crusades. In that process money and power overshadow what may have been honorable ideals where church and state collude to dismantle the Templars, the very arm that brought them both. In the end the Templars have every right to take a vengeance out on first the King of France and second the Catholic Church as a reluctant accomplice. For some reason Piers Paul Read leaves hyperbole surrounding the history of Christ and his family, and any Templar vengeance to the likes of Dan Brown.
The Pitch: From the time of the Prophet Muhammad’s first razzia, the Christians’ perception was that wars against Islam were waged either in defense of Christendom or to liberate and re-conquer lands that were rightfully theirs. The selling of the first crusades began with Bernard of Clairvaux, an appointee of the King of France. Pope Urban had a voice through Bernard. But in the rise to a decision to crusade the pope did not simply dream up the idea of crusading as a case had to be made. In the Latin Church, Alexius approached Pope Urban: His Ambassadors admitted to the Council at Piacenza and the Council fathers listened to their eloquent depiction of the suffering of their fellow Christians in the East.
In the chicken and egg quandary, the cause now properly sold to the Church ‘s highest authority, Pope Urban had a strong ally in France’s King Phillip where within his ranks was a charismatic preacher from Picardy known as Peter the Hermit who claimed to have had a letter from Heaven authorizing the crusade. So we have a collision course of tyranny, authority from God directly, and the Pope secondarily, and an ambitious King taking it to the people. The French nobles gathered in Vezelay, as had been arranged. Already the knowledge that Bernard was to preach had drawn admirers from all over France. At the core of his message was that a sojourn to the Holy Land was a once in a life time penance that all Christians should make. Sojourn, as it escalated up the ranks of the gentry and then the nobles morphed into a crusade, which went back down the social ladder compelling knights, sentinels, and servants to follow their king. When he had finished his address, so many French were ready to take the Cross that Bernard had to cut his habit into strips of cloth.
While sticking to the facts with a collegiate discipline the author spends time applying the sequence of event upon canvases of character building. Of the people in general, the church held a penitentiary obligation over the heads of their parishioners to trek and or crusade to the Holy Land, and you were guilty until you trekked. It is difficult, in the late twentieth century, when a monk is seen as an oddity on the margins of society, to understand how so many belonging to their country’s elite should have chosen a life of self-abnegation. Without necessarily doubting the sincerity of each one’s conviction that the choice for a scion of a noble house, or even the minor gentry, was then and was to remain for some time, between fighting and praying, warfare and ministry, the scarlet and black. Bernard’s power did not stem simply from influential connections: in a world where so many preached but so few practiced the Christian virtues, his piety and asceticism qualified him to act as the conscience of Christendom, constantly chastising the rich and powerful and championing the poor. Having the backing of King Philip of France only gave muscle to his message. To some modern historians, living in a period when most are indifferent to what awaits them after death, Bernard comes across as a self-righteous zealot – someone who ‘saw the world with the eye of a fanatic’ and had a disquieting tendency to take it for granted that his contemporaries were evil-doers who needed to repent. However, to Bernard, surrounded by secular brutality and clerical corruption, and utterly convinced of the reality of Hell, it was impossible to do too much to save the imperiled soul until the invention of the crusade.
Funding: With the politics of crusades, whoever really did make the final decision to crusade it had to be sold to t he people so that if could be funded. Albeit it was not always the case kings could ill afford to leave their people in a stir over an unpopular cause when he himself is embroiled in that far away cause. Leaving a Court and ministry behind that would not be tempted into a coup involved intrigue that is modestly covered in this book. The history is in the book, however because this author has little agenda towards intrigue you the reader must knit the facts together and make a case.
The funding of every crusade was essential to the politics of the crusade itself. The kings would look for funding first from their taxes and then through borrowing from the Church who saw their revenues from tithing who would lend at 10% interest and typically do so if the loan were backed by the Templars. These crusades and subsequent wars incurred enormous expense beyond what was initially envisioned, and the phrase a war that will be paid for by our children becomes prevalent where for example adding to the liability upon the people that Phillip had inherited from his father’s war against Aragon was around 1.5 million livres tournois. Every expedient available to the monarch was used to raise funds. Feudal obligations were exploited to the limit, and force used to extract taxes from the towns. While the author doesn’t brand the politics totalitarian, from a kings point of view it had every appearance to be as such when it came to collecting money, save the grace of the church who coerced the people into cooperation upon the crucible of guilt.
Political intrigue: What did Philip inherit you may ask: King Louis IX ‘s zeal for justice, and his scrupulous attention to the needs of the poor established his saintly reputation and an unparallel prestige, but it was taking of the Cross that set the seal of kingship: ‘crusading still held its place as the highest expression of the chivalrous ideas of the aristocracy in the west. Once the vow had been made, Louis prepared for the crusade with the same efficiency that he had shown in subduing his rebellious vassals and reorganizing the administration of France. His first objective was to raise money to fund his expedition overseas. This added a twentieth tax on the resources of the Church and subventions from the cities. And this alone was not enough for Louis did not foresee the costs of holding his winnings.
Paralleling the politics of the king and his people, the politics of all kings each individually with the Pope singularly is made clear where the Church may have sold the idea of crusading, it was the Kings and their subjects who individually made the decision to crusade. The Kings strategy included any war upon any select Muslim army and the employment of any Order including the Knights Templar to accomplish their goals. Given that the Pope had supreme authority over military orders, it shows some restraint that there was only one instance where Popes directly employed the service of any “Order” in their wars: that being in 1267 Pope Clement IV asked for Hosptaller help against the Germans in Sicily. Clearly, whether they were in the service of the popes or kings, individual knights belonging to their military orders were expected to take up arms to protect their master’s interest. That one case aside because it was through the church that taxes were collected, and it was through the Templars that funds were secured, the arrangement found the Pope, Kings, and Templars in a triangle of intrigue. The former two students of philosophy and higher learning and the latter a student of high minded honor and chivalry. The intrigue continues for close to 300 years until you read of King Philips’ disposal of the Templars in the early 1300’s and its not until the American and French revolutions that you see a bold separation of Church and State where the second shoe drops.
Appearance are not always what they seem to be: While it appears to be all about the money, not simply to launch off into a crusade but then to sustain the crusade and then support the conquered lands against re-conquest by Muslims or by rival Christian Kings led to schemes of power bestowed upon the Templars mostly by default. Honest tax collecting alone could not stand up to such goals. In the Kingdom of Aragon for example, the kings were constantly borrowing money from the Temple and in France the Order often had difficulty in meeting the royal demands to defend the lands for which their funds are underwritten. While the Church institutions were readier to lend money to the Crown if the Temple secured the loan it appeared as though the Templars were one up over both Church and State. While power is implied, the actuality of interest bearing profit did not always follow suit. In Syria and Palestine, too, the Templars’ wealth and power increased because the nobility of Outremer/Jerusalem, whose fiefs were now confined to enclaves around costal cities, could not afford to garrison their castles and so handed them over to military orders, including the Templars. In the same way that modern charities build up investments, the Templars used their funds not just to pursue the war against the Sacacens but also to extend their own estates in the East. But one must remember the expense to fortify the liberties for the people demanded by said clientele.
The appearance of cash and its accompanying power was deceiving, rising to the top of the heap of deception was King Philip of France. Despite the evidence that the Temple often had cash in hand, their running costs were considerable: in the Latin states they garrisoned and maintained at least fifty-three castles or fortified staging posts ranging from great fortresses like Castle Pilgrim to small watch towers on pilgrim routes. Though the Temple’s wealth had led to some envy, their annual income from landed property did not exceed 4,800 livers, not enough to inspire strong feelings of jealousy or a general dislike, with the exception of King Philip who was really in a power struggle with Pope Clement. James of Molay , the head of the order who at the time of French inquisition of the early 1300s had been warmly received by King Edward I when he visited England in 1294 was caught in the middle. He did not see it coming. The politics first between Philip and Pope Clement, and then the coalesced politics of neighboring kings of Europe who fell in line left the Molay and his Templar’s as the ‘odd man out’.
Due Process? While it is often called an inquisition the legal proceedings described in the book gave much to the transcendence of Jewish to Roman law as it survived through to the 14 century. Due process did exist in a primitive sense or should I say in the same way as we experience it today. The following dominoes had to fall in order for the Templars to meet their demise. First, founded to root heresy in Languedoc, and staffed by the friars of the Order of Preachers founded by Dominic Guzman, since 1234 a canonized saint, the Inquisition in France had become an instrument of coercion in the hands of the state. The chief Inquisitor, William of Paris, was King Philip’s confessor and given the King’s piety, was no doubt privy to his plans. On Sunday after the Templar’s arrest, it was Dominican preachers who first explained the reasons for the arrests at a public meeting in the King’s garden, appearing along side the officers of the King. Who was to argue?
King Philip using political maneuvering that I have come to know as typically French, put Pope Clement on the defense as a way to coerce his cooperation in the foiling of the Templars. When the trial eventually opened Clement himself defended the record of Boniface VIII, which was at the core of King Philips intrigue, before advocates of the French King, recalling his piety, his service to the Church and the many manifestations of his orthodox faith. After this, he allowed the trial to continue but, thanks to his knowledge of Roman law, was able to spin things out, either by calling for written depositions or in December 1310, by suspending the proceedings on the grounds that he was suffering one of the reoccurring bouts of his illness, thus leaving a complete distraction to evidence of Clements’ collusion with Philip against the Templars. In the end Clement only managed to slow Philip down as he found it easier to collude with the King that the head of the Knights Templar, who was not versed in politics, than to exonerate them.
While Hospitallers and the Masonic orders engaged the services of legal counsel, the Knights Templar ‘seem to have made little effort to recruit lawyers or to raise up legal experts from within their own ranks’ despite the vigilance with which the head protected their rights an immunities….James Molay later regretted his omission. Through ignorant chivalry where no prove of any allegations could be found in due process of a trial , so guilt was garnered through torture. Said Peter of Balongna of the torture of the Templar Knights to confess upon the allegations; ‘Torture, removed any freedom of mind, which is what every good man ought to have’ ‘It deprived them of memory, knowledge and understanding’ and therefore anything said under torture should be discounted, hence my earlier ascertain of a French totalitarian state which stood in varying degrees as such until 1892. What Philip won was his power back as he was persuaded by his brother, Charles of Valois, and his chief minister, Enguerrand of Marginy, that capitulating to Pope Clement on the question of the Templar’s property was a price worth paying to secure the definitive dissolution of the Order.
The evidence: King Philip IV of France was not making things up entirely. The Templar Knight left a trail of questionable activity that enabled the ‘French connection’ and conviction. in 1143; Of the seventy-three clauses in the Rule approved by the council of Troyes for the Knights of the Temple, around thirty are based on the rule of the Benedict of Nursia. Bernard and the Council fathers seemed more anxious to make monks out of knights than knights out of monks. Hence there was always an exclusive private mystery hanging over their day to day activities. When one thinks of the Knights Templar against the setting of the average educated person one must not get confused with the stories of King Arthur. The men of the order were of all sorts as it would require an Order to be completely self sustaining. They were not a band of merry chivalrous men banging mugs of mead on the table and reading scripture from the Dead Sea scrolls while shuffling the assets within their 401K accounts.
The Knights founder, Hugh of Payns proposed the incorporation of a community of knights that would follow the Rule of religious order but devote themselves to the protection of pilgrims, The Rule they had in mind was Augustine of Hippo, followed by the cannons of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Within that Order, living very Spartan lives the members of whom were not all knights, formed a close bond. They followed rigid rituals in daily life habits that may have drawn question, however the rituals were merely aimed at healthy eating and grooming separate from what may have been an imperfect world. Not intermixing with the common folks, women folk, it was easy to perceive that perhaps they were homosexual or at least homosexual activity was taking place. If it was, it was in no way a part of any Templar policy or sanction. If, therefore, one can avoid the distortions of late-twentieth century prejudice, one can be fairly certain that there was no institutionalized sodomy in the Temple as alleged by King Philip; and at the same the truth which has emerged from recent research is that the crusader frequently sold or mortgaged all his worldly wealth in hope of a purely spiritual reward. Unlike the Muslim jihad, the crusader commitment was always voluntary.
The conspiracy…or not.
Myth and history: There are 300 plus pages in this book and nothing is brought to the fore on the Mary Magdalene or the Lost Dead Sea Scroll conspiracy. There is a tremendous amount of dialogue surrounding the anti Christ and homosexual brought out by King Philip of France, home of the suggested burial of Mary Magdalene, only to be confessed to through torture. Was the Templars’ wealth extraneous in any one persons mind is a question answered only by King Philips’ condemnation of them in a power grab. Only time allowed for the culprits escape from this world where reputations live only in history books of all genres.
King Philips’ speculation did not end with the eighteenth century; in fact it has never been more feverish than it is today, creating, in words of Malcolm Barber, Britain’s foremost Templar historian, ‘a very active little industry, profitable to scientists, art historians, journalists, publishers, and television pundits alike’. Starting with esoteric claims of the Freemasons, the Templars are claimed to have been the guardians of the Holy Grail which in turn the chalice to have been used by Christ in the Last Supper, the blood line of the Merovingian kings descended from the union of Christ with Mary Magdalene, or simply the Templars’ most precious relic the Shroud of Turin.
Intriguing though such speculation may be, they betray by their use of language the lack of a plausible historical foundation: ‘the answer would seem to lie…’; ‘it seems very likely that’…’it seems certain that’…After some research, writes Andrew Sinclair in his book The Discovery of the Grail, these fantasists put forward a hypothesis. Was Christ or the Grail buried under a mountain in the south of France? Did Jesus marry Magdalene and provide the blood line of the Merovingian” Within a few pages, the assertion becomes the actual, the idea is changed into the proof… Or as Peter Partner succinctly puts it in relation to the Templars, Templarism…was a belief manufactured by charlatans for their dupes. It is this book that finally sheds light on the real culprit of the unjust case against both the Catholic Church and the Templar Knights. The first of many intrigues of French…imperialism?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)