39. The Templars Revenge

King Philip the Fourth destroys the Knights Templar through false charges and papal capitulation. The mysterious end of Christianity's most powerful military order spawns conspiracy theories that persist to this day about hidden treasures and supernatural vengeance.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Caalarogu Shark Media. October thirteenth, thirteen oh seven, at dawn
across France, King Philip the fourth soldiers broke down the
doors of templar commanderies and arrested every night templar they
could find. The charges were shocking heresy, blasphemy, devil worship

(00:27):
and unspeakable sexual practices. The most powerful military order in Christendom,
the Guardians of the Holy Land and bankers to Europe's kings,
had been accused of crimes that would destroy their reputation forever.
Yet this was no ordinary criminal investigation. Philip was drowning
in debt to the Templates, and their vast wealth represented

(00:49):
the solution to his financial crisis. The French king needed
papal approval to destroy the order legally, and he would
use every tool of manipulation, torture, and political pressure to
force Pope Clement the Fifth to sign their death warrant.
The destruction of the Knight's Templar would become one of
the most controversial acts in papal history. The pope who

(01:12):
dissolved the order under royal pressure would be forever accused
of sacrificing justice to political expediency. More disturbing, the methods
used to destroy the templates, Confessions extracted through torture and
charges that could never be proven, would establish precedents for
later persecutions. But the Templar's story didn't end with their

(01:34):
official suppression. Their sudden destruction at the height of their
power would spawn conspiracy theories that persist to this day,
legends of hidden treasures, secret knowledge, and supernatural revenge that
continue to fascinate popular imagination. Today, we examine the fall
of the Knight's Templar and the papal decision that destroyed

(01:55):
one of medieval Christianity's most powerful institutions, creating mysteries and
controversies that have endured for over seven centuries. This is
White Smoke, Episode thirty nine, The Templar's Revenge. The Knight
Templar had been founded in eleven nineteen to protect Christian
pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land, but by thirteen hundred

(02:17):
they had evolved into something far more complex and powerful
than their original mission suggested. They were simultaneously a military order,
an international banking network, and a quasi sovereign state that
controlled territories across Europe and the Mediterranean. The Templar's transformation
from humble warrior monks into Europe's premier financial institution reflected

(02:39):
the practical necessities of crusading warfare. Pilgrims and crusaders needed
secure ways to transfer money across vast distances, and the
Templar's network of commanderies provided the infrastructure for an early
form of international banking. By thirteen hundred, Templar financial operations
dwarfed their military activity. They held deposits from kings and popes,

(03:03):
managed royal treasuries, and provided loans to finance everything from
cathedral construction to military campaigns. Their Paris Temple had become
the unofficial central bank of medieval Europe, while their London
Commandery managed English royal finances. This financial power made the
Templars both indispensable and dangerous to European rulers. Kings depended

(03:26):
on Templar loans and financial services, but they also resented
their dependence on an order that answered ultimately to the
pope rather than to royal authority. The Templar's international character
made them valuable allies but potentially dangerous enemies. King Philip
the Fourth of France embodied the new type of monarch
emerging in the early fourteenth century, centralized, bureaucratic, and intensely

(03:51):
jealous of any competing authority within royal territories. Philip had
already attacked papal authority through his conflict with Pope Boniface
the AIP, demonstrating his willingness to challenge even the highest
spiritual authorities when they threatened royal prerogatives. Philip's financial relationship
with the Templars had become increasingly problematic. By thirteen o seven.

(04:13):
The French crown owed enormous sums to the Order, debts
that had accumulated through decades of royal borrowing to finance
wars and administrative expansion. The king, who should have been
the templar's protector, had become their debtor, creating an intolerable
situation for a monarch who claimed absolute authority. The charges
leveled against the Templars on October thirteenth combined genuine medieval

(04:37):
fears about heretical practices with calculated political accusations designed to
justify confiscation of templar wealth. The accusations of devil worship,
denial of Christ, and ritual homosexuality struck at contemporary anxieties
about religious orthodoxy while providing legal justification for destroying the Order.

(05:00):
Yet the evidence supporting these charges came entirely from confessions
extracted through systematic torture. French royal investigators employed the same
techniques that would later characterize the Spanish Inquisition, prolonged interrogation,
physical coercion, and psychological pressure designed to break resistance rather
than discover truth. The most dramatic confession came from Jacques

(05:24):
de Molay, the Templar grand Master, who initially denied all charges,
but eventually confessed under torture to spitting on the cross
during his initiation ceremony. This confession from the order's highest
official provided the foundation for all subsequent accusations against the Templars.
Philip's manipulation of Pope Clement the Fifth represented a masterpiece

(05:48):
of political coercion that revealed the extent to which papal
authority had been weakened by the transfer of papal residents
from Rome to Avignon. Clement, a Frenchman elected through five,
Philip's influence, found himself trapped between his obligations as pope
and his dependence on French royal protection. The Pope's initial
response to Philip's accusations was skeptical and defensive. Clement understood

(06:13):
that the charges against the Templars were politically motivated and
that the order's destruction would set dangerous precedents for royal
interference in church affairs. Yet he also recognized that opposing
Philip's demands might provoke a complete break between France and
the papacy. Clement's compromised solution, the Papal Bull Pastoralist prim

(06:34):
and Nti, issued in November thirteen O seven, represented an
attempt to maintain papal authority while appeasing French demands. The
Bull ordered all Christian rulers to arrest templars in their territories,
while reserving final judgment to papal investigation rather than royal courts.
This papal intervention succeeded in internationalizing what Philip had intended

(06:58):
as a purely French operation, while providing Clement with some
control over the process. Yet it also legitimized the charges
against the Templates by treating them as subjects for serious
investigation rather than dismissing them as obvious fabrications. The Papal

(07:22):
investigation of Templar activities that began in thirteen oh eight
revealed the complexity of the charges against the order and
the difficulty of separating truth from torture induced fabrication. Papal
commissioners appointed by Clement conducted their own interrogations of Templar prisoners,
generally using less coercive methods than French royal investigators. The

(07:45):
results of papal investigation were ambiguous and contradictory. Some Templars
maintained their innocence even under papal questioning, while others repeated
confessions that had been extracted through royal torture. The most
serious charges, particularly those involving devil worship and ritual blasphemy,
were supported only by confessions obtained through physical coercion. Clement's

(08:08):
growing recognition that the charges against the Templars were largely
fabricated created a dilemma that would define his entire papacy.
The Pope, who had initially supported investigation, now faced the
choice between admitting that royal accusations were false or proceeding
with the destruction of an innocent religious order. The Council

(08:28):
of Vien, convened in thirteen eleven to decide the templar's
fate became a forum for the competing claims of papal
authority and royal pressure. Clement had hoped that concilier deliberation
would provide cover for whatever decision he reached, but the
Council's proceedings only highlighted the weakness of evidence against the templates.
The majority of bishops attending the council opposed dissolving the

(08:51):
Templar order based on the available evidence, recognizing that confessions
extracted through torture could not provide reliable foundations for some
such a momentous decision. Their resistance forced Clement to confront
the reality that destroying the templars would require papal authority,
acting against both evidence and episcopal advice. Philip's threat to

(09:14):
attend the council personally with military escort finally broke Clement's resistance.
Faced with the prospect of French royal intimidation of the
assembled bishops, the Pope chose to dissolve the Templar order
through papal decree rather than Conciliar decision, preserving the fiction
of legitimate procedure while bowing to political pressure. The papal

(09:35):
bull Vox in Excelso, issued on March twenty second, thirteen twelve,
officially dissolved the Knight's Templar while carefully avoiding any definitive
judgment about the charges against them. Clement's formula that the
order was suppressed not by way of definitive sentence but
by way of apostolic provision attempted to preserve papal dignity

(09:57):
while acknowledging the impossibility of proving template gures built This
diplomatic language could not disguise the reality that Pope Clement
had destroyed one of Christianity's most important institutions based on
charges that he privately knew to be false. The dissolution
of the Templars established the precedent that papal authority could

(10:17):
be coerced through sufficient political pressure, regardless of justice or evidence.
The transfer of templar properties to the Knights Hospitaller through
the bull Ad Providam was intended to preserve the crusading
mission while eliminating the specific organization that had provoked royal hostility.
Yet this transfer proved largely theoretical, as secular rulers retained

(10:40):
effective control over former Templar lands through various legal maneuvers.
The execution of Jacques de Molay and Jeffrey de Charnay
in March thirteen fourteen provided the dramatic climax to the
Templar suppression while creating the foundation for centuries of legend
about Templar revenge. I U Templar leaders who had confessed

(11:01):
under torture recanted their confessions at the stake and proclaimed
their innocence as they burned. Molay's alleged curse of Philip
and Clement from the flames, prophesying that both would join
him in death within a year, became one of medieval
Europe's most famous examples of supernatural justice. When both Philip

(11:22):
and Clement died within months of Molay's execution, contemporaries saw
divine vindication of Templar innocence and papal guilt. The rapid
deaths of the Templar's persecutors created an atmosphere of superstitious
fear that enhanced the order's posthumous reputation while providing material
for centuries of conspiracy theories. The curse of Jacques de

(11:45):
Molay became a cautionary tale about the dangers of destroying
innocent victims for political gain. The incomplete destruction of Templar
records and the Order's sudden dissolution at the height of
its power created ideal conditions for the development of conspiracy
theories about Templar survival and continued influence. The absence of

(12:05):
definitive evidence about the Order's fate allowed later generations to
project their own fears and fantasies onto Templar history. The
emergence of Freemasonry in the eighteenth century provided new life
for Templar conspiracy theories, as Masonic rituals and symbolism were
interpreted as evidence of direct descent from the medieval Order.

(12:26):
The connection between Templars and Freemasons, however tenuous, historically created
modern conspiracy theories that persist to this day. The Templar's
association with the Holy Grail, the Shroud of Turin, and
other Christian relics reflects popular desire to believe that the
Order possessed secret knowledge or sacred objects that justified their persecution.

(12:49):
These legends transformed the Templates from victims of political manipulation
into guardians of divine mysteries. Modern conspiracy theories about templar
influence in world affairs represent contemporary anxieties about secret societies
and hidden power structures projected onto medieval history. The destroyed
Order provides a perfect vehicle for theories about continuing influence,

(13:13):
because their official suppression makes any evidence of survival inherently
secret and mysterious. The enduring fascination with templar conspiracy theories
reflects deeper questions about the relationship between power, secrecy, and
justice that extend far beyond medieval history. The Order's destruction,
through false accusations and political manipulation provides a template for

(13:37):
understanding how institutional power can be abused when moral constraints
are abandoned. The papal decision to dissolve the Knight's Templar
remains one of the most controversial acts in church history,
demonstrating how spiritual authority can be corrupted when subordinated to
political pressure. Clement the Fifth surrender to Phillip's demands established

(13:59):
precedents for royal interference in church affairs that would influence
papal relations with secular power for centuries. The Templar's revenge,
if it exists, lies not in supernatural curses, but in
the permanent damage their destruction inflicted on papal moral authority.
The pope who dissolved an innocent religious order to appease

(14:20):
a royal debtor demonstrated that even the highest spiritual office
could sacrifice justice to political expediency when sufficient pressure was applied.
White Smoke is a production of Calaroga Shark media, portions
of which were made with the help of a narration,
but still written and produced by real podcasters Mark Francis

(14:41):
and John McDermott.