Ivanhoe

CHAPTER VIII

1 (p. 96) epigraph: The lines are from Dryden’s Palamon and Arcite (3.580-586).

2 (p. 99) The knights are dust … with the saints, we trust: [Author’s note] Lines from Coleridge. These lines are part of an unpublished poem by Coleridge, whose muse so often tantalises with fragments which indicate her powers, while the manner in which she flings them from her betrays her caprice, yet whose unfinished sketches display more talent than the laboured master-pieces of others.

3 (p. 104) the arrogance and wealth that finally occasioned their suppression: In the early fourteenth century, Rome turned against the Knights Templars, charging the order with immorality and heresy, though in reality taking aim at their wealth and power. The order’s demise was sealed by a papal bull in 1312, and by the burning of the Grand Master in 1314.