The Templar Heresy

34

‘No matter what you may have heard or read about the Knights Templar,’ Bronson began, ‘and there’s a hell of a lot of stuff out there that is complete fantasy, there is one indisputable fact about the end of the order, when the Templars were purged. At the time the order was arguably the richest single entity in the whole of Europe, possessing and controlling more wealth than many nations. Most history books will tell you that the operation to seize the assets of the order was kept entirely secret, and was a total surprise to the Templars. But in fact it seems much more likely that they knew about it well in advance and hid the treasure somewhere.

‘Nobody’s ever been able to prove it, but if you look at the circumstantial evidence there doesn’t seem to be much doubt about what happened. In 1307, the order was a vast multinational corporation. I can’t remember the numbers involved because it was some time ago that I read about it, but in all there were tens of thousands of Templars, knights, sergeants and all the other people involved, but only a few hundred were actually arrested throughout the whole of France when the French troops arrived to carry out the king’s orders. Either his troops were incredibly stupid and incapable of finding all of the Templars, which seems extremely unlikely, or they simply weren’t there to be arrested.

‘And it is a documented fact that Philip the Fair — Philip IV of France — was virtually bankrupt before he ordered the arrest of the Templars, and he was still virtually bankrupt after the order had been purged. The cupboard was bare. And it’s been established that he knew the kind of assets the order possessed because a few months before he came up with his devious master plan, he’d had to take refuge in the Paris preceptory of the Templars to avoid an angry mob. So the assets that formed the backbone of the Templar order had almost certainly somehow been spirited away.’

‘You seem to know a lot about it,’ Angela said.

‘I’ve always been interested in the subject,’ Bronson said. ‘I’m a detective, I’m supposed to solve crimes, and what happened to the Knights Templar was undeniably a criminal act. Philip claimed that he suspected the order of indulging in heretical practices, but that simply doesn’t hold water. In those days, in the mediaeval period, heaven and hell were real and virtually tangible, and the word of God — or more accurately the word of the incumbent sitting on the throne of St Peter in the Vatican — was the ultimate truth on almost any subject. Heresy, meaning anything the Church of Rome disagreed with, was a mortal sin, and anyone who engaged in heretical practices was likely to end up being excommunicated, which — according to the belief system of the time — meant that they would be denied a place in heaven for all eternity.

‘In extreme cases, once the various inquisitions got involved, being excommunicated meant they got off lightly, because all the inquisitions basically functioned in exactly the same way. They started from the assumption that the individual being investigated was guilty and all his or her protestations of innocence were simply attempts to mislead and hoodwink the church. There was no possibility, in their eyes, of any innocent person being accused, so really all they were doing was establishing the degree of guilt. And in order to obtain the confession that they needed — the confession that would save the soul of the heretic — they indulged in the most horrendous and inventive tortures that the mind of man could devise. They were forbidden to spill blood, so they dislocated joints using things like the strappado, broke bones, burned off the feet by roasting them in a fire, pulled teeth and probed the sockets with red-hot spikes and, ultimately, tied people to stakes and set fire to the wood that surrounded them, burning them alive. All this, of course, in the name of a gentle and merciful God, who was extremely conspicuous by his absence from the torture chambers of the Inquisition.’

‘You feel really strongly about this, don’t you?’

Bronson shook his head and smiled somewhat ruefully at her.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll climb off my high horse right now. I suppose it all comes down to my personal dislike and distrust of religion. Of all religions, in fact.’

‘Enough of that,’ Angela said, squeezing his arm. ‘I think you rather lost the thread of where you were going. You were telling me why you believed that the purging of the Templars was a crime.’

‘Oh yes. That’s right. All I was going to say was that if Philip the Fair genuinely believed that the Templars were guilty of heresy and engaged in heretical practices, then for the sake of the souls of the Templars themselves he should have acted immediately, and sent in the inquisitors. No, he was a deceitful and duplicitous, not to mention treacherous, man. He’d actually allowed Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Order, to act as a pallbearer at the funeral of one of Philip’s own relatives just a week or so before the arrests took place. In those days such a job was an honour and would only be performed by a member of the immediate family of the deceased or somebody who was an important and valued family friend. If Philip had genuinely believed that the Templars were guilty of heresy, there is no way that he would have allowed the leader of the order, by implication the biggest heretic of the lot, to take part in such a ceremony.’

‘And by that time Philip must already have made his plans to swoop on the Templars?’

‘Weeks earlier at least,’ Bronson agreed. ‘Getting his sealed orders to his various military commanders and assembling troops in the right positions throughout France would have been a long process in those days. Messages could be sent as fast as a man on a horse could gallop, but the soldiers would have had to march to their destination, and that would have been the slowest part of the entire process. No, the whole thing — the arrests, the trials and everything else — was a set-up, an operation set in action simply to allow Philip the Fair to get his hands on the assets of the order. Only, as I said before, he didn’t, because they’d disappeared.’

Angela was silent for a few moments, then she glanced at the computer screen, at the pages scattered across the desk, and finally at Bronson.

‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’ she asked. ‘Do you really think that the inscription we found has got something to do with the lost treasure of the Knights Templar?’

Bronson shrugged and spread his hands wide.

‘I genuinely have no idea,’ he said. ‘If it has, I think it’s the first tangible clue ever found that might give some indication of what happened to the Templar assets, which would explain the lengths these terrorists have gone to in order to cover it up. What I do find interesting is that the text you’ve deciphered seems to point us towards the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which is where the history of the order really began, and it is definitely telling us about a hoard, a collection of objects or possibly even a treasure, depending on how you translate the Latin word, that’s been hidden. That just seems to be too intriguing a possibility to ignore.’

Angela nodded briskly.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I agree with you. The Temple Mount could well be the location referred to in the inscription, though adding the Templars into the mix is a bit unexpected. I also think the idea that we could be on the trail of the Templar treasure is something of a stretch, but I’ll keep an open mind on that. So, yes, we are going to keep following this trail, and the sooner we can get ourselves out to Jerusalem the better.’