THE CONCORD REVIEW I am simply one who loves the past and is diligent in investigating it. K’ung-fu-tzu (551-479 BC) The Analects Knights Templar Chetan Singhal United World College of Southeast Asia, Singapore Nullification Crisis Edward R. Mahaffey St. Albans School, Washington, DC Sesame Street Isabel Ruane Hopkins School, New Haven, Connecticut Sinking of the Lusitania Rujul Zaparde Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, New Jersey Near v. Minnesota Alexander Q. Anderson Eagan High School, Eagan, Minnesota Charge of the Light Brigade Erynn Kim Polytechnic School, Pasadena, California Jozef Pilsudski Piotr Dormus Lester B. Pearson United World College, Victoria, British Columbia Failure of Perestroika Lo Man Chuen Adrian Li Po Chun United World College of Hong Kong Anglo-Afghan War Eric Keen Homescholar, Bethesda, Maryland Confucian Influence Hyoung Ook Wee Korean Minjok Leadership Academy, Gangwon, South Korea The Needham Question Jonathan Lu Chinese International School, Hong Kong A Quarterly Review of Essays by Students of History Volume 21, Number Four $15.00 Summer 2011 Editor and Publisher Will Fitzhugh E-MAIL: [email protected] WEBSITE: http://www.tcr.org/blog NEWSLETTER: Click here to register for email updates. The Spring 2011 issue of The Concord Review is Volume Twenty-One, Number Three. Partial funding was provided by: Subscribers, the Consortium for Varsity Academics®, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York ©2011, by The Concord Review, Inc., 730 Boston Post Road, Suite 24, Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776, USA. All rights reserved. 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Copyright 2011, THEThe Concord CONCORD Review, REVIEW Inc., all rights reserved 1 AN ENQUIRY INTO THE CHARGES AND MOTIVATIONS OF THE CAPETIAN MONARCHY BEHIND INSTITUTING THE FALL OF THE ORDER OF THE TEMPLE Chetan Singhal The Templars were a religious military Order, founded in the Holy Land in 1119. During the 12th and 13th centuries they acquired extensive property both in the crusader states in Palestine and Syria and in the West, especially in France, and they were granted far-reaching ecclesiastical and jurisdictional privileges both by the Popes to whom they were immediately responsible, and by the secular Monarchs in whose lands their members resided. They also functioned as bankers on the large scale, a position facilitated by the international nature of their organization. But most of all they bore a large share of the responsibility for the military defence of the crusader state in the East, to which they owed their origin, and on account of which they had become so famous and powerful. However, the start of the 14th century marked the downfall of the Order of the Temple. Even a quarter of the century hadn’t come to pass, and the organization of the Knights Templar had been completely annihilated from the face of earth. From the untouchable holy crusaders, they had been reduced into ashes in history. Chetan Singhal is a Senior at the United World College of Southeast Asia, in Singapore, where she wrote this IB paper for Mr. Doug Wills in the 2010/2011 academic year. 2 Chetan Singhal On September 14, 1307, King Philip IV of France issued a letter to his seneschals, ordering them to arrest the members of the Order of the Temple. The letter listed the “crimes” supposedly committed by the Templars. Brothers of the Order of the knights of the Temple…in the habit of a religious order vilely insulting our religious faith…When they enter the Order and make their profession, they are confronted with His image, and…deny Him three times and spit in his face three times. Afterwards, they remove the clothes they wore in the secular world, and naked in the presence of the Visitor or his deputy, who receives their profession, they are kissed by him first on the lower part of the dorsal spine, secondly on the navel and finally on the mouth, in ac- cordance with the profane right of their Order…By the vow of their profession they are unequivocably bound to accept the request of another to perform the vice of that horrible, dreadful intercourse… This unclean tribe has abandoned the sources of living water, has exchanged its glory for the likeness of the Calf and made offerings to idols.1 By June 1308, some 127 charges had been drawn against the Templars, the major ones accused them of denying Christ three times, and spitting in His face three times during induction cer- emonies. Further, they were accused of stripping naked during their reception ceremonies in the presence of the Visitor of the Temple or his deputy, and being kissed by him on the lower part of the spine, on the navel and on the mouth. They were also accused of practicing institutionalised homosexuality, making offerings to idols and adoring a cat. The actual arrests took place in the early hours of the morning of Friday, 13 October 1307,2 when all the Templars in France, much to their great surprise, were arrested. The Order of the Arrests also instructed the officials to hold the Templars, “captive to appear before an ecclesiastical court”3 and “determine the truth carefully…and put their depositions in writing to be witnessed.”4 This was a turning point in history. James of Vitry, Bishop of Acre between 1216 and 1228, in his “History of Jerusalem” described the Templars as: THE CONCORD REVIEW 3 Lions in war, mild as lambs at home; in the field fierce knights, in church like hermits or monks; unyielding and savage to the enemies of Christ, benevolent and mild to Christians.5 Less than a century later, Philip IV had these men labeled heretics and brought to trial to try to prove their innocence as good Christians. Their rapid fall was an enigma to behold for those who lived during those times and even to this date, nearly seven centuries later, for modern historians, as they investigate the reasons behind the demise of one of Europe’s most power- ful quasi- religious-military Orders. At first sight, the accusations against the Templars do seem incredible and impossible; yet, in the face of the huge number of detailed confessions extracted by the inquisitors in France, many have since felt obliged to harbour doubts. The events of 13 October provoke a range of fundamental questions: most obviously, why were the Templars arrested, and what motivated the parties involved? Such questions inevitably lead to consideration of the state of the Order and its situation in 1307: were the Templars actually guilty of all or some of the heresies and transgressions of which they were accused or, even if the accusations were wide of the mark, was the Order nevertheless in a decadent state? These questions perplexed contemporaries as much as ourselves, but as we are looking at the trial through a longer perspective, we have raised further questions, perhaps less evident to those who lived through it.