The Trial Inventories of the Templars' Houses in France: Select Aspects 1

‘Therefore, let it be known that I, Durand Sartoris, the aforementioned notary public, have made and written and presented this public document or inventory, since it could not be written or condensed onto one parchment, onto six parchments of the large kind, all joined and glued together’. ² Thus reads the concluding statement of the inventory of Fos, a Templar house in southern France, written on 24 January 1308 by an official who was apparently overwhelmed by the extent of what he had just recorded. An integral part of the proceedings against the Templars, the making of the inventories of the order’s movable and immovable goods, had begun in the domains of King Philip IV of France on 13 October 1307. ³ His relative, Charles II of Anjou, who ruled over Provence, followed suit three months later, ⁴ and the inventories compiled in the latter’s territories are among the most detailed documents of the entire affair. Within a few years, inventories were made all over Christendom, from Aragón to Cyprus, and from England to Italy. ⁵ Moreover, when Pope Clement V, on 2 May 1312, transferred the Templars’ possessions to the Hospitallers, ⁶ a new round of inventories had to be commissioned to ensure that what had been recorded at the beginning of the trial was still accounted for several years later. ⁷