ABSTRACT
A confession had been since roman antiquity the regina probationum. The confessions of the Templars represented the most important proof of their guilt during the trial. but since then these confessions have never ceased to be used in a surprisingly contradictory manner, either to condemn the order or to prove its innocence. Most medievalists, while acknowledging that most of the charges did not apply to the Templars, ‘find it difficult to accept that an affair of such enormity rests upon total fabrication and they cannot bring themselves to reject entirely such a large body of confessions decorated, as they often are, with such apparently realistic detail’. 1 it cannot be the goal of this paper to answer the question of guilt or innocence; instead, this study will focus on the above-mentioned ‘realistic details’. In other words: do these details really strengthen the credibility of the depositions or are they rather a product of the inquisitorial procedures?
