ABSTRACT
On 27 November 1309, in the chapel of the bishop’s palace alongside the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, Ponsard de Gisy, the preceptor of the Templar house of Payns (or Payens), stood before the papal commissioners. They asked him whether he wished to defend the order of the Temple, and Ponsard replied that the articles accusing the Templars of denying Christ, spitting on the cross and having license to have carnal relations with each other were false, and that the respective confessions had been made under torture and threat of death. Having said that, Ponsard handed the commissioners a note in his own handwriting, which read as follows: ‘These are the traitors, those who have spoken falsely and disloyally against those of the order of the Temple: Guillaume Robert, the monk, who tortured them; Esquieu de Floyrac from Béziers, co-prior of Monfaucon; Bernard Pelet, the prior of Mas d’Agenais; and Gérard de Boyzol, a knight who came to Gisors’. 1 This article will address three questions: who were these persons? what had they allegedly done or said that resulted in them being called ‘traitors’? And what does this tell us about the guilt or innocence of the order of the Temple?
