ABSTRACT
Research into the age structure of the Templars in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, based upon the trial depositions, show that the Order continued to send younger men overseas to fight, while the preceptories in the West were served by the older Templars. It can hardly be a coincidence that the accusation of institutionalized homo sexuality was made overtly against the Templars, while that of witchcraft was at the very least implicit in the allegations. Philip IV had been revolted by what he had learned, and feared that the Church would be too indulgent to its own, so he pursued the Templars with Christian fervour. The affair of the Templars was 'an act of faith' for the king. Henry Charles Lea, the great American historian of the Inquisition, concluded his account of the Templars' trial in volume three of his History published in 1889.
