ABSTRACT
The cause celebre of the early fourteenth century, the suppression of the Templars, has generated more flights of fancy than any other in medieval Christian history. On 13 October 1307 most of the Templars in the kingdom of France, including Jacques de Molay, the grand master, who was on a visitation from Cyprus, were arrested. Within a matter of days many of them, including the master himself and the visitor-general Hugues de Pairaud, his chief representative in north western Europe, had acknowledged their guilt. In Castile, Portugal and Cyprus, and in Aragon and Germany where some of them resisted arrest, the Templars protested their innocence. The Templars’ responses to the accusations are to be found in the very detailed descriptions of testimony recorded at the examinations. The arcane nature of the rite of reception was considered to be significant because so many of the Templars interrogated admitted that entry into the order involved denying Christ and spitting on a cross.
