On October 25th the Vatican Secret Archives are releasing a 300-page volume entitled Processus contra Templario (Latin for "Trial against the Templars"), which includes a reproduction of a key document known as The Chinon Parchment, which formally absolves the Knights Templar of heresy. The Chinon Parchment had been “misplaced” by the Vatican for many years, and was rediscovered by Professor Barbara Frale, a medievalist at the Vatican’s Secret Archives in 2001.
"The parchment was cataloged incorrectly at some point in history. At first I couldn't believe my eyes…This was the document that a lot of historians were looking for,” says Frale in an interview with the UK’s Daily Mail. “There was an archiving error, an error in how the document was described," Frale elaborated in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from her home in Viterbo, north of Rome. "More than an error, it was a little sketchy."
The Templar Knights, or the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon to give them their full name, were born out of the free for all that was the First Crusade, a holy war launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II in an effort to unite the Christian world behind the Roman Catholic Church. With his Deus Vult (God wills it!) rallying cry in their ears, his coalition of willing Christians from all walks of life piled into the Middle East to seize the Muslim held Holy Lands. Many peasant crusaders also began persecuting Jews throughout Europe at this frenzied time, blaming them for the crucifixion of Jesus, in what was later called the First Holocaust.
Founded by French knight Hugues de Payens shortly after the Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, the Templar Knights’ mission was to ensure the safe passage of the mass of European pilgrims heading east. They were named after the headquarters they were given by King Baldwin II of Jerusalem on Temple Mount, which is said to be the site of the Temple of Solomon. This location was, in part, what gave rise to the various legends (as portrayed in the book Da Vinci Code) that the Templars were guardians of hallowed relics such as The Holy Grail and The Ark of Covenant (which proved to be as elusive as WMDs). It has also been theorized that they found manuscripts that revealed that Jesus was a man rather than a deity, who preached a form of spirituality that was in line with Judaic and Egyptian traditions, which directly contradicted Roman Catholic doctrine.
After the Templars were endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church in 1129 the organization’s size and wealth increased dramatically. They were the charity du jour amongst the European nobility, who joined their ranks and swelled their coffers, and were given further papal protection in a 1139 order which excepted them from local laws and taxes. The Templars ventured into banking and financial management; issuing an early form of traveler's checks to nobility who didn’t want to tempt thieves by traveling to the Holy Lands with their wealth in their pockets. The Templars would also manage the estates of the nobility while they were away, and thus they became the world's first multinational, full-service financial institution. By developing such an infrastructure, the Templars amassed unprecedented power and wealth above sovereign laws (thanks to those handy papal orders), which ultimately lead to the organization's downfall.
In 1187 Jerusalem was captured by Saladin, the Muslim Sultan of Egypt who was widely admired, even in the Christian world, for his chivalry, a concept the Templar Knights brought back to Europe. After more than a century of skirmishes, the Templars lost their final foothold in the Holy Lands in 1303, and with it their fundamental purpose. Their infrastructure in Europe remained, and as the continent’s leading bankers they loaned King Philip IV of France money for his war with England –– money the spendthrift monarch had no hope of repaying. Seizing on rumor and innuendo centered around the monastic military order's slightly bizarre initiation rituals, which included spitting on a cross, on Friday October 13th, 1307 the King issued orders to arrest Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay and his fellow knights. Charged with heresy, among other things, they were tortured, and false confessions were extorted. The enterprising King charged the order for the privilege of board while their knights were imprisoned. Under pressure from Philip, the vulnerable Pope Clement V, who just a couple of years later fled a hostile Rome and set up court in Avignon, issued an order instructing Christian monarchs to arrest the Templars and seize their assets. A further papal order officially disbanded the organization, whose reputation was irrevocably tarnished, in 1312.
On March 8th 1314 de Molay was burnt at the stake in Paris. Legend has it that he cursed the King and Pope as he died in the flames, saying they would both meet him soon before God. As it turned out, Pope Clement and King Philip both died within a year, on April 20th and November 29th 1314 respectively. However, in the Chinon Parchment dated August 17–20, 1308, Pope Clement V recognized that the Templars were not guilty of the heresies they were charged with, and secretly pardoned the knights and their leader de Moley, “restoring him to unity with the Church and reinstating him to communion of the faithful and sacraments of the Church."
“Simply put, the pope recognized that they were not heretics but guilty of many other minor crimes -- such as abuses, violence and sinful acts within the order," says Frale in a Telegraph article. “For 700 years we have believed that the Templars died as cursed men, and this absolves them.”
Only 799 copies of Processus contra Templario will be sold, with the 800th copy going to Pope Benedict XVI. The book carries a hefty $8,377 price tag, and is expected to be bought mostly by academic institutions. "This is a milestone because it is the first time that these documents are being released by the Vatican, which gives a stamp of authority to the entire project," says Frale. "Nothing before this offered scholars original documents of the trials of the Templars."
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