XII
|
|
Plans for the raid leaked to the Templars. Many of them escaped and took refuge abroad: in England, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Germany, etc. But many were arrested and imprisoned, including the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay. He was interned with 74 companions in the prisons of Chinon for a few years. When the king called a meeting of the Estates General in Tours in 1308, the accusations and confessions ex-acted by tor-ture were announced. The graffiti of the Templar prisoners remain on their cell walls to this very day. At the council of Vienne, in the south of France - remember that the pope was in Avignon, - Clément V did not succeed in having the council fathers condemn the Templar order. These wise men knew perfectly well that the charges against it were false and refused to be associated with such an out-rage. Nonetheless, in 1312, the king seized all the Templar possessions in France, and the pope issued the bull Vox clamantis, which disbanded the Order "provisionally" until judgment could be passed. Only in France would there ever be such a judgment. The Order was extinguished purely and simply by an arbitrary papal bull. Its French property was given to the order of Saint John Hospitaliers of Jerusalem. This order was somewhat comparable to the Templars, but its mission had always been purely humanitarian. Jacques de Molay and two of his companions were burned at the stake in Paris, on a small island in the Seine, on March 18, 1314. Before the exe-cutions, he pronounced his famous condemnation of the "accursed kings": "Clement, and you, Philip, traitors to the Faith, I call you both before the judgment of God! You, Clement, in forty days and you, Philip, within the year. Cursed be your descendants... etc." Pope
Clement V died 37 days later. The official reason given was dysen-tery.
Was he actually poisoned ?... In most of the neighboring countries, the Templars were merely disbanded and reattached en masse to the order of Saint John Hospitalers. An excep-tion was made in Aragon and Portugal, where special new orders were created in 1317 by a bull issued by the succeeding pope, John XXII. These new orders were that of Montesa, in Aragon, and the "Knights of Christ," in Portugal. The latter kept as its emblem the Templar cross. In the next century the insignia would adorn the sails of the world explorers. God and chance work in mysterious ways. France was relegated to the sidelines of history. For a while, other coun-tries would lead the way. The torch of civilization had passed to other hands. And with it went the peaceful growth of the first French renais-sance. Clouds were rapidly gathering on the horizon.... *With the Templars gone, the franchises granted by Saint Louis to the groups engaged in construction work were abolished. The "Children of Solomon" became the "Companions of Duty and Freedom", and many went abroad. They would build most of the gothic churches in Germany, Bel-gium, Holland and England. In Orleans, schools specializing in law had been elevated to university sta-tus in 1305 by Pope Clement V. The schools in Tours declined to the point where students took their degrees in Paris. Between 1323 and 1334, three schools were founded for clerics from Touraine. In 1337, the Hundred Years War broke out. It was to devastate France and gave the king of England a pretext to send troops and establish garrisons on the continent.. In 1341, war came to the Loire country. In Maine and Anjou, it revived the ancient threat of neighboring Brittany. Cities and abbeys built de-fenses. Local taxes were levied for building city walls. At the same time, the salt taxl was instituted by Philip-VI-of-Valois. Insufficient harvests and rising prices impoverished the people. In 1351, the inhabitants of Tours set about rebuilding the city walls. The English troops of King Edward III were in Calais; those of his son, the Black Prince were in Guyenne, then in Sologne, in Azay, in Cormery... English troops took the abbey of Marmoutier and used it as a base for raids throughout the region. Langeais, Ballan, Bouchard island, and Montlouis were occupied.. Constable Du Guesclin liberated the regions of Montlouis and Chenonceaux in 1359. Du Guesclin had not been particularly favored by nature; his countenance fit poorly with the elegant faces at court. But he embodied the virtues of a military man: courage, pride, cleverness and charisma. He gave new hope to France, but men of his caliber were rare, and the king-dom of France had shrunk greatly by the time a truce was signed in Bretigny in 1360. This truce did not prevent bands of mercenaries in English pay from con-tinuing to pillage the country. A long period of civil strife began. As in the worst times of feudal history, forts and castles kept changing hands. A period of relative calm marks the beginning of the ascendancy of Duke Louis of Anjou in Touraine, which his brother King Charles V had given him. Du Guesclin's achievements were having an effect. In a few years, Du Guesclin retook many territories, but then he was sent to rid the French countryside of bands of highwaymen. The chase took him into Spain, where he was taken prisoner. His reputation was such that the people of France took up a collection to pay the ransom that he himself had set. Back in France, he continued the struggle against the outlaws, but he fell ill and died in bed. Death does not always come to heroes on the battlefield. !... After
the death of Charles V in 1380, the crown went to his 12-year
old son, Charles VI. His uncles, the dukes
of Berry, Anjou, Burgundy, and Bourbon, struggled for power for
more than 20 years. There was no end to deals, betrayals, shifting
alliances and murders. .. The partisan struggles supported by English intervention plunged the Loire country into endless guerrilla wars. Nothing less than the independence of the kingdom was at stake. As Paris was occupied by the English, the dauphin Charles, the future Charles VII, set up his government in Bourges. Once again, Orleans expected a siege. Outlying districts were razed to give a better field of fire around the town. Nineteen churches and abbeys, such as Saint-Aignan, Saint-Avit, Saint-Euverte, etc., being located outside the city walls, were demolished so that the English could not use them for for-tifications. Since the English had an interest in holding the line along the Loire as a border with the kingdom of Bourges to the south, they set up their headquarters in Meung sur Loire, and besieged Orleans. It was then that an small, unknown shepherdess came upon the scene... *
|
n
the dawn of Friday, October 13, 1307, an unlucky date for the
king-dom according to the superstitious, all the Templars of France
were ar-rested and thrown into prison on the order of Philip
the Fair