REPRIEVE ? WHAT REPRIEVE ? OR IS IT RETRIBUTION?

In an attempt at illustrating various and glaring human trampling on other people’s rights (see blog 12^th October 2011) I chose as exemplar the Salem Witch Trials, the treatment of the mentally ill and the treatment of 13 million citizens in India, labelled as criminal tribes. The illustration seems not to have illuminated the question, perhaps rendering matters more obscure, unclear and certainly far too lengthy.

History is full of remarkable incidents of bad behaviour, and as human beings evolve, one hopes the reaction to this behaviour will bring about some process of civilising reform. Reactions of course are not always immediate, no matter how great the atrocity committed. How far does one go back in human development to see where, when and how the more critical reactions, leading towards civility, took place?

Philip IV

Clement V

In keeping with this blog’s theme of date and time, I find an event which took place on Friday, 13^th October, 1307.  Philip IV of France (a.k.a. Philip the Fair) responding to requests and encouragement from Pope Clement V – and his own mercenary instincts - ordered Jacques de Molay (The Knights Templar Grand Master) and scores of other French Templars to be simultaneously arrested. The arrest warrant started with the phrase : "Dieu n'est pas content, nous avons des ennemis de la foi dans le Royaume" ["God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom"]. The Templars were charged with numerous offences (including apostasy, idolatry, heresy, obscene rituals and homosexuality, financial corruption and fraud, and secrecy). Many of the accused confessed to these charges under torture, and these confessions, even though obtained under duress, caused a scandal in Paris. All interrogations were recorded on a thirty metre long parchment, kept at the "Archives nationales" in Paris. The prisoners were coerced to confess that they had spat on the Cross : "Moi Raymond de La Fère, 21 ans, reconnais que (J'ai) craché trois fois sur la Croix, mais de bouche et pas de coeur" (free translation : "I, Raymond de La Fère, 21 years old, admit that I have spat three times on the Cross, but only from my mouth and not from my heart"). The Templars were accused of idolatry. After more bullying from Philip, Pope Clement then issued the papal bull Pastoralis Praeeminentiae on November 22, 1307, which instructed all Christian monarchs in Europe to arrest all Templars and seize their assets. King Philip was deeply in debt to the Templars and used these false confessions and Papal backing as a means of not only freeing himself of debt but adding to the coffers. When Jacques de Molay later retracted his own confession, Philip had him burned at the stake on an island in the River Seine in Paris, in March 1314. Many others were burnt at the stake.

DE MOLAY

The sudden arrest of the Templars, the conflicting stories about confessions, and the dramatic deaths by burning, generated many stories and legends about both the Order, and its last Grand Master.

In September 2001, Barbara Frale an Italian paleographer at the Vatican Secret Archives, found  the Chinon Parchment in the Archives, This document explicitly confirms that in 1308 Pope Clement V absolved Jacques de Molay and other leaders of the Order including Geoffroi de Charney and Hugues de Pairaud. She published her findings in the Journal of Medieval History in 2004. Another Chinon parchment dated 20 August 1308 addressed to Philip IV of France stated that absolution had been granted to all those Templars that had confessed to heresy "and restored them to the Sacraments and to the unity of the Church".

If that happened in 1308, how is it de Molay and others were burnt at the stake in 1314? Did Philip not get the message? It is interesting that a student of writing should have revealed this information 693 years after the event.

And the aftermath? Is there anything one can point to, some redeeming feature ? I fear nothing of significance. Philip IV died nine months after Jacques de Molay, the result of a stoke whilst hunting, on the 29 November 1314. As to Pope Clement V, he died a month after de Molay, on 20^th April,  1314.  According to one story, while his body was lying in state, a thunderstorm developed during the night and lightning struck the church where his body lay, igniting the building. The fire was so intense that, when it was extinguished, the body of Pope Clement V was almost destroyed.

So what can one make of that?