ROMANCE AND TRAGEDY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3940, 16 August 1937, Page 7

ROMANCE AND TRAGEDY

THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. (By Archbishop Wand, of Brisbane.) To Christians of to-day, who cannot contemplate the thought of war without shame, the close association of war and religion must seem a paradox. Yet combination seemed not paradoxical, but proper and fitting. In the days when every knight was brought up from his earliest youth as an expert in fighting it came as a special happiness in the religiouslyminded when they found that they could devote their swords to the service of the Cross.

This came about in the most natural manner. As early as the 11th cen/tury the merchants of Amalfi had founded in Jerusalem a hospital for poor and sick Latin pilgrims. At the time of the Crusades the hospital became immediately important, Gerard, a Knight of Provence, built up an elaborate organisation named after St. John the Compassionate, a Patriarch of Alexandria. It was the usccess cf his hospital which inspired the foundation of the Knights Templars. Under Hugh de Payens they obtained a residence near the Temple of Jerusalem from which they took their name of Templars; they placed them selves under the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and they devoted themselves to the purposes of religion and the defence of the Christians against the Moslems. CHURCH’S FIGHTING FORCE. In accordance, no doubt, with the spirit of the maxim that the be st form of defence is offence, they soon became the Church’s fighting force gainst the Moslem possessors of the Holy Land. As such they represented a new thing in history. The Church had never before possessed a fighting force sworn to its own service.

The importance of the movement was rapidly recognised in the West, /rhe King of France endowed the Brethren with lands and money, and no less a saint than Bernard of Clanvaux, the author of the well-known hymn, “ Jesu, the Very Thought of Thee,” composed for them a Rule.

Bernard’s connection with them shows that the religious idea was uppermost in the minds of the founders of this essentially military Order. He used them as an example to the luxurious and decadent members of European society. He said that among them there was no respect of persons.

“It was the best man, not the man of noblest birth, who was most high ly prized. They tried to outdo each other in respect and to bear one another’s burdens. They shunned games isf chess and the gaming tables. They turned away from the chase and from hawking. They were never seen dressed up. They washed themselves seldom. Usually they were covered with dust and brown from the heat of the sun.”

The Order was founded in 1118, with only 9 knights, but when Hugh do. Rayens returned from is visit to Europe he brought with hi ma force of 300 knights. Each had declare ! himself free of debt, and had announced that he had forgiven his enemies. PROFESSIONAL NUCLEUS. The main purpose of the Brotherhood speedily became the furthering of the Christian cause in the various Crijsades. Together with the Knights of tne Hospital of St. John, who had now taken on a similar organisation, and the Teutonic Knights who were brought to Palestine by FredericK Barbarossa, they formed the professional nucleus of every Crusading lt was a matter of honour to them that no one should be allowed to run more risks than they. They must never surrender to fewer than three Moslems, and they must never allow themselves, if captured, to be ransomed. They Lore the shock of practically every battle, and on many occasions they lost more than half their numbers in a single encounter. For two centuries they maintained their positions against forces that outnumbered them by many thousands. They built famous strongholds, and by means of them they were able to cling to their position when from time io time the crusading wave had receded back to Europe. It is not surprising that in the comparative lull between Crusades the Templars setled down to live at peace with their neighbours. In all wars it is found that soldiers, after the heat of battle has died down, are ready to fraternise with the enemy. In this Jase Christians began to understand something of the Mohammedan religion.

The Quoran had been translated in 1143. Many of the Christians went

to the Moslem universities, picked ip

a working knowledge of Arabic and of such sciences as astronomy and mathematics, for which the Moslem teachers had become famous. But in spite of what‘has been said ■war was not always the main preoccupation of the Order. There came a time when, if they ha’d been left to themselves, the Templars would have preferred peace. They were sometimee more than a little bored when fresh armies came from the west and made further fighting a necessity. The reason for the change was that the Templars had become a great international vjhich had its own use in peace as well as in war. It was not merely that nearly all the

Christian lands of Palestine were in their possession, but in Europe also the Order is said to have had an annual income of six million pounds. BECAME BANKING CONCERN. The result of having so much wealth distributed throughout the principal cities of the East and of the West was that the Temple became a great banking concern. The Knights were the safest people with whom to leave money. The Church might protect its possessions with ecclesiastical sonction. The Barons might protect theirs by force of arms. But it was the Temple, and the Temple only, that could use both methods and make assurance doubly sure. Further, when travelling was so unsafe, 'it became possible to gtia.-d against the hazards of the road by depositing one’s money at the Temple in one of the great cities cf Europe and providing oneself with a draft which was certain to be honoured by another Temple at the end of one’s journey.

It will thus be seen that the Templars made some contribution to the civilisation of their day. The only art, however, upon which they showed any influence was that of architecture. That does not end the tale of their peace-time successes. Under them Palestine was one of the richest countries of the world. It had a flourishing trade with the West, and it was also better cultivated than it has ever been since until the present day. That too, added to the wealth of the Temple. THE FALL OF ACRE. It may well have seemed that an Order so strongly protected and established would endure for ever, but two things served to bring it to an end—the failure of the Crusades an 1 the enmity of Philip the Fair, King of France.

For the failure of the Crusades the Papacy must in part be blamed. It had raised armies, only to dissipate their strength on subsidiary expeditions. After two centuries of varying fortunes in Palestine the Christian rule came to an end with the fall of Acre in 1291.

The story of that fall reflects nothing but credit upon the bravery cf the Knights. The Grand Master, having removed the children, the sick, and many of the women to Cyprus, had the opportunity of withdrawing his forces there also, but he refused to desert the fort, and every Knight rallied round him.

For six weeks the city stood the continual attacks of the enemy, who were well provided with siege machinery. Then, after a tower had been destroyed, and a breach made in the wall, the Knights drove back the believers and withstood an assault which continued three days. At the end of that time the Moslems entered the town and massacred most of the defenders, except 300 Knights, who fought a way to thenown temple, which was already sheltering several hundred other Christians. On promising to spare the lives of all the defenders 300 Moslems were admitted into the Temple as a proof of good faith. I will let Mi- G. A. Campbell, who has just written a new book on “The Knights Templars, Their Rise and Fall,” conclude the story: “In the morning the Moslems resumed operations, but the Templars, entrenched in one of the towers, beat off the attack. The defenders were provisioned to withstand a long siege, and the Sultan, despairing of taking the tower by assault, gave orders for its destruction. The foundations were undermined and the’ tower supported with wooden props. Then, as soon as all was completed, the props were set alight. When the flames had weakened the supports the tower toppled over with a mighty crash, and every Templar was crushed or burned to death.” THE “INVESTIGATION.” Soon after this disaster came the opportunity of Philip of France. He had a personal grudge against the Order, which had once refused to admit him as a member. He also desired their wealth —a vey consideable proportion of which was to be found within his own territories. He instituted an investigation into the character and morals of the Order, which reads very familiarly to us who have heard accounts of the way in which similar investigations are carried on to-day in Germany and Russia. Actually, of course, Philip had no ights in the matte, but he bullied the Pope and enlisted the services of the Inquisition. The French were adepts at torture, and by its means they obtained a number of confessions.

Philip made every effort to get other kings to follow his lead. In England, whee totue was unknown, no satisfactory confessions could be obtained. At last the Pope, Clement V. ordered torture to be used, and that was the first and last time such methods were employed in England until the reign of Mary. Actually there is no reliable evidence whatsoever that the knights as a body were guilty of the atrocious vices with which they were charged, but by a flagrant travesty of justice they were condemned. Before the final phase of the investigation 120 Templars in Paris had been burned at the stake. SOME MODERN PARALLEL ? The end came when, on April 3, 1312, at the council assembled at Vienna, the Pope proclaimed his decision to abolish the order. It was a significant moment in the history of

Europe, because it meant that for the first time Christianity had been unable to defend its own against the ambitions of a secular monarch.

It was not merely a defeat for the Church, but it was a warning example of the fact that now religion was ceasing to occupy the forefront of men’s minds. Religion had lost its dominant position in human affais.

Thus the notes of romance and tragedy-were intermingled in the history of this military order. Whether it will ever again be possible to enlist a knightly chivalry in the service of Christianity may be doubted. It is possible, however, that some parallel institution may one day arise. Many of those who still pin their faith to the League of Nations believe that the League can only b>made effective if it has some force at its command which will ensure that international law shall be obeyed. It may be that an air force attached to the League of Nations may yet provide an opportunity for the Knights Templars of our own time.