[Mark Mattimore]

For all Templar fans and students of the crusades…

Today (October 13) is the anniversary of the arrest of The Order of the Poor Knights of Christ of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, commonly know as the Templars. On this date in 1307 (a Friday the 13th), Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V systematically imprisoned and persecuted nearly every knight, priest, sergeant and servant of the Order of the Templars, including its last grand master, Jacques de Molay. The order was charged with heresy, had its assets seized, and was officially dissolved five years latter. Jacques de Molay was burned alive at the stake in Paris in 1314.

This being 2007 makes this the 700th anniversary of the Templar's arrest.

I’ll be breaking out my Crusader Sword and giving it a good polish to commemorate this historic and tragic event.

[Ed Toton]

Interestingly, it looks like some new information has become available that indicates that they were initially cleared of Heresy, though that decision was later reversed...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21267691/from/ET/

[George Davidson]

wonder if they'll get an apology from the Pope thus absolving them from burning in hell forever for being dirty heretics?

[Jeffrey McClain]

A set of documents where found in 2001 from the Vatican archieves, supposedly the actual transcript of the Templer trial. An actual recreation of these documents are being offered for sale to the public at a cost of 4000.00 per book, very limited edition, rumored to already be sold out, mainly to medieval scholars & esteemed universities. aol.com today had a news brief about it.

[Mark Mattimore]

Interesting news. I’ve not heard about this Chinon parchment but I found another article from the BBC here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7044741.stm
and the publishing house that did the reproduction printing here http://www.scrinium.org/scrinium/index.php.
At $8000 a copy I’ll take two

This is fascinating in that one of the debates about the Templar’s persecution has always been around the depth of Clement’s role. Some historians have argued that he acted independently because he saw the Templars as a threat to papal power. On the other extreme he is sometimes thought to have been a mere pawn of Philip. It seems that this new evidence would suggest that Philip did hold a surprising amount of influence over Clement.

[Bruno Giordan]

i think the Church is about to re-establish the order, since such kind of publications by the Vatican are well pondered, not surely casual releases.

templars were a real religious order, and a revival is going on in Italy with official consecrations by real priests or bishops in real churches, as it can be seen here

http://www.templarioggi.it/

I guess the order won't be different from the other military order, the order of Malta, whose present day functions are purely that of a charitable ONG.

No chance of seeing Templars going around in armor ...

[Bruno Giordan]

The new book is called "processus contra templarios". A fair english language account of the story is here

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=2007-...t=breaking

the scrinium publishig house original pahge announcing the sale of this new book

http://www.scrinium.org/scrinium/Produzione.p...;year=2006

it belongs to an exclusive serie, the ACTA PRETIOSA, that's why it costs so much.

[Edward Hitchens]

[Mark Mattimore]