Walsingham asserts that Philippe's design in assailing the Templars was to procure for one of his younger sons the title of King of Jerusalem, with the Templar possessions as an appanage. Such a project was completely within the line of thought of the time, and would have resulted in precipitating Europe anew upon Syria. It may possibly have been a motive at the outset, and was gravely discussed in the Council of Vienne in favor of Philippe le Long, but it is evident that no sovereign outside of France would have permitted the Templar dominions within his territories to pass under the control of a member of the aspiring house of Capet.[269]
For the explanation of Philippe's action, however, we need hardly look further than to financial considerations. He was in desperate straits for money to meet the endless drain of the Flemish war. He had imposed taxes until some of his subjects were in revolt, and others were on the verge of it. He had debased the currency until he earned the name of the Counterfeiter, had found himself utterly unable to redeem his promises, and had discovered by experience that of all financial devices it was the most costly and ruinous. His resources were exhausted and his scruples were few. The stream of confiscations from Languedoc was beginning to run dry, while the sums which it had supplied to the royal treasury for more than half a century had shown the profit which was derivable from well-applied persecution of heresy. He had just carried out a financial expedient of the same kind as his dealings with the Templars, by arresting all the Jews of the kingdom simultaneously, stripping them of their property, and banishing them under pain of death. A memorandum of questions for consideration, still preserved in the Trésor des Chartres, shows that he expected to benefit in the same way from the confiscation of the Templar possessions, while, as we shall see, he overlooked the fact that these, as ecclesiastical property, were subject to the imprescriptible rights of the Church.[270]
The stories about Squin de Florian, a renegade Templar, and Noffo Dei, a wicked Florentine, both condemned to death and concocting the accusations to save themselves, are probably but the conception of an imaginative chronicler, handed down from one annalist to another.[271] Such special interposition was wholly unnecessary. The foolish secrecy in which the Templars enveloped their proceedings was a natural stimulus of popular curiosity and suspicion. Alone among religious Orders, the ceremonies of reception were conducted in the strictest privacy; chapters were held at daybreak with doors closely guarded, and no participant was allowed to speak of what was done, even to a fellow-Templar not concerned in the chapter, under the heaviest penalty known--that of expulsion. That this should lead to gossip and stories of rites too repulsive and hideous to bear the light was inevitable. It was the one damaging fact against them, and when Humbert Blanc, Preceptor of Auvergne, was asked on his trial why such secrecy was observed if they had nothing to conceal, he could only answer "through folly." Thus it was common report that the neophyte was subjected to the humiliation of kissing the posteriors of his preceptor--a report which the Hospitallers took special pleasure in circulating. That unnatural lusts should be attributed to the Order is easily understood, for it was a prevalent vice of the Middle Ages, and one to which monastic communities were especially subject; as recently as 1292 a horrible scandal of this kind had led to the banishment of many professors and theologians of the University of Paris. Darker rumors were not lacking of unchristian practices introduced in the Order by a Grand Master taken prisoner by the Soldan of Babylon, and procuring his release under promise of rendering them obligatory on the members. There was also a legend that in the early days of the Order two Templars were riding on one horse in a battle beyond seas. The one in front recommended himself to Christ and was sorely wounded; the one behind recommended himself to him who best could help, and he escaped. The latter was said to be the demon in human shape who told his wounded comrade that if he would believe him the Order would grow in wealth and power. The Templar was seduced, and thence came error and unbelief into the organization. We have seen how readily such stories obtained credence throughout the Middle Ages, how they grew and became embroidered with the most fantastic details. The public mind was ripe to believe anything of the Templars; a spark only was needed to produce a conflagration.[272]