The arrest order
The king's secret orders went to his baillis and sénéchaux throughout France. In them Philip lamented: "A bitter thing, a lamentable thing, a thing which is horrible to contemplate, terrible to hear of, a detestable crime, an execrable evil, an abominable work, a detestable disgrace, a thing almost inhuman, indeed set apart from all humanity" [5].
Charges and a papal bull
Philip charged the Templars with heresy, blasphemy and homosexuality. He urged other rulers to follow suit, for instance in a letter of 16 October 1307 to James II of Aragon, and Pope Clement V backed him with the bull Pastoralis praeeminentiae of 22 November 1307 [1][2][4].
Torture and 127 articles
This started years of imprisonment and often severe torture of many Templars in France, in England (January 1308) and in Ireland (February 1308) [1][3]. Many French Templars, under threat or actual torture, confessed to the alleged crimes, answering to the 127 articles of accusation in the bull Faciens misericordiam of 12 August 1308, issued after the pope's meetings with the king at Poitiers [1][4].
Burnings and dissolution
The investigations of worldly and ecclesiastical tribunals led to the burning of Templars who retracted their confessions, as relapsed heretics (54 in Paris on 12 May 1310), and to the reconciliation of those who confessed and repented, who had to enter a monastery or another Order [1][2][4]. With the bull Vox in excelso Clement V formally dissolved the Order in 1312, removing papal support and revoking the mandates of earlier popes [1]. By the bull Ad providam of 2 May 1312 he handed the Templar assets to the Hospitallers, except those in Castile, Aragon, Portugal and Majorca [1].
The records
The trials are well documented. One classic study places them in the context of the crusades, heresy, the papacy and the French monarchy [2]; the full trial records of the British Isles exist in Latin and English translation [3]; and a recent study follows the trial from the scandal and scheming of 1305, via torture, imprisonment and dissolution, to 1314, when the leaders Jacques de Molay and Geoffroi de Charnay were burned at the stake, using the interrogations of 231 French Templars [1].
Beyond the records
These studies focus on the facts, as they should, not on how the Templars experienced what happened. Historical novels may help here, if sufficiently based on historical data. A good example is Non Nobis by Hanny Alders, discussed in a separate blog.
The trials produced confessions under pressure and a dissolution by papal decision, not by verdict [1].
This blog is original work by TemplarsNowTM based on an AI-assisted quick scan on the topic. References and further reading, Open Access if available, all links verified October 6, 2026 but not all sources studied in detail: [1] Demurger, A. (2018) The Persecution of the Templars: Scandal, Torture, Trial, transl. T. Lavender Fagan, London: Profile Books; [2] Barber, M. (2006) The Trial of the Templars, 2nd edn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; [3] Nicholson, H. (ed. and transl.) (2011) The Proceedings Against the Templars in the British Isles, 2 vols, Farnham: Ashgate; [4] Finke, H. (1907) Papsttum und Untergang des Templerordens, 2 vols, Münster: Aschendorff, vol. 1 pp. 271-272; vol. 2 nos. 30-31, pp. 46-48; [5] Barber, M. and Bate, K. (eds and transl.) (2002) The Templars: Selected Sources, Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 244 (letter of Philip IV to his officers, 14 September 1307).
The illustration shows the arrest of the Templars, Chroniques de France ou de St. Denis (end 14th century), f. 42v, British Library, Royal MS 20 C VII. Source Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.
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