ht about between them.
Both on this charge and on that of treachery towards the Christian
armies, Dr. Bussell's impartial view of the question may be quoted:

When in 1149 the Emperor Conrad III failed before Damascus, the
Templars were believed to have a secret understanding with the
garrison of that city; ... in 1154 they were said to have sold, for
60,000 gold pieces, a prince of Egypt who had wished to become a
Christian; he was taken home to suffer certain death at the hands
of his fanatical family. In 1166 Amaury, King of Jerusalem, hanged
twelve members of the Order for betraying a fortress to Nureddin.

And Dr. Bussell goes on to say that it cannot be disputed that they had
"long and important dealings" with the Assassins "and were therefore
suspected (not unfairly) of imbibing their precepts and following their
principles."[139]

By the end of the thirteenth century the Templars had become suspect,
not only in the eyes of the clergy, but of the general public. "Amongst
the common people," one of their latest apologists admits, "vague
rumours circulated. They talked of the covetousness and want of scruple
of the Knights, of their passion for aggrandizement and their rapacity.
Their haughty insolence was proverbial. Drinking habits were attributed
to them; the saying was already in use 'to drink like a Templar.' The
old German word _Tempelhaus_ indicated a house of ill-fame."[140]

The same rumours had reached Clement V even before his accession to the
papal throne in 1305,[141] and in this same year he summoned the Grand
Master of the Order, Jacques du Molay, to return to France from the
island of Cyprus, where he was assembling fresh forces to avenge the
recent reverses of the Christian armies.

Du Molay arrived in France with sixty other Knights Templar and 150,000
gold florins, as well as a large quantity of silver that the Order had
amassed in the East.[142]

The Pope now set himself to make enquiries concerning the charges of
"unspeakable apostasy against God, detestable idolatry, execrable vice,
and many heresies" that had been "secretly intimated" to him. But, to
quote his own words:

Because it did not seem likely nor credible that men of such
religion who were believed often to shed their blood and frequently
expose their persons to the peril of death for Christ's name, and
who showed such great and many signs of devotion both in divine