throat, and threatened with death.[149]

Since, however, a number of these confessions were made under torture,
it is more important to consider the evidence provided by the trial of
the Knights at the hands of the Pope, where this method was not
employed.

Now, at the time the Templars were arrested, Clement V., deeply
resenting the King's interference with an Order which existed entirely
under papal jurisdiction, wrote in the strongest terms of remonstrance
to Philippe le Bel urging their release, and even after their trial,
neither the confessions of the Knights nor the angry expostulations of
the King could persuade him to believe in their guilt.[150] But as the
scandal concerning the Templars was increasing, he consented to receive
in private audience "a certain Knight of the Order, of great nobility
and held by the said Order in no slight esteem," who testified to the
abominations that took place on the reception of the Brethren, the
spitting on the cross, and other things which were not lawful nor,
humanly speaking, decent.[151]

The Pope then decided to hold an examination of seventy-two French
Knights at Poictiers in order to discover whether the confessions made
by them before the Inquisitor at Paris could be substantiated, and at
this examination, conducted without torture or pressure of any kind in
the presence of the Pope himself, the witnesses declared on oath that
they would tell "the full and pure truth." They then made confessions
which were committed to writing in their presence, and these being
afterwards read aloud to them, they expressly and willingly approved
them (_perseverantes in illis eas expresse et sponte, prout recitate
fuerunt approbarunt_).[152]

Besides this, an examination of the Grand Master, Jacques du Molay, and
the Preceptors of the Order was held in the presence of "three Cardinals
and four public notaries and many other good men." These witnesses, says
the official report, "having sworn with their hands on the Gospel of
God" (_ad sancta dei evangelia ab iis corporaliter tacta_) that--

they would on all the aforesaid things speak the pure and full
truth, they, separately, freely, and spontaneously, without any
coercion and fear, deposed and confessed among other things, the
denial of Christ and spitting upon the cross when they were
received into the Order of the Temple. And some of them (deposed
and confessed) that under the same form, namely, wi