Characteristic

His reign played an important role in the decline of the political power of the feudal lords and the strengthening of monarchism in France. He continued the work of his father and grandfather, but the conditions of his era, the peculiarities of the character and intrigues of the court advisers at times led to the manifestation of aggression and cruelty in the king's policies. Despite this, the reign of Philip strengthened the influence of France in Europe. Many of his actions, from the war with Flanders to the execution of the Templars, were aimed at replenishing the country's budget and strengthening the army.

Litigation with the English king

Hommage of Edward I to King Philip

Philip's advisers, brought up in the spirit of the traditions of Roman law, always tried to find a "legal" ground for the king's demands and harassment and clothed the most important diplomatic disputes in the form of legal proceedings. Philip's entire reign is filled with quarrels, "processes", diplomatic litigation of the most shameless nature.

So, for example, having confirmed the possession of Guyenne for King Edward I of England, Philip, after a series of cavils, summoned him to court, knowing that Edward, who was at war with the Scots at that time, could not appear. Edward, fearing war with Philip, sent an embassy to him and allowed him to occupy Guyenne for forty days. Philip occupied the duchy and did not want, on condition, to leave it. Diplomatic negotiations began, which led to the outbreak of hostilities; but in the end Philip gave Guyenne so that the English king would still swear an oath to him and recognize himself as his vassal. This happened in the years. Military operations against England ended because the allies of the British, the Flemings, led by independent interests, began to disturb the north of the kingdom.

War for Flanders

Philip IV managed to win over the Flemish urban population; the count of Flanders was left almost alone before the invading French army and was captured, and Flanders was annexed to France. In the same year 1301, unrest began among the conquered Flemings, who were oppressed by the French governor Chatillon and other proteges of Philip. The uprising swept the whole country, and at the Battle of Courtras (1302) the French were utterly defeated. After that, the war lasted with varying success for more than two years; only in 1305, the Flemings were forced to cede a rather large part of their territory to Philip, recognize the vassal dependence of the rest of the land, hand over about 3,000 citizens for execution, destroy fortresses, etc. The war with Flanders dragged on mainly because the attention of Philip the Fair was distracted by the struggle with Pope Boniface VIII.

Fighting with dad. The Avignon Captivity of the Popes

Seal of King Philip IV the Fair (1286)

This compliance did not lead, however, to a lasting peace with Philip, who was seduced by the wealth of the French Church. The legists who surrounded the king - especially Guillaume Nogaret and Pierre Dubois - advised the king to remove entire categories of criminal cases from the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical justice. In 1300, relations between Rome and France became very tense. Bishop Bernard Sesse of Pamier, sent by Boniface to Philip as a special legate, behaved extremely insolently: he was a representative of that party in the Languedoc, which especially hated the northern French. The king initiated legal proceedings against him and demanded that the pope defrock him; the bishop was accused not only of insulting the king, but also of treason and other crimes.

The Pope in December 1301 responded to Philip by accusing him of encroaching on spiritual power and demanded him to his court. At the same time, he sent to the king the bull "Ausculta fili", in which he emphasized the fullness of the papal power and its superiority over any (without exception) secular power. The king (according to legend, having burned this bull) convened in April 1302 the States General (the first in French history). Nobles and city representatives expressed their unconditional support for royal politics. The clergy appealed to the Pope with a request not to travel to Rome, where he invited them to a council that was preparing against Philip. Boniface did not agree, but the priests still did not go to Rome, because Philip forbade them.

At the council, which took place in the autumn of 1302, in the bull "Unam Sanctam" Boniface again confirmed his opinion about the supremacy of spiritual power over the secular, the "spiritual sword" over the "worldly". In 1303, Boniface freed some of the lands subject to Philip from the vassal oath, and the king responded by convening a meeting of high clergy and secular barons, before which Nogare accused Boniface of all sorts of atrocities.

Soon after, Nogare with a small retinue left for Italy to arrest the pope, who had mortal enemies there, which greatly facilitated the task of the French agent. Pope left for Anagni, not knowing that the inhabitants of the city were ready to cheat on him. Nogare and his companions freely entered the city, entered the palace and here behaved rather rudely, almost using violence (there is a version of a slap in the face given to the pope). Two days later, the mood of the residents of Anagni changed and they released the pope. A few days later Boniface VIII died, and 10 months later his successor, Boniface IX, also died. This death happened very conveniently for the French king, so popular rumor attributed it to poisoning.

The administration was highly centralized; in particular, it made itself felt in the provinces, where feudal traditions were still strong. The rights of feudal lords were significantly limited (for example, in the minting of coins). The king was disliked for his too greedy economic policy.

Philip's extremely energetic foreign policy regarding England, Germany, Savoy and all border possessions, which often led to an increase in French possessions, was his only achievement that was appreciated by his contemporaries and subsequent generations.

Death

Posthumous tombstone of Philip IV the Fair

Philip IV the Handsome died on November 29, 1314 at the age of 47, at the place of his birth - Fontainebleau, probably the cause of his death was a massive stroke. Many associated his death with the curse of the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay, who, before his execution on March 18, 1314 in Paris, predicted Philip's death in less than a year. Buried in the Basilica of the Abbey of Saint-Denis near Paris. He was succeeded by his son Louis X the Grumpy.

Family and Children

He was married from August 16, 1284 to Jeanne I (January 11, 1272 - April 4, 1305), Queen of Navarre, and the Countess of Champagne from 1274. This marriage made it possible to join Champagne to the royal domain, and also led to the first unification of France and Navarre within the framework of a personal union (until 1328).

Seven children were born from this union:

While still a fairly young widower (37 years old), Philip IV did not remarry, remaining faithful to the memory of his late wife.

see also

Literature

• Dominique Poirel. Philippe le Bel. Perrin, collection: Passé Simple, Paris, 1991.461 p. ISBN 978-2-262-00749-2
• Sylvie Le Clech. Philippe IV le Bel et les derniers Capétiens. Tallandier, collection: La France au fil de ses rois, 2002 ISBN 978-2-235-02315-3
• Georges Bordonove. Philippe le Bel, roi de fer. Le Grand livre du mois, Paris, 1984 ISBN 978-2-7242-3271-4
• Joseph Strayer. The reign of Philip the Fair. 1980.
• Favier, Jean. Philippe le Bel
• Boutaric. La France sous Philippe le Bel. P. 1861
• Jolly. Philippe le Bel. P., 1869
• B. Zeller. Philippe le Bel et ses trois fils. Π., 1885
• Maurice Druon. Iron king. The first book from the series "Cursed Kings" (The Iron King. Prisoner of Chateau Gaillard. Translated from French. M., 1981)

Links

R.A. Zakharov (Moscow)

Rice. 1. Turnoza, 1305, silver (4.1 grams, 958 standart, diameter 25 mm). On the obverse there is a symbol of the city of Tours (a chapel or city gate) with the inscription turonis civis and twelve lilies around, on the reverse there is a cross with an internal circular inscription - the name of the ruler PHILIPPVS REX + and an external circular inscription Benedictum sit nomen domini nostri Jesu Christi.

In 1266, the French king Louis IX, the grandfather of Charles IV the Handsome, began to mint in Tours much larger than denarii silver coins grossi Turonenses (pennies of Tours), they are also pennies of the tournois. In the numismatic literature, the name of the thornose stuck to them. The weight of the coin averaged about 4.20 g at the 958th test. The turnoza was equal to 12 denarii, which is why 12 lilies are depicted on the coin. This denomination was widely developed in Western and Central Europe in connection with the strong growth of trade and economy that began in the 13-14 centuries, which in turn required the introduction of a larger denomination into the money circulation than the denarius that reigned in Europe before this period.

Philip IV the Handsome was born in Fontainebleau in 1268 to Philip III and Isabella of Aragon. He came to the throne very young, at the age of 17. He ruled for a long time and he succeeded a lot. It was the king-politician, the king, who managed to create his own team, with the help of which he was able to solve the most difficult problems. It would be fair to list Philip's closest associates: Chancellor Pierre Flotte, Seal Guardian Guillaume Nogaret and Coadjutor of the Kingdom of Angerrand Marigny. All these were ordinary people, ascended to the heights of power by the king himself.

The beginning of the reign of Philip the Handsome unfolded against the backdrop of aggravated contradictions with the Pope every year. At first, nothing foreshadowed this conflict. None of the European kings was loved by Pope Boniface VIII as much as Philip the Fair. As early as 1290, when the Pope was only Cardinal Benedetto Gaetani and came to France as a papal legate, he admired the piety of the young king. Having ascended the throne in 1294, Boniface zealously supported the policy of the French king in Spain and Italy.

Boniface VIII was the first pope to begin the tradition of celebrating the so-called “anniversaries” (from 1300) or “holy years”, which were originally established as the centenary of the church. The pilgrims who visited Rome during the Jubilee years were granted complete absolution. The income from the influx of pilgrims was so great that the successors of Boniface VIII repeatedly shortened the periods between the Jubilee years to replenish the papal treasury and to popularize the ideas of Catholicism. For example, since 1475, the period between anniversary years has been reduced to 25 years. In the church itself, the pope pursued a balanced policy towards mendicant orders, limiting their freedom. In addition, this pope is the author of the well-known aphorism "Silence is a sign of consent."

The first signs of mutual distrust between the Pope and Philip the Fair were discovered in 1296. In August, the Pope promulgated a bull in which he forbade the laity to demand and receive subsidies from the clergy. By "strange coincidence" Philip at the same time banned the export of gold and silver from France. By doing so, he cut off one of the main sources of papal income, because the French Church could no longer send any money to Rome. Even then, a quarrel could have arisen, but the position of Boniface VIII on the papal throne was still fragile, and he yielded to the king.

After that, for several years, the opponents hesitated to take decisive measures, but the hostility between them was growing. Finally, in response to the demarche of Philip IV in April 1303, Boniface excommunicated the king, and in turn Philip declared Boniface a false pope (indeed, there were some doubts about the legality of his election), a heretic and even a warlock. He demanded to convene an ecumenical council to hear these accusations, but at the same time he said that the pope should be at this council as a prisoner and accused.

From words he turned to deeds. Nogare, with a large sum of money, went to Italy, where he entered into relations with the enemies of Boniface and conspired against him. The Pope was at that time in Anagni, where he wanted to bring Philip to a public curse. Then the conspirators from the Colonna family, led by Nogare, broke into the papal palace, surrounded Boniface, showered him with all sorts of insults and demanded his abdication. Nogare threatened that he would put him in chains and, like a criminal, would take him to the cathedral in Lyon to pass judgment on him, and then he took and gave the Holy Pope a couple of slaps in the face in public. When, three days later, the inhabitants of Anagni freed the pope, from the humiliation he had endured, he fell into such a nervous breakdown that he went mad and died. As it was written in one very touching pre-revolutionary book, "unable to bear the insults, the proud old man died a few days later." The new Pope Benedict XI excommunicated Nogare, but ended the persecution of Philip himself. In the summer of 1304 he also died. In his place was elected the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Bertrand du Gotte, who took the name Clement V. He did not go to Italy, but was ordained in Lyon. In 1309 he settled in Avignon and turned this city into a papal residence. Until his death, he remained an obedient executor of the will of the French king. The period of the so-called "Avignon captivity of the popes" began.

Contemporaries did not like Philip the Handsome, people close to him were afraid of the rational cruelty of this unusually beautiful and surprisingly dispassionate person. The violence against the pope caused outrage throughout the Christian world. Large feudal lords were dissatisfied with the infringement of their rights and the strengthening of the central administration, which consisted of rootless people. The taxation class was outraged by the increase in taxes, the so-called "spoilage" of the coin, that is, the decrease in its gold content with the forced preservation of its denomination, which led to inflation. Meanwhile, France under Philip IV the Handsome reaches the pinnacle of its power. It is the largest state in terms of population in the Western Christian world (13-15 million, or a third of the entire Catholic world). The kingdom's economy is thriving, with more arable land or trade at the Champagne fair.

The presented coin from French catalogs dates back to 1305. It was in this year that Clement V, obedient to the will of Philip IV, became pope. Philip the Handsome was in dire need of money and owed HALF MILLION LIVROWS to the Templars. How not to repay the debt and get some more money?

There were only two ways for this: to lead the order of the Templars and make it royal, or to destroy it. In addition, the Templars were also the most powerful political force of the time. And if Philip wanted, and he wanted and rigidly built the vertical of power, autocracy in France, then a clash with the Templars was inevitable. We must pay tribute to the courage of Philip the Handsome and his organizational skills. Not every king could decide to defeat such a richest order with a huge number of experienced warriors, moreover, very popular in European public opinion at that time. He went all-in, prepared for a long time and carefully ... It turned out to be easier to deal with the Pope, at the right moment he simply took advantage of the old Guelph-Ghibelline struggle between the oldest Roman patrician families Orsini and Colonna, financed the Ghibellinian Colonna and sent his resident Nogare to correct the situation on the spot in Italy.

With the Templars, he first tried to "negotiate in a good way," especially since most of the members of the order were French. It was in the same 1305 that Philip the Fair wanted to join the Order of the Temple himself. However, the Chapter of the Order answered him that there could be no crowned lords among the brothers. Then Philip made a new proposal. Since the war in Palestine has come to an end and the knightly orders were outside the Holy Land, it is necessary to unite two of them - the Order of the Temple and the Order of John of Jerusalem. At the head of the united Order, so as not to belittle the honor of either the Templars or the Hospitallers, should be the son of the most Christian king of France, a descendant of the famous crusader Louis Saint, that is, he himself. However, this plan also failed.

And then Philip the Fair chose the second path - the path of destroying the order, which for the last 150 years has absorbed the main passionary part of European chivalry. The King's confessor and Grand Inquisitor of France, Doctor of Theology Guillaume of Paris, began to collect witnesses from among the exiled from the Order of the Knights. There were very few such exiles, but they had to start somewhere. By 1307, the charges were prepared, and throughout France, royal messengers carried secret letters with instructions to the royal officials. On September 14, 1307, the royal troops at the same time at the "X" hour, without resistance, captured the castles of the Templars throughout France. Philip IV first entered the Temple of the Temple, towering in the center of Paris, not as a guest and debtor of the order, but as the lord of the conquered enemy fortress. The Templars did not put up resistance - the charter of the order did not allow the knights to take up arms against Christians. Although the charter is a charter, but the leadership of the order, who knew in advance about Philip's intentions, simply hid all their relics, documents and gold and ... went like lambs to the slaughter. Why? This question has long worried most historians, but there is still no obvious explanation for everyone. One thing is clear, the Templars knew about this through their perfectly oiled spy network, but decided not to resist, although if they wanted they could have done it then, who knows - Philip the Handsome would have saved his crown and life itself.

Shortly before the start of the arrests, Jacques-de Molay managed to burn many documents and send a special letter to all order houses, in which he ordered not to provide even minimal information about the customs and rituals of the Templars. According to one of the nights, on the eve of the start of the campaign against the Order, the Templars' treasures were taken out of Paris on carts under the guise of hay (who carries hay from the city to the village with a whole caravan of carts with an armed escort, and even at night ???). This cargo was delivered to the largest naval base of the Templars, the port of La Rochelle, where it was loaded onto 18 order galleys that departed in an unknown direction. There is a hypothesis that then the flotilla split into two parts and went to Portugal and Scotland. Where were the relics and gold of the Order taken? Where exactly have these 18 galleys with crews and cargo gone? The Templars' treasures were never found, just as afterwards no one found either the gold of the Third Reich or the gold of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

The arrested Templars were brought to trial, many were tortured. The process was long and bloody. In dungeons, not just the accused, but the knights, hitherto without fear, went on the attack on the infidels, perished or slandered themselves. By the way, according to the charter of the order, the Templar could retreat before the infidels only with their threefold advantage! But let's not forget that, for example, in 1937, in the dungeons of the NKVD, many courageous people also signed monstrous, absurdly incredible confessions .... Under torture, the prosecutors obtained terrible confessions over the course of several years! The Templars were accused of not recognizing Christ, the Holy Virgin and the saints, spitting on the cross and trampling on it with their feet. They blamed those, thanks to whose courage Christian states existed in the Holy Land for more than 170 years! They declared that they worship in a dark cave an idol depicting a human figure covered with human skin and with shiny carbuncles instead of eyes, while they smeared it with the fat of fried little children and looked at him as their god. They were accused of worshiping the devil in the form of a cat, burning the bodies of the dead Templars and giving the ashes to their younger brothers, mixing them with their food. They were accused of various crimes, of terrible debauchery and superstitious abominations, of which only madmen can be guilty. Just medieval 1937!

The boredom of the dragging false court was revived from time to time by the execution of the knights, who did not want to confess to the crimes of which they were not guilty. 59 knights were once taken out into the field behind the monastery of St. Anthony. They were offered forgiveness if they confessed, but they refused and were burned over a slow fire. In the city of Sanli, nine knights were burned and many more throughout France. Since the order was founded by an ecclesiastical council, a council also had to be convened for the trial of the Templars. However, the Vienna Council of 1312, convened for this purpose, did not want to bring any charges against the Order. Then the pocket pope Clement V dissolved the order on the basis of his bull "Vox clamantis", in which all the property of the order was transferred to the knightly order of the Johannites. However, in fact, the property was divided between the French king and dukes.

Church commissions were created for the trial of the Templars. They included the bishop of the city and mendicant monks: 2 Carmelites, 2 Franciscans and 2 Dominicans. The Benedictines and Zintercians, who participated in the creation of the Order of the Temple, were removed from the investigation. Clement V demanded that the highest dignitaries of the order be transferred to the papal court, but the leaders were not brought to the Pope, it was announced that they had caught a contagious disease on the way and therefore would be temporarily held in France. The Pope swallowed this, too, but the papal commissions were nevertheless admitted to the arrested and interrogated. During these interrogations, the Templars flatly denied most of the charges.

The knights unanimously denied the accusation of Sodomous sin - homosexuality encouraged by the authorities. However, they did not deny that at the initiation ceremony, the newly adopted was kissed on the navel, tailbone and lips. Moreover, no one could explain the meaning of these kisses: those of them that were admitted to secret knowledge were in no hurry to tell, and those who simply copied the ritual did not understand its meaning. Just imagine some illiterate seventh son of an impoverished count who, from his youth, having fallen into the order, served in remote border castles somewhere in Syria. Prayer and fighting exercises interspersed with clashes with Muslims. Every day carry metal armor and weapons on yourself under 40 kg of weight at 30-40 degrees of heat there ... What kind of homosexuality is there ??? Those of the readers who served in the army in combat units will understand the absurdity of all these accusations.

The charter of the order required the knights to sleep half-dressed so that in the event of a sudden attack by the Muslims, they could quickly prepare for battle.

On March 18, 1314, already at the farce-trial of 4 leaders of the Knights Templar held in Paris, two of them - the Grand Master of the Order of Jacques-de Molay himself and the commander of Normandy Geoffroy-de Charnet SUDDENLY retracted their testimonies, which were knocked out of them under torture in exchange for the promise of life imprisonment. “We are guilty before the Lord, but we do not plead guilty to the crimes named by the judges. We are guilty that our spirit was weaker than the flesh and under torture we slandered the Order of the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. " At the trials of 1937, none of the defendants dared to make such a demarche, but these two knights could ... After a short consultation, he and his closest associates were quickly sentenced to be burned at the stake. It is known that often before being burned at the stake, the executioner killed his victim in advance, and the already dead body burned. And here, enraged by the failed court with "frank confessions" of the Templars, Philippe ordered to burn Jacques de Molay and Geoffroy de Charnet alive over a slow fire. This detail speaks of some special level of the king's hatred for the executed, which, in the words of the Strugatsky brothers, exceeds the normal level of medieval atrocities.

The Grand Master, who went to the fire, cursed Pope Clement, King Philip and Chancellor Nogare, stating that they would all be called to the judgment of God within a year and, in addition, cursed the entire royal French family. The crowd, which had come to see the execution of the proud Templars as an amusing spectacle, fell silent after hearing the curse of Jacques de Molay. The show fell through ...

The king did not attach much importance to this curse, attributing this curse to the anger and despair of the dying de Molay. Philip could not have any worries about the succession of power to the Capetian dynasty, which had been on the French throne since 987, in principle, because he had three sons. Three already grown sons! With a small age interval. What is there to worry about?

BUT!!! The predictions of Jacques de Molay, who was dying at the stake, came true exactly. On April 20, in agony, Pope Clement departed to God. He had a stomach ache and doctors prescribed to drink crushed emeralds, which tore the high priest's intestines. In November, King Philip IV of France fell from his horse while hunting. The paralyzed man was picked up and brought to the palace by the courtiers. There Philip the Handsome died, stiff and unable to move. A year later, Angerrand de Marigny, who was preparing a trial against the Templars, ended his life on the gallows. Guillaume de Nogaret, who was in charge of the investigation, died in agony. The sons of Philip the Fair could not pass on the throne to their children; they all died prematurely, leaving no male heirs.

Their nephew Edward III of England went to war against France, claiming his rights to the French throne as his legal inheritance. Like, the heir is the closest male relative. Remember the book by Maurice Druon "It Is Worthless for Lilies to Spin"? This war went down in history as the Hundred Years War. France, the country that robbed and killed the Order of the Temple, was itself plundered and humiliated.

When in 1793 the blade of the guillotine fell on the neck of Louis XVI, a man jumped onto the scaffold, dipped his hand in the blood of the dead monarch and shouted loudly: - Jacques de Molay, you are avenged! The unfortunate Louis was the thirteenth descendant of King Philip the Fair.

Before the execution, Louis XVI was kept in the former residence of the Templars, the Temple, which was turned into a prison in those years, and then during the revolution, the Temple was destroyed to the ground so that it would not become a place of worship for the royalists.

The whole world perished with the Templars: chivalry, crusades ended with them.

But not everywhere the Templars were persecuted brutally. Scotland has provided them with asylum. They were acquitted in Lorraine. In Germany, the process fell apart altogether when the Templars summoned for trial in Frankfurt appeared in full military attire and with spears in hand. The court did not sit for long, and all charges were dropped. Many Germanic Knights of the Temple joined the Teutonic Order, strengthening and strengthening it. In Castile and Aragon, the knights of the Order of the Temple entered the order of Calatrava in full force and with all their property and continued their struggle against the Muslims, but already in the Pyrenees. In Portugal, the Templars were acquitted by the court and changed their name in 1318 to become Knights of Christ. The Order existed under this name until the 16th century. Vasco da Gama was a knight of the Order of Christ, and Prince Heinrich the Navigator was its Grand Master. At the expense of the Order, the prince founded an observatory and a nautical school, and contributed to the development of shipbuilding in Portugal. He equipped ocean expeditions, discovering new lands and ships sailed under the eight-pointed Templar crosses. Under the same symbols, the caravels of Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic. The great discoverer of America himself was married to the daughter of an associate, Enrique the Navigator, a knight of the Order of Christ, who gave him his nautical and pilotage charts. This is a hypothesis. I looked for the original source of this information on Columbus, but did not find it. Was his father-in-law really a member of the order of Christ or not? Maybe he was looking badly?

The Templars ...

So who were they really? For hundreds of years people have been occupied with the question: are these servants of the Lord or malicious heretics who have received what they deserve?

My first acquaintance with the Templars happened in school, when I read "Ivanhoe" by Walter Scott. There, the templars are the personification of evil, the templars are actually the Templars. Briand de Boileguillebert, for example, is a dishonorable villain. After reading a lot of literature about the Crusades and about the Templars, in particular, I realized that everything was not so simple in black and white and I want to give some facts that will allow the reader to draw their own conclusions on this issue. The brothers chose the Holy Mother of God as the patroness of the Order. Saint Bernard, who created the Charter of the Templars, emphasized that the vow of poverty is the main one for the Templars. The second paragraph of the Rite, for example, even ordered two brothers - the templars to eat from the same bowl. Any social entertainment was forbidden - visiting shows, falconry, dice and other joys of life. Laughter, singing, and quibbling rose up. The list of prohibitions consisted of more than 40 items. The free time of these "monks in spirit and fighters in arms" was to be filled with prayers, the singing of sacred psalms and military exercises.

A white cloak, worn over the rest of the clothes of the same color, became a kind of symbol of the templars. The knight is a monk who took three obligatory vows: poverty, chastity and obedience, with white robes symbolized the pure holy life, which he led, devoting his soul to the Lord.

Simple brothers - novices, wore black cloaks and camisoles, and therefore, when the Templar warriors rushed into the attack, their first line was made up of horsemen in white, and the second - horsemen in black. The order also adopted a banner made of striped linen, white and black, called "Bosean" and this word became the battle cry of the knights. On the banner was a cross with an inscription addressed to the Lord in Latin: "Not to us, not to us, but to your name." In this regard, the ruble of our Emperor Paul immediately comes to mind with exactly the same motto.

The Templars never ran and always proved themselves worthy of their reputation - proud to the point of arrogance, brave to the point of recklessness, and at the same time surprisingly disciplined, unmatched among all the armies of the Mediterranean of that era. The charter demanded from the knights complete and unconditional heroism. Not one Crusade, starting from the Second, did not do without their active participation. More than 20,000 knights of the order died in the Holy Land, including 6 of the 23 Grand Masters. They were always in the most difficult areas, something like a crusader special forces. So in the famous battle in the mountains near Laodicea in 1148 during the Second Crusade, 200 knights (mostly Templars), who made up the retinue of King Louis VII, managed to hold back the violent attacks of about 20,000 Muslims. It is known that the Muslims were especially afraid of the Templars and Hospitallers. The famous Sultan Saladin hated knights - monks so much for their fearlessness that he said "I will cleanse the land of these filthy orders." Indeed, together with the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, the Templars formed a standing army of the Christian states of the East. Without these orders, all the crusader states would have been destroyed within a few decades, and they held out for about two centuries. During the battle, the Templar had no right to retreat, even when fighting against three opponents. Anyone who was captured by the Saracens had no right either to offer a ransom for himself, or to renounce his faith in order to save his life. The Muslims who were captured by the Templars, as later in our days in Afghanistan or in Chechnya, offered our soldiers to renounce Christ, otherwise death. For 170 years of fighting with Muslims, only a few Templars agreed, the rest chose to be martyred. Somehow it does not fit at all with the accusation of their deviation from Christianity. Who would go to death for something that he himself did not believe in? But there were also negative aspects. Excessive pride in belonging to the Order of the Temple. Aloofness. For example, meeting a caravan of pilgrims, whom they were supposed to accompany, the Templars did not utter a single superfluous word, as well as their vow never to touch a woman, which is not characteristic of the spirit of medieval chivalry with its cult of worshiping a beautiful lady - all this gradually served to isolate them and gossip about homosexuality.

From the very beginning, the Order of the Temple was dual: on the one hand, knightly, and on the other, monastic. In the Order, there were monastic brothers, knight brothers (they did not take monastic vows), sergeants (just soldiers in the service of the Temple) and monastic and artisan brothers (people under the auspices of the Temple). Most of the knight brothers were in Palestine and fought with the infidels. They said about the knight brothers: "he drinks like a Templar" and "swears like a Templar." They were proud and arrogant. So there was something to be proud of! Today, sailors, paratroopers, border guards, Afghans are proud of their service; they have actually proved their devotion to Christianity in the Holy Land. In contrast, the monastic brothers organized a network of commanderships throughout Europe, in which the riches of the Order were kept. Once, during a poor harvest, 10,000 people were fed by the Commandership alone in a week.

The Templars also minted their own coin, or rather, it was not a coin, but rather one of the first European tokens, made not even from bilon, but from bronze. The rarest thing, I saw this denarius only in the book about the minting of the Crusaders and in the auction catalog eight years ago. It depicts a cross with a legend, and on the obverse - the Cross of the Lord on Calvary. This coin was used for calculation among the pilgrims, when they were transported to the Holy Land on the Templar galleys and they were guarded already in the Holy Land by the same Templars.

In 1291, the crusaders were finally expelled from Palestine and the Templars moved first to Cyprus and then to Europe, where they created a powerful organization for which there were no national borders. The Grand Masters of the order spoke with the kings as equals. In those years, the Templars numbered more than 30,000 people. They owned hundreds of castles and a huge amount of land throughout Europe. The order, created as a symbol of poverty and simplicity, has become the richest organization. They "reinvented" the promissory note and became the largest usurers of their era, and the House of Paris became the center of European finance.

Because of their constant contact with Muslim and Jewish cultures, the Templars possessed the most advanced techniques of their time. The order was generous, allocated funds for the development of geodesy, cartography and navigation. It had its own ports, shipyards, as well as its own fleet, the ships of which were equipped with a curiosity unprecedented in those days - a magnetic compass.

Such interesting events are associated with this turnose, which found a turning point in the history of medieval Europe - the end of the era of the Crusades and the omnipotence of the popes.

A resounding slap in the face to Pope Boniface VIII, preliminarily weighed down by Guyom Nogaret, the curse of Jacques de Molay on a fire under a cloudy Parisian sky, Philip the Handsome, paralyzed on a hunt, carried to the castle by his frightened servants ... Here it is - the scent of medieval history!

Used sources.

1. M. Melville. History of the Knights Templar. M, 2000.

2. J. Duby. Europe in the Middle Ages. Smolensk, 1994.

3. Ch. Heckerthorn. Secret societies of all ages and all countries. M, 1993

4. L. Charpentier. Templars. M, 2003.

5.R.Yu Wipper. History of the Middle Ages. Kiev, 1996.

6. N.A. Osokin. The history of the Albigensians and their time. M, 2003.

7. K. Ryzhov. All the monarchs of the world. M, 1999.

8.R. Ernest, T. Dupuis. World history of wars. M, 1997.

9. Magazine "Clio"

10.P.P. Reed. Templars. M, 2005.

11. Gergely E. History of the papacy. M, 1996.