Part 998

"During the reign of Baldwin I. the kingdom [of Jerusalem] was constantly harassed by the incursions of the Bedoween Arabs, and pious pilgrims were exposed to great dangers in their visits to the holy places. Nine valiant knights therefore, of whom the two principal were Hugh de Payens and Godfrey of St. Omer, vowed, in honour of the Sweet Mother of God (La douce mère de Dieu) to unite the character of the soldier and the monk, for the protection of pilgrims. In the presence of the king and his barons, they took, in the year 1118, in the hands of the patriarch, the three vows taken by the Hospitallers, adding a fourth, that of combating the heathen, without ceasing, in defence of pilgrims and of the Holy Land. The king assigned them a part of his palace for their dwelling, and the canons of the Temple gave them the open space between it and the palace, whence they derived their appellation of Templars, or Soldiers of the Temple. … Their garments were such as were bestowed upon them by the charitable, and the seal of their order, when they had attained to opulence—two knights mounted on one horse—commemorated the time when a single war-horse had to serve two knights of the Temple. When Baldwin II. was released from captivity (1128), he sent envoys to Europe to implore aid of the Christian powers. Among these were Hugh de Payens, and some others of the brethren of the Temple. The Templars appeared before the council of Troyes, and gave an account of their order and its objects, which were highly approved of by the fathers. The celebrated Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, took a lively interest in its welfare, and made some improvements in its rule. A white mantle was assigned as their habit, to which Pope Eugenius some years afterwards added a plain red cross on the left breast; their banner was formed of the black and white striped cloth named Bauséant, which word became their battle-cry, and it bore the humble inscription, 'Not unto us, O Lord, but unto thy name be glory!' Hugh de Payens returned to Syria at the head of three hundred knights of the noblest houses of the West, who had become members of the order."

_T. Keightley, The Crusaders, chapter 2._

ALSO IN: _J. A. Froude, The Spanish Story of the Armada and other Essays, chapter 4._

TEMPLARS: A. D. 1185-1313. The Order in England and elsewhere.

"The Knights Templars first established the chief house of their order in England, without Holborn Bars [London] on the south side of the street, where Southampton House formerly stood, adjoining to which Southampton Buildings were afterwards erected. … This first house of the Temple, established by Hugh de Payens himself, before his departure from England, on his return to Palestine, was adapted to the wants and necessities of the order in its infant state, when the knights, instead of lingering in the preceptories of Europe, proceeded at once to Palestine, and when all the resources of the society were strictly and faithfully forwarded to Jerusalem, to be expended in defence of the faith; but when the order had greatly increased in numbers, power, and wealth, and had somewhat departed from its original purity and simplicity, we find that the superior and the knights resident in London began to look abroad for a more extensive and commodious place of habitation. They purchased a large space of ground, extending from the White Friars westward to Essex House without Temple Bar, and commenced the erection of a convent on a scale of grandeur commensurate with the dignity and importance of the chief house of the great religio-military society of the Temple in Britain. It was called the New Temple, to distinguish it from the original establishment at Holborn, which came thenceforth to be known by the name of the Old Temple. This New Temple was adapted for the residence of numerous military monks and novices, serving brothers, retainers, and domestics, … connected, by a range of handsome cloisters, with the magnificent church, consecrated by the patriarch. Alongside the river extended a spacious pleasure ground. … The year of the consecration of the Temple Church [A. D. 1185] Geoffrey, the superior of the order in England, caused an inquisition to be made of the lands of the Templars in this country. … The number of manors, farms, churches, advowsons, demesne lands, villages, hamlets, windmills, and water-mills, rents of assize, rights of common and free warren, and the amount of all kinds of property possessed by the Templars in England at the period of the taking of this inquisition, are astonishing. … The annual income of the order in Europe has been roughly estimated at six millions sterling! According to Matthew Paris, the Templars possessed nine thousand manors or lordships in Christendom, besides a large revenue and immense riches arising from the constant charitable bequests and donations of sums of money from pious persons. … The Templars, in addition to their amazing wealth, enjoyed vast privileges and immunities."

_C. G. Addison, The Knights Templars, chapter 3._

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When the order of the Templars was suppressed and its property confiscated, the convent and church of the Temple in London were granted by the king, first, in 1313, to Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke; afterwards, successively, to the Duke of Lancaster and to Hugh le Despenser. "The Temple then came for a short time into the hands of the Knights Hospitallers, and during the reign of Edward III. it seems to have been occupied by the lawyers, as tenants under the Hospitallers. When that order was dissolved by Henry VIII., the property passed into the hands of the Crown, the lawyers still holding possession as tenants. This continued till the reign of James I., when a petition was drawn up and presented to the king asking him to assign the property to the legal body in permanence. This was accordingly done by letters patent, in A. D. 1609, and the Benchers of the Inner and Middle Temple received possession of the buildings, on consideration of a small annual payment to the Crown."

_F. C. Woodhouse, Military Religious Orders, part 2, chapter 7._

"Many of the old retainers of the Temple became servants of the new lawyers, who had ousted their masters. … The dining in pairs, the expulsion from hall for misconduct, and the locking out of chambers were old customs also kept up. The judges of Common Pleas retained the title of knight, and the Fratres Servientcs of the Templars arose again in the character of learned serjeants-at-law, the coif of the modern serjeant being the linen coif of the old Freres Serjens of the Temple."

_W. Thornbury, Old and New London, volume 1, chapter 14._

ALSO IN: _C. G. Addison, The Knights Templars chapter 7._

TEMPLARS: A. D. 1299. Their last campaign in Palestine.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1299.

TEMPLARS: A. D. 1307-1314. The prosecution and destruction of the order.

"When the Holy Land fell completely into Mahomedan hands on the loss of Acre in 1291 [see JERUSALEM: A. D. 1291] they [the Templars] abandoned the hopeless task and settled in Cyprus. By the end of the thirteenth century they had almost all returned to Europe. They were peculiarly strong and wealthy in France—the strength and wealth were alike dangerous to them. In Paris they built their fortress, the Temple, over against the King's palace of the Louvre; and in that stronghold the King himself had once to take refuge from the angry Parisian mob, exasperated by his heavy extortions. During the life and death struggle with the Papacy, the order had not taken the side of the Church against the sovereign; for their wealth had held them down. Philip [Philip IV], however, knew no gratitude, and they were doomed. A powerful and secret society endangered the safety of the state: their wealth was a sore temptation: there was no lack of rumours. Dark tales came out respecting the habits of the order; tales exaggerated and blackened by the diseased imagination of the age. Popular proverbs, those ominous straws of public opinion, were heard in different lands, hinting at dark vices and crimes. Doubtless the vows of the order, imposed on unruly natures, led to grievous sins against the first laws of moral life. And there was more than this: there were strange rumours of horrible infidelity and blasphemy; and men were prepared to believe everything. So no one seemed to be amazed when, in October, 1307, the King made a sudden coup d'etat, arrested all the Templars in France on the same day, and seized their goods. The Temple at Paris with the Grand Master fell into his hands. Their property was presently placed in the custody of the Pope's nuncios in France; the knights were kept in dark and dismal prisons. Their trial was long and tedious. Two hundred and thirty-one knights were examined, with all the brutality that examination then meant; the Pope also took the depositions of more than seventy. From these examinations what can we learn? All means were used: some were tortured, others threatened, others tempted with promises of immunity. They made confession accordingly; and the ghastly catalogue of their professed ill-doings may be read in the history of the trial. Who shall say what truth there was in it all? Probably little or none. Many confessed and then recanted their confession. The golden image with eyes of glowing carbuncle which they worshipped; the trampling and spitting on the crucifix; the names of Galla and Baphomet; the hideous practices of the initiation;—all these things pass before us, in the dim uncertainty, like some horrible procession of the vices in hell. What the truth was will never be known. … The knights made a dignified defence in these last moments of their history; they did not flinch either at the terrible prospect before them, or through memory of the tortures which they had undergone. Public opinion, in and out of France, began to stir against the barbarous treatment they had received; they were no longer proud and wealthy princes, but suffering martyrs, showing bravery and a firm front against the cruelties of the King and his lawyers. Marigni, Philip's minister and friend, and the King himself, were embarrassed by the number and firmness of their victims, by the sight of Europe looking aghast, by the murmurs of the people. Marigni suggested that men who had confessed and recanted might be treated as relapsed heretics, such being the law of the Inquisition, (what irony was here!) and accordingly in 1310 an enclosure was made at Paris, within which fifty-nine Templars perished miserably by fire. Others were burnt later at Senlis. … The King and Pope worked on the feeble Council, until in March 1312 the abolition of the order was formally decreed; and its chief property, its lands and buildings, were given over to the Knights of St. John, to be used for the recovery of the Holy Land; 'which thing,' says the Supplementor to William of Nangis, 'came not to pass, but rather the endowment did but make them worse than before.' The chief part of the spoil, as might be well believed, never left the King's hands. One more tragedy, and then all was over. The four heads of the order were still at Paris, prisoners —Jacques de Molai, Grand Master; Guy of Auvergne, the Master of Normandy, and two more. The Pope had reserved their fate in his own hands, and sent a commission to Paris, who were enjoined once more to hear the confession of these dignitaries, and then to condemn them to perpetual captivity. But at the last moment the Grand Master and Guy publicly retracted their forced confessions, and declared themselves and the order guiltless of all the abominable charges laid against them. Philip was filled with devouring rage. Without further trial or judgment he ordered them to be led that night to the island in the Seine; there they were fastened to the stake and burnt."

_G. W. Kitchin, History of France, volume 1, book 3, chapter 10, section 3._

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In England, a similar prosecution of the Templars, instigated by the pope, was commenced in January, 1308, when the chiefs of the order were seized and imprisoned and subjected to examination with torture. The result was the dissolution of the order and the confiscation of its property; but none of the knights were executed, though some died in prison from the effects of their barbarous treatment. "The property of the Templars in England was placed under the charge of a commission at the time that proceedings were commenced against them, and the king very soon treated it as if it were his own, giving away manors and convents at his pleasure. A great part of the possessions of the Order was subsequently made over to the Hospitallers. … Some of the surviving Templars retired to monasteries, others returned to the world, and assumed secular habits, for which they incurred the censures of the Pope. … In Spain, Portugal, and Germany, proceedings were taken against the Order; their property was confiscated, and in some cases torture was used; but it is remarkable that it was only in France, and those places where Philip's influence was powerful, that any Templar was actually put to death."

_F. C. Woodhouse, Military Religious Orders, part 2, chapters 6-7 and 5._

ALSO IN: _C. G. Addison, The Knights Templars, chapter 7._

_J. Michelet, History of France, book 5, chapter 3._

_H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 12, chapters 1-2 (volume 5)._

TEMPLARS: End--------

TEMPLE, The (London).

See TEMPLARS: A. D. 1185-1313.

TEMPLE OF CONCORD AT ROME, The.

After the long contest in Rome over the Licinian Laws, which were adopted B. C. 367, M. Furius Camillus—the great Camillus—being made Dictator for the fifth time, in his eightieth year, brought about peace between the patricians and plebeians, in commemoration of which he vowed a temple to Concord. "Before he could dedicate it, the old hero died. The temple, however, was built according to his design; its site, now one of the best known among those of ancient Rome, can still be traced with great certainty at the north-western angle of the Forum, immediately under the Capitoline. The building was restored with great magnificence by the Emperor Tiberius; and it deserved to be so, for it commemorated one of the greatest events of Roman history."

_H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, book 2, chapter 15 (volume 1)._

TEMPLE OF DIANA.

See EPHESUS.

TEMPLE OF JANUS, The.

"The Temple of Janus was one of the earliest buildings of Rome, founded, according to Livy (i. 19.) by Numa. It stood near the Curia, on the northeast side of the Forum, at the verge of a district called the Argiletum. … [it was] a small 'ædicula' or shrine, which towards the end of the Republic, or perhaps earlier, was of bronze. It is shown with much minuteness on a First Brass of Nero as a small cella, without columns, but with richly ornamented frieze and cornice. Its doors were closed on those rare occasions when Rome was at peace with all the world. From the time of its traditional founder, Numa, to that of Livy, it was only twice shut—once after the first Punic War, and secondly after the victory of Augustus at Actium. … It contained a very ancient statue, probably by an Etruscan artist, of the double faced Janus Bifrons, or Geminus. … The Temple of Janus gave its name to this part of the edge of the Forum, and from the numerous shops of the argentarii or bankers and money-lenders which were there, the word Janus came to mean the usurers' quarter."

_J. H. Middleton, Ancient Rome in 1885, chapter 5._

The Temple of Janus was closed, once more, by Vespasian, after the destruction of Jerusalem and the ending of the war in Judea, A. D. 71. "It had stood open since the German wars of the first princeps [Augustus]; or, according to the computation of the christian Orosius, from the birth of Christ to the overthrow of the Jewish people: for the senate had refused to sanction Nero's caprice in closing it on his precarious accommodation with Parthia. Never before had this solemn act addressed the feelings of the citizens so directly. … The Peace of Vespasian was celebrated by a new bevy of poets and historians not less loudly than the Peace of Augustus. A new era of happiness and prosperity was not less passionately predicted."

_C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 60._

TEMPLE OF SOLOMON, The.

"As soon as David had given to his people the boon of a unique capital, nothing could be more natural than the wish to add sacredness to the glory of the capital by making it the centre of the national worship. According to the Chronicles, David … had made unheard-of preparations to build a house for God. But it had been decreed unfit that the sanctuary should be built by a man whose hands were red with the blood of many wars, and he had received the promise that the great work should be accomplished by his son. Into that work Solomon threw himself with hearty zeal in the month Zif of the fourth year of his reign, when his kingdom was consolidated. … He inherited the friendship which David had enjoyed, with Hiram, King of Tyre. … The friendliest overtures passed between the two kings in letters, to which Josephus appeals as still extant. A commercial treaty was made by which Solomon engaged to furnish the Tyrian king with annual revenues of wheat, barley, and oil, and Hiram put at Solomon's disposal the skilled labour of an army of Sidonian wood-cutters and artisans. … Some writers have tried to minimise Solomon's work as a builder, and have spoken of the Temple as an exceedingly insignificant structure which would not stand a moment's comparison with the smallest and humblest of our own cathedrals. Insignificant in size it certainly was, but we must not forget its costly splendour, the remote age in which the work was achieved, and the truly stupendous constructions which the design required. Mount Moriah was selected as a site hallowed by the tradition of Abraham's sacrifice, and more recently by David's vision of the Angel of the Pestilence with his drawn sword on the threshing-floor of the Jebusite Prince Araunah. But to utilise this doubly consecrated area involved almost super-human difficulties, which would have been avoided if the loftier but less suitable height of the Mount of Olives could have been chosen. The rugged summit had to be enlarged to a space of 500 yards square, and this level was supported by Cyclopean walls, which have long been the wonder of the world. … The caverns, quarries, water storages, and subterranean conduits hewn out of the solid rock, over which Jerusalem is built, could only have been constructed at the cost of immeasurable toil. … It was perhaps from his Egyptian father-in-law that Solomon, to his own cost, learnt the secret of forced labour which alone rendered such undertakings possible. … {3094} Four classes were subject to it.

1. The lightest labour was required from the native freeborn Israelites (ezrach). They were not regarded as bondsmen, … yet 30,000 of these were required in relays of 10,000 to work, one month in every three, in the forest of Lebanon.

2. There were the strangers, or resident aliens (Gerim), such as the Phœnicians and Giblites, who were Hiram's subjects and worked for pay.

3. There were three classes of slaves—those taken in war, or sold for debt, or home-born.

4. Lowest and most wretched of all, there were the vassal Canaanites (Toshabim), from whom were drawn those 70,000 burden-bearers, and 80,000 quarry-men, the Helots of Palestine, who were placed under the charge of 3,600 Israelite officers.

The blotches of smoke are still visible on the walls and roofs of the subterranean quarries where these poor serfs, in the dim torchlight and suffocating air, 'laboured without reward, perished without pity, and suffered without redress.' The sad narrative reveals to us, and modern research confirms, that the purple of Solomon had a very seamy side, and that an abyss of misery heaved and moaned under the glittering surface of his splendour. … Apart from the lavish costliness of its materials the actual Temple was architecturally a poor and commonplace structure. It was quite small —only 90 feet long, 35 feet broad, and 45 feet high. It was meant for the symbolic habitation of God, not for the worship of great congregations. … Of the external aspect of the building in Solomon's day we know nothing. We cannot even tell whether it had one level roof, or whether the Holy of Holies was like a lower chancel at the end of it; nor whether the roof was flat or, as the Rabbis say, ridged; nor whether the outer surface of the three-storied chambers which surrounded it was of stone, or planked with cedar, or overlaid with plinths of gold and silver; nor whether, in any case, it was ornamented with carvings or left blank; nor whether the cornices only were decorated with open flowers like the Assyrian rosettes. Nor do we know with certainty whether it was supported within by pillars or not. … It required the toil of 300,000 men for twenty years to build one of the pyramids. It took two hundred years to build and four hundred to embellish the great Temple of Artemis of the Ephesians. It took more than five centuries to give to Westminster Abbey its present form. Solomon's Temple only took seven and a half years to build; but … its objects were wholly different from those of the great shrines which we have mentioned. … Needing but little repair, it stood for more than four centuries. Succeeded as it was by the Temples of Zerubbabel and of Herod, it carried down till seventy years after the Christian era the memory of the Tabernacle in the wilderness, of which it preserved the general outline, though it exactly doubled all the proportions and admitted many innovations."

_F. W. Farrar, The First Book of Kings, chapter 14 (Expositor's Bible)._

TEN, The Council of.

See VENICE: A. D. 1032-1319.

TEN THOUSAND, The Retreat of the.

See PERSIA: B. C. 401-400.

TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL, The.

See JEWS: THE KINGDOMS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH.

TEN YEARS WAR, The.

The long conflict between Athens and her confederated enemies, Sparta at the head, which is usually called the Peloponnesian War, was divided into two periods by the Peace or Nicias. The war in the first period, covering a decade, was known as the Ten Years War; though the Peloponnesians called it the Attic War.

_E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 4, chapter 2._

See ATHENS: B. C. 421.

TENANT RIGHT, The Ulster. The Tenant League.

See IRELAND: A. D.1848-1852.

TENCHEBRAY, Battle of (1106).

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1087-1135.

TENCTHERI, The.

See USIPETES.

TENEDOS.

See TROJA; and ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES.

TENEZ, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ZAPOTECS, ETC.