In the main Philip’s policy faithfully continued that of his whole dynasty; but, precisely because he was a genuine fanatic who felt himself to be under God’s special protection, he could at times embark on projects of quite unrealistic scope. The situation that arose after the final collapse of the Christian venture in the Holy Land lured him on. From 1292 onwards the Catalan mystic Ramon Lull, who had long interested himself in the possibility of converting Islam to Christianity, propagated proposals for combined missionary and military action. Missionaries equipped with a sound knowledge of Arabic were to be supported by a new crusading army; the core of this army was to consist of the Temple and the Hospital, amalgamated, and the whole was to be commanded by a particular king, who would take the title of Bellator Rex and would in the end become king of Jerusalem. At first, it seems, Lull was thinking of inducing James II of Aragon to undertake a crusade against Moslem Granada; but he expounded his ideas in Paris, and found ready listeners at the French court.(2)
Philip the Fair fancied himself for the role of Bellator Rex; and his interpretation of that role was grandiose. He outlined it in a programme of 80 points; and although only fragments survive, they are startling enough.(3) They show that he thought of abdicating the French throne in favour of his eldest son, to become instead grand master of the combined military orders. The orders were to be renamed Knights of Jerusalem, and the grand master was to take the title of King of Jerusalem. After Philip’s death the eldest son of the king of France was always to be grand master. All prelates, including archbishops and bishops, were to surrender their incomes, above a small salary, to the grand master, for the conquest of the Holy Land; and the monastic orders were to do likewise with their revenues. Moreover the grand master, or Bellator Rex, was to have a powerful say in papal elections. These aims were of course utterly unrealistic — yet we are told that they represented only a small part of Philip’s total ambitions. The lawyer and publicist Pierre Dubois, in his book De Recuperatione Terre Sancte, gives some indication of what the king may really have had in mind.(4) The king of France was to become Roman emperor and reconquer the Holy Land; thereafter, from Jerusalem, he was to rule over a vast federation of nations, and so establish the reign of universal peace.
Meanwhile Philip had to cope with the very real and urgent financial problems which he had inherited. On his succession he had found his realm almost bankrupt, and costly wars further weakened its finances. Philip resorted to a whole series of expedients. In 1294 and 1296 he imposed tithes on the Church in France, and in 1296 he also forbade the export of gold, including the customary contributions to the Holy See — moves that led to the first of his many conflicts with the papacy. He took gold and silver vessels from his richer subjects, against a fraction of their value, and had them melted down and recast as coins. He imposed levies on trade and property, such as had never been known before, and above all he repeatedly debased the currency. All this brought him into conflict with his own subjects. After a particularly heavy devaluation, in June 1306, the king had to flee from the enraged populace of the capital and take refuge (ironically enough) in the Paris Temple, for three whole days.
The following month Philip turned on the Jews: on one and the same day, 22 July 1306, Jews throughout France were arrested and imprisoned. The Jews’ money was seized by the royal exchequer, their goods auctioned for the benefit of the exchequer, their businesses transferred to the Italian banks which were deep in Philip’s confidence; while the Jews themselves (those who survived) were expelled from the kingdom. The royal publicists presented this last expedient as a great victory for Christ. They were to say the same, a couple of years later, of the destruction of the Temple.
To Philip the religious megalomaniac the existence of the Temple presented an infuriating obstacle, while to Philip the politician the destruction of the Temple offered financial relief. For the great officers of the Temple were rigidly opposed to any amalgamation with the Hospital. The two orders had always competed — for endowments, for recruits, for renown. In the Holy Land they had of necessity collaborated in fighting the Saracens — yet even then the rivalry between them had often led to bloody clashes. With the loss of the Holy Land, the only bonds between them snapped. When Pope Clement V asked the last grand master of the Temple, Jacques de Molay, for his views on amalgamation, the response was decidedly negative.(5) Clement passed Molay’s memorandum to the royal officials; so Philip knew that so long as the Temple survived as an autonomous institution, it would block even the first steps to his becoming Bellator Rex. This happened in 1306, the same year in which Philip despoiled and expelled the Jews. And Philip knew that the Temple in France was vastly richer than the Jews.
Up to that time, relations between the king and the French Templars had been excellent. As we have seen, the Paris Temple acted as unofficial ministry of finance, its treasurer was warden of the royal revenues. During 1303-4 Philip’s financial needs resulted in particularly close dealings with the order; and as a reward for services rendered he published a most flattering proclamation in which he praised the Templars for their piety, their charity, their liberality, their valour — and substantially increased their already extensive privileges in his kingdom. Jacques de Molay stood godfather to Philip’s infant son.
On 12 October 1307 the grand master received a further honour; for on that day he acted as pall-bearer at the funeral of the wife of the king’s brother, Charles of Valois. Early in the morning of 13 October the Templars throughout France were arrested by officers of the crown. The torturers began their work, and within a few days confessions began to accumulate. Most of the offences to which the Templars confessed mirror the age-old fantasies with which this book is concerned. The work of Conrad of Marburg was being resumed, under the auspices of the king of France.
Early in 1304 or (more probably) 1305 a Frenchman called Esquiu de Floyran made his way to Lerida, where King James II of Aragon was accustomed to pass the spring months.(6) He obtained an audience of the king and, in the presence of the king’s confessor, made certain horrific revelations concerning the Order of the Knights Templars. But the situation of the Temple in Aragon was very different from its situation in France: it had no autonomy but was wholly dependent on, and devoted to, the monarch. James II had little incentive to turn against his faithful Templars, and refused to take the revelations seriously without real proof.
Esquiu returned to France. Did he already then make contact with the chief of the new-style civil servants, Guillaume de Nogaret, who was to play such a large part in the destruction of the Temple? Did Nogaret plan everything that followed? It has never been proved, but it does seem likely. Somehow Esquiu got access to King Philip. According to one not improbable story, he had himself imprisoned along with a criminal who had once been a Templar. Both were under sentence of death, and they confessed their crimes to one another. The ex-Templar confessed to having performed such extraordinary iniquities, during his years in the order, that Esquiu felt it his absolute duty to pass the information on to the king, and bullied the prison officers until he got his way. However that may be, Esquiu de Floyran certainly provided the “information” which enabled Philip to proceed against the order. He reappears later in the story too. He took an active part in torturing Templars under interrogation, and by 1313 was comfortably in possession of a piece of land which had belonged to the Temple. He also wrote to King James of Aragon, claiming a share in the property of the Aragonese Templars.