The Knights Templars

On the imprisonment of the Templars in England, the Temple at London, and all the preceptories dependent upon it, with the manors, farms, houses, lands, and revenues of the order, were placed under the survey of the Court of Exchequer, and extents were directed to be taken of the same, after which they were confided to the care of certain trustworthy persons, styled “Guardians of the lands of the Templars,” who were to account for the rents and profits to the king’s exchequer. These guardians were directed to pay various pensions to the old servants and retainers of the Templars dwelling in the different preceptories, also the expenses of the prosecution against the order; and they were at different times required to victual the king’s castles and strongholds. In the month of February, A. D. 1312, the king gave the Temple manors of Etton and Cave to David, earl of Athol, directing the guardians of the lands and tenements of the Templars in the county of York to hand over to the said earl all the corn in those manors, the oxen, calves, ploughs, and all the goods and chattels of the Templars existing therein, together with the ornaments and utensils of the chapel of the Temple. But on the 16th of May the pope addressed bulls to the king, and to all the earls and barons of the kingdom, setting forth the proceedings of the council of Vienne, and the publication of a papal decree, vesting the property late belonging to the Templars in the brethren of the Hospital of St. John, and he commands them forthwith to place the members of that order in possession thereof. Bulls were also addressed to the archbishops of Canterbury and York and their suffragans, commanding them to enforce by ecclesiastical censures the execution of the papal commands. King Edward and his nobles very properly resisted this decree, and on the 21st of August the king wrote to the Prior of the Hospital of St. John at Clerkenwell, telling him that the pretensions of the pope to dispose of property within the realm of England, without the consent of parliament, were derogatory to the dignity of the crown and the royal authority. The following year the king granted the Temple at London, with the church and all the buildings therein, to Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke; and on the 5th of May of the same year, he caused several merchants, from whom he had borrowed money, to be placed in possession of many of the manors of the Templars.171

Yielding, however, at last to the exhortations and menaces of the pope, the king, on the 21st of Nov., A. D. 1313, granted the property to the Hospitallers, and sent orders to the guardians of the lands of the Templars, and to various powerful barons who were in possession of the estates, commanding them to deliver them up to certain parties deputed by the Grand Master and chapter of the Hospital of St. John to receive them. At this period many of the heirs of the donors, whose title had been recognised by the law, were in possession of the lands, and the judges held that the king had no power of his own sole authority to transfer them to the order of the Hospital. The thunders of the Vatican were consequently vigorously made use of, and all the detainers of the property were doomed by the Roman pontiff to everlasting damnation. Pope John, in one of his bulls, dated A. D. 1322, bitterly complains of the disregard by all the king’s subjects of the papal commands. He laments that they had hardened their hearts and despised the sentence of excommunication fulminated against them, and declares that his heart was riven with grief to find that even the ecclesiastics, who ought to have been as a wall of defence to the Hospitallers, had themselves been heinously guilty in the premises.172

At last (A. D. 1324) the pope, the bishops, and the Hospitallers, by their united exertions, succeeded in obtaining an act of parliament, vesting all the property late belonging to the Templars in the brethren of the Hospital of St. John, in order that the intentions of the donors might be carried into effect by the appropriation of it to the defence of the Holy Land and the succour of the christian cause in the East. This statute gave rise to the greatest discontent. The heirs of the donors petitioned parliament for its repeal, alleging that it had been made against law, and against reason, and contrary to the opinion of the judges; and many of the great barons who held the property by a title recognised by the common law, successfully resisted the claims of the order of the Hospital, maintaining that the parliament had no right to interfere with the tenure of private property, and to dispose of their possessions without their consent. This struggle between the heirs of the donors on the one hand, and the Hospitallers on the other, continued for a lengthened period; and in the reign of Edward the Third it was found necessary to pass another act of parliament, confirming the previous statute in their favour, and writs were sent to the sheriffs (A. D. 1334) commanding them to enforce the execution of the acts of the legislature, and to take possession, in the king’s name, of all the property unjustly detained from the brethren of the Hospital of St. John.173

Whilst the vast possessions, late belonging to the Templars, thus continued to be the subject of contention, the surviving brethren of that dissolved order continued to be treated with the utmost inhumanity and neglect. The ecclesiastical council had assigned to each of them a pension of fourpence a day for subsistence, but this small pittance was not paid, and they were consequently in great danger of dying of hunger. The king, pitying their miserable situation, wrote to the prior of the hospital of St. John at Clerkenwell, earnestly requesting him to take their hard lot into his serious consideration, and not suffer them to come to beggary in the streets. The archbishop of Canterbury also exerted himself in their behalf, and sent letters to the possessors of the property, reproving them for the non-payment of the allotted stipends. “This inhumanity,” says he, “awakens our compassion, and penetrates us with the most lively grief. We pray and conjure you in kindness to furnish them, for the love of God and for charity, with the means of subsistence.” The archbishop of York caused many of them to be supported in the different monasteries of his diocese.174

We have already seen (ante, p. 298) that the Temple at London, the chief house of the English province of the order, had been granted (A. D. 1313) by king Edward the Second to Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke. As Thomas earl of Lancaster, the king’s cousin and first prince of the blood, however, claimed the Temple by escheat, as the immediate lord of the fee, the earl of Pembroke, on the 3rd of October, A. D. 1315, at the request of the king, and in consideration of the grant to him by his sovereign of other land, gave up the property to the earl of Lancaster. This earl of Lancaster was president of the council, and the most powerful and opulent subject of the kingdom, and we are told that the students and professors of the common law made interest with him for a lodging in the Temple, and first gained a footing therein as his lessees. They took possession of the old Hall and the gloomy cells of the military monks, and converted them into the great and most ancient Common Law University in England. From that period to the present time the retreats of the religious warriors have been devoted to “the studious and eloquent pleaders of causes,” a new kind of Templars, who, as Fuller quaintly observes, now “defend one Christian from another, as the old ones did Christians from Pagans.”

Subsequently to this event the fee simple or inheritance of the place passed successively through various hands. On the memorable attainder and ignominious execution before his own castle of the earl of Lancaster it reverted to the crown, and was again granted to Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, who was shortly afterwards murdered at Paris. He died without issue, and the Temple accordingly once more vested in the crown.175 It was then granted to the royal favourite, Hugh le Despenser the younger, and on his attainder and execution by the Lancastrian faction, it came into the hands of the young king Edward the Third, who had just then ascended the throne, and was committed by him to the keeping of the Mayor of London, his escheator in the city. The mayor closed the gate leading to the waterside, which stood at the bottom of the present Middle Temple Lane, whereby the lawyers were much incommoded in their progress backwards and forwards from the Temple to Westminster. Complaints were made to the king on the subject, who, on the 2nd day of November, in the third year of his reign, (A. D. 1330,) wrote as follows to the mayor: – “The king to the mayor of London, his escheator in the same city. Since we have been given to understand that there ought to be a free passage through the court of the New Temple at London to the river Thames, for our justices, clerks, and others, who may wish to pass by water to Westminster to transact their business, and that you keep the gate of the Temple shut by day, and so prevent those same justices, clerks of ours, and other persons, from passing through the midst of the said court to the waterside, whereby as well our own affairs as those of our people in general are oftentimes greatly delayed, we command you, that you keep the gates of the said Temple open by day, so that our justices and clerks, and other persons who wish to go by water to Westminster may be able so to do by the way to which they have hitherto been accustomed.” The following year (A. D. 1331) the king wrote to the mayor, his escheator in the city of London, informing him that he had been given to understand that the pier in the said court of the Temple, leading to the river, was so broken and decayed, that his clerks and law officers, and others, could no longer get across it, and were consequently prevented from passing by water to Westminster. “We therefore,” he proceeds, “being desirous of providing such a remedy as we ought for this evil, command you to do whatever repairs are necessary to the said pier, and to defray the cost thereof out of the proceeds of the lands and rents appertaining to the said Temple now in your custody; and when we shall have been informed of the things done in the matter, the expense shall be allowed you in your account of the same proceeds.”176

Two years afterwards (6 E. III., A. D. 1333) the king committed the custody of the Temple to “his beloved clerk,” William de Langford, “and farmed out the rents and proceeds thereof to him for the term of ten years, at a rent of 24l. per annum, the said William undertaking to keep all the houses and tenements in good order and repair, and so deliver them up at the end of the term.” In the mean time, however, the pope and the bishops had been vigorously exerting themselves to obtain a transfer of the property to the order of the Knights Hospitallers of Saint John. The Hospitallers petitioned the king, setting forth that the church, the cloisters, and other places within the Temple, were consecrated and dedicated to the service of God, that they had been unjustly occupied and detained from them by Hugh le Despenser the younger, and, through his attainder, had lately come into the king’s hands, and they besought the king to deliver up to them possession thereof. King Edward accordingly commanded the mayor of London, his escheator in that city, to take inquisition concerning the premises.

From this inquisition, and the return thereof, it appears that many of the founders of the Temple Church, and many of the brethren of the order of Knights Templars, then lay buried in the church and cemetery of the Temple; that the bishop of Ely had his lodging in the Temple, known by the name of the bishop of Ely’s chamber; that there was a chapel dedicated to St. Thomas-à-Becket, which extended from the door of the Temple Hall as far as the ancient gate of the Temple; also a cloister which began at the bishop of Ely’s chamber, and ran in an easterly direction; and that there was a wall which ran in a northerly direction as far as the said king’s highway; that in the front part of the cemetery towards the north, bordering on the king’s highway, were thirteen houses formerly erected, with the assent and permission of the Master and brethren of the Temple, by Roger Blom, a messenger of the Temple, for the purpose of holding the lights and ornaments of the church; that the land whereon these houses were built, the cemetery, the church, and all the space enclosed between St. Thomas’s chapel, the church, the cloisters, and the wall running in a northerly direction, and all the buildings erected thereon, together with the hall, cloisters, and St. Thomas’ chapel, were sanctified places dedicated to God; that Hugh le Despenser occupied and detained them unjustly, and that through his attainder and forfeiture, and not otherwise, they came into the king’s hands.177

After the return of this inquisition, the said sanctified places were assigned to the prior and brethren of the Hospital of Saint John; and the king, on the 11th of January, in the tenth year of his reign, A. D. 1337, directed his writ to the barons of the Exchequer, commanding them to take inquisition of the value of the said sanctified places, so given up to the Hospitallers, and of the residue of the Temple, and certify the same under their seals to the king, in order that a reasonable abatement might be made in William de Langford’s rent. From the inquiry made in pursuance of this writ before John de Shoreditch, a baron of the Exchequer, it further appears that on the said residue of the Temple upon the land then remaining in the custody of William de Langford, and withinside the great gate of the Temple, were another HALL and four chambers connected therewith, a kitchen, a garden, a stable, and a chamber beyond the great gate; also eight shops, seven of which stood in Fleet Street, and the eighth in the suburb of London, without the bar of the New Temple; that the annual value of these shops varied from ten to thirteen, fifteen, and sixteen shillings; that the fruit out of the garden of the Temple sold for sixty shillings per annum in the gross, that seven out of the thirteen houses erected by Roger Blom were each of the annual value of eleven shillings; and that the eighth, situated beyond the gate of entrance to the church, was worth four marks per annum. It appears, moreover, that the total annual revenue of the Temple then amounted to 73l. 6s. 11d., equal to about 1,000l. of our present money, and that William de Langford was abated 12l. 4s. 2d. of the said rent.178

Three years after the taking of this inquisition, and in the thirteenth year of his reign, A. D. 1340, king Edward the Third, in consideration of the sum of one hundred pounds, which the prior of the Knights Hospitallers promised to pay him towards the expense of his expedition into France, granted to the said prior all the residue of the Temple then remaining in the king’s hands, to hold, together with the cemetery, cloisters, and the other sanctified places, to the said prior and his brethren, and their successors, of the king and his heirs, for charitable purposes, for ever. From this grant it appears that the porter of the Temple received sixty shillings and tenpence per annum, and twopence a day wages, which were to be paid him by the Hospitallers. At this period Philip Thane was prior of the Hospital; and he exerted himself to impart to the celebration of divine service in the Temple Church, the dignity and the splendour it possessed in the time of the Templars. He, with the unanimous consent and approbation of the whole chapter of the Hospital, granted to Hugh de Lichefield, priest, and to his successors, guardians of the Temple Church, towards the improvement of the lights and the celebration of divine service therein, all the land called Ficketzfeld, and the garden called Cotterell Garden; and two years afterwards he made a further grant, to the said Hugh and his successors, of a thousand fagots a year to be cut out of the wood of Lilleston, and carried to the New Temple to keep up the fire in the said church.179

King Edward III., in the thirty-fifth year of his reign, A. D. 1362, notwithstanding the grant of the Temple to the Hospitallers, exercised the right of appointing to the porter’s office, and by his letter patent he promoted Roger Small to that post for the term of his life, in return for the good service rendered him by the said Roger Small.180

It appears that the lawyers in the Temple had at this period their purveyor of provisions as at present, and were then keeping commons or dining together in the hall. The poet Chaucer, who was born at the close of the reign of Edward II., A. D. 1327, and was in high favour at court in the reign of Edward III., thus speaks of the Manciple, or the purveyor of provisions of the lawyers in the Temple: —

“A gentil Manciple was there of the Temple,Of whom achatours mighten take ensample,For to ben wise in bying of vitaille.For whether that he paid or toke by taille,Algate he waited so in his achate,That he was aye before in good estate.Now is not that of God a full fayre grace,That swiche a lewed mannes wit shal pace,The wisdome of an hepe of lerned men?”“Of maisters had he mo than thries ten,That were of lawe expert and curious;Of which there was a dosein in that housWorthy to ben stewardes of rent and londOf any lord that is in Englelond,To maken him live by his propre good,In honour detteles, but if he were wood,Or live as scarsly, as him list desire;And able for to helpen all a shire,In any cas that mighte fallen or happe;And yet this manciple sette hir aller cappe.”181

At the period of the dissolution of the order of the Templars many of the retainers of the ancient knights were residing in the Temple, supported by pensions from the crown. These were of the class of free servants of office, they held their posts for life, and not having been members of the order, they were not included in the general proscription of the fraternity. On the seizure by the sheriffs and royal officers of the property of their ancient masters, they had been reduced to great distress, and had petitioned the king to be allowed their customary stipends. Edward II. had accordingly granted to Robert Styfford clerk, chaplain of the Temple Church, two deniers a day for his maintenance in the house of the Temple at London, and five shillings a year for necessaries, provided he did service in the Temple Church; and when unable to do so, he was to receive only his food and lodging. Geoffrey Talaver, Geoffrey de Cave, clerk, and John de Shelton, were also, each of them, to receive for their good services, annual pensions for the term of their lives. Some of these retainers, in addition to their various stipends, were to have a gown of the class of free-serving brethren of the order of the Temple each year; one old garment out of the stock of old garments belonging to the brethren; one mark a year for their shoes, &c.; their sons also received so much per diem, on condition that they did the daily work of the house.182 These domestics and retainers of the ancient brotherhood of the Knights Templars, appear to have transferred their services to the learned society of lawyers established in the Temple, and to have continued and kept alive amongst them many of the ancient customs and observances of the old Knights. The chaplain of the Temple Church took his meals in the hall with the lawyers as he had been wont to do with the Knights Templars; and the rule of their order requiring “two and two to eat together,” and “all the fragments to be given in brotherly charity to the domestics,” continued to be observed, and prevails to this day; whilst the attendants at table continued to be, and are still called paniers, as in the days of the Knights Templars.183

In the sixth year of the reign of Edward III., (A. D. 1333,) a few years after the lawyers had established themselves in the convent of the Temple, the judges of the Court of Common Pleas were made KNIGHTS,184 being the earliest instance on record of the grant of the honour of knighthood for services purely civil, and the professors of the common law, who had the exclusive privilege of practising in that court, assumed the title or degree of FRERES SERJENS or FRATRES SERVIENTES, so that an order of knights and serving-brethren was most curiously revived in the Temple, and introduced into the profession of the law. It is true that the word serviens, serjen, or serjeant, was applied to the professors of the law long before the reign of Edward III., but not to denote a privileged brotherhood. It was applied to lawyers in common with all persons who did any description of work for another, from the serviens domini regis ad legem, who prosecuted the pleas of the crown in the county court, to the serviens or serjen who walked with his cane before the concubine of the patriarch Heraclius in the streets of Jerusalem. The priest who worked for the Lord was called serjen de Dieu, and the lover who served the lady of his affections serjen d’amour. It was in the order of the Temple that the word freres serjens or fratres servientes first signified an honorary title or degree, and denoted a powerful privileged class of brethren. The fratres servientes armigeri or freres serjens des armes, of the chivalry of the Temple, were of the rank of gentlemen. They united in their own persons the monastic and the military character, they were allotted one horse each, they wore the cross of the order of the Temple on their breasts, they participated in all the privileges of the brotherhood, and were eligible to the dignity of Preceptor. Large sums of money were frequently given by seculars who had not been advanced to the honour of knighthood, to be admitted amongst this highly esteemed order of men. These freres serjens of the Temple wore linen coifs, and red caps close over them.185 At the ceremony of their admission into the fraternity, the Master of the Temple placed the coif upon their heads, and threw over their shoulders the white mantle of the Temple; he then caused them to sit down on the ground, and gave them a solemn admonition concerning the duties and responsibilities of their profession. The knights and Serjeants of the common law, on the other hand, have ever constituted a privileged fraternity, and always address one another by the endearing term brother. The religious character of the ancient ceremony of admission into this legal brotherhood, which took place in the Temple Church, and its striking similarity to the ancient mode of reception into the fraternity of the Temple, are curious and remarkable. “Capitalis Justitiarius,” says an ancient MS. account of the creation of serjeants-at-law, “monstrabat eis plura bona exempla de eorum prædecessoribus, et tunc. posuit les coyfes super eorum capitibus, et induebat eos singulariter de capital de skarletto, et sic creati fuerunt servientes ad legem.” In his admonitory exhortation, the chief-justice displays to them the moral and religious duties of their profession. “Ambulate in vocatione in quâ vocati estis… Disce cultum Dei, reverentiam superioris, misericordiam pauperi.” He tells them the coif is sicut vestis candida et immaculata, the emblem of purity and virtue, and he commences a portion of his discourse in the scriptural language used by the popes in the famous bull conceding to the Templars their vast spiritual and temporal privileges, “Omne datum optimum et omne donum perfectum desursum est descendens a patre luminum,” &c. &c.186 It has been supposed that the coif was first introduced by the clerical practitioners of the common law to hide the tonsure of those priests who practised in the Court of Common Pleas, notwithstanding the ecclesiastical prohibition. This was not the case. The early portraits of our judges exhibit them with a coif of very much larger dimensions than the coifs now worn by the serjeants-at-law, very much larger than would be necessary to hide the mere clerical tonsure. A covering for that purpose indeed would be absurd.

From the inquisition into the state of the Temple, taken 10 E. III., A. D. 1337, it appears, as we have already seen, that in the time of the Knights Templars there were TWO HALLS in the Temple, the one being the hall of the knights, and the other the hall of the freres serjens, or serving-brethren of the order. One of these halls, the present Inner Temple Hall, had been assigned, the year previous to the taking of that inquisition, to the prior and brethren of the Hospital of Saint John, together with the church, cloisters, &c., as before mentioned, whilst the other hall remained in the hands of the crown, and was not granted to the Hospitallers until 13 E. III., A. D. 1340. It was probably soon after this period that the Hospitallers conceded the use of both halls to the professors of the law, and these last, from dining apart and being attached to different halls, at last separated into two societies. When the lawyers originally came into the Temple as lessees of the earl of Lancaster, they found engraved upon the ancient buildings the armorial bearings of the order of the Temple, which were, on a shield argent, a plain cross gules, and (brochant sur le tout) the holy lamb bearing the banner of the order, surmounted by a red cross. These arms remained the emblem of the Temple until the fifth year of the reign of queen Elizabeth, when unfortunately the society of the Inner Temple, yielding to the advice and persuasion of Master Gerard Leigh, a member of the College of Heralds, abandoned the ancient and honourable device of the Knights Templars, and assumed in its place a galloping winged horse called a Pegasus, or, as it has been explained to us, “a horse striking the earth with its hoof, or Pegasus luna on a field argent!” Master Gerard Leigh, we are told, “emblazoned them with precious stones and planets, and by these strange arms he intended to signify that the knowledge acquired at the learned seminary of the Inner Temple would raise the professors of the law to the highest honours, adding, by way of motto, volat ad æthera virtus, and he intended to allude to what are esteemed the more liberal sciences, by giving them Pegasus forming the fountain of Hippocrene, by striking his hoof against the rock, as a proper emblem of lawyers becoming poets, as Chaucer and Gower, who were both of the Temple!”