18th March 1314, Île aux Juifs, Paris
As James de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar was tied to the stake on which he was sentenced to be burned to death, he cried out a curse to his accusers:
“…Soon misfortune will come to those who have condemned us: God will avenge our death,” whereupon the flames were stoked and James, together with the templar Preceptor of Normandy met their grisly end.
How did it come to pass that the Knights Templar, once the revered guardians of Christian pilgrims throughout the Holy Land and favourites of kings, emperors and popes fall from grace? It is both a story of jealously and avarice towards an order which had amassed in almost 200 hundred years a vast fortune in land, money and property throughout the length and breadth of Europe and the Holy Land.
The Beginning
After the spread of Islamic rule in the 7th and 8th centuries throughout Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, north-west Africa and southern Spain, it had become increasingly perilous for Christian pilgrims on their journeys to the Holy Land. In an age when pilgrimage was a vitally important act for devout Christians, people would travel prodigious distances to visit holy sites and shrines in the hope that they might be freed from illness or receive atonement for their sins. In response to a call from Pope Urban II for the holy Christian sites to be liberated from Islamic control, noblemen from France, Normandy, England, Flanders, Bavaria, Lombardy and Sicily, believing it was their Christian duty to respond, comprised what was to become known as the 1st Crusade, 1095-1099. It achieved significant territorial gains such as Jerusalem, but these needed to be protected.
On 16th January, 1120, the Christian King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Warmund, the Latin patriarch of that city convened a Council of leading churchmen in the Holy Land to discuss how best to administer the Christian-held territories which still faced threats from the forces of Islam. Of the numerous decrees which emanated from this Council of Nablus, the principle was established that religious men might take up arms and defend the Holy Land. It fell to a French nobleman, Hugues de Payns who a year earlier had founded The Knights of the Temple in Jerusalem, an order that was to become better-known as the Knights Templar, to take up that mantle.
The Templars were founded on the principles of chastity, obedience and poverty, but soon grew rich and influential, thanks mainly through the patronage of royalty the church, plus the small donations of ordinary men and women. With this wealth, the Templars built castles, ran cities, raised armies, operated fleets of ships, financed royalty and even acted as their bankers. Militarily, Templar Knights were the bravest of the brave and led many Christian armies against Islamic forces in the Holy Land, Spain and Portugal under their black and white banner.
The Design of the Knights Templars Flag comes from the Beauceant Flag. The Beauceant was the Battle Flag of the Templars. Black and white represent the duality of darkness and light: Christian Warriors were fair and favourable to the friends of Christ, but they were dark and terrible to his enemies.
Liston
Before the Knights Templar appeared on the scene, the little village of Kirkliston was known simply as Liston. This name was a compound of Llys – British signifying a court, a hallor or manor place, and the Saxon tun - denoting a dwelling place, but in time this was to change.
The Scottish King David I (1124-1153) was a deeply religious man and founded both Holyrood and Kelso Abbeys during his reign. Influenced by his personal meeting with Hugues de Payns, founder of the Knights Templar, King David wanted to align the Scottish Church with the rest of Europe where the Knights Templars were being granted significant land, property and favourable trading rights. Therefore, in 1134 he created a Barony in the central part of Liston and the surrounding area in favour of the Templars, hence the change in name to Temple Liston. Furthermore, the king’s esteem for the Templars extended to him keeping Templar knights constantly in his court as trusted personal advisors, guardians and judges. Not to be outdone by the king’s largesse, Bishop Robert, the leader of the diocese of St Andrews and another enthusiastic supporter of the Templars, personally gifted the Templars land in Balantrodoch (modern-day Temple) in Midlothian which was to become the most significant base of Templar operations in Scotland. This also illustrates just how vast the diocese of St Andrews actually was.
In historical records, there is a reference by an English chronicler of 1298 who wrote Liston Templ, [sic] when recording the encampment of King Edward I's army in our village at what is now known as Cleric’s Hill. This English Army was on its way to Falkirk to do battle with the forces of Sir William Wallace.
A Bridge Too Far?
Despite the Christian ardour and well-meant intentions of successive Crusades throughout the ages, it was an inescapable fact that the Holy Land was out on a limb. Its very distance from Western Europe where most of its material and physical support emanated from proved to be an insurmountable obstacle to its perpetuation. Under constant threat from numerically superior Muslim armies who unsurprisingly bitterly resented a ‘foreign’ and ‘infidel’ presence in sites which were also sacred to Islam, their predations began to erode the security of the Christian entities. Savage battles between Christian and Muslim armies where no quarter was given depleted the territorial and manpower resources of the Christian domains in the Middle East. Formidable Crusader and Templar castles fell to the almost constant onslaught of Islamic forces until in 1291, the catastrophic Siege of Acre saw the defeat of the last major Crusader stronghold and the ejection of the Knights Templar from the Holy Land. Apart from a short-lived reoccupation of a former Templar castle, this was to be the end of the Templar presence in the Holy Land. This costly and humiliating defeat did not pass unremarked in Western Europe where critics and detractors of the Templars had been gathering momentum.
The Hospitallers
The Hospitallers, or The Hospital of St John to give them their more formal name, had established a hospital in Jerusalem around 1080 CE. From this humble beginning the order developed a military wing which both complemented and rivalled the Templars. In battle, while the Templars were at the vanguard of armies, the Hospitallers were the rearguard. Although relations between the two factions were generally cordial, at times hostilities could break out. The Hospitallers also accumulated considerable wealth, but not on the scale enjoyed by the Templars. The Hospitallers were ejected from the Holy Land at Acre along with the Templars in 1291 and subsequently established a presence in Cyprus, Rhodes and Malta.
The emblem of the Knights Hospitallers was to become the eight-pointed cross (known as the Maltese cross today). The eight points of the cross symbolise the eight beatitudes of St Matthew, alongside virtues prized by the knights such as loyalty, piety, courage and honour.
Symbol of the Knights Hospitallers
The Denouement of the Knights Templar
From the very inception of the Templars, there had been criticism of the double standard of devout Christians wielding the sword. Additionally, the special privileges of tax exemptions and favourable trading rights afforded the Templars did not sit well with rival traders and landowners who felt they were being unfairly disadvantage. There had also been calls from the Papacy for the Templars and Hospitallers to merge in order to consolidate resources. King Philip IV of France also thought this would be a good idea, but for selfish reasons; he hoped to control the merger and siphon off the Templar and Hospitaller riches for his own use. Talk of a merger was vehemently opposed by both orders. More damagingly, spurious rumours and claims regarding the degeneration of Templar morals and behaviour had been circulating across Western Europe for some time and this came to a head under the papacy of Clement V and reign of King Philip IV of France.
In 1306, James de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar was in France trying to drum up more support for the Templars and quash the suggestion that his order should be merged with the Hospitallers. Unfortunately, he had a formidable adversary in Philip IV of France. A somewhat religious prig and opponent of the Templars, Philip also had enormous debts which he thought might be wiped clean if he could wrest from the Templars the fortune they possessed. Pope Clement V was under the malign influence of the French king, and despite being more favourably disposed to the Templars, he was drawn into what was to become a brutal persecution of the order. On Friday, 13th October 1307, acting on the instigation of Philip IV, all the Templars in France were taken captive with accusations of blasphemy, heresy, idolatry, sodomy and financial corruption levelled against them. Those arrested were not necessarily Templar Knights; many were ordinary farmers, shepherds, wine merchants, etc who were members of the order. Brutal interrogations were conducted with torture being liberally employed to extract confessions for crimes which simply had not been committed.
The French king then extended his persecution of the Templars by contacting James II of Aragon and King Edward II of England, urging them to round up the Templars in light of his accusations. The events in France had not been mirrored elsewhere and Edward II was surprised by Philip’s accusations as he personally was favourably disposed towards the Templars. Edward had ascended his throne only three months before the mass Templar arrests in France and was frankly incredulous, prompting him to contact other European monarchs and warning them that they should not believe the accusations of the French king.
Pope Clement V was aware that Templar members were now being tortured under the orders of Philip IV and wanted to prevent this from continuing, for while he was a chronically unwell individual and much harassed by the king, he was an ardent supporter of the Templars. In the hope of asserting church precedence over the throne, he issued a papal bull (basically, an order which faithful Catholics were expected to obey) stressing that his authority and that of the church were pre-eminent. Clement then went further and invited all the rulers across Europe who had been sent his papal bull to arrest Templar members and thereby put them under papal supervision, not royalty. In England, Edward II was now left with no option other than to follow the pope’s edict, so on 7th January 1308, every Templar in England was arrested, although the king instructed that they were to be treated civilly. This was followed by the arrest of Templar members in Scotland, Ireland and Wales on 10th January. It is possible, although not proven, that Bishop of Lamberton of St Andrews, Guardian of Scotland 1299-1301, gave the Templars his protection during their trial in Scotland in 1309.
The French inquisitors appointed by Philip IV were dissatisfied with the lenient treatment of the English Templars and wanted them brought to France where they could be ‘properly’ interrogated. In England, Edward II’s stance towards the Templars was to change. Although recently married to Isabella, daughter of Philip IV of France no less, he was embroiled in a scandalous homosexual relationship with a man named Piers Gaveston. The bishops and nobility of England were appalled at this state of affairs which did not sit well with the social mores of the time. Gaveston was exiled to Ireland and placed under threat of excommunication if he returned. Pope Clement had the power to lift the threatened excommunication and was willing to so if Edward pursued the interrogation of the English Templars with greater vigour. Edward did just that, but it was only the two most senior Templars who were subsquently imprisoned leaving the way open for Edward to take control of Templar lands for more than ten years and reap the revenues of their estates. However, Edward was forced eventually to give up the Templar assets in favour of the Hospitallers in accordance with papal instructions. It was at about this time that Temple Liston became known as Kirkliston now that the church (kirk) had become pre-eminent.
If Pope Clement hoped that his measures would protect the Templars and thwart Philip IV’s scheme to bring them down, he was unsuccessful. Months of pressure and veiled threats from the French king, coupled with so-called ‘confessions’ by tortured witnesses began to wear down Clement’s resistance. Further arrests in other kingdoms had continued and by 2nd July, Clement reluctantly conceded that the Templars were guilty of the accusations arrayed against them. This was the touchpaper for a gross atrocity committed on 12th May, 1310 when no fewer than 54 Templar Knights were burned alive at the stake in Paris. And still the interrogations and torture continued for the remaining Templars, culminating in the deaths of James de Molay and the templar Preceptor of Normandy at the stake as described earlier.
What of James’ curse when about to be consumed by the flames? Within a year, Clement V had died from his long-standing intestinal complaint while Philip IV suffered a fatal stroke aged only forty-six when hunting in 1314.
And what became of the Templars in Scotland? In 1312, there was ambiguity as to who reigned there. Whilst Edward II nominally held sway in lands south of the River Forth plus the fortress of Stirling, King Robert de Bruce was in the ascendant over much of Scotland. He was sympathetic to the plight of the Templars and as an excommunicate at that time, was not bound by the commands of any papal bulls. Whilst Templar lands were given over to the Hospitallers, it has been suggested that King Robert de Bruce inducted willing Templar Knights, disgruntled at their treatment by the English king, into his army and that they may have fought on that fateful day at Bannockburn in 1314 against Edward II’s army. It must be stressed that no historically documented evidence exists to verify this rumour, but it does have some logical and romantic appeal.
The Hospitallers were formally dissolved in England by King Henry VIII in 1540, their wealth being appropriated by the king. Despite this, there were periodic revivals of the Order over the next 300 years.
The Hospitallers in Kirkliston
The Knights of St John (Hospitallers) had established a presence in Kirkliston in the form of a manor house in the Hallyards area. After its demolition, Hallyards Castle was built on the site during the 17th century, Due to severe subsidence caused by shale mining, Hallyards Castle also had to be demolished in the late 1920’s as the structure had become unsafe.
Ruins of Hallyards Castle
Imagery of the Templars and Hospitallers lives on to this day. The Maltese Cross is part of the livery of the St John Ambulance service whilst the official armorial bearings (coat of arms) of Kirkliston Community Council incorporates a Maltese Cross in recognition of the village's connection to the Templars and Hospitallers.
The official armorial bearings (coat of arms) of Kirkliston Community Council
A P George
Kirkliston Heritage Society
Sources:
800th Anniversary By Donald Whyte FHG, FSG, 800 Committee 1996
Images of Scotland - Kirkliston, Kirkliston Heritage Society, The History Press 2022 ISBN 978 0 7524 1131 6
Kirkliston, A Parish History by Donald Whyte Congregational Board of Kirkliston Parish Church 1991
The Templars by Dan Jones, Apollo 2018 ISBN 9781781858929
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