afterwards carried on by bishops and other judges as to the truth of the
charges against them. While the trials were going on, the Templars were
very hardly used. All that they had was taken away from them, so that
they were in grievous distress. They were kept in dungeons, were loaded
with chains, ill fed and ill cared for in all ways. They were examined
by tortures, which were so severe that many of them were brought, by
the very pain, to confess everything that they were charged with,
although they afterwards said that they had been driven by their
sufferings to own things of which they were not at all guilty. Many were
burnt in companies from time to time; at one time no fewer than
fifty-four were burnt together at Paris; and such cruelties struck
terror into the rest.

Some of the Templars on their trials told strange stories. They said,
for instance, that some men on being admitted to the order were suddenly
changed, as if they had been made to share in some fearful secrets;
that, from having been jovial and full of life, delighting in horses and
hounds and hawks, they seemed to be weighed down by a deep sadness,
under which they pined away. It is not easy to say what is to be made of
all these stories. As to the ceremonies used at admitting members, it
seems likely enough that the Templars may have used some things which
looked strange and shocking, but which really meant no harm, and were
properly to be understood as figures or acted parables.

The pope seems, too, not to have known what to make of the case; but, as
we have seen, he had bound himself to serve King Philip in the matter of
the Templars, in order that Pope Boniface's memory might be spared. At a
great council held under Clement, at Vienne, in 1312, it was decreed
that the order of the Temple should be dissolved; yet it was not said
that the Templars had been found guilty of the charges against them, and
the question of their guilt or innocence remains to puzzle us as it
puzzled the Council of Vienne.

The master of the Temple, James de Molay, was kept in prison six years
and a half, and was often examined. At last, he and three other great
officers of the order were condemned to imprisonment for life, and were
brought forward on a platform set up in front of the cathedral of Paris
that their sentence might be published. A cardinal began to read out
their confessions; but Molay broke in, denying and disavowing what he
had formerly said, and decl