The Second Messiah by Christopher Knight

Author:Christopher Knight
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781446428634
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2021-01-08T16:00:00+00:00

The sixth condition Philip declined to name, saying:

The sixth favour is great and secret and I reserve the asking of it for a suitable time and place.fn18

What could this final ‘great and secret’ favour have been that could not be named by this usually brazen king? Philip had not shown himself to be shy in stating what he wanted, yet there was something in his mind that he dared not speak until the time was right. We believe that this last commitment that he would require of the pope would have been impossible to disclose because absolute secrecy was the key to his devious plan, which was still two years away from being sprung.

Philip’s later actions reveal that this secret favour can only have been that the pope must support his right to arrest the Knights Templar on grounds of heresy and allow him to seize their funds for the French treasury. As the Templars answered only to the pope, Philip knew that he may well not get away with his intended piracy if he was not seen to be acting with papal blessing.

The king and the archbishop did not like or trust each other, but Bertrand was an ambitious man and he agreed to Philip’s terms, which included the condition that Bertrand must stay within France. The seat of the papacy had to be relocated and Bertrand was crowned Pope Clement V at Lyons on 17 December 1305. In acceding to Philip’s conditions, the new pontiff compromised the authority of the papacy for the next fifty years, the ‘Avignon Period’, and since likened by the Roman Church to the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews.

The new pope’s very first act was to create twelve of Philip’s followers cardinals, including the Colonna brothers, and he quickly set about meeting his pledges to Philip – apart from the destruction of the memory of Pope Boniface which the Cardinal of Prato persuaded Philip to withdraw. In return, and to show his support for Philip in his financial difficulties, Clement actually gave the king papal approval for the banishment of the Jews from his kingdom and the seizure of their property for his failing treasury.

At this time there was a widespread acceptance amongst the nobility of Europe that they were not going to be able to dominate the Muslims of the East by sheer force of arms, and many started to question the need for military orders if they could not hold the Holy Land. Back in 1274, in the aftermath of the Sixth Crusade, the second council of Lyons had discussed combining the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar into a single military order. The leaders of both Orders had strongly rejected the idea of giving up their individual wealth and status and they used their considerable influence to ensure that such a merger did not happen. However, the suggestion never quite went away, as many people were jealous of the privileges that the Templars and Hospitallers enjoyed, including their exemption from most tithes and taxes.

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