Europe's inner demons

There remains the story of the belts and the idol. The statutes of the order did in fact stipulate that a Templar must, even when asleep at night, keep on his shirt and hose, and over these a belt, buckled up. No doubt the intention was to discourage any form of sexual activity. The charge brought against the Templars therefore represents a neat inversion of the rule: the belt appears as being somehow an incitement to sodomy, because it mysteriously keeps the wearer in thrall to the headshaped idol which it has touched. And this idol provides the key to the whole matter. When it reappears in the Templars’ confessions it assumes the most varied shapes. All agree, as required, that it consisted of a head, but there agreement ends. Some describe it as having three faces, others as having four feet, others as being simply a face with no feet. For some it was a human skull, embalmed and encrusted with jewels; for others it was carved out of wood. Some maintained that it came from the remains of a former grand master of the order, while others were equally convinced that it was called Baphomet — which in turn was interpreted as “Mohammed”. Some saw it as having horns. From all this two things emerge quite clearly: in reality, there was no idol; but in the context of the interrogations and trials it had to exist, as an embodiment of Satanic power.^**

The Satanic nature of the idol is hammered home in a series of confessions where it figures in company with our old acquaintance, the Satanic cat.⁽¹¹⁾

This cat appeared alongside the idol in a sort of cloud, lingered there throughout the ceremony and then disappeared, never to be seen again; nobody could explain it, except by saying that it came from the Devil or was itself the Devil. The Templars present revered it, removing their hats, bowing low before it, finally kissing it beneath the tail. For the rest, the cat was as variable as the idol, in that some saw it as black, some as grey, some as brindled and some as red.

After all this, it comes as no surprise to learn, from some of the confessions, that the idol was anointed with the fat of roasted infants; and that the bodies of deceased Templars were burnt and their ashes mixed into a powder which was administered to newcomers as a magical potion, to make them hold fast to their abominable ways.⁽¹²⁾

 Nor are we astonished to hear that the worship of the idol and the cat was sometimes attended by demons in the form of beautiful young girls, whose arrival was all the more remarkable because every window and crevice was sealed, but with whom the assembled Templars were happy to make love.⁽¹³⁾

We are on familiar ground. Clearly the charges against the Templars were simply a variant of those which, as we have seen, had previously been brought against certain heretical groups, real or imaginary. Moreover as the interrogations proceeded, the tortured Templars supplied fresh evidence to show how deeply heretical the order was. Now it appeared that the newcomer to the order was required not simply to deny Christ but to assert that Christ was a criminal who had been executed for his crimes; and he had also to deny the Virgin Mary and all the saints. It was not enough to spit on the crucifix, one had to drag it about the room, trample it under foot, urinate on it; and this not simply at the time of one’s reception but also during Holy Week. No Templar believed that the sacraments had any efficacy, or indeed that there was any salvation in Christ. Their only god and saviour was the Devil, represented by the idol and the cat; and the Devil could do wonderful things for his followers.⁽¹⁴⁾

The explanation of all this is clear enough. King Philip’s aim was to ensure the suppression of the Temple and to secure its property for himself and his descendants. To achieve this he had to demonstrate not that individual Templars had transgressed the rule of the order (which would not have helped at all) but that the order itself was a heretical sect. The heretical doctrines which really were circulating in western Christendom — whether those of the Cathars, or of the Waldensians, or of the Franciscan Spirituals — were all obviously inappropriate to an order of warriors. The one remaining possibility was to invoke the conventional image of a heretical sect: the Temple had to be presented as the embodiment of what was generally felt to be abominable. It was natural that a body of warrior monks should be accused of homosexual sodomy rather than of promiscuous and incestuous orgies; but even here a shift can be observed as the interrogations progress — in one whole series of interrogations sodomy is never mentioned, being replaced by orgies with female demons. As for the other accusations— denial of Christ, Devil-worship, obscene kisses and the rest — they all belong to the traditional stereotypes whose development we have been tracing in previous chapters.