To browse Academia. The Knights Templar- A book. The brothers were accused of a variety of crimes, which were said to be long-established in the order. There were, it was claimed, serious abuses in the admission ceremony, where the brothers denied their faith in Christ.
The order encouraged homosexual activity between brothers. The brothers worshipped idols. Chapter meetings were held in secret. The brothers did not believe in the mass or other sacraments of the church and did not carry these out properly, defrauding patrons of the order who had given money for masses to be said for their families' souls.
What was more, it was alleged that the Templars did not make charitable gifts or give hospitality as a religious order should. The order encouraged brothers to acquire property fraudulently, and to win profit for the order by any means possible. During the trial of the Templars witnesses claimed that the order's abuses had been notorious far many years and under interrogation, including torture, many brothers confessed to at least some of these crimes.
In March , Pope Clement dissolved the Order of' the Temple, giving its property of the Order of the Hospital, and assigning the surviving brothers to other religious orders.
Despite this, the question of the order's guilt has never been settled. Just what were the accusations made against the Templars before , and were these related to the trial? What did contemporaries think about the other military orders, such as the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights? This article argues that, from the evidence, the famous, shocking charges brought against the Templars in were unknown before The order was certainly guilty of Fraud and unscrupulous greed, but so too were other religious orders.
