On the Extinction of the Order of the Templars

Indeed, from a certain papal bull expressed there, it is clear that the Templars remaining in England did not immediately enter other approved religious orders The Latin 'religiones' here refers specifically to monastic orders or rules of life, such as the Benedictines or Cistercians. after their absolution, but were at first left to their own liberty. For the Roman Pontiff Pope Clement V. sharply criticizes in that document the behavior of the surviving persons from the Order of the Militia of the Temple, because, having cast off their clerical clothing, they had conducted themselves as laymen; and with no regard for their habit or the vow they had made, they had contracted marriages. Therefore, he commands all Archbishops, Bishops, and Prelates that each should convoke the Templars in his diocese and command them that, within three months, they should enter a specific established monastery and an approved religious order—where the vows they once took could be observed—and they were to leave their wives entirely. Monasticon Anglicanum, volume 2, page 944.

Regarding the property of the Templars, it was adjudicated in the Council of Vienne Held in 1311–1312, this council officially abolished the Templar Order. to the Hospitallers, or the Knights of Rhodes (for the Hospitallers were so named from the captured island of Rhodes; see Bundle of Times, page 83, Pistor’s edition), though with certain conditions regarding their legitimate use. See Jean de Serres, History of the Kings of France, page 148; Annals and Antiquities of Trier, book 17, for the year 1313; Tract on the Extirpation of the Albigensian Heresy in volume 5 of the Scriptors of French History, edited by du Chesne, for the year 1311; Monasticon Anglicanum, volume 2, page 564; Jean de Busjeres, History of France, book 9, page 229; from Chasseneuz’s Catalogus Gloriae Mundi, page 340; Nauclerus’s Chronicle, leaf 244; and Antoninus for the year 1119.

However, it is necessary to exclude here those Templar properties found in Spain, Castile, Portugal, and the Balearic Islands; these were granted by a special mandate of the Pope to the kings of those regions so that they might more strongly resist the enemies Referring to the Islamic Moors, against whom these Christian kingdoms were fighting during the Reconquista. whom they had as their closest neighbors. See Tract on the Extirpation of the Albigensian Heresy for the year 1311; Raynaldi’s Ecclesiastical Annals for the year 1312; and Gottfried in the Chronicle for the year 1307.