Knights Templar
Win Heresy Reprieve
After 700 Years
By
Philip Pullella
[Source
© Reuters,
October 12, 2007: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-vatican-templars-idUSL093422320071012.]
The Knights Templar, the medieval Christian military
order accused of heresy and sexual misconduct, will
soon be partly rehabilitated when the Vatican
publishes trial documents it had closely guarded for
700 years.
|
The seal of the Vatican secret archives is shown on a replica document
in which Pope Clement V absolved the Knights Templar of charges of
heresy, in Rome October 9, 2007. A reproduction of the Latin-language
minutes of trials against the Knights Templar in 1308, lost until...
Reuters/Alessandro Bianchi |
A reproduction of the minutes of trials
against the Templars, "'Processus Contra Templarios -- Papal Inquiry into the
Trial of the Templars'" is a massive work and much more than a book -- with a
5,900 euros ($8,333) price tag.
"This is a milestone because it is the first time that these documents
are being released by the Vatican, which gives a stamp of authority to the
entire project," said Professor Barbara Frale, a medievalist at the Vatican's
Secret Archives.
"Nothing before this offered scholars original documents of the trials of the
Templars," she told Reuters in a telephone interview ahead of the official
presentation of the work on October 25.
The epic comes in a soft leather case that includes a large-format book
including scholarly commentary, reproductions of original parchments in Latin,
and -- to tantalize Templar buffs -- replicas of the wax seals used by
14th-century inquisitors.
Reuters was given an advance preview of the work, of which only 799 numbered
copies have been made.
One parchment measuring about half a meter wide by some two meters long is so
detailed that it includes reproductions of stains and imperfections seen on the
originals.
Pope Benedict will be given the first set of the work, published by the
Vatican Secret Archives in collaboration with Italy's Scrinium cultural
foundation, which acted as curator and will have exclusive world distribution
rights.
The Templars, whose full name was "Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the
Temple of Solomon", were founded in 1119 by knights sworn to protecting
Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem
in 1099.
They amassed enormous wealth and helped finance wars of some European
monarchs. Legends of their hidden treasures, secret rituals and power have
figured over the years in films and bestsellers such as "The Da Vinci Code".
|