Most mainstream historians – blushing as they write – dismiss entirely the allegations of sodomy levelled at the Knights Templar in 1307 by the King of France, Philip IV. They even try to argue that medieval ‘sodomy’ had nothing to do with being gay – as apparently homosexuality was only invented by Freudians in the late 19th century. However, let’s argue, for the sake of it, that Philip was on to something – and there was no smoke without fire.
Let’s consider this. If an organisation today was accused of widespread, institutionalised sexual abuse within its ranks, would we dismiss this out of hand? No – we’d listen sympathetically to the testimonies of those abused and demand that the abusers account for themselves. In our own times, the Roman Catholic church and other institutions have been named and shamed over serial sex abuse. So, why do modern historians breezily wave away the charges of sodomy with regards to the Templars?
Let’s look at some of the testimonies of the alleged victims:
- John of Cugy, a 53 year-old Templar who had been keeper of the mills in Paris told an inquisitor that the Visitor of France (a very senior Templar knight) had taken him behind the altar and “kissed him on the base of the spine and the navel”. After that, he was told to spit on the crucifix.
- Ithier of Rochefort under torture admitted to “obscene” kisses and “the incitement to homosexuality”
- Nicholas of Sarra denied the holiness of an effigy of Christ before stripping off and being kissed again at the base of the spine, the navel and the mouth
- Ralph of Grandeville had homosexuality “enjoined upon him” via the usual kisses
- William of Giac said that while he was in Cyprus as a brother serving with the knights, he had “carnal relations” with the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay – who was later burnt at the stake in 1314
Were they all liars? One riposte is that these confessions were extracted under torture and many Templars later retracted their testimonies when summoned to hearings. Yet there were those who stuck to their confessions. They persisted in claiming that at initiation ceremonies, obscene kissing was the order of the day. One described entering a dark room to find the master naked, lying on his back, and demanding a series of kisses all over his body.
FIND OUT MORE: Were the Templars really guilty of sodomy?
Attitudes to homosexuality
It doesn’t matter that the word ‘homosexuality’ didn’t exist. Those who claim that there was no concept of male on male love are talking – with all due respect – out of their backsides. Male on male sexual activity was recognised in medieval law as a sub-set of sodomy. In fact, in legal codes from both western Europe and the Byzantine empire, we see specific punishments for homosexual acts as opposed to ‘sodomy’ in the form of masturbation, anal sex, intercourse with nuns, etc – which were all specified as well – with distinct penalties.
Both homosexuality and non-reproductive heterosexual sex were regarded with contempt – seen as an unbalancing of the divinely ordained natural order. But the coupling of men attracted a particular opprobrium.
In medieval literature from Geoffrey Chaucer’s (died 1400) Pardoner’s Tale to John Gower’s (1330-1408) Confessio Amantis – men who are attracted to other men are derided to varying degrees. But their existence is certainly not denied. Chaucer wonders, in a mocking tone, whether the effeminate Pardoner is a gelding or a mare – eunuch or female. The more conservative Gower regarded same sex as not only the polluting of the individual but a threat to the whole of society.
The response to this from some historians is that only the passive/active or submissive/dominant roles meant anything, as in the Roman Empire. In other words, the modern homosexual/heterosexual dichotomy was alien to medieval people. Ergo, they had no idea that some folks just preferred to bed their own sex. This is a classic case of ‘gay erasure’.
Aside from being entirely untrue, it completely ignores some very explicit references by medieval commentators to men having it off with each other. The passive male might be mocked if he was an elite person allowing himself to be buggered by a lower class man. But, when all is said and done, homosexuals existed. They were recognised, often ridiculed, sometimes – though not that often – executed. Full stop.
It gets tougher for medieval Gays
In the early medieval period, attitudes towards same sex relations were not approving – but neither was stamping it out a top priority. At a time when a teenager was elected pope and the papacy went through a decadent phase, later termed the ‘pornocracy’, there was no moral campaign.
However, that started to change in the 11th century with Saint Peter Damian (1007-1072) publishing his blistering attack on widespread promiscuousness (in his view): Liber Gomorrhianus (The Book of Gomorrah). He urged the death penalty for all forms of sodomy but even at this stage, Pope Leo IX (1002-1054) recommended penance instead.
Into the 12th century – and the era of crusading and the Knights Templar – we get a series of church councils directly addressing sodomy including the Council of London (1102), the Council of Nablus (1120), and the Third Lateran Council (1179). Sodomy was seen as a vice that was undermining Christian control of the Holy Land. And more interestingly, we see the first association of sodomy with heresy. One man committed of this dual crime was said to have ‘committed heresy with his body’ though we are sadly short on specifics.
Why were the two crimes intertwined increasingly? Papal power was reaching its peak and with that came a wave of dissent from ‘heretics’ across Europe. An unnerved papacy set up the inquisition and began training a corps of clerical lawyers to root out heresy. By whatever mental process, inquisitors alighted on the notion that combining heresy with sorcery and sodomy resulted in a prosecution case that was difficult to beat.
But that doesn’t negate the prevalence of homosexual behaviour among those being accused. It simply means that the papal inquisition exaggerated and criminalised it.
LGBT Knights Templar?
There is one account from the Scottish trials of the Templars where a priest claimed that as a child, his schoolmates would chase each other threatening to plant a ‘Templar kiss’. The inference being that the homosexual behaviour of the knights was well known for years.
In the French trials, there were several testimonies detailing kisses all over the body but especially on ‘the base of the spine’. Most alarmingly, this happened to new initiates at rituals conducted behind closed doors.
The kiss on the backside foreshadowed the ‘osculum infame’ – or shameful kiss – that witches were said to offer the devil when he appeared at their black masses. It’s my contention that the Templar trials were, in effect, the first of the witch trials that would transfix Europe from the 15th to early 18th centuries. The knights were being cast as heretics-cum-sorcerers-cum-sodomites.
Another feature of the future witch trials was the involvement of cats as familiars. And in the Templar trials we hear descriptions of felines being kissed very inappropriately! The Templars were not the only alleged heretics abusing cats. Another sect, the Paterines, lowered a cat by a rope from the ceiling during their rituals and kissed its private parts – according to the chronicler Walter Map (1130-c.1209/10), who also despised the Knights Templar.
So, were the Templars guilty of sodomy or were they framed? Views on this have changed among academics over the last hundred years in line with the wider debate around sexuality as we have gone from hostility and prohibition to the liberation politics of the 1960s and 1970s, the era of AIDS in the 1980s, and on to the post-modern vagaries of Queer Theory.
For the record, I’m sure that any gay man in the Middle Ages – realising at some level that he wanted same-sex relations – would have found either the church or the military viable options. A great way to stop your family asking ‘when are you going to get married?’ or worse, trying to marry you off to a nearby cousin.
The Templars offered a unique proposition combining the butchness of military life with the foreswearing of female company. What wasn’t to like? To some historians, this is crass and – clutching their pearls – they declare that a Templar was far too holy and bound by the rule book to consider some hanky panky in the dormitory. I put it to them that boys will be boys.
But was this behaviour institutionalised as the Templar trials suggested? No more so than homosexuality in the Cistercian order or among the Knights Hospitaller would be my guess. And this is where we have to conclude that the charge of sodomy, allied closely to heresy, was a means of denigrating the Templars in order to ban them.
Reality is many sided – one of my favourite maxims! It’s possible that sodomy was both a means of trashing the Templars while it also occurred within the order. Though maybe not in the way described in testimonies derived through torture. Does that seem so far fetched?
If you would like to know more about the Knights Templar, then get your hands on a copy of my book: The Knights Templar – History & Mystery. Published by Pen & Sword and available on Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, and WHSmith. Don’t miss out on your copy!
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