Tobias Daniel Wabbel - The Templar Treasure: An Investigation

The

Templar

Treasure

An Investigation

Tobias Daniel Wabbel

The Templar Treasure: An Investigation

Copyright 2014 Tobias Daniel Wabbel

Presentation Copyright 2014 Trine Day, LLC

Published by:

Trine Day LLC

PO Box 577

Walterville, OR 97489

1-800-556-2012

www.TrineDay.com

publisher@TrineDay.net

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013937959

Wabbel, Tobias Daniel

The Templar Treasure: An Investigation 1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes references and index.

Epud (ISBN-13) 978-1-937584-35-1

Mobi (ISBN-13) 978-1-937584-36-8

Print (ISBN-13) 978-1-937584-34-4

1. Templars--History. I. Wabbel, Tobias Daniel. II. Title

Translated by Sarah Downing of Aardwolf Text Services (www.aardwolf.de)

First Edition

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Printed in the USA

Distribution to the Trade by:

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Dedicated to my wife Anja and Douglas J. Preston

Table of Contents

Jaques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar. Public Domain

Prologue

We do not follow maps to buried treasures and X never, ever marks the spot.

Dr. Henry Jones Jr.

A t dawn, the troops of King Philip IV stormed the headquarters of the Templar Order. The surprise attack on the little fortress inside of Paris, which was dubbed the Temple , was frighteningly easy. The resistance of the Knights Templar was soon broken. At the same time, arrests were taking place throughout the whole of France.

At first, Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, seemed unaware of the hopeless situation. According to the papal bull Omne Datum Optimum issued by Pope Innocent II in 1139, the only person to whom the Templars were answerable was the Pope himself, which had lulled him and his brothers into a false sense of security. Jacques de Molay was the godfather of one of the Kings children and the King had granted the Templar Grand Master his protection in 1303 because the Templars had always managed his assets. How could the King be so unscrupulous? A furious letter from the Pope to Philip IV, who was also known as Phillip the Fair , was simply ignored.

When King Philip IVs militia forced their way into the Temple to plunder the vaults in which the Templar gold was stored, they were disappointed. Only a tiny amount of the immeasurable riches remained. The Templars had already removed the gold, knowing full well that in his desperation the King would resort to violent measures to refill his empty state coffers with fresh gold.

Jacques de Molay realized that the King had his eye on their money, which since their founding in 1129 had been given to them as generous gifts, and there were also the funds they managed for European nobles and kings, and then there was the capital which had grown into exorbitant amounts as the result of credits and loans throughout Europe. The Templars were the inventors of cash-free payments.

In 1307, Philip IV was in dire financial straits. But the Templars were rich at least thats what Philip the Fair thought. The King had no other choice but to take action against the Templars. Philip IV needed the Templars money. In the past, he had even attempted to become a member of their Order, to access their riches. Jacques de Molay had seen through all of Philips plans up to this point. But it appears he hadnt expected such a perfectly organized attack as the wave of arrests that took place on October 13, 1307. Before Jacques de Molay could protest, he and 546 other Templars throughout the whole of France were put in chains.

After the arrest of the Templars in France, Pope Clement V gave in to the pressure of the King and his crafty chancellor Guillaume de Nogaret. On November 22, 1307, the Pope issued his papal bull Pastoralis praeeminentiae . It decreed that nobody was above the Church, not even the Templars. He didnt utter a word about the innocence of the order of warrior monks. Instead, Clement V ordered the arrest of Templars throughout the whole of Europe and the seizure of their properties. A surprising change of mind. Soon after, Templars in England, Ireland, Wales, Italy, Germany and Spain were arrested and accused of heresy.

The wave of arrests was preceded by decisive political events. In 1306, Jacques de Molay had offered Philip IV shelter in the Temple when the starving population was hunting the King through the streets of Paris because he had devalued their currency. This may have been when Philip the Fair glanced in the Templar treasury.

On April 8, 1307, Jacques de Molay defiantly refused an offer of Pope Clement V to merge the Knights Templar with the Order of St. John. This proposal had been based on a crafty strategy of Philip the Fair to take advantage of the political weakness of Pope Clement V. The Knights of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem Knights of St. John for short were subject to the direct orders of the King, but the Templar Order was not.

De Molay knew that the merging of the Templars with the Knights of St. John would mean an end to all of their privileges. These included the exemption from all taxes, the right to build their own churches and the duty to display absolute obedience only to the Pope. Jacques de Molay knew that if he said yes, the Templars would lose their identity and become the Kings pawns. So he refused the offer of Pope Clement V. The King must have been fuming when he read De Molays answer that a unified order would be so strong and powerful that it could defend its rights against anyone, even the King. A clever manipulation of the King.

When Philips ruse failed, he was left with only one way to violently destroy the Templar Order: to accuse them of heresy. This happened a lot in the Middle Ages. Previously, Philip IV had used slander and denunciation to disempower Pope Boniface VIII who had decreed in 1302 that the Church held ultimate authority over all worldly, and thus regal, powers. With no further ado, Philip IV had Boniface arrested and he died a few weeks later, a shocked and broken man.

Philips plans to destroy the Templars were already so far progressed that on August 24, 1307, Pope Clement V gave in to the pressure of the King and commissioned Grand Inquisitor Guillaume Imbert to investigate their crimes. On September 14, 1307, Philip IV, who was burdened with debts as a result of the wars he had been embroiled in, sent out a sealed order to the Kings Seneschals and bailiffs throughout the whole of France to arrest all Templars in the land on October 13.

The charges consist of seven main accusations and a total of 127 items. The most severe accusations were: denying Christ, the Virgin Mary and spitting or urinating on the cross; worshiping idols; denying the sacraments and, not least, homosexual acts as part of the initiation rites. The Templars were accused of the most severe heresies you could commit in the Middle Ages. Jacques de Molay was soon painfully aware that he had underestimated the King.

The trial against the Knights Templar lasted until 1312. The interrogation methods were imaginative, to put it mildly: The accuseds hands were bound behind his back, he was pulled off the ground with ropes and then suddenly dropped, breaking his bones and tearing his tendons. But the incredible torture repertoire also included hot irons, crushed fingers and feet, torn out teeth and hair and burning feet over hot coals and fires. Subjected to these torture methods, the Templars would confess anything.