10 - Conclusion

Summary

Few people, surveying the events of the last century, can have any illusions about the capability of the state to oppress organisations, groups or individuals, indeed, even to effect a complete change in mental outlook in those in its power. Both the thirteenth and the twentieth centuries saw great revivals in the use of torture; in both periods it was justified on the grounds that it was needed because of exceptional circumstances. In the thirteenth century, this meant the spread of heresy. It would now be difficult to argue, as some nineteenth-century historians did, that the Templars were guilty of the accusations made against them by the regime of Philip the Fair, or that the confessions demonstrate anything more than the power of torture over the mental and physical resistance of all but the most extraordinary persons. The serving brother, Ponsard of Gizy, who appeared before the papal commission in November, 1309, asserted that all the accusations were false, but nevertheless if he were tortured again he would say whatever anyone wanted. The direct relationship between the confessions and torture can be clearly shown by a survey of the countries in which the trial took place. Where torture was not used as in Cyprus, Aragon and England, it was not possible to obtain confessions; the contrast is especially evident in the results of the proceedings in France and England, two countries which in so many other ways retained close connections in the middle ages.