4 - The Papal and Episcopal Inquiries

Summary

The public harassment of the pope, the climax of six months of intensive activity by the French government, had not succeeded in forcing Clement to revoke his decision to suspend the activities of the inquisitors in the trial. Despite the fact that King Philip effectively controlled both the persons and the property of the Templars, and despite the fact that the papal inquisitor in France, together with most of the north French episcopate, could be mobilised on behalf of the French government, Clement's stubbornness was still an implacable barrier to further progress in the proceedings. This is testimony to the continued importance of the papacy, and indeed of the personalities of individual popes in European politics, and suggests that caution should be exercised before charting prematurely the decline of papal power after the disasters of the pontificate of Boniface VIII. Philip IV still needed Clement V, for all the outrageous language of William of Plaisians.

The king therefore decided to make a placatory public gesture. On 27 June he had seventy-two Templars brought to Poitiers so that they could testify in person before the pope. Philip maintained that the previous December he had not been able to release any of the Templars when they had been demanded by the pope, seemingly because of the problems presented by the fact that they were scattered all over the kingdom.