Witchcraft-and-the-Gay-Counterculture-1

were subjected to torture, many “confessed.” Under an apparentplea-bargaining deal, de Molay himself agreed to plead guilty to rejectingChrist, if the charge of homosexuality was dropped (Legman,107-108). On November 22, Pope Clement issued the bull Pastoralispraeeminentiae, urging all monarchs of Europe to emulate Philippe’saction (Lea, in Legman, 177). In the next few years the Templarswere hunted down all over Europe. Exiled, imprisoned, or executed,they saw their property confiscated, and the order was abolished.Most historians believe that Philippe’s actions were purelymercenary. Although the Templars were founded in 1128 as a monastic,military order of poor crusaders, by the fourteenth centurythey had accumulated vast wealth and had become the chief bankersof the middle ages. Both Pope Clement and Philippe were in debtto them. The Templars had also gained astonishing legal privileges.They were exempt from all taxes, were above secular law, maintainedtheir own set of confessors, and worshipped in their own chapelsfrom which all others were barred. Legally the French Templars werenot even the subjects of Philippe, but were accountable only to thePope (Lea, in Legman, 152). Philippe was desperate for money dueto his huge war debts. Previously he had debased the currency, arrestedall of the Jews in his kingdom, claimed their property, andbanished them (Lea, in Legman, 154). His treatment of the Templarswas consistent with his ruthless policy of subsidizing, by anymeans possible, the emerging apparatus of the nation-state of France.Unlike the witches, no Templar advocated his supposed heresy in theface of torture, and de Molay eventually withdrew his confession,though he knew the withdrawal would cause him to be burned alive(Lea, in Legman, 163). Hence historians are probably right in seeingthe Templars as the victims of a frame-up, having nothing to do witheither heresy or sodomy. The real significance of their trial is that itshows the extent to which heresy had been identified with sodomyand the way in which both charges could be used for political purposes.In 1310, King Philippe brought posthumous charges ofconjuring, apostasy, murder and sodomy against Pope Boniface VIII,who had died in 1303 (Cohn, Demons, 185). His reasons were purelypolitical. In 1296, he had tried to impose a tax on church propertyto pay for his war against England. The Pope issued a bull forbiddingthe tax and excommunicating those who tried to enforce it. TheKing had the Pope arrested, but the latter still refused to withdrawhis excommunication, and soon after died. The only way to invalidatethe excommunication was to have the dead Pope declared aheretic. The effort proved unnecessary, however, when the new Pope,Clement V (a stooge of the King), withdrew the excommunication,at which point the King dropped the case (Cohn, Demons, 182).Despite these cases involving Popes and Kings, inquisitorsspent most of their energy trying to exterminate heretics from the102denial and self-indulgence; 4) hostility to the wealth and power ofthe church; and 5) a tolerance for Gay sex. The underlying force thatnourished these heresies was the surviving paganism of the lowerclasses. Soon the church would move against this paganism itself andcall it “witchcraft.”71