Dear Oro Blanco;
You stated:
How much credence should we grant to confessions which may have been obtained via torture? A man will admit to anything under torture, whether he did it or not - just to end the torture. So were all of these Templar confessions given freely, not due to any torture or under duress?
I have already touched on the subject of confessions being obtained under the possibility of torture, and it seems that the Chinon Parchment asks every Templar, under oath whether they had suffered from any torture at ANY time since they had been apprehended, and if they suffered torture at the hands of either secular or clerical officials. Without exception every Templar swore, under oath that they had NOT been tortured into giving false confessions.
Even during the Middle Ages the Roman Catholic church was opposed to torture as an instrument of extracting confessions and it was used as a method of extracting the truth with extreme prudence, as the Holy See, even during those dark centuries realized that any man could be made to state anything if subjected to sufficient amounts of torture. This is why the Papal representives took great pains to dilligently ask the accused if they had been victims of torture.
Catagorically each Templar replied in the negative. In light of the written evidence one may coclude that not EVERY Templar could have perpetuated the same lie, therefore another theory must be proposed. If we are to believe the documentation of the trials and the following inquisitions, we can then embark upon a different course.
It seems that there does not exist ANY record of Templars being tortured during the 14th and 15th centuries. In fact, the very first records which define the torture of the Templars at the hands of their captors first arose to prominence in the 16th century, during the Protestant Reformation period. Not only did they describe torture, they took care to describe in GREAT DETAIL the methods and duration of the totrtuous acts.
Also, taking into account that the reformers originally stated that hundreds of Templars were killed, these numbers were later increased into the thousands, whereas the official records of the Roman Catholic and the secular European governments show that a total of 9 Templars were executed.
We must remember that these writings occurred some 250 years AFTER the dissolution of the Templar order, therefore we may be able to conclude with certainty that the Protestant reformers made up lies about the trials and torture of the Templars in order to paint the Roman Catholic church as a sect of bloodthirsty fanatics, bent on destruction of anyone do not agree with their rigid domatic views.
This theory can be further expounded upon by the Protestant Reformers detailed descriptions of the Spanish Inquisition, in which they described thousands upon thousands of innocents as being burned at the stake, when in truth, the total number of executed heretics was 468, with only 23 being burned at the stake, the rest being executed by the other popular methods of execution of the time, namely beheading, hanging and strangulation.
It seems that we must disregard historical accounts which occurred after the fact and instead concentrate wholly on firsthand accounts as the later claims paint a completely different picture of the Templar trials. I find it sad that not only are these wild claims are now regarded as gospel when in fact they were only instruments of intentional and deliberate deceit. I also find it sad that nobody has ever made a serious effort to refute these claims for what they are and that people continue to believe in these fantastic lies.
Your friend;
LAMAR
i feel i almost know you by now,ive spent a large portion of the day reading the Montazuma thread..what an ordeal that was , however i was truely hooked and here i am at 3:20am just finished it.
