#OTD in 1307, Philip the Fair had every Knight Templar in France arrested on charges of heresy. The specific charges ran thus:
"...when professing, the brothers were required to deny Christ, to spit on the Cross, and to place three 'obscene kisses' on the lower spine, the navel and the mouth; they were obliged to indulge in carnal relations with other members of the order, if requested; and finally they wore a small belt which had been consecrated by touching a strange idol, which looked like a human head with a long beard."
And so on. When I was researching Anglo-French relations in this period, it was interesting to discover that one of Philip's inquisitors was Jean de Varenne; a baron of Ponthieu who had previously done military service for France in Flanders, as a proxy for his immediate overlord Edward I, who was Count of Ponthieu as well as King of England. Complicated times, very.
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