Note 342 — Chapter V · POLITICAL HERESY UTILIZED BY THE STATE. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Jo. Hocsemii Gest. Episcc. Leodiens. (Chapeaville, II. 345).—Baudouin, Lettres inédites de Philippe le Bel, p. 179.—Chron. Cornel. Zantfliet ann. 1307 (Martene Ampl. Coll. V. 154).—Bull. Vox in excelso (Van Os, pp. 75-77).—Bern. Guidon. Flor. Chron. (Bouquet, XXI. 721).—Wilcke, II. 307.—Gürtleri Hist. Templarior. Amstel. 1703, p. 365.—Vertot, Hist. des Chev. de Malthe, Ed. 1755, Tom II. p. 136.—Contin. Guill. Nangiac. ann. 1311-12.—Martin. Polon. Contin. (Eccard. I. 1438).—Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. ann. 1307.
When, in 1773, Clement XIV. desired to abolish the Order of Jesuits by an arbitrary exercise of papal power, he did not fail to find a precedent in the suppression of the Templars by Clement V.—as he says in his bull of July 22, 1773, “Etiamsi concilium generale Viennense, cui negotium examinandum commiserat, a formali et definitiva sententia ferenda censuerit se abstinere.”—Bullar. Roman. Contin. Prati, 1847, V. 620.
The wits of the day did not allow the affair to pass unimproved. Bernard Gui cites as current at the time the Leonine verse, “Res est exempli destructa superbia Templi.” Hocsemius quotes for us a chronogram by P. de Awans, possibly alluding to the treasure which Philippe gained—
“Excidium Templi nimia pinguedine rempli Ad LILIVM duo C consocianda doce.”
To minds of other temper there were not lacking portents to prove the anger of Heaven, whether at the crimes of the Order or at its destruction—eclipses of sun and moon, parahelia, paraselenæ, fires darting from earth to heaven, thunder in clear sky. Near Padua a mare dropped a foal with nine feet; flocks of birds of an unknown species were seen in Lombardy; throughout the Paduan territory a rainy winter was succeeded by a dry summer with hail-storms, so that the harvests were a failure. No Etruscan haruspex or Roman augur could wish for clearer omens: it reads like a page of Livy.—Albertini Mussati Hist. August. Rubr. X. XI. (Muratori S. R. I. X. 377-9).-Cf. Ptol. Lucens. Hist. Eccles. Lib. XXIV. (Ib. XI. 1233); Fr. Jordan. Chron. ann. 1314 (Muratori Antiq. XI. 789).