Note 282 — Chapter V · POLITICAL HERESY UTILIZED BY THE STATE.

Writers unfamiliar with the judicial processes of the period are misled by the customary formula, to the effect that the confirmation of a confession is not obtained by force or fear of torture. See Raynald. ann. 1307, No. 12, and Bini, Dei Tempieri in Toscana, p. 428. Wilcke asserts positively (op. cit. II. 318) that de Molay never was tortured, which may possibly be true (Amalr. Auger. Vit. Clem. V. ap. Muratori III. ii. 461), but he saw his comrades around him subjected to torture, and it was a mere question of strength of nerve whether he yielded before or after the rack. Prutz even says that in England neither torture nor terrorism was employed (Geheimlehre, p. 104), which we will see below was not the case. Van Os (De Abol. Ord. Templ. pp. 107, 109) is bolder, and argues that a confession confirmed after torture is as convincing as if no torture had been used. He carefully suppresses the fact, however, that retraction was held to be relapse and entailed death by burning.

How the system worked is illustrated by the examination of the Preceptor of Cyprus, Raimbaud de Caron, before the inquisitor Guillaume, Nov. 10, 1307. When first interrogated he would only admit that he had been told in the presence of his uncle, the Bishop of Carpentras, that he would have to renounce Christ to obtain admission. He was then removed and subsequently brought back, when he remembered that at his reception he had been forced to renounce Christ and spit on the cross, and had been taught that the gratification of unnatural lust was permissible. Yet this confession, so evidently the result of torture, winds up with the customary formula that he swore it was not the result of force or fear of prison or torture.—Procès. II. 374-5.