Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/261

 THE TEMPLARS. 245 East shrank more and more, people began to attribute the cease- less misfortunes to the bitter jealousy and animosity existing be- tween the rival Orders of the Temple and the Hospital, which in 1243 had broken out into open war in Palestine, to the great com- fort of the infidel. A remedy was naturally sought in a union of the two Orders, together with that of the Teutonic Knights. At the Council of Lyons, in 1274, Gregory X. vainly endeavored to ef- fect this, but the countervailing influences, including, it was said, the gold of the brethren, were too powerful. In these reproaches perhaps the Orders were held to an undeserved accountability, for while their quarrels and the general misconduct of the Latins in Palestine did much to wreck the kingdom of Jerusalem, the real responsibility lay rather with the papacy. When thousands of heretics were sent as crusaders in punishment, the glory of the service was fatally tarnished. When money raised and vows taken for the Holy Land were diverted to the purposes of the papal power in Italy, when the doctrine was publicly announced that the home interests of the Holy See were more important than the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, the enthusiasm of Christendom against the infidel was chilled. When salvation could be gained at almost any time by a short term of service near home in the quarrels of the Church, whether on the Weser or in Lombardy, the devotion which had carried thousands to the Syrian deserts found a less rugged and a safer path to heaven. It is easy thus to understand how in the development of papal aggrandizement through the thirteenth century recruits and money were lacking to maintain against the countless hordes of Tartars the conquests of Godfrey of Bouillon. In addition to all this the Holy Land was made a penal settlement whither were sent the malefactors of Europe, rendering the Latin colony a horde of miscreants whose crimes deserved and whose disorders invited the vengeance of Heaven.* Hist, des Templiers, Paris, 1789, 1. 340-1.— Prutz, op. cit. pp. 60-1.— Mag. Cbron. Belgic. ann. 1274.— Faucon, Registres de Boniface VIII. No. 1691-2, 1697.— Marin. Sanuti Secret. Fidel. Lib. in. P. ix. c. 1, 2 (Bongars, II. 188-9). The Hospital was open to the same reproaches as the Temple. In 1238 Gregory IX. vigorously assailed the Knights of St John for their abuse of the privileges bestowed on thein — their unchastity and the betrayal of the cause of
 * Matt. Paris, ann. 1228, 1243 (Ed. 1644, p. 240, 420).— -Mansuet le Jeune,