Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/318

 302 POLITICAL HERESY.— THE STATE. icy of Philippe with complete success. A large number of the Templars were burned, and he managed to secure most of their property.* In Germany our knowledge of what took place is somewhat fragmentary. The Teutonic Order afforded a career for the Ger- man chivalry, and the Templars were by no means so numerous as in France, their fate was not so dramatic, and it attracted com- paratively little attention from the chroniclers. One annalist in- forms us that they were destroyed with the assent of the Emperor Henry on account of their collusion with the Saracens in Pales- tine and Egypt, and their preparation for establishing a new em- pire for themselves among the Christians, which shows how little impression on the popular mind was made by the assertion of their heresies. For the most part, indeed, the action taken de- pended upon the personal views of the princely prelates who pre- sided over the great archbishoprics. Burchard III. of Magdeburg was the first to act. Obliged to visit the papal court in 1307 to obtain the pallium, he returned in May, 1308, with orders to seize all the Templars in his province; and as he was already hostile to them, he obeyed with alacrity. There were but four houses in his territories : on these and their occupants he laid his hands, leading to a long series of obscure quarrels, in which he incurred excom- munication from the Bishop of Halberstadt, which Clement hast- ened to remove ; by burning some of the more obstinate brethren, moreover, he involved himself in war with their kindred, in which he fared badly. As late as 1318 the Hospitallers are found com- plaining to John XXII. that Templars were still in possession of the greater portion of their property, f The bull Faciens misericordiam of August, 1308, sent to the German prelates, reserved, with Clement's usual policy, the Grand Preceptor of Germany for papal judgment. With the exception of Magdeburg, its instructions for active measures received slack t Gassari Armal. Augstburgens. arm. 1312 (Menken. Scnptt. T. 1473). — Tor- quati Series Pontif. Magdeburg, ann. 1307-8 (Menken. III. 390). — Raynald. ann. 1310, No. 40.— Cbron. Episc. Merseburgens. c. xxvii. § 3 (Ludewig IV. 408). — Bothonis Chron. ann. 1311 (Leibnitz III. 374).— Wilcke. II. 242, 246, 324-5.— Regest. Clement. PP. V. T. V. p. 271.— Schmidt, Pabstliche Urkunden und Re- gesten, Halle, 1886, p. 77.— Havemann, p. 333.
 * Proces, II. 267.— Calmet, Hist. Gen. de Lorraine, II. 436.