Читать книгу: «The Knights Templars», страница 21

After the return of this inquisition, the said sanctified places were assigned to the prior and brethren of the Hospital of Saint John; and the king, on the 11th of January, in the tenth year of his reign, A. D. 1337, directed his writ to the barons of the Exchequer, commanding them to take inquisition of the value of the said sanctified places, so given up to the Hospitallers, and of the residue of the Temple, and certify the same under their seals to the king, in order that a reasonable abatement might be made in William de Langford’s rent. From the inquiry made in pursuance of this writ before John de Shoreditch, a baron of the Exchequer, it further appears that on the said residue of the Temple upon the land then remaining in the custody of William de Langford, and withinside the great gate of the Temple, were another HALL and four chambers connected therewith, a kitchen, a garden, a stable, and a chamber beyond the great gate; also eight shops, seven of which stood in Fleet Street, and the eighth in the suburb of London, without the bar of the New Temple; that the annual value of these shops varied from ten to thirteen, fifteen, and sixteen shillings; that the fruit out of the garden of the Temple sold for sixty shillings per annum in the gross, that seven out of the thirteen houses erected by Roger Blom were each of the annual value of eleven shillings; and that the eighth, situated beyond the gate of entrance to the church, was worth four marks per annum. It appears, moreover, that the total annual revenue of the Temple then amounted to 73l. 6s. 11d., equal to about 1,000l. of our present money, and that William de Langford was abated 12l. 4s. 2d. of the said rent.¹⁷⁸

Three years after the taking of this inquisition, and in the thirteenth year of his reign, A. D. 1340, king Edward the Third, in consideration of the sum of one hundred pounds, which the prior of the Knights Hospitallers promised to pay him towards the expense of his expedition into France, granted to the said prior all the residue of the Temple then remaining in the king’s hands, to hold, together with the cemetery, cloisters, and the other sanctified places, to the said prior and his brethren, and their successors, of the king and his heirs, for charitable purposes, for ever. From this grant it appears that the porter of the Temple received sixty shillings and tenpence per annum, and twopence a day wages, which were to be paid him by the Hospitallers. At this period Philip Thane was prior of the Hospital; and he exerted himself to impart to the celebration of divine service in the Temple Church, the dignity and the splendour it possessed in the time of the Templars. He, with the unanimous consent and approbation of the whole chapter of the Hospital, granted to Hugh de Lichefield, priest, and to his successors, guardians of the Temple Church, towards the improvement of the lights and the celebration of divine service therein, all the land called Ficketzfeld, and the garden called Cotterell Garden; and two years afterwards he made a further grant, to the said Hugh and his successors, of a thousand fagots a year to be cut out of the wood of Lilleston, and carried to the New Temple to keep up the fire in the said church.¹⁷⁹

King Edward III., in the thirty-fifth year of his reign, A. D. 1362, notwithstanding the grant of the Temple to the Hospitallers, exercised the right of appointing to the porter’s office, and by his letter patent he promoted Roger Small to that post for the term of his life, in return for the good service rendered him by the said Roger Small.¹⁸⁰

It appears that the lawyers in the Temple had at this period their purveyor of provisions as at present, and were then keeping commons or dining together in the hall. The poet Chaucer, who was born at the close of the reign of Edward II., A. D. 1327, and was in high favour at court in the reign of Edward III., thus speaks of the Manciple, or the purveyor of provisions of the lawyers in the Temple: —

 
“A gentil Manciple was there of the Temple,
Of whom achatours mighten take ensample,
For to ben wise in bying of vitaille.
For whether that he paid or toke by taille,
Algate he waited so in his achate,
That he was aye before in good estate.
Now is not that of God a full fayre grace,
That swiche a lewed mannes wit shal pace,
The wisdome of an hepe of lerned men?”
“Of maisters had he mo than thries ten,
That were of lawe expert and curious;
Of which there was a dosein in that hous
Worthy to ben stewardes of rent and lond
Of any lord that is in Englelond,
To maken him live by his propre good,
In honour detteles, but if he were wood,
Or live as scarsly, as him list desire;
And able for to helpen all a shire,
In any cas that mighte fallen or happe;
And yet this manciple sette hir aller cappe.”¹⁸¹
 

At the period of the dissolution of the order of the Templars many of the retainers of the ancient knights were residing in the Temple, supported by pensions from the crown. These were of the class of free servants of office, they held their posts for life, and not having been members of the order, they were not included in the general proscription of the fraternity. On the seizure by the sheriffs and royal officers of the property of their ancient masters, they had been reduced to great distress, and had petitioned the king to be allowed their customary stipends. Edward II. had accordingly granted to Robert Styfford clerk, chaplain of the Temple Church, two deniers a day for his maintenance in the house of the Temple at London, and five shillings a year for necessaries, provided he did service in the Temple Church; and when unable to do so, he was to receive only his food and lodging. Geoffrey Talaver, Geoffrey de Cave, clerk, and John de Shelton, were also, each of them, to receive for their good services, annual pensions for the term of their lives. Some of these retainers, in addition to their various stipends, were to have a gown of the class of free-serving brethren of the order of the Temple each year; one old garment out of the stock of old garments belonging to the brethren; one mark a year for their shoes, &c.; their sons also received so much per diem, on condition that they did the daily work of the house.¹⁸² These domestics and retainers of the ancient brotherhood of the Knights Templars, appear to have transferred their services to the learned society of lawyers established in the Temple, and to have continued and kept alive amongst them many of the ancient customs and observances of the old Knights. The chaplain of the Temple Church took his meals in the hall with the lawyers as he had been wont to do with the Knights Templars; and the rule of their order requiring “two and two to eat together,” and “all the fragments to be given in brotherly charity to the domestics,” continued to be observed, and prevails to this day; whilst the attendants at table continued to be, and are still called paniers, as in the days of the Knights Templars.¹⁸³

In the sixth year of the reign of Edward III., (A. D. 1333,) a few years after the lawyers had established themselves in the convent of the Temple, the judges of the Court of Common Pleas were made KNIGHTS,¹⁸⁴ being the earliest instance on record of the grant of the honour of knighthood for services purely civil, and the professors of the common law, who had the exclusive privilege of practising in that court, assumed the title or degree of FRERES SERJENS or FRATRES SERVIENTES, so that an order of knights and serving-brethren was most curiously revived in the Temple, and introduced into the profession of the law. It is true that the word serviens, serjen, or serjeant, was applied to the professors of the law long before the reign of Edward III., but not to denote a privileged brotherhood. It was applied to lawyers in common with all persons who did any description of work for another, from the serviens domini regis ad legem, who prosecuted the pleas of the crown in the county court, to the serviens or serjen who walked with his cane before the concubine of the patriarch Heraclius in the streets of Jerusalem. The priest who worked for the Lord was called serjen de Dieu, and the lover who served the lady of his affections serjen d’amour. It was in the order of the Temple that the word freres serjens or fratres servientes first signified an honorary title or degree, and denoted a powerful privileged class of brethren. The fratres servientes armigeri or freres serjens des armes, of the chivalry of the Temple, were of the rank of gentlemen. They united in their own persons the monastic and the military character, they were allotted one horse each, they wore the cross of the order of the Temple on their breasts, they participated in all the privileges of the brotherhood, and were eligible to the dignity of Preceptor. Large sums of money were frequently given by seculars who had not been advanced to the honour of knighthood, to be admitted amongst this highly esteemed order of men. These freres serjens of the Temple wore linen coifs, and red caps close over them.¹⁸⁵ At the ceremony of their admission into the fraternity, the Master of the Temple placed the coif upon their heads, and threw over their shoulders the white mantle of the Temple; he then caused them to sit down on the ground, and gave them a solemn admonition concerning the duties and responsibilities of their profession. The knights and Serjeants of the common law, on the other hand, have ever constituted a privileged fraternity, and always address one another by the endearing term brother. The religious character of the ancient ceremony of admission into this legal brotherhood, which took place in the Temple Church, and its striking similarity to the ancient mode of reception into the fraternity of the Temple, are curious and remarkable. “Capitalis Justitiarius,” says an ancient MS. account of the creation of serjeants-at-law, “monstrabat eis plura bona exempla de eorum prædecessoribus, et tunc. posuit les coyfes super eorum capitibus, et induebat eos singulariter de capital de skarletto, et sic creati fuerunt servientes ad legem.” In his admonitory exhortation, the chief-justice displays to them the moral and religious duties of their profession. “Ambulate in vocatione in quâ vocati estis… Disce cultum Dei, reverentiam superioris, misericordiam pauperi.” He tells them the coif is sicut vestis candida et immaculata, the emblem of purity and virtue, and he commences a portion of his discourse in the scriptural language used by the popes in the famous bull conceding to the Templars their vast spiritual and temporal privileges, “Omne datum optimum et omne donum perfectum desursum est descendens a patre luminum,” &c. &c.¹⁸⁶ It has been supposed that the coif was first introduced by the clerical practitioners of the common law to hide the tonsure of those priests who practised in the Court of Common Pleas, notwithstanding the ecclesiastical prohibition. This was not the case. The early portraits of our judges exhibit them with a coif of very much larger dimensions than the coifs now worn by the serjeants-at-law, very much larger than would be necessary to hide the mere clerical tonsure. A covering for that purpose indeed would be absurd.

From the inquisition into the state of the Temple, taken 10 E. III., A. D. 1337, it appears, as we have already seen, that in the time of the Knights Templars there were TWO HALLS in the Temple, the one being the hall of the knights, and the other the hall of the freres serjens, or serving-brethren of the order. One of these halls, the present Inner Temple Hall, had been assigned, the year previous to the taking of that inquisition, to the prior and brethren of the Hospital of Saint John, together with the church, cloisters, &c., as before mentioned, whilst the other hall remained in the hands of the crown, and was not granted to the Hospitallers until 13 E. III., A. D. 1340. It was probably soon after this period that the Hospitallers conceded the use of both halls to the professors of the law, and these last, from dining apart and being attached to different halls, at last separated into two societies. When the lawyers originally came into the Temple as lessees of the earl of Lancaster, they found engraved upon the ancient buildings the armorial bearings of the order of the Temple, which were, on a shield argent, a plain cross gules, and (brochant sur le tout) the holy lamb bearing the banner of the order, surmounted by a red cross. These arms remained the emblem of the Temple until the fifth year of the reign of queen Elizabeth, when unfortunately the society of the Inner Temple, yielding to the advice and persuasion of Master Gerard Leigh, a member of the College of Heralds, abandoned the ancient and honourable device of the Knights Templars, and assumed in its place a galloping winged horse called a Pegasus, or, as it has been explained to us, “a horse striking the earth with its hoof, or Pegasus luna on a field argent!” Master Gerard Leigh, we are told, “emblazoned them with precious stones and planets, and by these strange arms he intended to signify that the knowledge acquired at the learned seminary of the Inner Temple would raise the professors of the law to the highest honours, adding, by way of motto, volat ad æthera virtus, and he intended to allude to what are esteemed the more liberal sciences, by giving them Pegasus forming the fountain of Hippocrene, by striking his hoof against the rock, as a proper emblem of lawyers becoming poets, as Chaucer and Gower, who were both of the Temple!”

The Society of the Middle Temple, with better taste, still preserves, in that part of the Temple over which its sway extends, the widely-renowned and time-honoured badge of the ancient order of the Temple.

On the dissolution of the order of the Hospital of Saint John, (32 Hen. 8,) the Temple once more reverted to the crown, and the lawyers again became the immediate lessees of the sovereign. In the reign of James I., however, some Scotchman attempted to obtain from his majesty a grant of the fee simple or inheritance of the Temple, which being brought to the knowledge of the two law societies, they forthwith made “humble suit” to the king, and obtained a grant of the property to themselves. By letters patent, bearing date at Westminster the 13th of August, in the sixth year of his reign, A. D. 1609, king James granted the Temple to the Benchers of the two societies, their heirs and assigns for ever, for the lodging, reception, and education of the professors and students of the laws of England, the said Benchers yielding and paying to the said king, his heirs and successors, ten pounds yearly for the mansion called the Inner Temple, and ten pounds yearly for the Middle Temple.¹⁸⁷

There are but few remains of the ancient Knights Templars now existing in the Temple beyond the Church. The present Inner Temple Hall was the ancient Hall of the Knights, but it has at different periods been so altered and repaired as to have lost almost every trace and vestige of antiquity. In the year 1816 it was nearly rebuilt, and the following extract from “The Report and Observations of the Treasurer on the late Repairs of the Inner Temple Hall,” may prove interesting, as showing the state of the edifice previous to that period. “From the proportions, the state of decay, the materials of the eastern and southern walls, the buttresses of the southern front, the pointed form of the roof and arches, and the rude sculpture on the two doors of public entrance, the hall is evidently of very great antiquity… The northern wall appears to have been rebuilt, except at its two extremities, in modern times, but on the old foundations… The roof was found to be in a very decayed and precarious state. It appeared to have undergone reparation at three separate periods of time, at each of which timber had been unnecessarily added, so as finally to accumulate a weight which had protruded the northern and southern walls. It became, therefore, indispensable to remove all the timber of the roof, and to replace it in a lighter form. On removing the old wainscoting of the western wall, a perpendicular crack of considerable height and width was discovered, which threatened at any moment the fall of that extremity of the building with its superincumbent roof… The turret of the clock and the southern front of the hall are only cased with stone; this was done in the year 1741, and very ill executed. The structure of the turret, composed of chalk, ragstone, and rubble, (the same material as the walls of the church,) seems to be very ancient… The wooden cupola of the bell was so decayed as to let in the rain, and was obliged to be renewed in a form to agree with the other parts of the southern front.”

“Notwithstanding the Gothic character of the building, in the year 1680, during the treasurership of Sir Thomas Robinson, prothonotary of C. B., a Grecian screen of the Doric order was erected, surmounted by lions’ heads, cones, and other incongruous devices. In the year 1741, during the treasurership of John Blencowe, esq., low windows of Roman architecture were formed in the southern front. The dates of such innovations appear from inscriptions with the respective treasurers’ names.”

This ancient hall formed the far-famed refectory of the Knights Templars, and was the scene of their proud and sumptuous hospitality. Within its venerable walls they at different periods entertained king John, king Henry the Third, the haughty legates of the Roman pontiffs, and the ambassadors of foreign powers. The old custom, alluded to by Matthew Paris, (ante, p. 203,) of hanging around the walls the shields and armorial devices of the ancient knights, is still preserved, and each succeeding treasurer of the Temple still continues to hoist his coat of arms on the wall, as in the high and palmy days of the warlike monks of old. Here, in the time of the Knights Templars, the discipline was administered to disobedient brethren, who were scourged upon their bare backs with leathern thongs. Here also was kept, according to the depositions of the witnesses who brought such dark and terrible accusations against the Templars before the ecclesiastical tribunal assembled in London, the famous black idol with shining eyes, and the gilded head, which the Templars worshipped! and from hence was taken the refractory knight, who having refused to spit upon the cross, was plunged into the well which stood in the middle of the Temple court! The general chapters of the Templars were frequently held in the Temple Hall, and the vicar of the church of St. Clements at Sandwich, swore before the Papal inquisitors assembled at London, that he had heard that a boy had been murdered by the Templars in the Temple, because he had crept by stealth into the Hall to witness the proceedings of the assembled brethren.

At the west end of the hall are considerable remains of the ancient convent of the Knights. A groined Gothic arch of the same style of architecture as the oldest part of the Temple Church forms the roof of the present buttery, and in the apartment beyond is a groined vaulted ceiling of great beauty. The ribs of the arches in both rooms are elegantly moulded, but are sadly disfigured with a thick coating of plaster and barbarous whitewash. In the cellars underneath these rooms are some old walls of immense thickness, the remains of an ancient window, a curious fireplace, and some elegant pointed Gothic arches corresponding with the ceilings above; but they are now, alas! shrouded in darkness, choked with modern brick partitions and staircases, and soiled with the damp and dust of many centuries. These interesting remains form an upper and an under story, the floor of the upper story being on a level with the floor of the hall, and the floor of the under story on a level with the terrace on the south side thereof. They were formerly connected with the church by means of a covered way or cloister, which ran at right angles with them over the site of the present cloister-chambers, and communicated with the upper and under story of the chapel of St. Anne, which formerly stood on the south side of the church. By means of this corridor and chapel the brethren of the Temple had private access to the church for the performance of their strict religious duties, and of their secret ceremonies of admitting novices to the vows of the order. In 9 Jac. I., A. D. 1612, some brick buildings three stories high were erected over this ancient cloister by Francis Tate, esq., and being burnt down a few years afterwards, the interesting covered way which connected the church with the ancient convent was involved in the general destruction, as appears from the following inscription upon the present buildings: – Vetustissima Templariorum porticu igne consumpta, anno 1678, Nova hæc, sumptibus Medii Templi extructa, anno 1681, Gulielmo Whitelocke armigero, thesaurario. “The very ancient portico of the Templars being consumed by fire in the year 1678, these new buildings were erected at the expense of the Middle Temple in the year 1681, during the treasurership of William Whitelocke, esq.”

The cloisters of the Templars formed the medium of communication between the halls, of the church, and the cells of the serving brethren of the order. During the formation of the present new entrance into the Temple, by the church, at the bottom of the Inner Temple lane, a considerable portion of the brickwork of the old houses was pulled down, and an ancient wall of great thickness was disclosed. It was composed of chalk, ragstone, and rubble, exactly resembling the walls of the church. It ran in a direction east and west, and appeared to have formed the extreme northern boundary of the old convent. The exact site of the remaining buildings of the ancient Temple cannot now be determined with certainty.

Among the many interesting objects to be seen in the ancient church of the Knights Templars which still exists in a wonderful state of preservation, is the Penitential Cell, a dreary place of solitary confinement formed within the thick wall of the building, only four feet six inches long and two feet six inches wide, so narrow and small that a grown person cannot lie down within it.¹⁸⁸ In this narrow prison the disobedient brethren of the ancient Templars were temporarily confined in chains and fetters, “in order that their souls might be saved from the eternal prison of hell.” The hinges and catch of a door firmly attached to the doorway of this dreary chamber still remain, and at the bottom of the staircase is a stone recess or cupboard, where bread and water were placed for the prisoner. In this cell Brother Walter le Bachelor, Knight, Grand Preceptor of Ireland, is said to have been starved to death.

THE END