SPEEDKAH ENTERTAINMENT: Born in Blood

BORNIN

BLOOD

THE LOST SECRETS

OF FREEEMASONRY

JOHN J. ROBINSON

Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication pata

Robinson, John J.

Born in blood: the lost secrets offreemasonry / John J. Robinson.

p. em.

Includes bibliographical references.

Introduction: In Search ofthe Great Society xi

Part t z THE KNIGHTSTEMPlAR

CHAPTER 1: The Urge To Kill 3

CHAPTER 2: "ForNow IsTyme To Be War" 17

CHAPTER 3: "WhetherJustly or Out ofHate" 37

CHAPTER 4: "First, and Above All ...The Destruction of

. . the Hospitallers" 46

CHAPTER 5: The Knights ofthe Temple 63

CHAPTER 6: The Last Grand Master 79

CHAPTER 7: 4'The Hammer ofthe Scots" 99

CHAPTER 8: Four Vicars ofChrist 116

CHAPTER 9: "Spare No Known Means ofTorture" 127

CHAPTER 10: "NoViolent Effusions ofBlood" 144

CHAPTER 11: Men on the Run 159

Put2zTHE FREEMASONS

Prologue 173

CHAPTER 12: The Birth ofGrand Lodge 175

CHAPTER 13: In Search ofthe Medieval Guilds 188

CHAPTER 14: "To Have My Throat Cut Across" 201

CHAPTER 15: "My Breast Tom Open, My Heart Plucked

Out" 210

CHAPTER 16: The Master Mason 215

_____________________________________________________________________________

Acknowledgments

Special thanks are due to the Reverend Martin Chadwick,

M.A., Rural Dean of Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, who

obtained permission for me to use the Bodleian Library and its

Radcliffe Camera at Oxford University in England. In that same

locale, special thanks must also be expressed to Dr. Maurice Keen

of Balliol College, who took time from his crowded schedule for

a tutorial session with an amateur American historian. His

insights into aspects of the Peasants' Revolt and of the teachings

of John Wycliffe and of the Lollard Knights provided fresh start

ing points for research. The willing assistance of librarians is too

often overlooked, so I would like to express appreciation for the

helpful attitudes of the staff members of the libraries in Oxford

and Lincoln in England, as well as those of New York's Forty

second Street library and the public library of Cincinnati. I was

also given most gracious treatment at the county archives of

Oxfordshire and at the Lincolnshire County Museum.

Recognition should also be given to a number of Freemasons

of various degrees who shared with me not the "secrets" of the

order, but rather their understandings ofthe origins and purposes

of the fraternity as expressed to them by Masonic writers and lec

turers.

Itshould be noted that although I received a great deal of gen

erous help, the opinions expressed and the conclusions reached

in this book are my own.

As for the contributions of my wife, they are difficult to enu

merate. The manuscript was not just typed but reviewed for c1ar

BORN IN BLOOD

ity as well as for accuracy of dates and geography. She assisted in

four years of research and enthusiastically discussed the outline

and content ofeach chapter. Her knowledge ofFrench eased that

aspect of the research, and most of the sources'in England came

as a result of the friends and contacts she had made over a period

of years as an educator in Oxfordshire. ~.

Finally, a word of explanation about the dedication'of ,this

book. ~R. Wallin is not a "Master Craftsman" in the symbolic

Masonic sense but is literally a master worker in iron and steel.

During working hours his forge turns out decorative iron gates

., and brackets' and furniture, but in his spare time it gives way to

, ;,

his fascination with the medieval period by producing such items

as a mace, a dagger, or a jousting helmet. The hours spent with

" him talking about the Crusades and the Templars helped to keep

up 'my enthusiasm for the project. I chose to dedicate this book

to him because I think we should all encourage rare breeds, and

there can't be many people left on this earth who spend winter

evenings interlocking thousands of handmade loops to create a

coat of chain mail.

John J. Robinson

Twin Brook Farm

Carroll County, Kentucky

Introduction

In Search ofthe Great Society

The research behind this book was not originally intended to

reveal anything about Freemasonry or the Knights Templar. Its

objective had been to satisfy my own curiosity about certain

unexplained aspects ofthe Peasants' Revolt in England in 1381,

a savage uprising that saw upwards of a hundred thousand

Englishmen march on London. They moved in uncontrolled

rage, burning down manor houses, breaking open prisons, and

cutting down .any who stood in their way.

One unsolved mystery of that revolt' was the orgariization

behind it. For several years a group of disgruntled priests of the

lower clergy had traveled the towns, preaching against the riches

and cormption of the church. During the months before the

uprising, secret meetings had, been held throughout central

England by men weaving a network ofcommunication. After the

revolt was put down; rebel leaders confessed to being agents of a

Great Society, said to be based in London. So very little is known

of that alleged organization that several scholars have solved the

mystery simply by deciding that no' such secret society ever

existed.

Another mystery was the concentrated and especially vicious

attacks on the religious order of the Knights Hospitaller of St.

John, now known as the Knights of'Malta. Not only did the rebels

seek out their properties for vandalism and fire, but their prior

BORN IN BLOOD

was dragged from the Tower of London to have his head struck

off and placed on London Bridge, to the delight of the cheering

mob.

There was no question that the ferocity unleashed on the cru

sading Hospitallers had a purpose behind it. One captured rebel

leader, when asked the reasons for the revolt, said, "First, and

above all ... the destruction of the Hospitallers." What kind of

secret society could have had that special hatred as one of its pri

mary purposes?

A desire for vengeance against the Hospitallers was easy to

identify in the rival crusading order of the Knights of the Temple

of Solomon in Jerusalem. The problem was.that those Knights

Templar had been completely suppressed almost seventy years

before the Peasants' Revolt, following several years during which

the Templars had been imprisoned, tortured, and burned at the

stake. After issuing the decree that put an end to the Templar

order, Pope Clement V had directed that all of the extensive

properties of the Templars should be given to the Hospitallers.

Could a Templar desire for revenge actuallyhave survived under

ground for three generations?

There was no incontrovertible proof, yet the only evidence sug

gests the existence of just one secret society in fourteenth

century England, the society that was, or would become, the

I order of Free and Accepted Masons. There appeared to be no

1 1

" connection, however, between the revolt and Freemasonry,

'Iii except for the name or titIe.of its leader. He occupied the center

1 I

I, stage of English history for just eight days and nothing is known

ii! of him except that he was the supreme commander of the rebel

lion. He was called Walter the Tyler, and it seemed at first to be

II'

mere coincidence that he bore the title of the enforcement offi

Iii

1',1 cer ofthe Masonic lodge. In Freemasonry the Tyler, who must be

1:1 a Master Mason, is the sentry, the sergeant-at-arms, and the offi

III cer who screens the credentials of visitors who seek entrance to

the lodge. In remembrance of an earlier, more dangerous time,

Iii;

his post is just outside the door of the lodge room, where he

,I stands with a drawn sword in his hand.

1 I was aware that there had been many attempts in the past to

link the Freemasons with the Knights Templar, but never with

success. The fragile evidence advanced by proponents of that

iili

connection had never held up, someti~es because it was based

Ilil

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(

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----------------------- Page 10-----------------------

INTRODUCTION xiii

on wild speculation, and at least once because it had been based

on a deliberate forgery. But despite the failures to establish that

link, it just will not go away, and the time-shrouded belief in some

relationship between the two orders remains as one of the more •

durable legends of Freemasonry. That is entirely appropriate,

because all of the various theories of the origins of Freemasonry

are legendary. Not one of them is supported by any universally

accepted evidence. I was not about to travel down that time-worn

trail, and decided to concentrate my efforts on digging deeper

into the history of the Knights Templar, to see if there was any

link between the suppressed Knights and the secret society

behind the Peasants' Revolt. In doing so, I thought that I would

be leaving Freemasonry far behind. I couldn't have been more

mistaken.

Like anyone curious about medieval history, I had developed

an interest in the Crusades, and perhaps more than just an inter

est. Those holy wars hold an appeal that is frequently as romantic

as it is historical, and in my travels I had tried to drink in the atmo

sphere of the narrow defiles in the mountains of Lebanon

through which Crusader armies had passed, and had sat staring at

the castle ruins around Sidon and Tyre, trying to hear the clash·

ing sounds of attack and defense. I had marveled at the walls of

Constantinople and had strolled the Arsenal of Venice, where

Crusader fleets were assembled. I had sat in the round church of

the Knights Templar in London, trying to imagine the ceremony

of its consecration by the Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1185, more

than three hundred years before Columbus set sail west to the

Indies.

The Templar order was founded in Jerusalem in 1118, in the

aftermath of the First Crusade. Its name came from the location

of its first headquarters on the site of the ancient Temple of Sol

omon. Helping to fill a desperate need for a standing army in the

Holy Land, the Knights of the Temple soon grew in numbers, in

wealth, and in political power. They also grew in arrogance, and

their Grand Master de Ridfort was a key figure in the mistakes

that led to the fall of Jerusalem in 1187. The Latin Christians

managed to hold onto a narrow strip of territory along the coast,

Where the Templars were among the largest owners of the land

and fortifications.

Finally, the enthusiasm for sending men and money to the

----------------------- Page 11-----------------------

xlv BORN IN BLOOD

Holy Land waned among the European kingdoms, which were

preoccupied with their wars against each other. By ·1296 the

Egyptian sultan was able to push the resident Crusaders, along

• with the military orders, into the sea. The Holy Land was lost, and

the defeated .Knights Templar moved their base to the island

kingdom of Cyprus, dreaming ofyet one more Crusade to restore

,their past, glory.

, As the Templars planned a new Crusade against the infidel,

King. Philip IV of France was planning his own private crusade

against the Templars. He longed to be rid of his massive debts to

the Templar order, which had used its wealth to establish a major

,banking operation. Philip wanted the Templar treasure' to

finance his continental wars against Edward lof England.

After two decades of fighting England on one side and the Holy

Roman Church on the other, two unrelated events gave Philip of

France the opportunity he needed. Edward I died, and his deplor

ably weak son took the throne of England as Edward II. On the

other front, Philip was able to get his own man on the Throne of

Peter as Pope Clement V.

,When word arrived on Cyprus that the new pope would mount

a Crusade, the Knights Templar thought that their time ofresto

ration to glory was ,at hand. Summoned to France, their aging

grand master, Jacques de Molay, went armed with elaborate plans

for the rescue of Jerusalem. In Paris, he was humored and hon

ored until the· fatal day. At dawn on Friday, the thirteenth of

October, 1307, every Templarin France was arrested and putin

chains on Philip's orders. Their hideous torture for confessions of

heresy began immediately.

When the pope's orders to arrest the Templars arrived at the

English court, young Edward II took no action at all. He protested

to the pontiff that the Templars were innocent. Only after the

pope issued a· formal bull was the English king forced to act. In

January, 1308, Edward finally issued orders for the arrest ofthe

Knights Templar in England, but the three months of warning

had been put to good use. Many ofthe Templars had gone under

ground, while some' of those arrested managed to escape. Their

treasure, their jeweled reliquaries, even the bulk of their records,

had disappeared. In Scotland, the papal order was noteven pub

lished. Under those conditions England, and especially Scotland,

became targeted havens for fugitive Templars from continental

----------------------- Page 12-----------------------

INTRODUCnON xv

Europe, and the efficiency of their concealment spoke to some

assistance 'from outside, or from each' other. "

The English 'throne passed from Edward II to Edward III, who

bequeathed the crown to his ten-year-old grandson who, as Rich

ard II, watched from the Tower as the Peasants' Revolt exploded

throughout the City of London.

Much hadrhappened to-the English people along the way.

Incessant wars had drained most of the king's treasury and cor

ruption had taken the rest.A third ofthe population had perished

in the Black Death, and famine exacted further tolls. The

reduced labor force of farmers and craftsmen found that they

could earn more for their labor, bubtheir increased income came

at the expense of land-owning barons and bishops, who were not

prepared to'tolerate such a state of affairs. Laws were passed to

reduce wages and prices to prepla'gue levels, and genealogies were

searchecl,to reimpose the bondage' of serfdom and villeinage on

men who thought themselves free. THe king's need for money to

fight his French wars inspired new and ingenious' taxes. The

oppression was coming from all sides, and the pot ofrebellion was

brought'to the boil. '

Religion didn't help, either. The landowning church was as

merciless a 'master as the landowning nobility. Religion would

have been a souTce ofconfusion for the fugitive Templarsas well.

They were'3 religious body ofwarrior monks who owed allegiance

to no man on earth except the Holy Father. When their pope

turned on them, chained them, beat them, he broke their link

with God. In fourteenth-century Europe there was no pathway to

God except through the'vicar of Christ on earth. If the pope

rejected the Templars and the Templarsrejected the pope, they

had to find a'new way to worship their God, at a time when ,any

variation from the'teachings of the established church was

blasted as heresy. .' ,',

That dilemma called to mind the central tenet of Freemasonry,

which requires only that a man believe in a Supreme Being, with

no requirements as to how he worshipsthedeity of his choice. In

Catholic Britain such a belief would have been a crime, but it

would 'have accommodated the fugitive Templars who had been

cut off from the 'universal church. In consideration of the

extreme punishment for heresy; such an independent belief also

made sense ofone of the more mysterious of Freemasonry's Old

----------------------- Page 13-----------------------

Charges, the ancient rules that still govern the conduct ofthe fra

'I!

ternity. The Charge says that no Mason should reveal the secrets

of a brother that may deprive him of his life and property.

1[1 That connection caused me to take a different look at the

Masonic Old Charges. They took on new direction and meaning

when viewed as a set of instructions for a secret society created

I'il to assist and protect fraternal brothers on the ron and in hiding

Iii from the church. That characterization made no sense in the con

Iii

1,1'1 text of a medieval guild of stonemasons, the usual claim for the

II . .roots of Freemasonry. Itdid make a great deal of sense, however,

III!, for men such as the fugitive Templars, whose very lives depended

, I

upon their conceahnent. Nor would there have been any problem

1.1 111 : '1 in finding new recruits over the years ahead: There were to be

1 '1 plenty of protestors and dissidents against the church among

I, future generations. The rebels of.the Peasants' Revolt proved

II I~' " '- . that when they attacked abbeys and monasteries, and when they

1:'lil . cut the head off the Archbishop of Canterbury, the leading Cath

olic prelate in England.

11: :1 The fugitive Templars would have needed a code such as the

1 l

i ! Old Charges of Masonry, but the working stonemasons clearly

111

III did not. Ithad become obvious that I needed to know more about

the Ancient Order of Free and Accepted .Masons. The extent of

the Masonic material available at large public libraries surprised

me, as did the fact that it was housed in the department ·of edu

cation and religion. Not content with just what was generally

II' available to the public, I asked to use the library in the Masonic

1 !

ilill Temple in Cincinnati, Ohio. I told the gentleman there that I was

not a Freemason, but wanted to use the library as part of my

IJil1

research for a book that would probably include a new examina

tion of the Masonic order. His only question to me was, "Will it

J1 II

be fair?" I assured him that I had no desire or intention to be any

) I thing other than fair, to which he replied, "Good enough." I was

I! left alone with the catalog and the hundreds of Masonic books

1 that lined the walls. I also took advantage of the publications of

1 the Masonic Service Association at Silver Spring, Maryland.

11 '1

Later, as my growing knowledge ofMasonry enabled me to sus

]11:1 tain a conversation on the subject, I began to talk to Freemasons.

II! At first I wondered how I would go about meeting fifteen or

11 1 twenty Masons and, if I could meet them, would they be willing

. 1!1

1 Iii I

to talk to me? The fIrst problem was solved as soon as I started ask·

1"'1

,1 1'11

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INTRODucnON xvii

ing friends and associates if they were Masons. There were four

in one group I had known for about five years, and many more

among men I had known for twenty years and more, without ever

realizing that they had any connection with Freemasonry. As for

the second part ofmy concern, I found them quite willing to talk,

not about the "secret" passwords and hand grips (by then, I

already knew them), but about what they had been taught con

cerning the origins of Freemasonry and its ancient Old Charges.

They were as intrigued as I was about the possibilities ofdiscov

ering the lost meanings ofwords, symbols, and ritual for which no

logical explanation was available, such as why a Master Mason is

told in his initiation rites that "this degree will make you a brother

to pirates and corsairs." We agreed that unlocking the secrets of

those Masonic mysteries would contribute most to unearthing

the past, because the loss of their true meanings had caused the

ancient terms and symbols to be preserved intact, less subject to

change over the centuries, or by adaptations to new conditions.

Among those lost secrets were the meanings of words used in

the Masonic rituals, words like tyler, cowan, due-guard, and Juwes.

Masonic writers have struggled for centuries, without, success, to

make those words fit with their preconceived conviction that

Masonry was born in the English-speaking guilds of medieval

stonemasons.

Now I would test the possibility that there was indeed aeon

nection between Freemasonry and the French~speakingTemplar

order, by looking for the lost meanings of those terms, not in

English, but in medieval French. The answers began to flow, and

soon a sensible meaning for every one of the mysterious Masonic

terms was established in the French language. It even provided

the first credible meaning for the name of Hiram Abiff, the mur

dered architect ofthe Temple of Solomon, who is the central fig

ure of Masonic ritual. The examination established something

else as well. Itis well known that in 1362 the English courts offi

Cially changed the language used for court proceedings from

French to English, so the French roots ofall the mysterious terms

of Freemasonry confirmed the existence of that secret society in

the fourteenth century, the century of the Templar suppression

and the Peasants' Revolt.

With that encouragement I addressed other lost secrets of

Masonry: the circle and mosaic pavement on the lodge room

----------------------- Page 15-----------------------

xvlU BORN IN BLOOD

floor, gloves and lambskin aprons, the symbol ofthe compass and

II the square, eV,en. the mysterious legend of the'murder of Hiram

Abiff. The Rule, customs, and traditions of the Templars pro

,"1

,I,

vided answers to all ofthose mysteries. Next came a deeper anal

II 'ysis of the Old. Charges of ancient Masonry that define a secret

IJi society ofmutual protecpon. What the "lodge" was doing was

assisting brothers in hiding from the wrath of church and state,

Ii providing them with money, vouching for them with the author

ities, even prov~ding the "lodging" that gave Freemasonry the

Iii I unique term for its chapters and their meeting rooms. There

ll remained no reasonable doubt in my mind that the original con

I:I!,I.

cept ofthe secret society that came to call itself Freemasonry had

'1,IIJ been born as a society of mutual protection among fugitive Tern

!I 1

plars and their associates in Britain, men who had gone under

III ground to escape the imprisonment and torture that had been

,i'l,· ordered for them by Pope Clement V. Their antagonism toward

the,Church was rendered more powerful by its total secrecy. The

suppression of the Templar order appeared to be one of the big

111!111

1 gest mistakes the Holy See ever,made.

'I,' I

il,!'I! .Inreturn, Freemasonry has been the target ofmore angry papal

', "

I"II: bulls and encyclicals ,than any other secular organization in Chris

tian history. Those condemnations' began just a few years after

';,.:,'I Masonry revealed itself in 1717 and grew in intensity, culminat

I ing in the bull Humanum Genus, promulgated by Pope Leo XIII

I in 1884. In it, the Masons are accused of espousing religious free

II! dom, the separation of church and state, the education of chilo

dren by laymen, and the extraordinary crime of believing that

"1:'1 people have the right to make their own laws and to elect their

I'I' own government, "according to the new principles of liberty."

1!1,:j Such concepts are identified, along with the Masons, as part of

III the kingdom of Satan. The document not only defines the con

I' ,

cerns of the Catholic,Church about Freemasonry at that time,

but, in the negative, so clearly defines what Freemasons believe

ill that I have included the complete text of that papal bull as an

appendix to this book.

'I'

II Finally, it should be added that the events described here were

' '1

1 part ofa great watershed of Western history. The feudal age was

,'1111 coming to a close. Land, and the peasant labor on it, had lost its

I 'I,

11 role as the sole source of wealth. Merchant families banded into

'1 '1

LIII! guilds, and took over whole towns with charters as municipal cor-

:11 ,

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INTRODUcnON xix

porations. Commerce led to banking and investment, and towns

became power centers to rival the nobility in wealth and influ

ence.

The universal church, which had fought for a position of

supremacy in a feudal context, was slow to accept changes that

might affect that supremacy. Any material disagreement with the

church was called heresy, the most heinous crime under heaven.

The heretic not only deserved death, but the most painful death

imaginable.

Some dissidents run for the woods and hide, while others orga

nize. In the case of the fugitive Knights Templar, the organiza

tion already existed. They possessed a rich tradition of secret

operations that had been raised to the highest level through their

association with the intricacies of Byzantine politics, the secret

ritual of the Assassins, and the intrigues of the Moslem courts

which they met alternately on the battlefield or at the conference

table. The church, in its bloody rejection of protest and change,

provided them with a river of recruits that flowed for centuries.

More than six hundred years have passed since the suppression

of the Knights Templar~ but their heritage lives on in the largest

fraternal organization ever known. And so the story of those tor

tured crusading knights, of the-savagery ofthe Peasants' Revolt,

and of the. lost secrets of Freemasonry becomes the story of the

most successful secret society in the history of the world.

----------------------- Page 17-----------------------

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CHAPTER·j

**$

THE URGE TO KILL

n 1347, over a thousand miles from London, the Kipchak Mon-,

Igols were besieging a walled Genoese trading center on the Cri

mean coast. Kipchak besiegers were beginning to die in large

numbers from a strange disease that appeared to be highly infec

tious. In what may be the world's first recorded instance ofbiolog

ieal warfare, the Kipchaks began to catapult the diseased corpses

over the walls.

A few months later, Genoese galleys from the besieged city put

in at Messina' in Sicily, with men dying at their oars and tales of

dead men who had been thrown over the side all along the way.

The sailors ignored the efforts ofauthorities to prevent their land

ing, and the Black Death set foot ashore in Europe. Carried by

ships' rats, it moved onto the continent through the ports of

Naples and Marseilles. From Italy it moved into Switzerland and

eastern· Europe, meeting the spread through France into Ger

many. The plague came to England on ships landing at ports in

Dorset and spread from there. Within two years it had killed off

an estimated 35 to 40 percent of the population of Europe and

Britain.

As in all times and places, famine, malnutrition, and the result

ant lower immune defenses put out the welcome mat for the epi

demic. A change in climate had produced longer winters and

cooler, wetter summers, which had shortened and thwarted the

growing season. From 1315 to 1318 torrential summer rains

ruined crops, and mass starvation followed. Succeeding harvests

----------------------- Page 19-----------------------

4 BORN IN BLOOD

I were sporadic, but at least the people couId survive. Then, in

\ 1340, there was almost universal crop failure, and thousands per

~ ished in the worst famine of the century.

~ Even under what they would have considered ideal conditions,

the general population was undernourished. Their diet was

chiefly of wheat and rye, with few vegetables and a minimum of

meat and milk-partially because, even ifthey could afford them,

1:1,

there was no refrigeration or other means of preservation. Vita·

min and mineral deficiencies in winter were a part of life. Hunt

ing could provide fresh meat, but hunting rights belonged to the

~ manor lords. A beating was a light punishment and death not

11 uncommon for taking a deer, or even a rabbit, from the lord's for

111

ests. That so many took the risk speaks to the intensity of the bio

~I~

logical craving for fresh food.

Disease generally finds its easiest victims among children, who

I do not develop a mature immune system until about the age of

ten or eleven, and among the elderly, whose immune systems

decline with advancing years, and so it was with the Black Death.

Although people of all ages and all stations died in the tens of

1 thousands, the very young and the very old dominate the statis

1 11 I

tics. Itwas the very opposite ofa "baby boom," leaving few young

111

1 '1 people to enter the work force during the next generation.

!~' The Black Death was not a single disease, but three, and the

source of all three was a flea. A bacillusi in the blood blocks the .

flea's stomach. As the flea rams its probe through the skin of its

~II

rll) host, preferably the black rat, the bacillus erupts from the flea's

rill stomach and enters the host, introducing the infection. As the

III

I rats died off, the fleas took to other animals and to humans.

In one form, the bacilli settle in the lymph glands. Large swell·

~ ings and carbuncles, called buboes, appear in the groin and arm

III

III pits, which give this form of the disease the name "bubonic

plague." The term "Black Death" comes from the fact that the

victim's body is covered with black spots and his tongue turns

black. Death usually comes within three days.

In another form-septicemic-the blood is infected, and death

may take a week or more. The fastest death comes from the most

infectious form, the pneumonic, which causes an inflammation

of the throat and lungs, spitting and vomiting of blood, a foul

stench, and intense pain.

No scientific identification was made of the plague diseases at

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THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR 5

the time, nor was anything known ofthe method oftransmission.

This permitted all manner of wild theories to be promulgated, of

which the most common was that the Black Death was a punish

ment from God. Some even cursed God for the great calamity,

and Philip VI of France took steps to prevent God from getting

any angrier than He apparently already was. Special laws were

passed against blasphemy, with very specific punishments. For

the first offense, the lower lip of the blasphemer would be sliced

off. For the second offense, the upper lip would go, and for the

third offense the offender's tongue would be cut out.

Groups ofpenitents sprang up, publicly doing penance for sins

that they could not specifically identify, but that were obviously

serious enough to anger God to the point of destroying the

human race. Only the most severe penance would do to expiate

such horrible sin. Self-flagellation turned into group flagellation

as penitents walked the streets, often led by a priest, and beat one

another with knotted ropes and whips tipped with metalto lacer

ate their flesh. Some carried heavy crosses or wore crowns of

thorns..

Others found their own answers in uninhibited rites and sexual

orgies. Some acted on the theory that since the world was ending

shortly every possible pleasure should be indulged; others

believed an appeal to Satan was the only alternative, now that

they had bee'n abandoned by God.

As always in the Middle Ages, some communities put the

blame on the only non-Christians in their midst, the Jews. Even

though the Jews were dying from the Black Death themselves,

they were accused ofpoisoning wells and causing the plague with

secret rites and incantations intended to wipe out Christianity.

Bloody pogroms were mounted in France, Austria, and

especially-as had been the case during the Crusades-in Ger

many. In Strasbourg over two hundred Jews were burned alive. At

one town on the Rhine the Jews were butchered, then their

remains were sealed in wine barrels and sent bobbing down the

river. The Jews at Esslingen who survived the first wave of perse

cution thought that their own world was coming to an end and

gathered in their synagogue. They set the building on fire, burn

ing themselves to death. Those Jews who weren't killed were fre

quently expelled, leaving their homes to spread their culture, and

often the plague, to other areas. Poland saw its own persecutions

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6 lORN IN BLOOD·

in scattered areas, but that country was generally much safer than

Germany, and German Jews streamed into Polish territory. This

was the origin of the Ashkenazic (German) Jewish communities

in· Poland. They· kept their German language, which gradually

evolved· into a vemacuIarcalled Yiddish.

Because· of their crowded conditions and almost total lack of

sanitation, thetowns and cities were hardest hit atfirst, butasthe

townsmen dispersed to avoid the plague, they took it with them

.into the' rural areas. As the farmers died off, fields went'to weeds,

and untended animals wandered the countryside until many of

them died the same way their owners had. Henry Knighton, a

canon of St. Mary's Abbey in Leicester, reported five thousand

sheep dead and rotting in a single pasture. Ithas been estimated

that the population of England when the plague first crossed the

Channel·was 4 million. By the time it subsided, the population

had been reduced to less than 2.5 million.

News of the ravages of the plague in England reached the

Scots, who concluded that this decimation oftheir ancient enemy

could have come from no source other than an avenging Cod.

They decided to assist the Almighty in His divine plan and attack

the English in their weakened' state. The call went out for the

clans to gather at Selkirk Forest, but before they could begin their

march south the plague struck the camp, killing an estimated five

thousand Scots in a few days' time. There was :nothing to do but

abandon the invasion plan, so the still healthy, with the sick and

dying, broke camp to return to their homes. Word of the gather

ing had reached the English, who moved north to intercept the

invasion. They··arrived in time to intercept and 'slaughter the dis

persed Scottish army. . '

Incredibly, while the greatest death toll the world had ever

known was in progress, the war between England and France

kept right on going, each weakened side hoping that the other

side was even 'weaker. Armies needed supplies, the products of

craftsmen and farmers, of whom over a third had died. Armies

needed money, and the population and products usually taxed for

that purpose were declining. When the plague died out after a

couple ofyears, the world was different than it had been before.

It would never be the same again, because the lowest classes of

society suddenly experienced a new power. '

What had happened was that the one law that can never be bra

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THE' KNIGHTS TEMPLAR 7

ken without consequences, the law of supply and demand, was in

fullforce and effect-this time to the benefit of the farmer, the

common taborer, and the craftsman. In the recollection of the

landowning class, there never had been a time when farm labor

or farm tenant supply did not exceed the demand for it. Now the

foundations of a way of life that had worked for centuries were

beginning to crack: In the'dark ages ofanarchy the individual had

been helpless. The preservation oflife itselfwas the major consid

eration, and men freely pledged themselves -in servitude to a

stronger man -who would provide them with protection. These

strong men pledged themselves to even stronger men, and the

result was the feudal system. -Men at all-levels pledged military

service, often for a specific campaign Or a specific period, such as

forty days a year. The warrior class became the nobility, and they

required wealth for war-horses, -weapons, and armor. They

needed still more wealth, partially in the form of,labor, to build

fortified places where their followers could come for protection.

These gradually grew from moated stockades and fortified houses

to lofty stone structures requiring an "'limy of stonecutters,

masons, carpenters, and smiths. All fhisfhad to be paid for, and

although some revenue might be genera'ted by 'the loot ofwarfare

or the ransom of wealthy captives, the ,primary source of that

wealth was the land, and the' labor' of the people who worked it.

As the armored horseman cameto dominate the field ofbattle,

there came an "arms race" ofknights. The pledge ofa localbaron

to his count might now include his obligation to respond to a call

to arms by bringing with him anywhere from a single mounted

the size of his holdings. A

knight to· dozens, depending upon -

knight was expensive to equip and maintain. He needed at least

one trained heavy war-horse, a lighter horse for ordinary travel,

and more horses for his squire, servants, and baggage.' He

required personal armor, which was very expensive, as well as

some armor for his horse. To support 'him in all this, in exchange

for his services he was provided with land, and the people on that

land.

The status ofserfs- had changed over the centuries. Some were

gradually able to become tenant farmers, tilling farmland assigned

to them on shares while· still making payments to the manor lord

in fixed terms of service in the manor fields. Customs varied from

one manor to another, but generally the tenant farmer paid in

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, 8 BORN IN BLOOD

many ways for his tenure. On his death, his best farm animal went

, to the lord as a fee (the "heriot"), and his second·best animal to

1,1 the parish priest. Neither he nor any member of his family could

I marry without permission, which usually required a payment. In

addition to his prescribed days of labor for the lord (often two or

I"II

1 three days a week), he might be called upon to give extra service

11 '1

without pay, a requirement with the unlikely name of "love

rill boon." He was subject to restrictions on gathering firewood, tak·

l,i:1 ing wood to repair his house, and even collecting the precious

lill manure that would drop in the roads and byways.,'

If the manor lord owned a mill, the tenant had to use that mill

11,1 and pay for the privilege. The same applied to manor ovens, fre

quently creating a monopoly on the baking of bread. In view of

1/'1

II II1 1 his rights and obligations, the tenant was not a serf, who was a

Il, man bound almost in slavery, but neither was he totally free. The

l'i,ll ,greatest barrier to his liberty was the old law that took away his

freedom of movement. These, tenant farmers were required to

:I!I stay on the manor to which they were attached by birth, where

1 1 I they lived in a cluster of houses called a "vill" (the obvious fore

'I,ll"1 runner of "village"). For this reason ~he tenant was called a villein,

1'1'

1/ 1 1 1 pronounced almost the same way as the more disparaging term

:,11 11 villain which was sometimes applied to him by his lord.

,III What most dramatically changed the status of many villeins

was the manor lord's need for cash rather than a share of a crop

:'i:111

II' that could not easily be transported to market for sale. There were

"I,ll almost no wagon roads, and grain crops could not be economi

1 cally transported by packhorse, as was done with wool. The king

:1 1'1

,!Iil

"i'l needed cash to fight his French wars, and the nobles needed cash

I:illl to pay mercenaries and to acquire transportation and supplies on

Ilillilil the continent. Villeins began to make deals in which a ha'penny

or penny might be given instead of a day's labor and a fixed cash

II!!III

payment in lieu of a share of crops. Their attitudes changed as

",:,,:1 1 they found themselves "renting" the land rather than trading

"III their time and muscles for it. They felt free in the absence or

,1 111

reduction of the old customs of humbling servitude.

1'1/1 By the time of the Black Death, many of the English manors

ilill

were held by the church. Some had been purchased, and many

II/I

,11 111 " had been gifted. The extensive manorial holdings of the Knights

' 1I Templar had been conveyed to the Knights of the Hospital of St.

John ofJerusalem (the Hospitallers) after the Templars were sup'

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