COUNCIL AT VIENNE

F1our years after the first seizure of the Templars in France a council was held at Vienne in Dauphiné, for the purpose of making some general decision on the case of the order, October, 1311. The pope headed three hundred bishops, and an untold number of inferior clergy. All men who desired to defend the order were promised security and freedom. Nine cavaliers presented themselves before the assembly in the character of representatives of fifteen hundred of their brethren, who were living at Lyons, and in the secret fastnesses of Savoy and Switzerland. Clement immediately violated his promise of protection, and threw the nine knights into prison. He then called upon the council for its opinion, whether in consequence of the confessions of the Templars the society ought not to be dissolved? With the disgraceful exception of one Italian prelate, and three French archbishops, the whole body of churchmen declared that so illustrious an order as that of the Red Cross knights ought not to be suppressed, until the grand-master and the nine knights had been heard in its defence. The pope disregarded the opinion of the majority; and tried in vain for six months to make a change.