VATICAN CITY — Sheiks, libraries and collectors around the world have ordered the Vatican’s new $8,400 limited-edition documentation of the heresy trial of the Knights Templar, officials said Thursday.
The leather-bound volume, which includes high-quality reprints of the original documents as well as clerical seals, is noteworthy because it contains a long-ignored parchment showing that Pope Clement V initially absolved the medieval order of heresy.
Scrinium publishing house, which prints documents from the Vatican’s Secret Archives, is issuing 799 editions of the volume — and plans in the coming days to present one to Pope Benedict XVI, officials said at a presentation inside Vatican City.
The order of knights, which ultimately disappeared because of the heresy scandal, had a role in the recent best-seller “The Da Vinci Code,” which linked the Templars to the story of the Holy Grail.
The Vatican work reproduces the entire documentation of the papal hearings convened after King Philip IV of France arrested and tortured Templar leaders in 1307 on charges of heresy and immorality.
In addition to sheiks and libraries, individual collectors, Templar associations and cultural organizations around the world have reserved copies, though about 300 are still available, said Scrinium president Ferdinando Santor.
He declined to identify any buyers by name, citing Italian privacy laws, but said they included “internationally famous” people.
The military order of the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon was founded in 1118 in Jerusalem to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land after the First Crusade.
As their military might increased, the Templars’ wealth also grew; they acquired property throughout Europe and ran a primitive banking system. After they left the Middle East with the collapse of the Crusader kingdoms, their power and secretive ways aroused the fear of European rulers and sparked accusations of corruption and blasphemy.
Historians believe Philip owed debts to the order because of his wars with England and used the accusations to arrest its leaders and extract, under torture, confessions of heresy as a way to seize the order’s riches.
The new volume includes the “Parchment of Chinon,” a 1308 decision by Clement to save the Templars and their order. The document was long ignored because of a vague catalog entry made in 1628.
Vatican archives researcher Barbara Frale determined the significance of the parchment in 2001, realizing that it was not of secondary importance, as previously thought, but actually concerned a trip by three top cardinals, including Clement’s right-hand man, to interrogate the Templars’ Grand Master and other top officials.
The parchment shows Clement initially absolved the Templar leaders of heresy, though he did find them guilty of immorality, and that he planned to reform the order. However, under pressure from Philip, Clement later reversed his decision and suppressed the order in 1312.
The Templars’ grand master, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake in 1314, along with his aides.
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