Michael JECKS: The Templar's Penance

And the best, for my money, is the old Convento de Cristo and Templar castle at Tomar. It stands up on top of a great hill, an impregnable fortress whose scale has to be seen to be believed. The church itself is one of the few remaining Templar sites, unspoiled because when the Templars were destroyed, the Knights of Christ weren’t foolish enough to wreck their buildings. They reused them.

If you have a hankering to visit an old church and complex to see what the Templars left, you would be hard pressed to find a more evocative place than Tomar.

There is just one geographical point I should make. I have shown Baldwin taking a boat all the way to Óbidos in Portugal. This is not a slip of the keyboard. Although now, if you are lucky enough to visit the beautiful walled city, you will find yourself driving up the coast on the road overlooking the smallish lagoon and then along the broad, flat plain, now that the sea has retreated. Until the fifteenth century, visitors would be as likely to arrive by boat. At the same time Peniche, now a town on the coast, was an island.

In reality it is hard to check most details about rivers and the coast, because with the ‘Great Earthquake’ of 1755, so much of Portugal was destroyed or changed. Lisbon was effectively shivered to pieces, and the Tagus (the Rio Tejo) moved so much that the Tower of Belém, which had been constructed in the middle of its flow so as to protect the way to Lisbon’s harbour, now lies almost on the shore!

In this book I have speculated on what might have happened to the Templars. Few, unfortunately, came to what I should have thought a good end. Some, we know, were executed by the authorities, especially in France. Added to the deaths during torture, this must account for some hundreds. Others were given the chance of joining another Order, although not usually a military one. Some scholars believe that none would have been allowed to remain in a renamed Templar site (see Desmond Seward’s The Monks of War , Penguin, 1995). Others believe that many remained or simply travelled to find other Orders which they could join and where they could wield a sword (see Dungeon, Fire and Sword by John J Robinson, Michael O’Mara Books, 1994, or Supremely Abominable Crimes , by Edward Burman, Allison & Busby, 1994). It is generally agreed that most of the men living in Tomar after the destruction of the Templars had themselves been Templars. They merely changed their name.

Possibly, some Templars were saved and installed in another Order, but it’s equally probable that many ended their lives in misery and squalor, starving and perhaps more than a little mad. We know that is the case for the poor devils who had been caught in Paris.

Whatever the truth, I like to believe that at least some of these men were saved and escaped from the violent retribution of the French King Philip le Bel, fleeing in desperation southwards, where some, maybe only a very few, managed to create a new life for themselves in the warm climate of Spain and Portugal, among some of the friendliest people in the world.

Michael Jecks

Northern Dartmoor

September 2002

It was an unnaturally cool morning in this part of northern Spain, when the youth who had got there first gave a whoop of triumph from the top of the rise which men called Montjoie , the Mountain of Joy. At least in those last moments before he died, the youngster knew absolute pleasure of a kind which he could never have known while slaving in the fields. He was only a damned peasant, after all, Gregory thought, watching him.

He was an unprepossessing specimen, this boy, with a face all scarred from the pox; he had the shoulders of an ox and flesh burned black by the sun and the wind. Gregory had an urge to snap at him for presuming to run on ahead of the group, but he swallowed his irritation. He would try to take the lad aside later and give him a bit of a talking-to.

It had been a longstanding ambition of Gregory’s to be awarded that glorious title of ‘King’ just for having been the first to reach the summit and see their destination. Many pilgrims would pay it no mind, but Gregory did. He had wanted to rise early in the morning and come here to this hill and see the sacred city of Santiago Matamoros, Saint James the Moorslayer, shimmering in the distance, to stand on this knoll in splendid solitude, listening to the birds and drinking in the view while he offered his thanks to God. It was a dream which he had enjoyed periodically during the long journey here, and now it was gone. He had hoped that he could commune with God alone up here and find some comfort; merely catching a glimpse of Santiago was supposed to make a man more acceptable to God, after all, and Gregory needed all the help he could get.

It wasn’t the boy’s fault. Gregory could hardly blame him for taking the lead. It was just his luck! If only the group hadn’t collapsed last night when they had stopped for shelter. They were all exhausted after stamping through torrential rain for hours; the weather here was worse than Gregory’s worst memories. The refuge of a small barn had called to them, and then a cheerful woman had brought them a steaming dish of pottage. No, there was no possibility of their carrying on after that, which was why they didn’t arrive at the stream until this morning.

The sun was feeble today, but compared with the terrible rains of yesterday it felt wonderful. At least they could walk in the dry. The dust had been settled by the dampness, so they didn’t suffer the irritation of inhaling the stuff as their boots stirred it. Not like the South of France, where Gregory had coughed almost all the way, choking in the thickly laden air. Warmed and rested, the group had woken refreshed and ready for the last part of their pilgrimage. Some had only travelled a few tens of miles, but many had covered hundreds. Some, like Gregory, had walked perhaps more than a thousand to get here. God, but he’d needed to wash his feet!

This river, the Lavamentula, was enclosed in a small wood, and the warm, green-tinged light had a curious effect on them all. It was as though they all realised that they were entering a holy site. Light was sprinkled on the ground in pools of gold; the thin scattering of weedy plants beneath the trees looked somehow blessed as they were touched by it. In the clear morning’s sunshine even the dark, barren-looking soil was given a glowing aspect, as though new life was about to burst from it.

One of the first there, Gregory had eagerly stripped and washed with the rest of them. After the journey, all were gritty and rank. Even with the weather so cool, they had built up sweat from many days of travelling, and the pilgrims all needed to scrape themselves clean. Gregory himself felt the bathing to be almost a spiritual experience, a preliminary ritual so that he might arrive at the Saint’s altar cleansed. There was a curious silence as he rubbed vigorously at his armpits and groin, an expectant stillness broken only by the sound of trickling water – and gasps as cold water shocked cringing flesh.

While he wiped himself dry, he watched the others. He was struck more by the differences between them than by the superficial similarity given to them by their broad hats and capes. Yes, they all wore the same basic clothes, many with the cockleshell symbol of Santiago, but their attitudes were clearly at odds with each other.

Some splashed enthusiastically like children, bawling loudly at the cold, spraying each other and laughing, while others stood silently contemplative, preparing themselves for the day, readying themselves for actually seeing the church, perhaps sad that the end of their journey was at hand, reluctant to consider that soon they must turn about and return to the mundanity of normal life, to bickering or scolding wives and squalling children. Some would no doubt be feeling the same emptiness as Gregory, realising that they would never know such a sense of purpose again. Perhaps there were some who were happier. Maybe there were some fortunate enough to be experiencing the inner peace that only a pilgrim who has dedicated and risked his or her life willingly can know, the calmness of one who has achieved a great ambition.