urged the Pope to take action against them; but before the Pope was able to find out more about the matter, the King took the law into his own hands and had all the Templars in France arrested on October 13, 1307. The following charges were then brought against them by the Inquisitor for France before whom they were examined:
- The ceremony of initiation into their Order was accompanied by insults to the Cross, the denial of Christ, and gross obscenities.
- The adoration of an idol which was said to be the image of the true God.
- The omission of the words of consecration at Mass.
- The right that the lay chiefs arrogated to themselves of giving absolution.
- The authorization of unnatural vice.
To all these infamies a great number of the Knights, including Jacques du Molay, confessed in almost precisely the same terms; at their admission into the Order, they said, they had been shown the cross on which was the figure of Christ, and had been asked whether they believed in Him; when they answered yes, they were told in some cases that this