IV.] EXTENSION TO THE SOUTH. 49 the revenue of the French clergy for five years ; 4. To recall the Colonlia family to Rome, and make six French cardinals ; 5. To censure Boniface. The sixth condition was not made known, but the abject Bertrand agreed to all ; the king's pleasure was signified to the cardinals, and his tool was chosen in 1304, and took the name of Clement V. Instead of going to Rome, he summoned the Cardinals to crown him at Lyons. He then was kept for a while by Philip in France, till at last he fixed his dwelling-place just beyond the border, at Avignon. This city remained for seventy years the seat of the papacy, and the popes at Avignon, lying as it were under the shadow of the French kings, were at their beck, and all the moral grandeur of the chair of St. Peter was lost. 25. Persecution of the Templars. — The sixth condition has been thought to be the destruction of the Knights of the Temple which now followed. Acre, the last fragment of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, had been lost in 1291, and the two orders of soldier-monks were waiting in their commanderies and preceptories for a summons to a new crusade, to recover what had been lost. Tlie fiospitallers wisely never gave up their hold on the East, and made the Island of Rhodes their headqmrtcrs; but the Templars remained in the West, and were no doubt a thorn in the king's side. They were all men of high birth ; their vows sat lightly on them, and they had a character for pride and violence, so that they had the dislike and ill-will of everyone outside their order ; but as they owned no superior save the pope, they formed one of the bulwarks of his strength. It was therefore quite against liis own interest that Clement allowed the conduct of the Templars to be inquired into. The Grand Inquisitor, William Humbert, a French Dominican, was to sit in judgement, and Philip got most of the chiefs of the order together at Paris, on pretext of consulting them on the Holy War. On the same night, in October, 1307, all the Templars throughout France were arrested, and called upon to answer the most horrid accusations. They were said to have learnt frightful mysteries among the Moslems, and that after the religious solemnities which in public admitted the knights, they went through secret rites, by which they renounced their faith, defiled the cross, and bound themselves to the most foul and abominable practices. All denied these monstrous tales, but, knights and. monks as they were, many ^vere put
