test please delete

[n5gooner]

Papal hearings were convened to determine the Templars' guilt or innocence. Once freed of the Inquisitors' torture, many Templars recanted their confessions. Some had sufficient legal experience to defend themselves in the trials, but Philip wouldn't allow it, and in 1310 used the previously forced confessions to have dozens of Templars burned at the stake in Paris.[18][19]

[n5gooner]

Papal hearings were convened to determine the Templars' guilt or innocence. Once freed of the Inquisitors' torture, many Templars recanted their confessions. Some had sufficient legal experience to defend themselves in the trials, but Philip wouldn't allow it, and in 1310 used the previously forced confessions to have dozens of Templars burned at the stake in Paris.[18][19]

..

[n5gooner]

With Philip threatening military action unless the Pope agreed to comply with his wishes, Clement finally agreed to disband the Order, citing the public scandal that had been generated by the confessions. At the Council of Vienne in 1312, he issued a series of papal bulls, including Vox in excelso, which officially dissolved the Order, and Ad providam, which turned over most Templar assets to the Hospitallers.[20]

[n5gooner]

As for the last remaining leaders of the Order, the elderly Grand Master Jacques de Molay, who had confessed under torture, retracted his statement. His associate Geoffrey de Charney, Preceptor of Normandy, followed de Molay's example and did the same, insisting on his innocence. Both men were declared guilty of being relapsed heretics, and sentenced to death by being burned alive at the stake in Paris on March 18, 1314. Jacques de Molay reportedly remained defiant to the end, asking to be tied in such a way that he could face the Notre Dame cathedral, and hold his hands together in prayer.[22] His request was granted, and according to legend, he called out from the flames that both Pope Clement and King Philip would soon meet him before God. Pope Clement died only a month later, and King Philip died in a hunting accident before the end of the year.[23]

[n5gooner]

With the last of the Order's leaders gone, the remaining Templars around Europe were either arrested and tried under the Papal investigation (with virtually none convicted), absorbed into other military orders such as the Knights Hospitaller, or pensioned and allowed to live out their days peacefully. Some may have fled to other territories outside of Papal control, such as excommunicated Scotland. Templar organizations in Portugal simply changed their name, from Knights Templar to Knights of Christ.[24]

In modern times, it is the Roman Catholic Church's position that the persecution was unjust; that there was nothing inherently wrong with the Order or its Rule; and that Pope Clement was pressured into his actions by the magnitude of the public scandal and the dominating influence of King Philip IV.[25]

[n5gooner]

and thats it todays lesson, I hope everyone liked it ??

[n5gooner]

60 more to go until I hit 3k mmm so close but so far.

[Clownio]

A ticket to Oblivion please

German roller coaster designer and engineer Weiner Von Steiner has teamed up with a Swiss clinic famous for its euthanasia "packages" to give patients or suicide tourists as they're sometimes referred, a new and more exiting way to pop their clogs.

The designer of the Hot Thrill Dragster has come up with the "tulipStorm Terminus"

Due for completion in time for the 2008 winter season (the busiest time of the year apparently) the tulipstorm will accelerate riders from 0 to 220 MPH before smashing them into a titanium-lined brick wall (hopefully) killing them instantly.

Under Swiss law assisted suicide is legal as long as nobody profits from a death. For this reason the "tulipstorm" will be a free-ride with the riders having to collect tokens at other attractions before being able to ride. This and other technicalities have yet to be finalised as Mr Weiner explained

"..[and] we initially wanted to accelerate riders past the speed of sound so that we didn't even have the chance to hear the screams of the riders before they smashed into the wall". On a more practical note, the cars themselves (which will be in a two rows of four configuration) will be smashed beyond recognition and so will not be re-useable. They intend to use balsa wood and raffia paper to hold them together just long enough to complete the ride. As for the inevitable clean-up operation that is going to have to take place after every successful ride Mr Steiner mused

"...we thought long and hard about this one but decided in the end on high pressure water washers that will was the worst of it off the wall. We'll then get someone to scrape off any other stubborn bits. Everything will be washed through a trap-door with some returned to relatives should they wish. Obviously they'll get bits of other riders and stuff"

[n5gooner]

The Templars were organized as a monastic order, similar to Bernard's Cistercian Order, which was considered the first effective international organization in Europe.[26] The organizational structure had a strong chain of authority. Each country with a major Templar presence (France, England, Aragon, Portugal, Poitou, Apulia, Jerusalem, Tripoli, Antioch, Anjou, and Hungary[27]) had a Master of the Order for the Templars in that region. All of them were subject to the Grand Master, appointed for life, who oversaw both the Order's military efforts in the East and their financial holdings in the West. No precise numbers exist, but it is estimated that at the Order's peak there were between 15,000 and 20,000 Templars, of whom about a tenth were actual knights.[28]

[n5gooner]

It was Bernard de Clairvaux and founder Hugues de Payens who devised the specific code of behavior for the Templar Order, known as the Latin Rule. Its 72 clauses defined the ideal behavior for the Knights, such as the types of robes they were to wear and how many horses they could have. Knights were to take their meals in silence, eat meat no more than three times per week, and have no physical contact of any kind with women, even members of their own family. A Master of the Order was assigned "4 horses, and one chaplain-brother and one clerk with three horses, and one sergeant brother with two horses, and one gentleman valet to carry his shield and lance, with one horse."[29] As the Order grew, more guidelines were added, and the original list of 72 clauses expanded to several hundred in its final form.[30][31]