Crusade Against the Grail - Rennes-le-Chateau Research and ...

THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE GRAIL 179
their country was murdered and yet they refused to pick up the sword. Death
awaited them on the execution pyre or in the murus strictus. Instead of renouncing
the Paraclete, an outlawed belief in their world, they accepted their horrible end
with a tranquil soul. They were absolutely certain that their desire for Paradise
would be realized. The last Occitan knights saw the arrival of their last hour
together with the Cathars because they refused to recognize the domination of
France. Despite the protection of the robust walls of their spulgas, they were
convinced that they had no salvation. And yet they fought until their last breath. 13
Pope Boniface VIII died on October 12, 1303. In his bull Unam Sanctam, he
declared that the successors of Peter were the keepers of supreme power, religious
and civil, and that every human being must submit to it for the good of his
salvation. In two more bulls, by prohibiting the French clergy from paying taxes
and giving himself supreme jurisdiction, he converted himself into the
irreconcilable enemy of Philippe le Bel [Philip the Fair], the King of France. The
king had tried to remedy his financial difficulties by resorting to confiscations and
extortions with the collusion of—and against—the clergy. Because this road was
now closed to him, his hatred for the Pope knew no limits. 14 After Boniface's
death, and with the help of Pope Clement V, who was elected on his and the
Inquisition's orders, Philip pressed to have the dead Pope accused of heresy. He
managed to find a large number of witnesses—famous clerics, for the most part—
who declared under oath that the dead Pope did not believe in the immortality of
the soul or in the embodiment of Christ, and that he had shameful and "unnatural"
vices. Just a small part of any of these accusations would have sufficed to send any
normal accused person to the stake. But this was the only time that the Inquisition
used indulgence. It declared the late Pope innocent.
Clement V had been bishop of Comminges and archbishop of Bordeaux.
Elected Pope in Lyon at the urging of King Philip, he agreed to stay in France and
never set foot on Italian soil. During his Pontificate, the so-called "Babylonian
Captivity" began in Avignon and the haughty Order of the Knights Templar was
exterminated. One of its founders was a Cathar, who was denounced by a noble
and a burgher, both from Beziers, to King Philip, greedy as ever for Templar
treasures. The Knights