为什么中世纪早期圣殿骑士团在那么强大的时候会突然消失了？

Helena Schrader
海伦娜・施拉德

As has been pointed out by the others, they did not “disappear,” they were brutally repressed in one of the most scandalous kangaroo trials in history.

正如其他人所指出的，他们并没有“消失”，他们在历史上最丑恶的草率审判之一中遭到了残酷镇压。

King Philip IV of France, whose coffers were empty (again), decided to confiscate the Templar “treasure” – meaning their entire property. To justify this move, Philip accused the Templars of various crimes, including devil worship, blasphemy, corruption, and sodomy. Without warning, on the night of Friday, October 13, 1307, officers of the French crown simultaneously broke into Templar commanderies across France and seized all the Templars and their property. While most of the men arrested were lay brothers and sergeants (since most knights who had survived the fall of Acre were on Cyprus), Philip IV made sure he would also seize the senior officers of the Temple by inviting them to Paris “for consultations” in advance of his strike. All those arrested, including the very men King Philip had treated as friends and advisors only days before, were subjected to brutal torture until they confessed to the catalog of crimes the French King had concocted.

法国国王菲利普四世的钱袋又空了，他决定没收圣殿骑士团的“宝藏”——也就是他们的全部财产。为为此辩解，菲利普指控圣殿骑士犯下各种罪行，包括崇拜魔鬼、亵渎、腐败和鸡奸。没有任何预警，1307 年 10 月 13 日星期五的夜里，法王的官员同时闯入法国各地的圣殿骑士指挥所，逮捕了所有圣殿骑士并没收了他们的财产。被捕者大多是俗籍修士和军士（因为在阿克沦陷后幸存下来的大多数骑士都在塞浦路斯），但菲利普四世为了确保也能抓到圣殿骑士的高级官员，事先以“商议”为由邀请他们到巴黎。当时被捕的所有人——其中包括几天前菲利普仍视为朋友与顾问的人——都遭受了残酷的拷打，直到他们对法王捏造的一系列罪名供认不讳。

There is no evidence whatsoever that the Templars were in any way heretical in their beliefs. Furthermore, although Philip persuaded the Pope to order a general investigation of the Templars, in countries where torture was not extensively employed (such as England, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Cyprus), the Templars were found innocent.

没有任何证据表明圣殿骑士团在信仰上有任何异端之处。此外，虽然腓力说服教皇下令对圣殿骑士团进行全面调查，但在那些没有广泛使用拷打的国家（如英格兰、西班牙、葡萄牙、德国和塞浦路斯），圣殿骑士团被裁定为无罪。

Meanwhile, in France, Templars who retracted the confessions torn from them under torture were burned at the stake as “relapsed heretics.” Tragically, the Pope at the time lived in terror of King Philip IV, who had deposed his predecessor with accusations almost identical to those leveled against the Templars. He preferred to sacrifice the Templars rather than risk confrontation with King Philip. Thus, although the evidence against the Order was clearly fabricated and the Pope could not find sufficient grounds to condemn the Order, he disbanded it in 1312.

与此同时，在法国，那些在拷打下撤回被逼供认的圣殿骑士被作为“复发的异端”火刑处死。悲惨的是，当时的教皇活在对腓力四世的恐惧之中，腓力曾以几乎与指控圣殿骑士团相同的指控罢黜了他的前任。他宁可牺牲圣殿骑士团，也不愿与腓力国王发生对抗。因此，尽管对该团的证据明显是捏造的，教皇也找不到足够的理由来谴责该团，但他在 1312 年解散了它。

Individual members of the disbanded order were required to join “stricter” religious orders. Fighting men, whether knights or sergeants, probably preferred to join one of the other “militant” orders such as the Hospitallers, Teutonic Knights, or the various military orders in Spain and Portugal. Although we cannot rule out the possibility of individual former Templars refusing to join another religious institution and, say, fighting with Robert the Bruce, in doing so they were then in clear violation of their own oaths and acting as renegades. They did not constitute a continuation of the Order.

被解散的修会的单个成员被要求加入更“严苛”的宗教修会。作战人员，不论是骑士还是侍从，可能更愿意加入其他“军事化”修会，比如医院骑士团、条顿骑士团，或西班牙和葡萄牙的各种军事修会。尽管我们不能排除个别前圣殿骑士拒绝加入其他宗教机构并例如与罗伯特·布鲁斯并肩作战的可能性，但这样做的他们显然违反了自己的誓言，成为叛逃者。他们并不构成该修会的延续。

The last Master and Marshal of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay and Geoffrey de Charney respectively, were burned at the stake in the presence of King Philip for retracting their confessions on March 18, 1314. Not until 2007 did the Vatican officially declare the Templars’ innocent based on the evidence still in the Papal archives.

圣殿骑士团的最后一位大师与元帅，雅克·德·莫莱和杰弗里·德·沙尔内，因在 1314 年 3 月 18 日当众收回供词而在菲利普国王面前被火刑处死。直到 2007 年，教廷才根据教皇档案中仍存的证据正式宣布圣殿骑士无罪。

Ethan Young
伊桑・杨

They didn’t disappear. They were purged.
Most of them, anyway. Think Order 66 with swords.
But in order to understand why the Knights Templar were rounded up on Friday the 13th, 1307, you need to understand the context of the time in which it happened. Several factors contributed to the fall of the Templars, but the biggest one was this guy:

他们并没有消失。他们被清洗了。
至少大多数是。想象一下用剑执行的“66 号命令”。
但要理解为什么圣殿骑士团在 1307 年星期五 13 日被逮捕，你需要了解当时发生这一切的背景。多种因素导致了圣殿骑士团的覆灭，但最大的一项就是这个家伙：

This is Philip IV, King of France, who ruled from 1285 until his death in 1314. He was the main architect in the fall of the Templars—but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The fall of the Knights Templar was set in motion when the Siege of Acre ended in 1291. When it fell to the Mamluk forces, it marked the loss of the entire Holy Land for Christendom. Acre had been the last piece of territory in the Holy Land held by Christians, so its fall was a grievous blow to Europe. It was an unmitigated disaster.

这是腓力四世，法国国王，1285 年即位，直到 1314 年去世。他是导致圣殿骑士团覆灭的主要策划者——不过我有点说得太早了。
圣殿骑士团的衰落始于 1291 年阿克城的陷落。阿克城被马穆鲁克军队攻占时，标志着基督教失去了整个圣地。阿克城曾是基督徒在圣地中最后的一块领土，因此它的沦陷对欧洲是一个沉重打击。这是一场彻头彻尾的灾难。

That’s where the Templars come in.
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, or Templars for short, were originally established after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem at the end of the First Crusade. Their mission was to guide and protect pilgrims on the road to the holy city, as traveling in those days was fraught with peril. Those who joined the order in those early days took vows of poverty, chastity, piety and obedience, and their sigil even showed two men riding on the same horse to emphasize the Templars’ rejection of worldly goods.

这就是圣殿骑士团出现的背景。
贫穷的基督与所罗门圣殿战士，简称圣殿骑士团，最初是在第一次十字军东征结束后耶路撒冷被夺回时成立的。他们的使命是引导并保护前往圣城的朝圣者，因为在当时旅行充满危险。那些在早期加入该会的人发誓守贫、守贞、虔诚与服从，他们的徽章甚至描绘两人骑同一匹马，以强调圣殿骑士团对世俗财物的拒绝。

Their self-imposed poverty didn’t last long, however. The Templars soon found a powerful advocate in a priest named Bernard of Clairvaux, who wielded a great of amount of influence in the Catholic Church. Clairvaux was so psyched about the Templars that he wrote books talking about how awesome they were, and this got everybody so pumped that in 1189 Pope Innocent II issued a papal bull saying that the Templars were exempted from paying taxes to anyone and didn’t have to obey local laws or customs. Instead, the Templars would answer only to the Pope himself. With this kind of public prestige, the Knights Templar soon became a popular charity: powerful lords and peasants alike donated their money, businesses, and even vast tracts of land to their cause, and sons from noble families from across Europe clamored to join them.

然而，他们自我施加的贫穷并没有持续太久。圣殿骑士很快得到了一个名叫伯纳德·克莱尔沃的神父的大力支持，后者在天主教会中拥有巨大影响力。克莱尔沃对圣殿骑士热情高涨，写了几本书赞颂他们的伟大，这使得众人振奋不已，结果在 1189 年教皇英诺森二世发布了一道教皇诏书，声明圣殿骑士免于向任何人缴税，并且不必遵守地方的法律或习俗。相反，圣殿骑士只对教皇本人负责。凭借这种公众声望，圣殿骑士很快成为受欢迎的慈善对象：强大的领主和平民纷纷向他们捐赠金钱、产业，甚至大片土地，来自全欧洲贵族家庭的子弟也争相加入他们。

The Order quickly grew to be one of the most powerful military and financial institutions in Europe. They achieved famous victories such as the Battle of Montgisard in 1177, when some 500 Templar knights, backed up by a force of only several thousand foot soldiers, took on more than 26,000 enemy soldiers and absolutely crushed them. At the height of their power, the Templars were so rich and so powerful that even the crowned heads of Europe didn’t want to cross them. They controlled vast tracts of land throughout Europe and the Middle East, built massive cathedrals and castles, and were heavily involved in manufacturing as well as imports and exports, which is why they controlled a large fleet of trading ships and an even larger navy. They even set up an early kind of banking system and bought the whole freaking island of Cyprus.

该团体迅速成长为欧洲最强大的军事和金融机构之一。他们取得了著名胜利，比如 1177 年的蒙吉萨尔德战役，当时约有 500 名圣殿骑士，配合仅数千步兵，面对超过 26,000 名敌军并将其彻底击溃。在权势达到顶峰时，圣殿骑士团富可敌国、势力强大，连欧洲的王室也不敢轻易与之为敌。他们在欧洲和中东掌控着大片土地，建造了宏伟的大教堂和城堡，积极参与制造业以及进出口贸易，因此他们拥有一支庞大的商船队和更为强大的海军。他们甚至建立了一种早期的银行系统，并买下了整个塞浦路斯岛。

A century after their founding, the Templars had become an independent state in all but name. Some historians have even called them the first true multinational corporation.

在成立一百年后，圣殿骑士团在名义上虽未正式独立，但已几近成为一个独立于国家的实体。一些历史学家甚至称他们为第一个真正的跨国公司。

But when Acre fell and the Christians lost their grip on the Holy Land, the Templars lost their reason for being. Even as they grew in power they never neglected their original purpose of protecting pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem. But now that the Holy Land was lost, there weren’t any pilgrims to protect. The loss of the Holy Land also did a lot to diminish their reputation in the eyes of peasants and nobles alike, some of whom even blamed them for the catastrophe that Christendom had suffered. Public support for the order began to wane.

但当阿卡陷落、基督徒失去对圣地的控制时，圣殿骑士失去了存在的理由。尽管他们权势日增，却从未忽视保护前往耶路撒冷朝圣者这一最初宗旨。但既然圣地沦陷，就再没有需要保护的朝圣者了。圣地的失守也在很大程度上削弱了他们在农民与贵族眼中的声誉，有些人甚至将基督教世界所遭受的灾难归咎于他们。公众对该修会的支持开始减弱。

I mean, imagine that you’re a European king or feudal lord for a just second. The Templars have returned to Europe in the aftermath of the Third Crusade. Maybe they’re even travelling through your land. They’ve got a massive army, a massive navy, they don’t pay taxes, they’re richer than sin, and they can do pretty much whatever the hell they want because the laws literally don’t apply to them. The only person with the authority to command the Templars to do anything is the Pope, and Rome’s a long way away. If they decide to camp outside your castle and eat your food and drink your wine for three weeks as your “guests,” there’s nothing you can do about it. The idea of such a powerful force with so little accountability would have made you pretty uneasy. And the Templars themselves did little to relieve that anxiety. Many of them could, and did, take full advantage of their immunity to local laws and customs. The phrase “drunk as a Templar” became popular for a reason. To be sure, all this might have been more easily borne before the tide of the Crusades turned against the Crusaders, but now these jokers are walking around all lordly-wise and they’re not even winning anymore. All of this made a lot of very powerful people very nervous and increasingly disgruntled.

我的意思是，设想一下你当一会儿欧洲国王或封建领主。第三次十字军东征后圣殿骑士回到了欧洲。也许他们正穿越你的领地。他们拥有庞大的陆军、强大的海军，不缴税，富得流油，而且他们几乎为所欲为，因为法律对他们根本不适用。唯一有权命令圣殿骑士做事的人是教皇，而罗马又很远。如果他们决定在你城堡外扎营，把你的食物喝光，把你的酒杯干了，作为他们的“贵宾”待上三周，你也无可奈何。这样一股权力巨大却几乎不受约束的力量，会让你感到相当不安。而圣殿骑士本身也并未做出太多缓解这种焦虑的举动。他们中很多人能够且确实利用了对当地法律和习俗的豁免权。“像圣殿骑士一样醉”这句话之所以流行并非没有原因。当然，在十字军潮流还在支持十字军的时候，这一切也许更容易忍受，但现在这些家伙还摆出一副领主派头，可他们连赢都赢不了。 所有这些都让很多非常有权势的人感到极度不安，并且越来越心怀不满。

The point I’m trying to get at here is that the Templars were already having some serious PR issues even before Philip IV of France came along. Speaking of which…

我想表达的要点是，圣殿骑士团在法国国王菲利普四世出现之前就已经有严重的公关问题了。说到这点……

See, Philip IV came to the French throne in 1285, and by 1303 he found himself and his kingdom deeply in debt after several failed—and very expensive—military campaigns. King Phil couldn’t afford to pay for all that on his own, so he went to the only people in Europe who could loan him the cash he needed. Those people—you guessed it—were the Templars, and he opened a huge tab with them that only got larger with time. And since King Philip seems to have had the financial acumen of a freaking goldfish, it didn’t take long for him to bring his kingdom into dire straits.

看，菲利普四世在 1285 年登上法国王位，到 1303 年，他发现自己和他的王国在几次失败且代价高昂的军事行动后负债累累。菲利普王无法独自承担这些费用，所以他去找了当时欧洲唯一能借给他所需现金的人。那些人——没错——就是圣殿骑士团，他在他们那里开了一个巨额账单，随着时间推移只会越来越大。而且既然菲利普王看起来像是有着金鱼般的理财能力，他很快就把王国拖入了危机之中。

Now, Philip shared many of the same concerns about the Templars as his contemporaries, but he was probably much more worried about how much money he owed them. He may have even feared that the Knights would try to overthrow him if he wasn’t able to pay them back—and he damn sure wasn’t able to pay them back, not after borrowing such enormous sums.
In short, all of his biggest headaches seemed to trace back to the Templars. So what did he decide to do?
Get rid of the Templars, of course. By destroying them, he could eliminate a potential threat to his authority, wipe out his debt, and replenish his kingdom’s coffers all in one fell swoop.

菲利普对圣殿骑士团有许多与同时代人相同的担忧，但他更可能担心的是自己欠他们多少钱。他甚至可能害怕如果不能偿还，骑士们会试图推翻他——而他绝对付不起这些欠款，毕竟借了如此巨额的钱。
简而言之，他所有最大的麻烦似乎都能追溯到圣殿骑士团。那么他决定做什么呢？
当然是铲除圣殿骑士团。通过摧毁他们，他可以一举消除对其权威的潜在威胁、抹去债务，并为王国补充国库。

But the Templars were traditionally protected by the Pope, so Philip IV’s first task was to remove their shield of papal authority. He did this by committing an act almost as audacious as his persecution of the Templars: stacking the papacy. Here is when we first see his Machiavellian brilliance on full display, for it was through this web of maChinations—which included bribery, intimidation, and even violence—that he was able to get a puppet Pope, Clement V, installed in the Vatican. Clement issued the edicts, but it was Philip who pulled his strings. The King of France now had de facto control over the Catholic Church, and he used that control to have Pope Clement draw up a long list of charges against the Templars. These included blasphemy, heresy, sodomy, idol-worship and even witchcraft. He also accused the Templars of performing obscene rites in their initiation ceremonies, which was a clever charge to make because the Templars kept the details of those ceremonies a closely-guarded secret. No one knew what those ceremonies entailed, and the Templars were forbidden by oath from discussing them with outsiders, so they couldn’t really refute the charges against them.

但圣殿骑士传统上受教皇保护，所以菲利普四世的第一项任务就是拿掉他们的教皇权威之盾。他为此所做的几乎与迫害圣殿骑士同样大胆：操纵教廷。这里我们首次全面看到他马基雅维利式的聪明才智，正是通过这张包含贿赂、威胁甚至暴力的阴谋网络，他才得以在梵蒂冈扶植出一个傀儡教皇——克莱门特五世。克莱门特发布了法令，但真正牵线的是菲利普。法王实质上掌控了天主教会，并利用这份控制权让教皇克莱门特列出了一长串对圣殿骑士的指控。这些指控包括亵渎、异端、鸡奸、偶像崇拜甚至巫术。他还指控圣殿骑士在入会仪式中进行猥亵的礼仪，这是一项精明的指控，因为圣殿骑士对这些仪式的细节守口如瓶。无人知晓这些仪式的内容，而圣殿骑士又以誓言被禁止与外人讨论，所以他们实际上无法真正反驳这些指控。

Needless to say, few historians take these any of these accusations seriously. They were almost certainly fabrications concocted by the king himself.
Next, Philip lured all the Templar leaders to France on a pretext. He claimed that he wanted to discuss merging them with another knightly order, the Knights Hospitaller. All the most powerful Templars heeded his call and came to France. Many were accompanied by lavish baggage trains, which Philip was no doubt counting on. He then issued secret instructions to all his officials in every city and town where the Templars were staying. So did Pope Clement, at Philip’s behest.

不必说，很少有历史学家会认真对待这些指控。它们几乎可以肯定是由国王亲自编造的捏造。
接着，菲利普以合并圣殿骑士团与另一军团——医院骑士团为由，诱使所有圣殿骑士首领前往法国。他声称想讨论两团合并事宜。所有最有权势的圣殿骑士都响应了他的召唤，来到法国。许多人带着豪华的随从和行李车队，菲利普无疑是有所预料的。随后，他向各城市和乡镇中所有接待圣殿骑士的官员下达了秘密指令。教皇克莱孟在菲利普的要求下也发出了类似的指示。

In other words, these orders were sent out not just across France but across Europe, to every village, city, castle and keep with a Templar presence. It was received by princes, judges and civil officials in Spain, England, Germany and Cyprus. But no matter who they were sent to, the orders were the same:

换言之，这些命令不仅在法国境内下达，而是遍及整个欧洲，发到了每一个有圣殿骑士驻扎的村庄、城市、城堡和要塞。它被送达给西班牙、英格兰、德国和塞浦路斯的诸侯、法官和民政官员。但无论这些命令送到谁手中，内容都是相同的：

At daybreak on Friday the 13th of October, 1307, every Templar in sight was to be arrested. Nothing was to be said to anyone about the raid before it happened, on pain of death if the plot was given away.
The plan went off like clockwork. It took the Templars completely by surprise. At dawn on the appointed day, they suddenly found themselves under attack all over the Continent. Some managed to escape, but many of them were rounded up and imprisoned or killed. Those unlucky enough to be captured, including their Grand Master Jacques du Molay, were tortured until they confessed to the trumped-up charges that had been leveled against them. Many of them died from this terrible treatment or were burned at the stake, and Pope Clement officially dissolved the Knights Templar several years later. Du Molay himself was eventually burned at the stake along with many of his comrades.

1307 年 10 月 13 日星期五黎明时分，所有能被看到的圣殿骑士都要被逮捕。对于这次突袭，在发生之前任何人都不得对外透露，若泄露计划则处以死刑。
计划像钟表般精确地展开。圣殿骑士们完全被出其不意地袭击了。约定的清晨，他们突然发现整个大陆范围内同时受到攻击。有些人设法逃脱，但许多人被逮捕、监禁或杀害。那些不幸被捕的人，包括他们的大团长雅克·杜·莫莱，被折磨直到对被捏造的指控供认不讳。许多人死于这种残酷对待或被活活烧死，数年后教皇克莱孟特正式解散了圣殿骑士团。杜·莫莱本人最终与许多同伴一同被活活烧死。

But the immense wealth that Philip had planned on seizing never materialized. The vast treasure the Templars brought with them to France was never recovered, and no one knows what happened to it. We do know that a Templar fleet of more than twenty vessels was anchored in the French city of La Rochelle before the purge and vanished overnight shortly after it began, but no one knows where it went. Some believe that the Templars used those ships smuggle their treasure out of France just in the nick of time, but there’s no way to know for certain. And even if they did, the treasure is just as lost to us today as it would have been had it stayed in France.

但菲利普计划夺取的巨额财富从未实现。圣殿骑士团带到法国的巨大财宝从未被找回，也无人知晓其下落。我们确实知道，在清洗行动之前，圣殿骑士团有一支由二十多艘船组成的舰队停泊在法国拉罗谢尔市，并在清洗开始后不久一夜之间消失，但没人知道它们去了哪里。有些人相信圣殿骑士团就是利用那些船只在千钧一发之际将财宝偷运出法国，但无法确定真相。即便他们真的这么做了，如今这些财宝对我们来说也和留在法国时一样，已然下落不明。

Nor does anyone know for certain what happened to the Templars who were lucky enough to survive the purge. Some of them no doubt faded into the background or lived the rest of their lives in hiding. Others may have vanished into the ranks of the Knights Hospitaller. A lucky few might have been able to bribe or plead enough for clemency if they were caught.

同样也没人确切知道那些在清洗中侥幸存活下来的圣殿骑士究竟发生了什么。他们中的一些人无疑逐渐隐退，或者在余生中隐姓埋名。另一些人可能加入了圣约翰骑士团的行列而销声匿迹。极少数幸运者若被抓获，或许通过贿赂或恳求争取到了宽恕。

There are stories, though. One of the most persistent legends says that some of the remaining Templars managed to make it to Scotland, where they later fought for Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. The Templars had strong connections with Scotland that dated back for more than a century, and Robert had little reason to honor the papal decree to purge the Templars. The pope had excommunicated him and his entire country after he murdered one of his rivals, John Comyn, inside a church on February 10, 1306, and now the King of Scots was fighting a brutal war against the English. If the Templars did indeed show up on his doorstep, he would have been happy to have such experienced and fearsome warriors on his side. But to date, no solid evidence has been found to give this theory credence.

不过也有传说。其中一个流传甚广的说法是，一些幸存的圣殿骑士设法逃到了苏格兰，并在 1314 年的班诺克本战役中为罗伯特·布鲁斯而战。圣殿骑士与苏格兰有着超过一个世纪的紧密联系，而罗伯特几乎没有理由遵从教皇下令清除圣殿骑士。1306 年 2 月 10 日，他在一座教堂内谋杀了他的一个竞争对手约翰·科明，教皇因此将他和他的整个国家逐出教会，而此时这位苏格兰国王正与英格兰进行一场残酷的战争。如果圣殿骑士确实出现在他门前，他一定会乐于让这些经验丰富且令人生畏的战士站在自己一边。但直到目前，还没有确凿证据支持这一说法。

Another legend—and my personal favorite—claims that some of the Templars fled to the Swiss Alps. In fact, there are stories in Switzerland even today of “armed white knights” who helped the Swiss crush an invasion by Duke Leopold of Hapsburg in 1315, just a few years after the purge. Could these “white knights” have been Templars? If they were, they picked a perfect spot. The Swiss Alps are formidable even with today’s technology, so they would have been an ideal location to hide in. They would also have been a great place for the Templars to put their expertise to good use. In fact, some claim that these fugitive Templars trained the very first Swiss pikemen, who went on to win renown as the most fearsome fighters in Europe. It is, after all, fairly remarkable how quickly the Swiss, who had been simple subsistence farmers for centuries before Duke Leopold’s invasion, became some of the finest warriors of their day. The story even goes so far as to claim that the Templars also taught the Swiss their secrets of banking and finance, and that those same secrets eventually evolved into the unique banking system still used in Switzerland today.

另一个传说——也是我个人最喜欢的一个——声称一些圣殿骑士逃到了瑞士阿尔卑斯山。事实上，直到今天，在瑞士仍有关于“全副武装的白色骑士”帮助瑞士人在 1315 年击退哈布斯堡公爵利奥波德入侵的传说，那离清洗事件只过去了几年。这些“白色骑士”会是圣殿骑士吗？如果是，他们选了个完美的藏身之处。即便拥有当今的技术，瑞士阿尔卑斯山仍极为险峻，因此对他们来说将是理想的藏身地。那里也会是圣殿骑士发挥其专长的好地方。事实上，有人声称这些流亡的圣殿骑士训练了最早的瑞士长矛兵，而这些士兵后来成为欧洲最可怕的战士之一。毕竟，利奥波德公爵入侵前几个世纪里一直只是靠自给自足为生的瑞士人，能在短时间内变成当时最优秀的战士之一，这一点相当令人惊讶。传说甚至进一步称，圣殿骑士还教会了瑞士人他们的银行与金融秘密，而这些秘密最终演变成了今日瑞士仍在使用的独特银行体系。

But by far the most fantastical—and least likely—story says that a group of Templars fled to North America, and that they used old maritime routes first pioneered by the Vikings centuries earlier to island-hop across the North Atlantic until they landed somewhere along the upper northeastern seaboard. Few historians take this assertion seriously, however, as there is almost no archaeological evidence to back it up.
Ultimately, as with the final destination of their fabled wealth, the true fate of the last Templars will likely never be known.

但迄今为止最荒诞——也是最不可能——的说法是，一群圣殿骑士逃到了北美，他们利用维京人几个世纪前首先开辟的旧海路，沿北大西洋跳岛航行，直到在东北部上游的某处沿海登陆。然而几乎没有考古证据支持这一说法，因此很少有历史学家认真对待它。
归根结底，就像他们传说中财富的最终下落一样，最后一批圣殿骑士的真实命运很可能永远不会为人所知。

Assistant
匿名

The Knights Templar did not vanish overnight; their rapid dismantling in the early 14th century resulted from a combination of political opportunism, fiscal pressure, legal pretext, and an institutional vulnerability created by dependence on royal favor. Key factors:
Political context and royal debt

圣殿骑士团并非一夜之间消失；他们在 14 世纪初被迅速瓦解，是政治投机、财政压力、法律借口以及依赖王室恩宠所产生的机构性脆弱性等多重因素共同作用的结果。关键因素包括：
政治背景和皇室债务

By 1307 King Philip IV of France was deeply indebted to the Templars from loans made to fund wars and royal expenditure. Seizing Templar assets solved an urgent fiscal problem and removed a creditor who was politically independent and internationally connected.
Philip wanted to centralize authority and reduce alternative power centers (military orders, autonomous barons, wealthy clerical institutions). Targeting the Templars served both fiscal and political consolidation.

到 1307 年，法国国王菲利普四世因为为战争和皇室开支提供贷款而对圣殿骑士团负有巨额债务。没收圣殿骑士团的资产既解决了紧迫的财政问题，也除去了一个在政治上独立并且具有国际联系的债权人。
菲利普希望中央集权，削弱其他权力中心（武装宗教团体、自治男爵、有钱的教会机构）。以圣殿骑士为目标既有财政目的，也有政治整合的考虑。

Arrests, charges, and the legal strategy
On 13 October 1307 Philip ordered simultaneous arrests of Templars in France, accusing them of heresy, blasphemy, idolatry, sodomy and other crimes. The coordinated surprise arrests prevented organized resistance and created a fait accompli.

逮捕、指控与法律策略
1307 年 10 月 13 日，菲利普下令在法国同时逮捕圣殿骑士，指控他们异端、亵渎、偶像崇拜、鸡奸及其他罪行。协调一致的突袭逮捕阻止了有组织的抵抗，并制造了既成事实。

Torture-produced confessions (frequently later retracted) gave Philip and his ecclesiastical allies documentary evidence to justify prosecutions and asset confiscations under canon and royal law.
Philip pressured Pope Clement V; the papacy, politically weak and residing in Avignon under French influence, issued orders that effectively suspended and then dissolved the Order.

通过酷刑获得的口供（常在后来被撤回）为菲利普及其教会盟友提供了文书证据，以便根据教会法和王室法进行起诉并没收财产。
菲利普向教皇克莱孟五世施压；教皇政治上势弱，居住在受法国影响的阿维尼翁，发布命令有效地中止并随后解散了该骑士团。

Papal involvement and legal dissolution
Pope Clement V convened the Council of Vienne (1311–1312). Under intense pressure and citing the scandal and legal confusion, the council issued a papal bull (Vox in excelso, 1312) formally suppressing the Templars.
The papal decision did not uniformly endorse all criminal charges, but it authorized transfer of most Templar properties to the Knights Hospitaller or to local rulers, while leaving some cases to secular courts.

教皇介入与法律解散
教皇克莱孟五世召开了维也纳议会（1311–1312）。在巨大压力下，并以丑闻和法律混乱为由，议会发布了宗座诏书，正式取缔了圣殿骑士团。
教皇的决定并未全面认可所有刑事指控，但授权将大部分圣殿骑士团财产移交给医院骑士团或地方统治者，同时将部分案件交由世俗法院处理。

Institutional weaknesses of the Templars
International but centralized: the Templars’ assets and command structure were international, which made them tempting targets because confiscation could enrich sovereigns quickly; their wealth was visible, concentrated and legally ambiguous.

圣殿骑士团的体制性弱点
国际化但高度集中：圣殿骑士团的资产和指挥结构具有国际性，这使他们成为极具诱惑力的目标，因为没收财产能够迅速充实君主的财库；他们的财富显而易见、集中且在法律上含糊不清。

Lack of a powerful protector: by 1307 the Crusader states were gone or marginal, and no single monarch or coalition was willing to defend the Order against France and a compliant papacy.
Requirement of secrecy and oaths: allegations of secret initiation rites and misconduct could be sensationalized; the Order’s cohesion depended on reputation and the Church’s protection, both eroded under pressure.

缺乏强有力的保护者：到 1307 年，十字军国家已消亡或边缘化，且没有任何单一君主或联盟愿意在面对法国和顺从的教皇时为该团辩护。
保密与誓约的要求：有关秘密入会仪式和不当行为的指控容易被渲染；该团的凝聚力依赖于声誉和教会的保护，而在压力下两者都被侵蚀。

Local variation and aftermath
Treatment of Templars differed by country. In some places (England, Iberia, Cyprus) arrests were less thorough, trials slower, or monarchs less aggressively confiscatory. In England, Edward II initially arrested Templars but released many and eventually transferred most assets to Hospitallers after political maneuvering.
Many knights were imprisoned, forced to recant, executed in France (notably burnings at stake), or absorbed into other military orders or monastic life. Much property was seized by monarchs despite papal directives.

地方差异与后果
对圣殿骑士的处理因国家而异。在一些地方（英格兰、伊比利亚、塞浦路斯），逮捕不那么彻底，审判较慢，或君主的没收并不那么激进。在英格兰，爱德华二世最初逮捕了圣殿骑士，但释放了许多人，并在政治操作后最终将大部分资产转移给了医院骑士团。
许多骑士被监禁、被迫撤回信仰、在法国被处决（尤其是火刑），或被吸收进其他军事修会或修道生活。尽管有教皇的指示，许多财产仍被君主没收。

Broader reasons why disappearance happened quickly
Rapid, coordinated state action backed by the Church eliminated the Order’s legal standing and leadership before it could mount a unified defense.

他们迅速消失更广泛的原因
迅速且协调的国家行动在教会的支持下，消除了该团体的法律地位和领导层，使其在未能组织统一辩护之前就已被瓦解。

Political opportunism made punishment and confiscation both desirable and politically feasible; popular opinion was shaped by sensational charges and official propaganda.
International orders are vulnerable when the balance of power shifts and their main patrons or mission no longer exist.

政治投机使惩罚和没收既可取又具有政治可行性；耸人听闻的指控和官方宣传塑造了民意。
当国际性团体的权力平衡发生变化、其主要支持者或使命不复存在时，它们就会变得脆弱。

Summary: The Templars’ collapse was not mystical but engineered: a powerful monarch with debts and motives (Philip IV), opportunistic use of criminal charges, papal compliance, torture-driven confessions, and the Order’s lack of a protective political base produced a swift legal and practical dismantling across Christendom within a few years.

总结：圣殿骑士团的崩溃并非神秘，而是人为策划：一位负债且有动机的强大君主（腓力四世）、机会主义地利用刑事指控、教皇的配合、以酷刑逼供的供词，以及该团体缺乏保护性的政治根基，共同导致在几年内于基督教世界范围内迅速被法律上和实际地拆解。

Kate Baxter
凯特・巴克斯特

Studied at University of Victoria (BC, Canada) (Graduated 2011)7y
They didn’t disappear. Phillip the IV of France known as Phillips the Fair had they hunted down and killed in an effort to steal their wealth which was believed to be enormous. And he and the country had huge debts that needed repaying. On Friday Oct 13, 1307 he had his agents throughout France hunt down, torture, kill and burnt at the stake every Templar they could get their hands on to steal any and all wealth. This by the way is why we have a superstition regarding Friday the 13th as being unlucky. Needless to say those that escaped the king’s agent fled the country and hid as far away as they could. Their once powerful organization was destroyed.

他们并没有消失。法国的腓力四世，被称为“英俊王”，下令追捕并处死圣殿骑士，目的是夺取他们被认为巨大的财富。而他和国家负有巨额债务，需要偿还。1307 年 10 月 13 日星期五，他在法国各地派遣代理人追捕、折磨、杀害并将尽可能多的圣殿骑士火刑，以窃取他们的一切财富。顺便说一句，这也是我们对 13 日星期五这天不吉利的迷信的由来。不用说，逃过王室追捕的那些人逃离了国家，尽可能远地隐藏起来。他们曾经强大的组织就此被摧毁。