25± POLITICAL HERESY. — THE STATE. of the effort must have strengthened his convictions of its neces- sity. If it be asked why he attacked the Templars rather than the Hospitallers, the answer is probably to be found in the fact that the Temple was the weaker of the two, while the secrecy shroud- ing its ritual rendered it an object of popular suspicion.* Walsingham asserts that Philippe's design in assailing the Tem- plars was to procure for one of his younger sons the title of King of Jerusalem, with the Templar possessions as an appanage. Such a project was completely within the line of thought of the time, and would have resulted in precipitating Europe anew upon Syria. It may possibly have been a motive at the outset, and was gravely discussed in the Council of Vienne in favor of Philippe le Long, but it is evident that no sovereign outside of France would have permitted the Templar dominions within his territories to pass under the control of a member of the aspiring house of Capet.f For the explanation of Philippe's action, however, we need hardly look further than to financial considerations. He was in desperate straits for money to meet the endless drain of the Flem- ish war. He had imposed taxes until some of his subjects were in revolt, and others were on the verge of it. He had debased the currency until he earned the name of the Counterfeiter, had found himself utterly unable to redeem his promises, and had discovered by experience that of all financial devices it was the most costly and ruinous. His resources were exhausted and his scruples were few. The stream of confiscations from Languedoc was beginning to run dry, while the sums which it had supplied to the royal treasury for more than half a century had shown the profit which was de- rivable from well-applied persecution of heresy. He had just car-
- Du Puy, Hist, du Differend, Preuves, pp. 136-7.— Baudouin, Lettres inedites
de Philippe le Bel, p. 163.— Maillard de Chambure, p. 61. — Grandes Chroniques,V. 173.— Raynouard, pp. 14, 21.— Ryraer, I. 30.— Regest. Clement. PP. V. T. I. p. 192 (Ed. Benedict. Romse, 1885).— Prutz, pp. 23, 31, 38, 46, 49, 51-2, 59, 76, 78, 79, 80.— Regie et Statuts, § 29, p. 226 ; § 58, pp. 249, 254 ; § 126, pp. 463-4.— Thomas, Registres de Boniface VIII. T. I. No. 490.— Baudouin, op. cit, p. 212. Schottmiiller (Der Untergang des Templer-Ordens, Berlin, 1887, I. 65) con- jectures that the loan of five hundred thousand livres to Philippe is probably a popular error arising from the intervention of the Templars as bankers in the payment of the dowry. f D'Argentre I. i. 280.— Wilcke, op. cit. II. 304-6.
