THE ARREST OF THE TEMPLARS IN FRANCE 239
all levies either by the Church or the State. The Temple
also had the advantage that, as its lands were vested in the
Order, it did not suffer from the operation of the law by
which the suzerain could take the lands of a man who died
without an heir. A number of lords whose possessions would
in normal course have reverted to Philip had prevented their
estates from falling into the hands of the king by enrolling
in the Temple in the latter years of their life,
Philip had usually ignored the nobles and the ecclesiastics
when choosing his ministers and advisers, and had recruited
them from among the bourgeois. These counsellors had
done him good service and they wanted to be ennobled as
a reward. A nobleman must have land, and Philip was
anxious to endow his middle-class advisers with property,
both to ensure their loyalty to him and to weaken the old-
established nobility, with whom he had fought on several
occasions. The king would have liked to seize the lands of
the Church proper, but he dared not yet take such a step.
By crushing the Temple, however, he would strike at the
Church, would refill his treasury, and have ample lands for
his trusted ministers. Anything that would weaken the
Church was attractive to Philip. He dreamed of ruling
over the Empire of Charlemagne, and he knew that the
Church would be the greatest obstacle to this ambition. His
policy therefore was to humble the prestige of the papacy.
The Temple, the Hospital, and the Teutonic Knights were
a permanent army at the disposal of the Popes, and all three
might be organised against France at the command of the
Pope.
That was enough to make Philip dislike the military
Orders, but he had other reasons for his antagonism. Many
of his subjects were enrolling in, or putting themselves under
the protection of, the Temple or the Hospital to escape the
military and civil duties which, obligatory on everyone else,
were not required of the brethren. Moreover, practically