264 THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS
evidence had been forthcoming that the same procedure had
been followed in many places and there was sufficient evidence
to give rise to a strong suspicion that the manner of the
reception of the brethren was laid down in some document,
even though a copy of the document itself could not be
produced.
The most horrible tortures had been employed to force the
confessions from the Templars, but the Inquisition gravely
reported that " mild arguments " only had been used—mild
arguments which in Paris alone caused the death of thirty-six
Templars! No evidence was valid to the Inquisition except
that of the accused himself. If a man did not confess, then
the Inquisition assumed that it was because of his obstinacy
and the strength given him by the devil, and the inquisitors
stopped at nothing to compel self-condemnation. If a man
were innocent, the inquisitors argued, God would give him
the power to defy the tortures of the rack, the thumbscrew,
the boot, hoisting, the question by water, and the other
cruelties. Several years before, Philip the Fair had strongly
objected to the inhuman methods of the Inquisition in extort-
ing confessions, but he hounded on William of Paris to use
the most extreme methods to force admissions from the
Templars.
Confessions forced from alleged heretics by torture were
considered by most people as well as the Inquisition to be
worthy of credence, and the heretical practices admitted by so
many Templars in this examination would ordinarily have
been sufficient to condemn prisoners. The next step in a
normal process was to hand the prisoners over to the secular
arm for punishment 5 for the Inquisition itself did not shed
blood or otherwise concern itself with punishing the heretics
whom it rejected from the Church. Although this was not a
normal process since it related to a religious institution whose
members were under the protection of the Pope and
answerable only to him, Philip was capable of inducing