344 THB KNIGHTS TEMPLARS
prescribed such indecencies failed completely. The obscenity
was characteristic of the age. It was nothing more than a
piece of childish grossness—the sort of jest that may have
originated with some vulgar Receiver and spread to other
houses, Several witnesses treated the kisses as a joke5 the
description given by others suggests that, while they regarded
the kisses as disgusting, the Receiver and his satellites derived
considerable fun from imposing this coarse pleasantry on
novices. Initiation ceremonies of certain societies in our
own day are not free of grossness.
The denial of Christ and the spitting on the cross were
admitted by hundreds of Templars in France. Historians
who are satisfied that the Templars were guilty of these
offences have put forward several interesting theories regard-
ing them. The recruit, it is pointed out, had given up
everything to the Orderj he had transferred all his goods,
had turned his back on his friends and relations, and sworn
to submit himself unconditionally to the Temple and be its
slave. His secular clothes were stripped from him and,
naked, he knelt before the Receiver. He was given the
Templar's mantle and equipment and from henceforward he
owed everything to the Order. But one thing he had left—
his religion. That, too, must be surrendered so that the
Templar should have no consolation apart from the Order.
Christ, the hope of his salvation, had therefore to be
renounced. Other writers have suggested that the denial was
a piece of depraved humour like the indecent kisses. Faith
was strong in the Middle Ages, but so, too, was the delight
in coarse blasphemy. The novice, whom everything had
impressed with the solemnity of his entry into a great Order
which had fought for Christ on a thousand fields, has taken
upon himself the responsibilities of a stern religious Rule.
Now, like a thunderbolt, comes the demand that he should
deny Christ and spit on His image. He is told that it is the
final proof of his submission and that he must *€ obey like a