The Templars after Acre: the last ‘battle’ in Italy.

Dante, Templar brother

Peter of Bologna and the Absolution of the Templars at the Ravenna Trial
held by Archbishop Rinaldo of Ravenna

My main focus (2) in this paper will be on Templar brother Pietro, or Peter, of
Bologna and Archbishop of Ravenna Rinaldo of Concorezzo. They played leading
roles in the trials that sealed the fate of the Templars between 1307 and 1312:
the principal proceedings at Paris and one of the local ones at Ravenna. The poet
Dante Alighieri, who commented in favour of the Templars and even foresaw the
deaths of (3) pope Clemens V and King Philip of France will also be mentioned.
In fact the pope and the king were those who promoted or, at least, permitted the
trial culminated in the Council of Vienne in 1312 that administratively
suspended the Order!

Peter (4), Rinaldo, Dante and Bertrand de Got, the future pope Clement V who
studied Canon Law in Bologna, were contemporaries and can be placed at
Bologna University some time in 1286-87. Indeed, Dante wrote most of his
Commedia in the following years in Ravenna and died there within a month of
Rinaldo in 1321.

The only one of these actors whose name is not familiar to us is Peter of Bologna
(5). His identification and role in the events at Paris and Ravenna are the focal
points of my ongoing research. A close examination of primary and related
secondary sources indicates that Pietro Roda, a defendant at the Ravenna trial,
and Peter of Bologna, the chief defender of the Order in the Paris trial, are one
and the same person.

The Paris trial had been initiated by king Philip in 1307 and later placed under
the pope for prosecution by the Inquisition. The Templars were accused, among
other charges, of heresy. The proceedings were thus intended to supress the
Order and confiscate its treasure and properties. Trials instituted elsewhere in
Europe soon followed. The Ravenna trial of the Order’s Bologna Commandery
was presided over by Rinaldo as Bologna fell under his ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

(6) By 18 of May 1310, as the proceedings in Paris progressed to their inevitable

and deadly conclusion, defence counsel Peter disappeared. But not for long. The
historical record shows that he appeared as a defendant in the Ravenna trial of
the Bologna Templars and, following their acquittal, became like many others
brothers, a Hospitaller.

Let’s take a closer look at the places where this local trial occurred. (7)

The Order of the Temple’s Bologna Commandery was a key communications link
between Western and Northern Europe (Odense-Bologna) and the ports of
Apulia, in southern Italy, that served as gateways to the Holy Land. The
properties it possessed and the number of its Knights also made it one of the
richest. In this slide (8) you can see a 3D reconstruction Church of Saint Mary of
the Commandery prepared during this research using all possible sources and

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comparing them with the surviving (9) Hall of Knights of the Templar
Commandery dated to the end of 13th century.

This was the House of Brother Peter of Bologna.

Let’s begin from the end: his tomb, (10) That because this inscription permitted
me to understand the identity of Peter. In Fact this is the drawing of the tomb in
a 18th century book by local historian Oretti. He places the tomb in the floor of
the no longer existing Church of the Commandery, Saint Mary of the Temple, in
Bologna.

The inscription reads:

‘(Here lies) Peter of the family Rota, illustrious in the grace of <his> virtue. Here
rests the intrepid legal defender of Christ, beloved within the Order. On the tunic
bringing the spirit <moral values>, which he was full of, and the cross; now scale
the heights supreme, offering us the example of a look that contemplates the
things of heaven. In the year 1329, in the sixth hour, on the fourth <day> of May,
the light broke through the organs of the mind.’

This puts Peter back in Bologna after the Paris trial while some modern
Freemasons historians put him in Scotland.

While the primary sources that allow for reconstructing Peter’s identity are
scarce, let me mention the main ones as a time-line for his life.

In a testimony during the trial regarding events in 1288 Peter is cited as being
already presbyter and chaplain in Bologna.1

In 1298 Pope Boniface VIII sent Peter of Bologna to the Monastery of San
Miniato in Florence (11) as Advocate General of the Order to the Roman
Curia in order to settle a dispute. 2 This document is a cyclostyle copy made by
Gaetano La Mattina, the Director of the Vatican Apostolic Library, who was
charged in the 1970s-1980s with examining and preserving all the original
sources pertaining to the Templars creating “Regesta Pontificum Romanorum
erga Templarios”, a collection of papal bulls addressed to grand masters,
preceptors and Knights of the Order of the Templars: 1157 papal letters, from
Innocent II to Clement V, from 1139 to 1313. The collection has never been
published and is in need of a multi-lingual critical apparatus for perusal.

1 K. Schottmuuller, Der Untergang des Templer-Ordens, Berlin 1887, p. 210.

2 G. La Mattina, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum erga Templarios (1139-
1313), Città del Vaticano 1984, p. 184

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There is an additional mention of Peter recorded in a document dated 1304 in
this slide: (12)
It notes that brother Peter of Bologna, attorney general of the Templar Order at
the Roman Curia, bought a house with fields in Fossolo, a place just beyond the
city walls. It is the same property (13) ascribed to Pietro Roda listed in the 1309
inventory of Templar estates in Bologna: I will be back later on this.

Another source is local historian Nicolò Alidosi who, in 1616, mentions Peter in
citing a list of the Knights of Saint Mary of the Temple 3 the list encompasses
Bolognese knights of various monastic orders, including the Templars of the
same names of the ones, involved in the trial, who also appear in the medieval
archives of the Ravenna Archbishopric. 4
This author (14) also notes that in 1305 his surname was Roda and that he had
been at the time already Advocate General of the Order of the Temple.

As Michelet notes (15), 2 centuries later after Alidosi, Peter was called to appear
for interrogation on 7 November 1307 at the trial of the Templars in Paris.
This poses a question: If he had been a prisoner in France in 1307, how he was
exercising his role as defender of the Order in 1310 and was he free to leave
France during the years of the trial, or did he remain there in Paris?

It seems that brother Peter Roda, by now identified as Peter of Bologna, must
somehow have returned from France after the first stage of the Paris trials since
he was in Bologna early in 1309 in this inventory (16) that is now part of the
Ravenna Archbishopric Archive because Rinaldo (17) replaced the Inquisition’s
management of the Templar’s Bologna properties on 23 September 1309 and
ordered all related documents, including the inventory, handed over to him. 5

Who was this strong bishop?

Rinaldo from Concorezzo was born around 1250 to a Guelph family of jurists. A

3 Pasquali Alidosi N., Li Cavalieri bolognesi di tutte le religioni et ordini, Bologna

1616, pp.17-18.
4 See, for example, AARa 8011.
5 AARa 9686
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 document dated 1286 referring to the professors and students of the Bologna
Studium lists Rinaldo among them: He was about to take his degree in law and
work as Lecturer by the end of the same year. (18)

He began then his ecclesiastical career in the Roman Curia, becoming in turn
Bishop of Vicenza in 1296, Special Papal Nuncio to France in 1298 and
Archbishop of Ravenna in 1303 until his death. As archbishop, he oversaw the
Ravenna trial of the Templars. He refused to extort confessions by torture and
the accused were acquitted of all charges in 1311: at the end of my paper we will
see the details of it.

Back to Peter: According to Michelet and others, Templar Brother Ponsard de Gizy
appealed to the Inquisitors on the 27 of November 1309 requesting the help of
priests Peter of Bologna and Renaud de Provins in defending the Order during the
Paris trial.6 On the following 28 March 1310, Peter (19) was among some 541
Templars who gathered in defence of the Order in front of the papal inquisitors in
this crucial phase of the trial as one of the four counsels appointed by the knights to
defend the Order’s General Staff. He was chosen for his legal expertise and learned
eloquence.7
At the end of March 1310 the inquisitors ordered the warder of the Templar
prisoners, to conduct before the tribunal the priests Peter of Bologna and Fra
Renaud de Provins and the knights Fra Guillaume de Chamborand and Fra
Bertrand de Sartiges so that the defence of the Order should commence. 8 The
four advocates requested they be released from custody and that their
arguments be heard at closed session in chambers. They also stated that the
confessions they signed in 1307-08 were extorted under torture. All seemed to
be progressing well until 18 May 1310 when Peter disappeared from the Paris
prison.

This trial was very interesting also for the third of these actors: Dante Alighieri:
6 J. MIchelet, Procès des Templiers, I, Paris 1841, p. 36.
7 R.Oursel, Le procès, Paris 1955, p.81; J.Michelet, Procès des Templiers, II, Paris

1841.P.398; G. Lizerand, Le dossier de l’affaire des Templiers, Paris 1923. P. 156 ;

P.PartnerP. Partner, I Templari, Milano 1987. P.88; L.Imperio, Parigi 1307: il

venerdì maledetto dei Templari, Tuscania 2007. Pp. 150-153.

8 J.Michelet, op. cit, I, p.113.

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(20)
Let’s look in this slide at Dante’s verses (Purgatorio, XX, vs. 91-96) written in
Ravenna around 1312-13.

“ I see new Pilato so cruel, [king Philip] who is not satisfied, but was bringing,
without any permit [from the Pope] his cupid sails inside the Temple. Oh my God,
when will I be glad to see the revenge that, hidden, make sweet thine anger
secretly?”.
Dante was clearly upset with King Philip for this.

Many biographers of Dante place him as studying in Bologna in 1286-87. This

appears to be supported by a sonnet (21) of the poet transcribed in the margins
of the Registry of Memoranda of the Commune of Bologna by notary Enrichetto
delle Querce and is datable to the second half of 1287. It is the first sonnet by
Dante for which we have written evidence. Dante was 22.

The sonnet mentions the Garisenda Tower, one of the famous two towers of
Bologna. Boccaccio is the first source for Dante as student in Bologna and he was
there again during his years of exile around 1305.
In his De Vulgari Eloquentia, Dante emphasize his discussion how dialects of
demotic Italian differ from city to city, by noting that even within the city of
Bologna (22) they differ from one quarter to another, citing the divide of a few
hundred yards between the San Felice and Strada Maggiore neighborhoods, the
latter being where the Templar Grange stood. He thus seems to have had an
intimate knowledge of the city.9

Let me note before closing my remarks key details of the Ravenna trial as
reconstructed from the sources I’ve so far explored.

The Knights Templar in Bologna were soon facing a fate that looked, in
the beginning, very much like that visited upon their French brothers in
1307. Invested with the necessary powers by authority of the papal bull
issued in August 1308, (23) the Inquisition proceeded to confiscate by
force of arms the Bologna Commander, to take into custody any
Templars found there and then, to draw up an inventory of all properties
belonging to the local Order. Indeed, Archbishop Renaldo received papal
authorisation in September 1309 to take charge of the Bologna
Commander’s assets and institute legal proceedings against the Knights
9 D.Alighieri, De Vulgari Eloquenza, LIb, I, Cap.XV.
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under his jurisdiction.
Renaldo moved quickly. He took up temporary residence (24) in
the Bologna Commander, disposed that the arrested knights be provided
with room and board and other necessities commensurate with the dignity
of their station and took possession of the inventory. (Aara 12575). The
Rector of the local Church of St Michael of the Lepers was charged with
managing the Templar estates; In 1310 Rinaldo ordered investigations of
the Templars in Bologna and in all the other dioceses of Ravenna
Province. He later convened and presided over two provincial judiciary
councils in Ravenna to examine the resulting reports.
The first of the councils was held from 13 to 15 January 1311 but
ended without pronouncing sentence. The second, held on 17 June 1311,
was instituted as a formal tribunal and heard direct testimony of the
Templars as for example Raimondo and Giacomo Fontana and Pietro
Caccia, all of Piacenza Province, and the Bologna knights Bartholomeo
Tencarari, Alberto of the Arienti, brother Peter, Alberto of Brenzano and
Giovanni Bono, testified before the panel and all denied the charges
against them.[2]

[On a more curious note, it transpired from their testimony that the
Templars were actually held not in prison but under a kind of house arrest
in their respective commanderies.]

The next day, 18 June (25), Rinaldo and the other members of the
tribunal handed down a unanimous ruling. It entailed the following 4
essential points.

1. The innocent are to be acquitted and the guilty punished in accordance

with the law.
2. Those of the defendants whose confessions were extracted under
torture and who then retracted them, or did not do so for fear of other
torture, are to be held as innocent so long as these attenuating
circumstances are proven.

3. The assets of the Order shall remain in its possession if the majority of
the Templars are proven innocent.

4. The guilty shall, upon repentance, submit to penance as prescribed by

local bishops. [3]

A letter signed by Rinaldo was then given to the knights who were
to deliver to their respective bishops (26). It stipulated how the penance
was to be expiated if any of the bearers were found guilty of the sins by at

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least seven witnesses of the Catholic faith. There is even a good example
of how this worked in practice. The Bolognese Alberto of Brenzano, went
before bishop Uberto of Bologna and declared his strict orthodoxy and
complete innocence. No less than twelve witnesses, eight of whom
ecclesiastics, testified in his behalf.[4]

The Ravenna ruling was revolutionary. It was certainly not what Clement
V had expected. Indeed, he issued a letter to his vicars in Upper Italy on
27 June 1311 accusing them of negligence and of refusing to resort to
torture. While the response of the archbishop of Pisa was immediately to
obey, Rinaldo’s was simply to begin making arrangements to attend the
Council of Vienne (27) .
When the Council of Vienne convened, Clemens spared no effort
to humiliate Rinaldo and prevent his participation in the decision-making
process regarding the Templars. To begin with, he had Rinaldo seated
with the cardinals and other archbishops and not to his right as long-
standing protocol demanded. As the proceedings progressed, he then
appointed the Patriarch of Aquilea, who had been subordinate to Rinaldo
in the Templar investigations in Italy, to chair the committee charged
with examining the transcripts of the various Templar trials. His last
insult was to by-pass Rinaldo and appoint the Abbot of Pomposa, a loyal
follower, to oversee the transfer of Templar properties to the Order of the
Hospitallers.
(28) Peter, Rinaldo and Dante had lived in the same city, in the same
period and most probably they know each other. The latter two had a
similar favourable position regarding the Order of the Temple.
For Rinaldo, in particular, having not resorted to the use of torture and
then judging as innocent the Templars under his jurisdiction proved to be
anything but good for his ecclesiastical carrier.
What happens in Ravenna was probably the last victory on a “battlefield”
for the Templars at least in northern Italy. It was more a morale victory
since the war for the survival of the Order was lost.
(29) Thank you in particular to Dr. Nicholas Morton.

[2] AARa 8011, in Tarlazzi A., Appendice ai Monumenti ravennati dei

secoli di mezzo del conte M.Fantuzzi, 1-2,Ravenna 1869, vol.1 p.624
[3] Tutti gli Uomini del Cardinale, Atti del Convegno, cit , pp.101 ff.
[4] For Brenzano, see AARa 8011, op. cit., ch. 2, par. 2. For Tencarari,
see Rossi H, Storia di Ravenna, VI, 526.