【Technobahnより、以下転載】ようやく日本語になってるニュースを見つけました。海外で流れてるニュースそのままですね。特に目新しい内容はないようです。
バチカン法王庁は12日、1307年のフランス王フィリップ4世によるテンプル騎士団迫害に関連して1312年に行われたヴィエンヌ公会議におけるテンプル騎士団禁止を命じた宗教裁判の資料「Processus Contra Templarios」を700年ぶりに公開することを決定した。
テンプル騎士団は中世ヨーロッパで活躍した騎士修道会。起源は11世紀の第一回十字軍遠征にまで遡ることができ、十字軍遠征では聖地エルサレム奪還に貢献をしたことで知られている。
しかし、12世紀後半になってからエルサレムがイスラム教徒の支配下に落ちた以降は、影響力を失い、14世紀に入ってからはフランス王フィリップ4世の陰謀によって壊滅された。
今回、バチカン法王庁が公開した文書はヴィエンヌ公会議の公文書で、1628年にバチカン法王庁の書庫目録に記載されたことを最後に、歴史上から存在が消されていた文書となる。
公開された文書は300ページで、799部の限定で、バチカン法王庁の御用達のScrinium出版社から1部、8377ドル（約96万円）で販売の予定。
テンプル騎士団は聖杯伝説とも密接な関係を持つなど中世キリスト教史上、最大の謎ともされてきただけに、今回の公開された文書は中世キリスト教史を解きほぐす上で、重要な史料となりそうだ。
あわせて海外での報道はこんな感じでした。
Knights Templar win heresy reprieve after 700 years
【Reutersより、以下転載】赤い部分は私がつけたもの。書名と値段です。
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Knights Templar, the medieval Christian military order accused of heresy and sexual misconduct, will soon be partly rehabilitated when the Vatican publishes trial documents it had closely guarded for 700 years.
A reproduction of the minutes of trials against the Templars, "'Processus Contra Templarios -- Papal Inquiry into the Trial of the Templars'" is a massive work and much more than a book -- with a 5,900 euros ($8,333) price tag.
"This is a milestone because it is the first time that these documents are being released by the Vatican, which gives a stamp of authority to the entire project," said Professor Barbara Frale, a medievalist at the Vatican's Secret Archives.
"Nothing before this offered scholars original documents of the trials of the Templars," she told Reuters in a telephone interview ahead of the official presentation of the work on October 25.
The epic comes in a soft leather case that includes a large-format book including scholarly commentary, reproductions of original parchments in Latin, and -- to tantalize Templar buffs -- replicas of the wax seals used by 14th-century inquisitors.
Reuters was given an advance preview of the work, of which only 799 numbered copies have been made.
One parchment measuring about half a meter wide by some two meters long is so detailed that it includes reproductions of stains and imperfections seen on the originals.
Pope Benedict will be given the first set of the work, published by the Vatican Secret Archives in collaboration with Italy's Scrinium cultural foundation, which acted as curator and will have exclusive world distribution rights.
The Templars, whose full name was "Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon", were founded in 1119 by knights sworn to protecting Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099.
They amassed enormous wealth and helped finance wars of some European monarchs. Legends of their hidden treasures, secret rituals and power have figured over the years in films and bestsellers such as "The Da Vinci Code".
The Knights have also been portrayed as guardians of the legendary Holy Grail, the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper before his crucifixion.
The Vatican expects most copies of the work to be bought up by specialized libraries at top universities and by leading medieval scholars.
BURNED AT THE STAKE
The Templars went into decline after Muslims re-conquered the Holy Land at the end of the 13th century and were accused of heresy by King Philip IV of France, their foremost persecutor. Their alleged offences included denying Christ and secretly worshipping idols.
The most titillating part of the documents is the so-called Chinon Parchment, which contains phrases in which Pope Clement V absolves the Templars of charges of heresy, which had been the backbone of King Philip's attempts to eliminate them.
Templars were burned at the stake for heresy by King Philip's agents after they made confessions that most historians believe were given under duress.
The parchment, also known as the Chinon Chart, was "misplaced" in the Vatican archives until 2001, when Frale stumbled across it.
"The parchment was catalogued incorrectly at some point in history. At first I couldn't believe my eyes. I was incredulous," she said.
"This was the document that a lot of historians were looking for," the 37-year-old scholar said.
Philip was heavily indebted to the Templars, who had helped him finance his wars, and getting rid of them was a convenient way of cancelling his debts, some historians say.
Frale said Pope Clement was convinced that while the Templars had committed some grave sins, they were not heretics.
SPITTING ON THE CROSS
Their initiation ceremony is believed to have included spitting on the cross, but Frale said they justified this as a ritual of obedience in preparation for possible capture by Muslims. They were also said to have practiced sodomy.
"Simply put, the pope recognized that they were not heretics but guilty of many other minor crimes -- such as abuses, violence and sinful acts within the order," she said. "But that is not the same as heresy."
Despite his conviction that the Templars were not guilty of heresy, in 1312 Pope Clement ordered the Templars disbanded for what Frale called "the good of the Church" following his repeated clashes with the French king.
Frale depicted the trials against the Templars between 1307 and 1312 as a battle of political wills between Clement and Philip, and said the document means Clement's position has to be reappraised by historians.
"This will allow anyone to see what is actually in documents like these and deflate legends that are in vogue these days," she said.
Rosi Fontana, who has helped the Vatican coordinate the project, said: "The most incredible thing is that 700 years have passed and people are still fascinated by all of this."
"The precise reproduction of the parchments will allow scholars to study them, touch them, admire them as if they were dealing with the real thing," Fontana said.
"But even better, it means the originals will not deteriorate as fast as they would if they were constantly being viewed," she said.
Knights Templar secrets revealed
【CNNより、以下転載】赤い部分は、限定部数、販売価格、出版社の情報。
The Vatican has published secret archive documents about the trial of the Knights Templar, including a long-lost parchment that shows that Pope Clement V initially absolved the medieval Christian order from accusations of heresy, officials said Friday.
The 300-page volume recently came out in a limited edition -- 799 copies -- each priced at $8,377, said Scrinium publishing house, which prints documents from the Vatican's secret archives.
The order of knights, which ultimately disappeared as a result of the heresy scandal, recently captivated the imagination of readers of the best-seller "The Da Vinci Code," in which the author Dan Brown linked the Templars to the story of the Holy Grail.
The work reproduces the entire documentation on the papal hearings convened after King Philip IV of France arrested and tortured Templar leaders in 1307 under charges of heresy and immorality.
The military order of the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon was founded in 1118 in Jerusalem to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land following the First Crusade.
As their military might increased, the Templars also grew in wealth, acquiring property throughout Europe and running a primitive banking system. After the Templars left the Middle East with the collapse of the Crusader kingdoms, their power and secretive ways aroused the fear of European rulers and sparked accusations of corruption and blasphemy.
Historians believe that Philip owed debts to the Templars and seized on the accusations to arrest their leaders and extort confessions of heresy under torture as a way to seize the order's riches.
The publishing house said the new book includes the "Parchment of Chinon," a 1308 decision by Clement to save the Templars and their order. The document was misplaced for centuries in the archives and found again by researchers in 2001.
According to the Vatican archives Web site, the parchment shows that Clement absolved the Templar leaders of the heresy charge, though he did recognize they were guilty of immorality, and he planned to reform the order.
However, pressured by Philip, Clement later reversed his decision and suppressed the order in 1312.
Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Templars, was burned at the stake in 1314 along with his aides.
Surviving monks fled, with some absorbed by other orders, and over the centuries, some groups have claimed to have descended from the Templars.
Vatican archive yields Templar secrets
【BBCより、以下転載】赤い部分は、異端ではなかったのに解散を命じられたことと、配布予定の限定版のほとんどは、世界中の図書館とコレクターによって既に予約されていること。
The Knights Templar, a military order of the Roman Catholic Church, are back in the news again, almost 700 years after they were suppressed by papal edict.
They were originally formed to protect Christians in the Holy Land during the early Crusades.
The Templars are the stuff of legend, and their exploits have provided the plots for many films and popular novels.
The Knights, who wore a distinctive white mantle decorated with a red cross, became very wealthy, owned property all over Europe and the Middle East, and started up a primitive international banking system.
They caused deep controversy, even in their own time. They helped to finance wars waged by several European monarchs.
Some believe the Templars were the custodians of the fabled Holy Grail.
Disentangling fact and fiction about them is difficult.
In France, a Grand Master of the Order and other knights were burned alive by order of King Philip IV, after the Order was accused of heresy, blasphemy and sexual misconduct.
Faithful reproduction
Now the Vatican has decided to shed some new light on this often obscure period of late medieval history.
To the delight not only of scholars but also of Templar buffs around the world, who have been captivated by Dan Brown's stories, they are publishing facsimile reproductions of the original account in Latin of the investigation and trial into the alleged misdeeds of the Knights Templar. It took place in Rome between 1307 and 1312.
The document, known as the Chinon parchment, shows that Pope Clement V found the Templars not guilty of heresy, but guilty of other lesser infractions of Church law. Nonetheless he ordered the disbandment of the order.
The Vatican's Secret Archives, one of the world's great repositories of historical documents, is selling a limited edition of 800 numbered copies of the Chinon parchment.
It is printed on synthetic parchment, comes complete with a reproduction of the original papal wax seal, and is packaged in a soft leather case together with a scholarly commentary.
Each copy will cost just over 5,900 euros ($8,000; £3,925).
Lucky find
Rosy Fontana, spokesperson for Scrinium, the publishing and merchandising company handling the sale, says one copy will go to Pope Benedict XVI while most of the remaining 799 copies of this luxury limited edition have already been reserved by libraries and collectors around the world.
Scrinium has already published two other digitally mastered and hand-finished collections of colour reproductions of precious documents from the Secret Archives.
The Chinon parchment was recently rediscovered by Barbara Frale, a Vatican historian who works in the Secret Archives.
She says she stumbled across the document in a box containing other papers five years ago, having been lost for centuries after it was wrongly catalogued.
The document is half a metre (20 inches) wide by two metres long - the size of a small dining table.
According to Ms Frale, one of the accusations against the Templars was that they practised blasphemous initiation rites such as spitting upon the cross.
They justified this, according to the document, by claiming this was part of a ritual of obedience in preparation for possible capture by Muslim armies.
King's secrets
Both the Vatican's Secret Archives, and its adjoining Library (at present closed to scholars while it undergoes restoration) are housed in Renaissance buildings not far from the Sistine Chapel.
Together, the two collections of books, manuscripts, and letters cover tens of kilometres of shelf space, much of it underground for security reasons and to protect the archive against fire.
The official archives of the Holy See were systematically organised for the first time only in the 17th Century.
In the early days of the Church, popes did preserve manuscripts concerning their reign. But the fragility of papyrus documents used before the invention of paper, and the frequent changes of residence of popes before the 11th Century, means that most of the earliest Church archives have been lost.
Among other treasures from the Archive, sometimes shown to VIP visitors, are letters from King Henry VIII of England to Anne Boleyn, his future wife, stolen from London by a Vatican spy to provide evidence of the King's disloyalty to Rome. There is also correspondence between Lucrezia Borgia and her father Pope Alexander VI.
There are no immediate plans for the publication of any of these unique documents.
私も欲しいなあ～。
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テンプル騎士団員の消滅に関するローマ教皇庁の本
