Beyond this circle of high-ranking officers most of the men arrested were middle-aged and distinctly unwarlike. Most Templars in France were not warriors. They were agricultural managers, shepherds and pig farmers, carpenters or wine merchants.2 Only a tiny minority were knights, since by the early fourteenth century some preceptories were staffed entirely by sergeants: this was true in areas of Champagne, Picardy, Auvergne, Poitou and Limousin.3 Forty percent of those questioned were over fifty years old. A third were veterans of the order, having served in this apparent hotbed of sodomy and
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