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 irreligion for more than twenty years without complaint.4 All the same, the king’s orders called for torture and
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