The Templars: The Rise and Fall of God's Holy Warriors

by Dan Jones

All the same, the king’s orders called for torture and there is no reason to think they were disobeyed. The methods of the day were not inventive but they were well-tested: starvation, sleep deprivation, solitary imprisonment, relentless questioning, shackling, racking, foot-burning and the strappado, a device that yanked the victim’s tethered arms behind him until he was raised from the ground and his shoulders dislocated. One Templar, Ponsard of Gisy, later described having his arms tied so tightly behind his back that blood flowed from under his nails, and being kept in a pit so small he could only take a single step in any direction – an experience to which he said death by decapitation, burning or scalding with boiling water would be greatly preferable.