>The Catholic Encyclopaedia fails to mention the Bruno was burnt to death,
Actually, it does mention that:
``he was finally condemned (January, 1600), handed over to the
secular power (8 February), and burned at the stake in the Campo
dei Fiori in Rome (17 February).''
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03016a.htm
> a cruel death for heretical views.
And it says it was for heretical views:
``Bruno was not condemned for his defence of the Copernican system of
astronomy, nor for his doctrine of the plurality of inhabited worlds,
but for his theological errors, among which were the following: that
Christ was not God but merely an unusually skilful magician, that the
Holy Ghost is the soul of the world, that the Devil will be saved, etc.''
> Bruno is the Church's most difficult explanation.
Then I guess we've wandered far enough down this side road and can
get back to the question at hand of survivals of the Templars.
There seem to be three broad groups of claimed survivals:
1) Ones that base their claims on the Transmission of Larmenius.
Others have raised many cogent reasons why that document is
probably not what it purports to be. And there has been one
suggestion of how possibly it could be. That discussion I leave
to others.
2) Then there are survivals based on verifiable contemporary
documents, such as papal bulls and Portuguese and Aragonese
court documents. In particular, both the Catholic Encyclopedia
and John Robinson's book Dungeon, Fire, and Sword cite a papal
bull of 1319.
3) Then there is speculation about what Templars would likely
have done in the situation they found themselves in.
There may well be other claims, but these are the ones I've
seen mentioned recently in this list.
I have been pursuing only (2).
As it happens, the Vatican has provided further historical
information about the Order of Christ in Portugal, including
the details that the order was originally elective (as had
been the Templars), and that the papacy regarded it as a
religious military foundation. A Portuguese king had to
petition the pope to make his son Grand Master. That son
was the infante Dom Enrique, commonly known as Henry the
Navigator.
http://www.chivalricorders.org/vatican/christ.htm
The Vatican has also made available online the text of the Bull
Ad ea ex quibus of Pope John XXII, given at Avignon 14/15 March 1319:
http://www.chivalricorders.org/vatican/chrstbll.htm
Latin scholars among us: translation, please.
John S. Quarterman <jsq@quarterman.org>