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Squin De Flexian

A recreant Templar, to whom with Noffodei and, as some say, another unknown person, is attributed the invention of the false accusations upon which were based the persecutions and the downfall of the Order of Knights Templar.

He seas a native of the city of Beziers, in the south of France, and having been received as a Knight Templar, had made so much proficiency in the order as to have been appointed to the head of the Priory of Montfaucon. Reghellini states that both Squin de Flexian and Noffodei were Templars, and held the rank of Comrnanders; but Dupuy (Condemnation des Templiers) denies that the latter was a Templar. He says: all historians agree that the origin of the ruin of the Templars was the work of the Prior of Montfaucon and of Noffodei, a Florentine, banished from his country and whom nobody believes to have been a Templar. This Prior, by the sentence of the Grand Master, had been condemned, for heresy and for having led an infamous life, to pass the remainder of his days in a prison. The other is reported to have been condemned to rigorous penalties by the Provost of Paris."

Reghellini's account (La Maonnerie considre, etc., i, page 451) is more circumstantial. He says: In 1506, two Knights Templar, Noffodei and Florian were punished for crimes, and lost their Commanderies; that of the latter being Montfaucon. They petitioned the Provincial Grand Master of Mount Carmel for a restoration to their offices, but met with a refusal. They then obtained an entrance into the Provincial Grand Master's country-house, near Milan, and having assassinated him, concealed the body in the woods under some thick shrubbery, after With they fled to Paris. there they obtained access to the King, and thus furnished Philip with an occasion for executing his projects, by denouncing the Order and exposing to him the immense Wealth which it possessed. They proposed the abolition of the Order, and promised the King. for a reward, to be its denouncers. The King accepted their proposition, and, assuring them of his protection, pointed out to them the course which they were to pursue.

They associated with themselves a third individual called by historians the Unknown, in French, l'Inconnu, and Noffodei and Florian sent a memorial to Enguerand de Marigni, Superintendent of the Finances, in Which they proposed, if he would guarantee them against the attacks of the Order of Templars, and grant them civil existence and rights, to discover to the King secrets which they deemed of more value than the conquest of an empire. As a sequel to this first declaration they addressed to the King an accusation, which was the same as he had himself dictated to them for the purpose of the turn which he desired to the affair. This accusation contained the following charges:

1. That the Order of Templars was the foe of all kings and all sovereign authority, that it communicated secrets to its initiates under horrible oaths, witch the criminal condition of the penalty of death if they divulged them and that the secret practices of their initiations were the consequences of irreligion, atheism, and rebellion.

2. That the Order had betrayed the religion of Christ by communicating to the Sultan of Babylon all the plans and operations of the Emperor Frederick the Second whereby the designs of the Crusaders for the recovery of the Holy Land were frustrated.

3 That the Order prostituted the mysteries most venerated by Christians. by making a Knight, when he has received, trample upon the Cross. the sign of redemption; and abjured the Christian religion by making the neophyte declare that the true God had never died, and never could die, that they carried about them and worshiped a little idol called Bafomet; and that after his initiation the neophyte was compelled to undergo certain obscene practices.

4. That when a Knight was received, the Order bound him by an oath to a complete and blind obedience to the Grand Master which was a proof of rebellion against the legitimate authority, 5. What Good Friday was the day selected for the grand orgies of the Order. 6. That they were guilty of unnatural crimes. 7. That they burned the children of their concubines so as to destroy all traces of their debauchery. These calumnies formed the basis of the longer catalogue of accusations, afterward presented by the Pope, upon which the Templars were finally tried and condemned.

In the preliminary examinations of the accused, Squin de Flexian took an active part as one of the Commissioners. In the pleadings for their defense presented by the Knights, they declare that "Knights were tortured by Flexian de Beziers, Prior of Montfaucon, and by the monk, William Robert, and that already thirty-six had died of the tortures indicted at Paris, and several others in other places."

Of the ultimate fate of these traitors nothing is really known. When the infamous work which they had inaugurated had been consummated by the king and the Pope, as their services were no longer needed, they sank into merited oblivion. The author of the Secret Societies of the Middle Ages (page 268) says; "Squin was afterwards hanged, and Noffodei beheaded, as was said, with little probability, by the Templars."

Hardly had the Templars, in their prostrate condition, the power, even if they had the will, to inflict such punishment. It was not Squin, but Marigni, his abettor, who was hanged at Montfaucon, by order of Louis X, the successor of Philip, two years after his persecution of the Templars. The revenge they took was of a Symbolic character. In the change of the legend of the Third Degree into that of the Templar system, when the martyred James de Molay was substituted for Hiram Abif, the three assassins were represented by Squin de Flexian, .Noffodei, and the Unknown. As there is really no reference in the historical records of the persecution to this third accuser, it is most probable that he is altogether a mythical personage, invented merely to complete the triad of assassins, and to preserve the congruity of the Templar with the Masonic legend. The name of Squin de Flexian, as well as that of Noffodei, have been differently spelled by various writers, to say nothing of the incomprehensible error found in some of the oldest French Cahiers of the Kadosh, such as that of De la Hogue, where the two traitors are named Gerard Tab and Benoit Mehui. The Processus contra Templarios, or Proceedings against Templars, calls him Esquitts de flexian de Biteriis; and Raynouard always names him Squin de florian, in which he is blindly followed by Reghellini, Ragon, and Thory. But the weight of authority is in favor of Squin de flexian, which appears to be the true name of this Judas of the Templars.

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