Why Knights Templar Gave False Confessions of Depravity

On May 11, 1310, fifty-four members of the Knights Templar were burned at the stake in France for being heretics. Recanting after
torture would lead to death as a relapsed heretic. A short excerpt from the article:

"In Paris, the king’s inquisitors tortured 138 Templars, most of whom eventually made confessions. Many were subjected to “fire torture,” which Addison describes in vivid detail: “their legs were fastened in an iron frame, and the soles of their feet were greased over with fat or butter; they were then placed before the fire, and a screen was drawn backwards and forwards, so as to moderate and regulate the heat. Such was the agony produced by this roasting operation, that the victim often went raving mad.”

Jones details some of the other techniques used to coerce confessions from the Templars, including starvation, sleep deprivation, relentless questioning 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.”

Unable to withstand these tortures, many Templars did eventually confess—even Grand Master de Molay, who admitted renouncing Christ and spitting near a cross, though not directly on it. He urged other Templars to confess, as well."