The guilt or innocence of the Templars is one the most difficult of historical problems, the discussion of which belongs, however, to the history of the order. Clement may have acted conscientiously in his suppression of an order which had heretofore been regarded as a main bulwark of Christendom against the forces of Islam, but there can be little doubt that his principal motive was complaisance towards the king of France, or that the latter was mainly actuated by jealousy and cupidity.
Clement's pontificate was also disastrous for Italy. The Emperor Henry VII entered the country, established the Visconti in Milan, and was crowned by Clement's legates in Rome, but was unable to maintainn himself there, and died suddenly, leaving a great part of Italy in a condition of complete anarchy. The dissensions of the Roman barons reached their height, and the Lateran palace was destroyed in a conflagration. Other remarkable incidents of Clement's reign are his sanguinary repression of the heresy of [Fra Dolcino]? in Lombardy and his promulgation of the Clementine Constitutions in 1313. He died, leaving an inauspicious character for nepotism, avarice, and cunning, in April 1314. He was the first Pope who assumed the triple crown.
from the 9th edition (1876) of an unnamed encyclopedia