by S. J. Hodge
The association of Friday with 13 first occurred in the late 19th century, but was virtually ignored until the early 20th century. It is believed to have first been mentioned in the 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini by Henry Sutherland Edwards: ‘… he regarded Fridays as an unlucky day and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that on Friday 13th of November, he died.’ In 1907, Thomas W. Lawson published his dark novel, Friday the Thirteenth, and from that point the belief was seized upon and magnified. Among certain communities, the superstition spread and gained strength and at some point during the 20th century, someone connected it with the day of the Templar arrests. This has been further exaggerated by various books, documentaries and films about them.
The French Revolution
Often referred to, but unproven, a legend connects the French Revolution with the Knights Templar. In 1789, the French working class overthrew their autocratic monarchy. At the moment Louis XVI was guillotined, the legend claims that a French Freemason shouted from the crowd: ‘Jacques de Molay, thou art avenged!’ This story was mentioned in The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, first published in 1975, but there is no documented confirmation of the occurrence and it is unlikely that many revolutionaries would have understood the implication so it seems tenuous. Ironically, within a decade of the alleged incident, Napoleon Bonaparte had replaced the revolutionary idealism of the French working class with his own imperialism and, in 1808, he ordered the demolition of the Paris Temple.
An early 19th-century painting by the French artist Fleury François Richard, depicting Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and last Grand Master of the Knights Templar. De Molay led the Order from 1292 until Pope Clement V dissolved it in 1307. Through his ignominious downfall and execution, he has become the best-known of all the Templars, and the focus of countless legends.
AN ENIGMA OF HISTORY
A late 14th-century illustration on vellum from the Treatise of the Vices, by Cocharelli of Genoa, showing the destruction of the Templars and the death of King Philip IV in 1314.
Speculation has filled the void that remains in the absence of solid evidence about the Templars’ activities after the deaths of Jacques de Molay and Geoffrey de Charney. Suggestions that many escaped to start new lives or secretly continued the Order are appealing. It is known that some ex-Templars did join other orders, including the Knights Hospitallers and the Cistercians, and probably the Order of Montesa and the Knights of Christ, which was what King Philip and Pope Clement intended them to do. Some went out into the secular world, possibly taking employment on estates, some returned to their families, or they lived on the charity of others. As with most of the legends surrounding the Templars, some of the conjecture about the fate of individuals seems logical, while other suggestions appear to be rather implausible and fabricated for an audience hungry for mysteries and conspiracy theories.
Sent to their deaths
As soon as the Templars were arrested in France, their interrogation and torture began, while outside the prisons their lands and property were taken into royal custody. Many died in prison, and their families were never told, while those that were burned at the stake during the trials were taken quietly for fear of arousing the anger of Templar supporters or of creating martyrs. The 54 Templars who were burned at the stake on 11 May 1310 for being relapsed heretics were probably chosen out of those who had been the most vocal in retracting their earlier confessions.
A month before the Templars were despatched in this way, the king had organized a commission of lawyers to question some of them. In April 1310, three Templars had stood before the commission and professed the innocence of the entire Order. One of these was Peter of Bologna; a trained lawyer who had previously been a Templar representative to the papal court in Rome. His arguments were far more eloquent than most other Templars or even of the king’s counsellors, and he declared that ‘the proceedings against the Order had been rapid, unlooked-for, hostile and unjust, altogether without justice, but containing complete injury, most grave violence and intolerable error, for no attempt had been made to keep to proper procedures’. Continuing his impassioned rhetoric, he concluded that all documentation that had been gathered on the case should be brought forward and that the ban on any witnesses conferring should be lifted, and he requested that all charges against the Order should be dropped. The royal counsellors could not argue with him, but the following month, Philippe de Marigny, the Archbishop of Sens, took over the trial from the original commission, and two days later, the 54 Templars were sent to their deaths. Soon after, when the commission asked to see Peter of Bologna again, they were told that he had retracted all he had said to them, returned to his earlier confession of guilt, broken out of jail and fled. He was never seen or heard of again.
It is highly unlikely that Peter of Bologna left prison either of his own free will or alive, and although those who remained imprisoned continued to proclaim their innocence, without an articulate and informed advocate, their downfall progressed. Many died under torture or afterwards as a result of its effects; some were probably murdered by their jailers, and others were left to die of starvation while incarcerated. Stripped of their habits, cast into dank dungeons and chained to the walls, the simple and often ageing men were easily broken and were no match for the formidable Inquisition. In other European countries, however, few Templars suffered as they did in France. In England, for instance, most were never arrested. After the Order had been dissolved, the King and other English authorities perceived them to be free from guilt and so at liberty to find themselves new places in society. Evidence of their movements in England shows that a large number joined the Hospitallers, some joined the Cistercians and a few left religious life altogether.
An illumination of 1350 depicting the 54 Templars being burned on a funeral pyre in 1310, accused of being relapsed heretics.
Monastic vows
Yet although the Order was dissolved, the Church did not release the men from their monastic vows. It was ordered that if any were caught who had gone out into the world as laymen, or if they had married, the Church had to punish them. They were expected to simply move into other monasteries and not to draw attention to themselves. They were also meant to be granted a small pension, but this rarely seems to have been paid. In England, King Edward and the Archbishop of Canterbury asked the Hospitallers if they could help the deposed Templars, ‘for the love of God and for charity’. With money scarce for the Hospitallers too – fewer donations were forthcoming once the Holy Land was lost and given the general feeling that these military orders were not as pure as they should have been – it is not clear whether the Hospitallers did manage to help the displaced Templars much at all.
Yet this notion of adherence to their monastic orders was not enforced everywhere. Many simply wanted to forget the Templars, and after the death of Philip and Clement, it seems that many were forgotten and left to fend for themselves. A few who were embittered by their treatment and lack of support from the community turned to petty crime, while some emerged in unexpected places. One, it was recorded, became the Ambassador for the Sultan of Tunis and another became a woodcarver for another sultan after being freed from that sultan’s prison. Many other Templars were left languishing in Muslim jails, while even more were completely unaccounted for, such as those in countries where the arrests, accusations and trials were virtually ignored.
The lost parchment
Since the discovery of the Chinon Parchment, much of the conjecture about the Templar persecution and trials has been cleared up. Contemporary opinion beyond France was closer to the truth than a great deal of the speculation since. Dante and various European monarchs were clear about what was happening: that the greedy and dishonest King Philip of France, in order to gain the Templars’ wealth, deliberately twisted and elaborated upon stories about the rituals and beliefs of a religious-military order that, until then, had been devoted to the defence of Christendom. Fearing his own destruction, the
Pope withheld his opinion about the Order’s innocence, but he died before redressing his dishonesty and cowardice. Long after his death, when the papal court was returned to Rome from Avignon in 1376, the Chinon Parchment was misplaced, and it remained lost until 2001. None of Clement’s cardinals had felt powerful enough against the king’s men to defend the Templars, especially as the Pope was keeping quiet about his absolution of them. If any of them had considered speaking up in defence of the Order, they only had to remember the fate of the Templars, or to think of William de Nogaret’s behaviour towards Pope Boniface VIII.
Witchcraft and folklore
Yet some of the theories about the Templars continue. Some authors have rewritten history to make the stories more sensational and some continue to perpetuate theories that have been disproved. A few of the ideas are more conceivable. The Knights Templar for many have become mythical, mysterious men who had secret powers, secret knowledge and secret possessions. Although most were simple, ordinary, honest and hard-working men, from all classes and all walks of life, something about their lives and demise appeals to the romantic notions inherent in us all, and many of the stories about them have become established almost as firmly as folklore.
Soon after their dissolution, the Templars continued to appear in works of fiction and pseudo-historical works, and as their history became forgotten and newer generations were not sure what their role had been, authors began inventing increasingly implausible tales about them. The accusation that they used magic appeared in the 16th century at a time when magic and witchcraft were particularly feared. At the end of the medieval period, in 1487, one of the first printed books was published by the papal Inquisition. Malleus Maleficarum (meaning ‘Hammer of the Witches’ in Latin) was a treatise on the persecution of witches. It developed from the irrational fear of many Christians, since the failure of the Crusades, that Christendom was being overtaken by demons. Forty-four years after the publication of Malleus Maleficarum, in 1531, a casual comment in another book, De Occulta Philosophia, provoked public paranoia and linked the Knights Templar with the notion of witchcraft and magic. The author of De Occulta was Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535), a German magician, theologian, astrologer and alchemist. He said he wrote his book ‘to distinguish between the good and holy science of magic and the scandalous and impious practices of black magic, and to restore the former’s good name’. In the book, he wrote of ‘the detestable heresy of the Templars; and similar things are known about witches and their senile craziness’. Suddenly, the Knights Templar were brought to public attention and associated with witchcraft. Once again, they were being aligned with ignoble, distasteful practices. Because De Occulta Philosophia became extremely widely read, the concept that the Templars were disreputable became incorporated into European legend.
The verdict
But the Templars were not magicians, alchemists or occultists. Although they kept themselves separate from worldly life, this was not for secret, dishonourable reasons. It was normal for religious orders to remain isolated from mainstream society because of their adherence to prayer and worship, and not because they were part of a secret sect that they had built up under the protective cloak of Christianity. The Knights Templar were not superhuman; they were simply practical men living in an unforgiving world. As an organization, they understood the fundamentals of life better than most during their time. It is unlikely that they possessed secret wisdom or sacred objects, but it is more plausible that they simply worked hard, with the determination to do their best. They made the most of their qualities. They were extremely well organized and had a strong faith; they believed in their role and they aimed to fulfil their objectives in the Holy Land and for Christendom. As the Order expanded and European society’s constitution and attitudes altered, so did the behaviour of the Templars, but in general they remained true to their original purpose, and for the 200 years of their existence, there was rarely a criticism of their behaviour or a question about their morality. They were simply courageous monk-knights, who, although fighting and killing was really opposed to the teachings of Jesus, believed in the salvation of souls. They were also human and flawed.
As the Order expanded, it naturally became more complex. The allegations that the Templars denied Christ and spat on the Cross have been claimed by historians as the way in which they prepared themselves for what they may have been made to do if captured by the Muslims in the Holy Land. Being trained to renounce their beliefs superficially is in line with several other cultures’ procedures of that time, including the Assassins, with whom the Templars were in contact. While this is feasible, it remains ambiguous – possible, but not proven.
After the fall of Acre in 1291, the Church needed a scapegoat for the loss of the Holy Land and King Philip IV needed money. In light of these facts, many historians have accused Jacques de Molay of being naïve – and of course he was. But for the role he had undertaken and was committed to – of fighting the infidel in Outremer – he was perfectly suited. Originally from a background of lower nobility, he was neither a clever nor academic man and had spent 30 years defending the Holy Land, not dealing with the politics of the Church and court. Prior to his arrest, he had been trying to garner enthusiasm for a new Crusade in which he was convinced that he and the Templars would regain Jerusalem. The reason he had been in Paris and not at the Templar headquarters in Cyprus, when he was arrested in 1307, was because he had been summoned by Pope Clement and he believed it was to discuss the forthcoming Crusade.
List of Grand Masters
Dates of the reigns of Grand Masters
Hugh de Payns 1118–36
Robert de Craon 1137–49
Everard des Barres 1149–52
Bernard de Tremelay 1152–3
André de Montbard 1153–6
Bertrand de Blanchefort 1156–69
Philip of Milly of Nablus 1169–71
Odo de St Amand 1171–9
Arnold of Torroja 1180–4
Gerard de Ridefort 1185–9
Robert de Sablé 1191–3
Gilbert Erail 1194–1200
Philippe de Plessis 1201–9
William de Chartres 1210–19
Pedro de Montaigu 1219–32
Armand de Périgord 1232–44
Richard de Bures 1244–7
William de Sonnac 1247–50
Renaud de Vichiers 1250–6
Thomas Bérard 1256–73
William de Beaujeu 1273–91
Theobald Gaudin 1291–3
Jacques de Molay 1293–1314
Theories and legends
In the absence of further evidence, we cannot prove that the Templars owned a long-lost Biblical artefact, an ancient document or even a potentially explosive secret, although their architects had a thorough understanding of proportion and balance and some of their buildings may contain specific geometric ratios. However, the only actual relic that they are documented as having possessed was what was believed to be a piece of the True Cross which they carried into their battles, before it was lost at the Battle of Hattin. The True Cross was believed to be a portion of the piece of wood discovered by St Helena in the fourth century. None of the other relics or items claimed to have been found by them can be substantiated. Yet the myths continue to be perpetrated.
When Jerusalem was lost, the Order became almost redundant; it was coming to the end of its use. Their image as brave and indomitable protectors of the Holy Land had become tarnished and their popularity was waning. Despite being against their wishes, they may have been forced to amalgamate with the Hospitallers, so the legendary Knights Templar would have, in effect, faded away. They had been a product of the era in which they lived, and by the time Philip the Fair ordered their arrests, society was changing. Chivalry was no longer of paramount importance and military monks were soon to be surplus to requirements as professional armies were enlisted and trained for armed combat.
Most of the theories and legends about the Templ
ars have arisen because of their shocking, sudden and ignominious end, ironically at the hands of fellow Christians rather than their Muslim enemies. Even at the time, most people believed that they were innocent. We know now that the Pope did, and even King Philip must have, or he surely would not have been considering uniting them with the Hospitallers. Perhaps predictably, their isolation from society contributed to their lack of worldliness, which meant they did not foresee their demise. Ultimately, Jacques de Molay, the simple, honest and brave soldier-monk who had no arguments to save himself or his Order, encapsulated the truth when he spoke to the waiting crowd just before he was burned at the stake:
I have suffered myself through the pain of torture and the fear of death, to give utterances to falsehoods in admitting the disgusting charges laid against the Order, which has nobly served the cause of Christianity. I declare, and I must declare, that the Order is innocent. Its purity and saintliness are beyond question. I disdain to seek wretched and disgraceful existence by grafting another lie upon the original falsehood.
Timeline
c.993 BCE David conquers Jerusalem and brings the Ark of the Covenant to the city
