The day of Friday the Thirteenth, 1307, which began so uneventfully, was the beginning of one of the world's most enduring mysteries, and one of its greatest tragedies. On that morning, Philippe le Bel, the King of France, in collusion with the Pope, gave orders for the arrest of over one hundred knights of the Order of the Temple, on charges of heresy. Over the next seven years, dozens were tortured, tried, and executed. Many more were imprisoned. The Grand Master of the order, Jacques De Molay, was broken and burned at the stake.
The Knights
The knights, best known as Templars, had their beginning in 1099, when Crusader Godfrey of Bouillon becomes the ruler of Jerusalem; the order is founded when Hugues de Payens and a few others request permission to form a new order of military monks, ostensibly to protect pilgrims on the dangerous roads near the Holy Land. (this has always been a bit suspect, as the order was restricted to a mere nine knights for almost a decade.) The order was formed using ideas originating with their patron, Cistercian founder Bernard of Clairvaux. The word "Templar" derives from the full official name of the order, "The poor knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon." The name refers to the Temple Mount, where the knights were originally quartered.
The idea of a religious martial order proved a popular one, and the knights gained a fearsome reputation as warriors. Under no authority but that of the Pope, they also became absurdly powerful, accumulating land and wealth through political dealings and clever financial schemes. Not only were the knights peerless fighters, they developed a unique method to move money safely, trading Pilgrim's money for promissory notes which could be safely redeemed at the end of a journey- in essence, the first checking system, which had the end result of making the pilgrims safer and the Templars fabulously wealthy. By the end, the Order was practically a nation unto itself, with farms, craftsmen, and even its own navy.
The Arrests
The Knights were under the protection of the King, and highly respected throughout Europe, where they remained an untouchable institution for nearly two hundred years, until 1307, when the French King Philip IV had every Templar in France arrested simultaneously. The end came rather abruptly- the order of arrest came as a surprise to almost everyone, especially the Knights, who had recently come to Philip's aid financially. Why, then, this sudden change of attitude? Many speculated that Philip's motives were purely financial. Having overspent on war, he was facing rebellions and criticism- and he owed his benefactors a tidy sum of money. *
Philip was now freed of his obligations and also now free to loot Templar assets. Much of the remaining Templar property was seized by local governments or folded into the holdings of the knights Hospitaller, as were many of the lower-ranking knights held to be innocent (or ignorant, as the case may be.) Some of the remainder fled to Scotland and parts unknown, taking with them a great deal of money and the bulk of the Templar fleet.
Some apparent arm-twisting convinced reluctant Pope Clement V** to go along with the charges. The Order was officially disbanded, and trials were mounted.
Although the knights and their Grand Master Jaques de Molay vehemently contested the charges, a few rounds of torture quickly produced a number of confessions. Some of the more interesting confessions included spitting on the cross, denying the crucifixion, idol worship, homosexual acts, and the keeping of alternate scripture. De Molay eventually confessed to the charge of denying the crucifixion, probably in an attempt to head off other accusations and spare his knights further trouble, but when the confession returned an order for life sentences, he recanted, and the Templar leaders were sentenced to burn.
In 1314 Grand Master Jacques De Molay, and leaders Hugh De Perault, and Godfrey De Goneville were burnt at the stake still loudly protesting their innocence. Soon after, a legend arose that Molay's last words were a curse on Philip and the weak-willed Pope who had allowed the trials, and that the deaths of both the King and the Pope within a year of the execution death were in fulfillment of that curse, and the date of Friday the thirteenth has been considered cursed ever since.
*As other similarly wealthy orders were untouched, many historians now believe that Philip may have had some reason to believe the charges, or at the least believed he could make others believe them.
**In 2002, a secret document was unearthed in the Vatican archives. Dated August, 1308, and bearing Pope Clement's signature, the parchment officially absolved the Templar leadership of wrongdoing. Clement apparently did not have the fortitude to stand up for what he believed, however, and made no attempt to exonerate the Knights.
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06-13-2008, 03:07 AM
I had that Friday the 13th came form a much earlier event
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