Jacques de Molay

Youth

It is commonly allowed today that the birthplace of the last Master about the Temple is at Molay (Haute-Saône), in current the Canton of Vitrey-on-Mance, with the limit of the Haute-Marne, in Franche-Comté.

The exact date of its birth remains unknown, but Jacques de Molay explained to the judges who questioned it in Paris on October 24th, 1307 that it had joined the templiers 42 years earlier. Knowing that the minimum age to enter to the order of the Temple was sixteen years, that is to say the age of the majority for a boy with the Moyen-âge, one can deduce from it that it was to be born with the neighborhoods of 1244 or 1245. Several historical documents stating however that young men of less than twenty years had been accepted in the order, there is necessary to remain careful on this dating. At all events, questioned on the same subject a few months later, in August 1308 by the envoys of the pope with Chinon, Jacques de Molay repeated that it had been allowed 42 years before, that is to say in 1266.

According to any probability, Jacques de Molay was born in a family from the minor nobility, like were the majority of the brothers knights.

Reception in the order of the Temple

After having been prior with Saline-the-Baths, it was accepted in the order in 1265 in the commandery of Beaune by Humbert de Pairaud, which occupied the station of Visitor of France and England. With this occasion, Amaury of the Rock, Master in France and friend of the king de France Louis IX, was present. Independently of Guillaume de Beaujeu, which was elected Master of the order in 1273, Jacques de Molay approximately went in the East in 1270. He is quoted among the knights of " the hostel the roy" 7th crusade. It spent long years in Outremer, but it is known that it was in France in 1285. One knows the stations which it would have occupied, neither in France nor in the East, or if it were present at the time of the fall of Saint-Jean-in Acre, the last cross fortress fallen at the end of a long seat carried out by the Mamelouk S.

The Master about the Temple

Jacques de Molay directed the order of the Temple of 1292 to 1312, date on which the pope Clément V abolishes the order forever by fulminating the pontifical Bulle Vox in excelso . However, one knows few things on the life of the last Master of the Temple before the date of his accession to the head about the Temple.

With the fall of Midsummer's Day d' Acre, the Francs which had the possibility of it withdrew with Cyprus, ground Christian nearest to Jerusalem; it is what did Jacques de Molay and Thibaud Gaudin, the main 22e about the Temple. The house den mother of the order was then installed with Limassol.

At the time of a general chapter of the order, which meets on the island with the autumn 1291, Jacques de Molay spoke and was presented in the form of an alternative and a possible reformer of the order. Thibaud Gaudin died before April 16th, 1292, leaving the control open to Jacques de Molay. There were no serious competitors for this task and Jacques de Molay gained the election organized before April 20th, as indicates it a document preserved at the files of the Couronne of Aragon which recognizes already on this date Jacques de Molay like the new Master about the Temple. However, at the time of the lawsuit, a certain sergeant of Faur speaks about a competition between Jacques de Molay and Hugues de Pairaud, Visiteur for France.

Once elected, the Master had to devote himself urgently to the heaviest files of the moment, namely of the related questions in Cyprus, the Arménie and the Cilicie. These two kingdoms were indeed under the threat of an attack by the Mamelukes.

In spring 1293, it left Cyprus for a voyage three years in Occident, for the two general chapter keeping of the order, with Montpellier in 1293 and Arles in 1296. Its voyage led it in Provence and France, but also in Catalogne, Italy and England. It benefitted from its passage to regulate several internal and local problems, but its main objective was to request the assistance of the sovereigns and the Church for the reconquest of the Holy Land, the reinforcement of the defense of Cyprus and the rebuilding of the forces templières. The launching of a news Croisade seemed possible, but a problematic subject was then submitted to Jacques de Molay: the fusion of the orders of the Temple and the Hospital, an idea to which he was opposed on several occasions. During this voyage, Jacques de Molay draws up close links with the pope Boniface VIII and of the reports/ratios of confidence with the kings Edouard Ier of England, Jacques Ier d' Aragon and Charles II of Naples. One knows on the other hand nothing of his relationship with the king of France Philippe Beautiful the.

With the autumn 1296, Jacques de Molay was of return to Cyprus, in order to defend there his order against inclinations of Henri II of Cyprus in a conflict which went up at the time where Guillaume de Beaujeu was with the head about the Temple (either before 1291).

Of 1299 with 1303, Jacques de Molay pled in favor of an alliance with the Mongolian against the Mamelukes. According to this plan, Christian military orders, the king of Cyprus, the Cypriot Aristocracy and Kingdom of Small-Arménie, and the Mongols of the Khanat of the Houlagides (located on the territory of the current Iran) were to coordinate their efforts. Moreover, in 1298 or 1299, Jacques de Molay stopped an invasion Mameluke with a military force in Arménie, undoubtedly because of the loss of Rock-Guillaume, last bastion templier in Cilicie. Nevertheless, when the Mongolian khan of Persia, Ghazan, gained the Second battle of Homs in December 1299 against the troops Mamelukes, the Christian camp could not draw advantage from it. In 1300, Jacques de Molay launched several raids templiers along the coasts Syrian woman and Egyptian woman, to weaken the enemy lines of provisioning and to badger the Mamelukes; and, in November of this year, it took part in person in the catch of the strengthened small island of Ruad (current the Arouad) which faces the Syrian city of Tortose. In accordance with the agreement concluded with the Mongols, it was a question of establishing a head of bridge, but the Mongols showed themselves neither in 1300, nor during the two following years. In September 1302, Templiers were driven out of Ruad by the forces Mamelukes come from Egypt, after number of them were massacred once trapped on the island. Ruad was lost and when Ghazan died in 1304, the prospect to quickly reconquer the Holy Land with the support of the Mongols, the dream of Jacques de Molay, crumbled. The episode of Ruad was interpreted, wrongly, by the contemporaries like a desperate attempt at Jacques de Molay, who sought by all the means to preserve a permanent proximity with the Holy Land. Actually, it was just about a key component of the strategy which implied the Mongols in the reconquest of the Holy Land. At all events, criticisms about the raison d'être about the Temple started to be done increasingly insistent.

In 1305, the pope Clement V, recently elected, request with the persons in charge of the military orders on a possible news crusade and the fusion of the orders. The pope thus asked Jacques de Molay to write two texts, one on each problem, and the Master was carried out during the summer 1306. June 6th, the persons in charge were officially convened with Poitiers, where the pope had his seat, in order to discuss these questions. The pope fell sick and meets of Poitiers was deferred by it, but Jacques de Molay had already left Cyprus on October 15th and was thus not with the current of this adjournment. It arrived to France at the end of November or at the beginning of December, and one knows nothing of his activities during the first five months of 1307. During second half of May, it is however in Poitiers to attend the meeting organized by the pope. The Master of Templiers entered there in conflict with king Philippe the Beautiful one, because he was always opposed to fusion orders which would then have at their head the French monarch: indeed, Jacques de Molay presented to the pope a report/ratio on the crusade. He refused there the fusion of his kind with that of the Hôpital, asserting that the two orders were too different to be effectively mixed. By doing this, it complicated also the position of Clement V who had a problem with the king about the judgment of the memory of the pope Boniface VIII that Philippe the Beautiful one wanted to obtain at all costs. All that thwarted the attempts still more to start again a crusade. The order of the Temple as came out from it weakened, without counting another factor, definitely more serious, as Jacques de Molay was going soon to discover during his stay in France: scandalous and perverse rumors started to circulate about the order. The king and his advisers, among whom appeared Guillaume de Nogaret, would know how to benefit from this weakness. Despite everything, Jacques de Molay continued to assume his role of Master about the Temple: he named for example the Master of the order for the Royaume of Aragon, the September 8th 1307 whereas he was still in Poitiers.

The arrest

The June 24th 1307, in Paris, Jacques de Molay discussed with the king about the charges weighing against its order, and it was partially reassured. It returned to Poitiers and asked the pope to open an investigation to wash the order of the rumors quickly and charges who circulated on his account. When the pope announced that an investigation would be launched the August 24th, the king reacts in an energetic way. The September 14th, in the greatest secrecy, it sent orders of arrest in all the kingdom of France, which leads to the arrests in mass of the templiers, and with the confiscation of their goods Friday October 13rd 1307. Jacques de Molay was stopped like the others, in Paris where it was in the intention to attend the funeral of Catherine de Valois, the sister-in-law of king Philippe the Beautiful one. He was imprisoned in Paris, the royal palace of Chinon and the Château of Gisors.

During his interrogation by the royal agents (Guillaume of Paris) on October 24th, Jacques de Molay acknowledged “to have disavowed - in spite of him - Christ and to have spit with ground” (the inquisitor asked to him whether it had spit by three times on the cross, that it answered that not), within the framework of the ritual of his initiation. The probable intention of Jacques de Molay was undoubtedly to acknowledge something which he as a whole did not think too detrimental for the order, but when it was forced to repeat his consents in public the following day, the effect was devastator for the templiers. To make the things even more serious, it was constrained to write a letter in which it declared that each templier should admit these acts. Philippe the Beautiful one had from now on the upper hand on the situation and, in order to take again the advantage, the pope Clément V ordered the arrest of the templiers through all Christendom.

The pope wished nevertheless to hear Jacques de Molay and, in December 1307, it sent two cardinals on mission to Paris. In front of them, Jacques de Molay reconsidered the consents which it had made with the agents of Philippe the Beautiful one.

Consequently, the business of the templiers had become a question of fight of being able between the king and the pope, who was solved only in August 1308, when the king and the pope agreed to share the judgments. By the pontifical bubble Faciens misericordiam , the pope issued that the procedure to continue the templiers was divided into two parts: a first commission would judge the individuals while a second commission would in practice judge the order as tel., that meant that council, convened with Vienna, should decide future fate of the Temple, whereas the dignitaries of the order, of which Jacques de Molay formed part, would be judged by the pope alone.

Jacques de Molay was held with the royal palace of Chinon, where he was questioned again by the cardinals, but this time in the presence of royal agents. He reiterated his consents of October 24th again, and accepted the discharge of the commission of cardinals, before a one year silence does not fall down on its case. Little by little, of the commissions and the courts of Inquisition are reflected in place and finally, in November 1309, the pontifical commission on the kingdom of France began its hearings. With two occasions, the 26 and the November 28th, Jacques de Molay declared explicitly that he did not admit the charges carried against the order.

While acting of the kind, it adopted a strategy of silence before the commission, placing all its hopes on the power of the Church to override the will of the king. But the discounted effect was not concretized, quite to the contrary. While remaining quiet, Jacques de Molay deprived the templiers of a clear direction. As from this moment, the order was not any more in position to oppose a strong resistance to the threats which weighed on him. Any inclination of opposition was definitively broken when the Archevêque of Sens, Philippe de Marigny, condemned to death 54 templiers. They were burned with roughing-hew 10 with the May 12th 1310. On the Council of Vienna, which finally meets in 1312, the order was officially suspended by pontifical decree the March 22nd. Some three years later, is the March 18th 1314, three cardinals dispatched by the pope condemned the principal dignitaries about the Temple (Jacques de Molay, Hugues de Pairaud, Geoffroy de Charnay and Geoffroy de Gonneville) to the life imprisonment. Including/understanding whereas all was lost, Jacques de Molay rose and retracted. Followed in that by Geoffoy de Charnay, he proclaimed the innocence of his kind, before defying the king and the pope in front of God. By doing this, they became Relaps, which made it possible Philippe IV to order that both are sent to roughing-hew. To the evening of the March 18th 1314, Jacques de Molay and Geoffroy de Charnay were taken along to the Île with the Jews (attached today to the Île of the City of Paris) where they were put at death. The two other dignitaries having admitted their personal culpability, they had the safe life but finished it behind the walls of the prison.

Death

According to the testimony of the chronicler Geoffroy of Paris, Jacques de Molay died with dignity: The Master, who saw ready fire, stripped himself immediately, and wore himself very naked a his shirt… He did not tremble at any time, although it is drawn and hustled. They took it to bind it to the post, and him, smiling and merry, lets itself make. They attach the hands to him, but he says to them: “God knows whom wrongly and sinned, and misfortune will fall down soon on those which condemn us wrongly. God will avenge our death. Lord will know that, in truth, all those which are contrary for us by us will have to suffer”.

Myths and legends around the historical figure

The tragic destiny of Jacques de Molay made last Master of Templiers a subject of interest for the groups and circles esoteric or mystics who built several myths and legends being grafted, without true proof, on the proven historical facts described above.

Curse

Shortly after the dissolution of the order (1312), a sequence of facts will give birth to all kinds of legends on a “curse of the Temple”. Following roughing-hew of March 18th 1314, the two persons in charge of the end of the order will die:

the pope Clement V on April 20th 1314;
the king Philippe Beautiful the on November 29th 1314 at the 47 years age;
Guillaume de Nogaret had died well before those which it had continued in April 1313, followed by its right-hand man, the legist Guillaume de Plaisans;
the favorite of the king, Enguerrand de Marigny on April 30th 1315.

These brought closer deaths had what to nourish the rumors, more especially as the year 1315 is that where the considerable climate changes determined by the descent of the glaciers of the Arctic appear:

transformation of the Greenland into a desert of ice;
the forest cover of the Iceland is devastated by enormous storms which will transform the island as we currently know it;
of the perpetual rains in all the Occident during the years 1315 and 1316 so much so that the work of the ground is stopped during three years, generating terrible famines.

Most famous of them is undoubtedly alleged “the curse of Jacques de Molay”, based on the last declarations of Templier and on which the novelist Maurice Druon will extrapolate in the saga the cursed Kings which reports the end of the tercentenary dynasty of the Capétiens in less than 14 years.

Jacques de Molay and the Shroud of Turin

On another subject, two historians discussed freemasons and, Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, explain in their work The Second Messiah: Templars, the Turin Shroud, and the Secret Great off Freemasonry that Holy Shroud reproduces actually the aspect of Jacques de Molay and not that of Jesus.

Other theories circulate on the existence of a bond between the source of Holy Shroud and Templiers: Jeanne de Vergy, which was at the same time the widow of the knight Geoffroy de Charny and the niece of templier Geoffroy de Charney (death on roughing-hew it with Jacques de Molay), is the first nobody whose one knows relatively unquestionable source that it had the shroud.

Presence in England

Other theories still affirm that Jacques de Molay was commander in England and that it would have passed most of his life in this country. However, according to the most detailed biography published to date, nothing makes it possible to affirm it. Jacques de Molay visited certainly England in 1293, but it is not very probable that it cumulated the load of Master of the Order and that of commander.

Maconnic recovery

A company of young people of maconnic obedience took the name DeMolay International . Its members say to take as a starting point the last Master of Templiers like example of honesty and fidelity, but deny any direct link with its historical figure or Templiers originals.

The Knight Kadosch, inspired by Molay, would be the symbol of the desire of revenge against the company which the freemasons want.

References

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