FRIDAY 13TH OCTOBER: TEMPLAR APOCALYPSE?
New research shows that in 1307-14, the Knights Templar almost beat the case against them
On Friday 13th October 1307, royal agents all over the kingdom of France swooped on the Knights Templar, arresting the brothers and impounding their property. It was a raid that had been planned for some time, and officially sanctioned one month earlier, by the government of Philip IV ‘the Fair’.
For a number of reasons, Philip had come to see the Templars as the enemy. They were sworn and loyal servants of the papacy, with whom Philip had a long-running feud. They could be seen as culpable of the loss of the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem to the Mamluks - by common consensus an outrage against all Christendom. They were rich, and Philip needed money.
Above all, Philip had been nudged by his ministers, chief among them the notorious William de Nogaret, into believing that the Templars were institutionally corrupt. A dodgy dossier of evidence compiled by de Nogaret and his team portrayed the Templars as a band of perverts and heretics, whose private rituals tended towards buggery, blasphemy and all manner of unspeakable vice.
Philip had been persuaded, without much difficulty, to move against them. So on Friday October 13th, the raids were carried out. The French branch of the Templars, including their whole senior management team and the French master of the order internationally, Jacques de Molay, were arrested, imprisoned and interrogated.
But new academic research shows that they nearly beat the case.
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