October 13, 1307 - the Men That Brought the Templars Down and Their Motives

The arrest of the French Templars on 13 October 1307 was prepared by informers as well as by the king. One of them, Esquieu de Floyran (Esquin de Floyrac), claimed he had revealed the whole affair. Who were these men, and what drove them?

Four names
On 27 November 1309 Ponsard de Gizy, preceptor of Payns, told the papal commissioners in Paris who had brought the Order down: Esquieu de Floyran de Biterris, cumprior of Montfaucon, Bernard Pelet, prior of Le Mas d'Agenais, and the knight Gérard de Boyzol, who had come to Gisors. Brothers, he added, had been tortured by Floyran and the monk Guillaume Robert [1].

Esquieu de Floyran
Esquieu, in Latin Esquivus de Floyrano, was called a burgess of Béziers by a chronicler [2], though recent research places him in the Agenais [8]; he was not a Templar or a monk. In spring 1305, or perhaps late 1304, he revealed a secret about the Templars to King James II of Aragon at Lerida. The king only half believed him, yet promised an annual rent of 1000 pounds and 3000 pounds from Templar goods if it proved true [3]. According to a chronicle of around 1362, Esquieu was later jailed for his own crimes in a royal castle near Toulouse together with an apostate Templar, whose confession he carried, bound and under guard, to Philip IV [2]. The Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani made him a heretical Templar prior who plotted in a Paris prison with one Noffo Dei [4], a version that does not hold [3].

Motives and rewards
Gain, and escape from prison, explain Esquieu best; no source shows a personal grudge against the Order. On 28 January 1308, calling himself varletus (valet) of the king of France, he reminded James II of the promised money [3]. No Aragonese payment is recorded. France paid better. By 1309 he was cumprior of Montfaucon, a priory in the diocese of Périgueux, probably a royal office, not a monastic rank [1][3], and from 1313 until at least 1322 he held the former Templar lordship of Montricoux in Quercy [5].

The others
Of the other three little is known. Pelet's priory lay in the English Agenais, where Edward II placed the origin of the rumours [3]. Boyzol's role is unexplained, and Guillaume Robert appears only as a torturer [1]. More informers were at hand: Guillaume de Nogaret built his dossier by questioning renegade Templars who had been expelled for misdeeds [6].

The king and his men
Philip IV reportedly had men enter the Order in several provinces to learn its customs [3]. When the Templars themselves asked Clement V for an inquiry, and the pope announced it on 24 August 1307, Philip acted first. On 14 September he signed the secret order for the arrests [6]. Money mattered: in 1306 the king had expelled the Jews and altered the coinage [3]. Scholars also stress a religious side, as the king posed as defender of the faith and turned the case into a heresy of state [7].

The men who brought the Templars down were informers seeking pay and release, and royal jurists who turned their stories into charges. Money, career and power drove them, with religion as justification, and perhaps as conviction [3][7].

This blog is original work by TemplarsNow^TM based on an AI-assisted quick scan on the topic. References and further reading,  Open Access if available, all links verified September 29, 2026 but sources usually not studied in detail: [1] Michelet, J. (ed.) (1841) Procès des Templiers, vol. 1, Paris: Imprimerie royale, pp. 36-37; [2] Baluze, E. and Mollat, G. (eds) (1914) Vitae paparum Avenionensium, vol. 1, Paris: Letouzey et Ané, pp. 92-94 (life by Amalric Auger); [3] Finke, H. (1907) Papsttum und Untergang des Templerordens, 2 vols, Münster: Aschendorff, vol. 1 pp. 111-119, vol. 2 pp. 83-85; [4] Villani, G. (1906) Villani's Chronicle, transl. R.E. Selfe, London: Constable, pp. 377-378; [5] Bergouniou, A. (1939) Montricoux et les Templiers, Bulletin archéologique, historique et artistique de la Société archéologique de Tarn-et-Garonne, 67, pp. 59-61; [6] Demurger, A. (2009) The Last Templar: The Tragedy of Jacques de Molay, Last Grand Master of the Temple, London: Profile Books, pp. 170-171; [7] Théry, J. (2013) A Heresy of State: Philip the Fair, the Trial of the Perfidious Templars, and the Pontificalization of the French Monarchy, Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures, 39/2, pp. 117-148; [8] Demurger, A. (2018) The Persecution of the Templars: Scandal, Torture, Trial, transl. T. Lavender Fagan, London: Profile Books, pp. 12-23.

The illustration shows the arrest of the Templars - Chroniques de France ou de St. Denis (end 14th C), f.42v - BL Royal MS 20 C VII, source Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

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