Jacques de Molay was born between 1244 and 1249 in Molay, in the present-day Haute-Saône department of France, then part of the County of Burgundy within the Holy Roman Empire, placing him outside French royal jurisdiction. As a child, he would have absorbed accounts of Louis IX's Seventh Crusade (1248–1254), in which knights from imperial Burgundy participated, likely shaping his early vocation.
In 1265, De Molay entered the Order of the Temple at the Templar house in Beaune, received by two senior dignitaries: Humbert de Peiraud, Visitor General of the Order, and Amaury de la Roche, Master of the Province of France. Their elevated rank suggests De Molay came from minor nobility. At his interrogation on 24 October 1307, he testified that during the initiation he was instructed to deny Christ before a crucifix, though he insisted he did so against his will.
De Molay arrived in the Holy Land around 1270, serving through the final decades of the Crusader presence as the Mamluk Sultanate dismantled Frankish territories. Elected 23rd Grand Master on 20 April 1292, following the fall of Acre in 1291 and the withdrawal to Cyprus, he sought to reform the Order and advocate for a new crusade, resisting proposed mergers with the Hospitallers.
These ambitions were overtaken by political forces. King Philip IV of France, devoutly religious and deeply indebted to the Templars, had De Molay and scores of French Templars arrested on 13 October 1307. Under torture, De Molay confessed to charges of denying Christ during initiation. Pope Clement V convened independent hearings. At Chinon (14–20 August 1308), De Molay and three senior Templars were examined by a papal commission. The Chinon Parchment, rediscovered in the Vatican Archives in 2001, confirms that Clement granted them absolution from liturgical improprieties and restored them to the sacraments, not a finding of heresy. Nevertheless, under Philip's physical intimidation of the Council of Vienne (1311–1312), the Order was suppressed, confirmed by the papal bull Vox in Excelso (22 March 1312).
On 18 March 1314, though 11 March is considered more probable by Demurger, De Molay and three fellow dignitaries were sentenced to perpetual imprisonment by a French ecclesiastical commission. De Molay and Geoffroi de Charney, Preceptor of Normandy, publicly repudiated their confessions and proclaimed the Order's innocence, constituting relapse into heresy under canon law. Philip ordered their immediate execution. That evening, both men were burned at the stake on the Île des Javiaux in the Seine. Chroniclers noted their composure. Tradition holds that De Molay called Pope Clement and King Philip to divine judgment within the year; both died before its end. Within fifteen years, the Capetian dynasty, unbroken for four centuries, became extinct, giving rise to the enduring legend of De Molay's dying curse.
This blog is original work bij TN, based on earlier blogs and information from additional sources. Further reading: Barber, M. (1994). The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple. Cambridge University Press; Demurger, A. (2004). The Last Templar: The Tragedy of Jacques de Molay, Last Grand Master of the Temple (trans. A. Nevill). Profile Books, London; Frale, B. (2004). The Chinon Chart: Papal Absolution to the Last Templar Master Jacques de Molay (abstract; Overview and context). Journal of Medieval History, 30(2), 109–134; Nicholson, H. (2001). The Knights Templar: A New History. Sutton Publishing, Stroud; .Josserand, P. (2020). En quête de Jacques de Molay, dernier grand-maître de l’ordre du Temple, Medievalista, No. 27, 2020;'Josserand, P. (2016) Jacques de Molay, portrait de maïtre en martyr, Bulletin de la Société nationale des Antiquaires de France Année 2021 2016 pp. 249-280. The illustration shows an anonymous gravure of Jacques Molay, grand maître des Templiers 1584, France, France, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, source books.openedition.org, CC BY-NC-ND.
Support TemplarsNow™ by becoming a Patron, tipping us or buying one of our Reliable Books
and your other products at Amazon or Bol via our affiliate links amazon.com and
bol.com
No comments:
Post a Comment