Jacques DeMolay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, cursed a king and a pope as he burned at the stake — launching an undying myth

SEVEN hundred years ago today, a dying knight uttered a curse as the flames of the pyre he was tied to lapped at his feet. Those words continue to haunt us even now.

That knight was Jacques de Molay.

He was the Grand Master of the Order of the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon, generally known as the Knights Templar.

A fraction more than two centuries after the Knights of Order of the Temple of Solomon had been founded amid the rubble of Jerusalem to defend the Holy Land, it would now be ended by flame in the heart of Paris.

Betrayed by a king he trusted and a pope he was sworn to obey, in his final hours DeMolay fought fervently against the false charges which had destroyed his international network of Christian warriors.

His dying curse was powerful. And effective.

S’en vendra en brief temps meschie / Let evil swiftly befall

Sus celz qui nous dampnent a tort; / Those who have wrongly condemned us;

Diex en vengera nostre mort. / God will avenge our death.

Pope Clement V, complicit by design or cowardice, was dead 33 days later — from a severe bout of dysentery brought about by advanced bowel cancer.

King Philip IV of France, who had been happy to kill and defame Christendom’s defenders for their wealth and land, died within eight months. This time it was a hunting accident.

It was the final act in a power play that makes the schemes of Game of Thrones seem like mere schoolyard squabbles.

De Molay, oddly, lives on.

A contemporary source tells of a group of monks secretly swimming to his funeral pyre on an island in Paris’ River Seine to gather up the old man’s bones as holy relics. His name has echoed through history ever since.

The idea of the Order of the Temple itself refused to die.

Though formally disbanded and its assets nominally handed over to their arch rivals — the Knights Hospitaller — there were few untouched enclaves of Templars who changed their name to escape retribution.

But the black-and-white banner of the Poor Knights would rise time and again throughout history by the oppressed and those seeking association with secrets, occult and mystery.

And, as the likes of The DaVinci Code, Game of Thrones and Ivanhoe attest, it’s an idea that resonates even now.

The curse of Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay, as recorded in the Chronicle of Paris

The curse of Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay, as recorded in the Chronicle of Paris. Source: News Corp Australia

SIGNED, SEALED — AND DELIVERED?

De Molay’s last stand was something of a surprise.

The supreme commander of more than 2000 knights, sergeants and attendants had put up a pitiful performance after the sudden arrest of his brethren on Friday, October 13, 1307. It was a date that would go down in infamy for its ill fortune.

It had been an extraordinary operation: King Philip’s sheriffs all through France had been secretly notified to conduct the coordinated arrests that same night. Once hauled forward to face trumped up charges of heresy, sodomy and sedition, the stunned church seemed powerless to defend its own. Torture did the rest, quickly extracting confessions for the most heinous of crimes — heresy.

Read more @ http://www.news.com.au/world/jacques-demolay-grand-master-of-the-knights-templar-cursed-a-king-and-a-pope-as-he-burned-at-the-stake-launching-an-undying-myth/story-fndir2ev-1226857569455


"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us."  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~