On March 18th, 1314, Jasque de Molay, the 23rd Grand Master of the monastic order of the Knights Templar, was burned at the stake on an island in the middle of the river Seine. After years and years of torture, confessions of heresy, and trial, the 23rd Grand Master of one of Christiandom’s most famed military orders was slowly roasted in front of massive crowds in Paris, France.
Some in the crowd must have been confused about this turn of events. Molay was in his late 60s, was a member of the French nobility, a devout Catholic, and along with the rest of his order had pledged his life in defense of Christian lands. And yet, despite all of this, his execution was ordered by a French king and approved by none other than the pope himself. Not because he really was a heretic, but because he owed money to the king who had one of history’s most infamous popes in his pocket—Clement V.
The Vintner Who Became Pope
The man who turned a blind eye to the torture and execution of Molay and the other members of his order was born Bertrand de Got to a prominent wine-making family in the Bordeaux region of France. He grew up accustomed to the finer things in life, studying art in Toulouse, and civil law in Orleans, and thanks to his family connections he was handed church office after church office eventually rising to Archbishop of Bordeaux in 1297.
Despite being named to lead the region’s church, he found the arts and enology much more engaging endeavors. Bertrand would have happily continued pruning his vines and decorating cathedrals while ignoring his congregation, but events in far-off Rome soon changed all of that.
For many years the church had been at odds with King Philip IV of France. Philip, who was known as “the Fair” due to his voluminous blond locks, had become embroiled in a costly war with England, and so had decided to raise taxes on the Church in order to fund this ongoing conflict.
This did not sit well with the supreme pontiff at the time Boniface XIII, who had a habit of inserting himself into the political issues of his day and selling church offices (which is why author Dante predicted he would end up in the eighth circle of hell).
Rulers across Europe had quarreled with Boniface XIII, but none had a bigger axe to grind than France’s Philip. When Philip ignored the pope’s official edicts and arrested members of the clergy who opposed his use of church funds for his wars, Boniface XIII responded by issuing the Unam Sanctam, a bull that declared his “total supremacy over earthly rulers.”
Needless to say, this didn’t go over well, and the conflict became more and more intense over the ensuing years with Boniface eventually excommunicating the French king and Philip responding by ordering an army to kidnap and imprison the pesky pope.
With all of this going on, it is obvious why, in July of 1304 when Boniface’s successor Benedict XI died, suddenly and quite conveniently if you happen to be a certain French monarch, the College of Cardinals was very concerned about who should be elected next. There was a divide between those who wanted to continue defending the Church’s interests and those who wanted to placate France’s king as a way of de-escalating what they viewed as a nobody-wins scenario.
Eventually, the faction looking to ameliorate the conflict won out and elected Bertrand. This was a bit of a surprise because as an Archbishop he wasn’t even a member of the college. So why did the Cardinals decide to elect someone outside their ranks?
Maybe nobody wanted to put themselves in the office and feel the wrath of Europe’s most powerful monarch, or maybe it was because he was well known to have been a childhood friend of the French king. He became Clement V in 1305 and then almost immediately rolled over and showed Philip his belly.
The King’s Pope
Soon after his election, Clement went to work revoking Philip’s excommunication and almost every single papal decree the king had taken issue with. He reversed the Unam Sanctum, gave away Church lands to the king for a pittance and even moved the seat of the papacy to Avignon so Philip could keep an eye on what the Church was up to.
And if that wasn’t enough, he also consented to having his predecessor Boniface XIII put on trial posthumously for all sorts of likely false crimes. The trial ended when two knights invited anyone who questioned the late pope’s morality to trial by combat and, predictably, there were no takers.
While these moves were obviously questionable and done under what was surely extreme pressure and copious threats, they paled in comparison to what Clement V would do, or rather wouldn’t do, when Philip decided it was time to eradicate the Knights Templar.
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple Solomon
The Knights Templars were a Roman Catholic military order formed in the early 1100s to provide protection for Christian pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. Deriving their name from the location of their headquarters atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and once being so poor they relied on donations to feed themselves, by the time Clement V had been elevated as the heir of Saint Peter the order had undergone dramatic changes.
Once used as heavily armored shock troops, they were eventually pushed out of the Middle East together when the Muslim world was able to unite under leaders like the legendary Saladin and the Fatimid Dynasty. While its original mission was now impossible, they left with a large and well-established network of castles, forts, and strongholds from which they were able to shift their focus from fighting to finance.
During the crusades, nobles and pilgrims alike could deposit their money at one of the many Templar houses and banks across Europe and receive a letter of credit in return which could be cashed in once they reached the Holy Land in what could be considered an early checking account. Even after the order had abandoned the region, their systems continued to be used and made them insanely wealthy, allowing them to easily pivot into the money lending business, with many of Europe’s biggest monarchs utilizing loans of Templar gold to pay for all sorts of things. And there was nobody taking out bigger loans than their biggest customers—Philip IV.
Philip had taken out a boatload of loans from Templar-run banks to finance his wars with England, and the receipts were starting to come due. But the French king didn’t have the resources to pay back all those loans, which was of little consequence because he also never had any intention of paying back the money he owed, at least not while he had an ally in the papal robes, and together they hatched one of the most infamous double-crosses in the history of the Church.
In 1306, Clement V, most likely at the behest of his old friend Philip, invited the leaders of the Templar order to France to discuss a new crusade and some other matters. Grand Master De Molay arrived first but many of the others who were invited were arriving from across Europe and were delayed so the entire conference took much longer than expected, providing plenty of time for Philip to execute his plan. He had arrest warrants sent across his kingdom with orders to open them simultaneously on a very specific date and time.
The moment arrived one morning in mid-October as dawn broke. Templars were simultaneously arrested all across France and those who resisted were put to the sword. They faced a plethora of charges including worshiping mummified cats, homosexual relations, spitting on the cross, and even “indecent kissing.” Almost all of these charges were trumped up by Philip as a way to dodge paying what he owed and allowing him to seize Templar-owned lands.
Once in French custody, Templars were subjected to days of torture, including systematic starvation, burning the soles of their feet, and other acts so horrifying that before long the imprisoned Templars were confessing to all manner of irrational charges. Even when some like De Molay later recanted their forced confessions, before any of them could mount any kind of a defense the king had them burned at the stake as heretics.
Clement V, who could have spoken up on behalf of his faithful defenders, instead became a collaborator, issuing a papal decree that disbanded the order, in large part due to Philip threatening military action. Those who weren’t found guilty made their way into other military orders, and by 1312 the Templars were more or less dissolved along with King Philips’s debts.
To be fair, there are historians who would disagree with this interpretation of Clement’s lack of action. It could be argued that having inherited a deeply divided Church, as evidenced by the revolt of Venice that sprung up soon after he took office, he had no choice but to give into Philip’s demands and betray the Templars in order to hold the Church together.
Regardless of his true motives, the degree to which Clement rolled over for Philip crippled the political clout of the papal office for good and his total acquiescence to Philip meant that Clement V’s name continues to live in infamy, as does the date of the Templars’ unlucky betrayal—Friday the 13th.
