Jacques de Molay

Jacques de Molay, nineteenth-century color lithograph by Chevauchet

Jacques de Molay (est. 1244-5/1249-50 - 18 March 1314) a minor Frankish noble, served as the 23rd, and officially last, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and is probably the best known Templar besides the Order's founder and first Grand Master, Huguens de Payns. Upon his election before 20 April 1292, he promised to reform the Order and adjust it to the present situation in the Middle East. However, problems started to amass and the Order's right to exist was put into question. Jacques de Molay failed to successfully lead the Order through the inquisitions made against it, and was burnt at the stake on an island in the river Seine in Paris 18 March 1314 by the orders of Phillipe le Bel (Philip the Fair) after retracting all of his previous confessions. Nothing is known of about two thirds of his life.

Youth

Jacques de Molay's exact date of birth is in some doubt, but when interrogated by the judges in Paris 24 October 1307, he told he entered the Order forty-two years earlier, that would mean in 1265. The common imperial age for joining an order was minimum 20 years of age, but there exists several documents proving that men younger than 20-21 years were accepted into the Order, hence the birth year confusion. An interesting fact involves that when questioned about the same thing in August the following year by the Pope's envoys at Chinon, he again told he was received into the order forty-two years earlier, i.e. 1266. Jacques de Molay was born into, most likely, a family of minor nobility, as most of the Templars were, at Molay (Haute-Saône) in the county of Burgundy, a Holy Roman Empire territory.

He was received into the Order at Beaune by Humbert de Pairaud, the Visitor of France and England in 1265. Independently of Guillaume de Beaujeu, who became Grand Master in 1273, Jacques de Molay went to the East (Outremer) around 1270. He spent all his career as a Templar in the East, although he is mentioned to be in France in 1285. It is not known if he held any offices in either the West or the East, or if he was present when Acre, the last crusader city and capital of the Latin kingdom fell in May 1291 to the Mamluks.

Grand Master

After the fall of Acre, the Franks who were able retreated to Cyprus, this including Jacques de Molay and Thibaud Gaudin, the 22nd Grand Master of the Temple. During a meeting assembled on the island in the autumn of 1291, J. de Molay spoke and pointed to himself as an alternative and reformer of the Order. Before 16 April 1292 Gaudin died, leaving the mastership open for Jacques de Molay, as there were no other serious contenders for the role at the time. The election took place before 20 April, as a document in the archives of the Crown of Aragon attests and recognizes Jacques de Molay as the Knights Templar's new Grand Master by then.

Once elected, the rapid establishment of the command of the Order was meant to deal with the most serious matters first. These were the subjects of Cyprus and Armenia of Cilicia, which both were under the threat of an attack from the Mamluks. In spring 1293 he began a tour to the West which brought him to Provence, Catalonia, Italy, England and France. There he settled several local and internal problems, but mainly the goal was to ask for help from the western rulers and the Church in the reconquest of the Holy Land, strengthening the defence of Cyprus and the rebuild of Templar forces. Talk of a crusade was even at hand, but a more troubling issue was brought upon de Molay, the merging of the Orders of the Temple and the Hospital, an idea he was negative to and would continue to be. He held two general meetings of his Order at Montpellier in 1293 and at Arles in 1296, where he tried to make reforms. During his journey, Jacques de Molay made a close relationship with Pope Boniface VIII and relationships of trust with Edward I of England, James I of Aragon and Charles II of Naples. Nothing is known of his relationship with Phillipe IV of France.

In the autumn of 1296 Molay was back in Cyprus to defend his Order against the interests of Henry II of Cyprus, which conflict had its roots back in the days of Guillaume de Beaujeu. From 1299 to 1303 de Molay was pressing forward an alliance with the Mongols against the Mamluks. The plan was to coordinate actions between the Christian military orders, the King of Cyprus, the aristocracy of Cyprus and Little Armenia and the Mongols of the khanate of Ilkhan (Persia). In 1298 or 1299, Jacques de Molay halted a further Mamluk invasion with military force in Armenia possibly because of the loss of Roche-Guillaume, the last Templar stronghold in Cilicia to the Mamluks. However, when the Mongol khan of Persia Ghâzân defeated the Mamluks in the Second battle of Homs in December 1299, the Christian forces were not ready to take an advantage of the situation. In 1300, Jacques de Molay made his Order commit raids along the Egyptian and Syrian coasts to weaken the enemy's supply lines as well as to harass them, and in November that year he joined the occupation of the tiny island of Ruad which faced the Syrian town of Tortosa. The intent was to establish a bridgehead in accordance with the Mongol alliance, but the Mongols failed to appear in 1300, the same happened in 1301 and 1302. In September 1302 the Templars were driven out of Ruad by the attacking Mamluk forces from Egypt, and many were massacred when trapped on the island. The isle of Ruad was lost and when Ghâzân died in 1304, Jacques de Molay's dream of a rapid reconquest of the Holy Land was destroyed.

The incident on Ruad was wrongly interpreted by contemporaries as an bizarre attempt to permanently stay close to the Holy Land by Jacques de Molay, but it was merely a key in the strategy involving the Mongols in the recapture of the Holy Land. Still, criticism was starting to spawn back in Europe about the Order's reason of being.

In 1305, the newly elected pope Clement V asked the leaders of the military Orders of their opinions on a new crusade and the merging of the Orders. Jacques de Molay was asked by the pope to write two memoranda, one on each of the issues, which he did during the summer of 1306. On 6 June, the leaders were officially asked to come to Poitiers, where the Pope had his seat, to discuss these matters. The meeting at Poitiers was delayed due to the Pope's illness, unbeknowst to de Molay who had already left Cyprus around 15 October. Arriving in France in late November or early December, nothing is known of Jacques de Molay's activities during the first five months of 1307. In the second half of May he was in Poitiers attending the meeting with the pope. The Grand Master came in conflict with Phillippe IV when he still was rejecting the idea of merging the Orders with the French King as leader (with the French King as Rex Bellator, War King) and thus making it more difficult for the Pope in his problem with the King about condemning the memory of Boniface VIII, which Phillippe would achieve at all costs. This furthermore thwarted the attempts to get a new crusade on its way. These conflicts were weakening the Templar Order along with something that would turn out to be far more serious, something Jacques de Molay had discovered during his journey through France: scandalous and perverse rumours and whispers about the Order had begun to surface. The King and his councillors, among them Guillaume de Nogaret, knew to exploit this weakness.

The downfall

Jacques de Molay sentenced to the stake in 1314, from the Chronicle of France or of St Denis (fourteenth century)

Jacques de Molay spoke with the King in Paris on 24 June 1307 about the accusations against his Order and was partially reassured. Returning to Poitiers, he asked the Pope to set up an inquiry to quickly clear the Order of the suspicions it fell victim to because of the rumours and accusations surrounding it. When the Pope announced his initiation of inquiry on 24 August, the French King reacted. He was not to be let out of control in the situation. On 14 September, in the deepest secrecy, he sent out his orders throughout all of France which resulted in the mass arrests of Templars and confiscation of their possessions in the whole country on 13 October 1307. Jacques de Molay was arrested in Paris, where he intended to be present at the funeral of Catherine of Valois.

During an interrogation by royal agents on October 24, de Molay confessed only to "denying Christ and trampling on the Cross" as a part of the reception ritual. Jacques de Molay's possible intention was that this couldn't possibly be very harmful to the Order, but when he was forced to repeat this statement in the public the next day, the damage was devastating for the Order and its members. Making things even worse, he was made to write a letter where he expressed that every Templar should admit to these acts. Phillipe IV had the control over the situation now, and in order to regain his authority, Pope Clement V ordered the arrest of all the Templars throughout Christendom.

The Pope still wanted to hear Jacques de Molay and dispatched two cardinals to Paris in December 1307. In front of them, de Molay retracted his confessions made to the agents of Phillippe IV which resulted in a power struggle between the King and the Pope which was settled in August 1308. The King and the Pope agreed to split the convictions; through the Bull Fasciens misericordiam the procedure to prosecute the Templars were set out on a duality where the first commission would judge individuals of the Order and the second commission would judge the Order as an entity. In practice this meant that a Council seated at Vienne was to decide the future of the Temple, while the Temple dignitaries, among them Jacques de Molay, were to be judged by the Pope. In the royal palace at Chinon, de Molay was again questioned by the cardinals, but this time with royal agents present. He returned to his admissions made on October 24 1307. Then there was silence for a year. Slowly the commissions and inquisitions were put in place, and finally, in November 1309, the papal commission for the kingdom of France began its hearings. On two instances, at 26 and 28 November, de Molay explicitly expressed that he did not acknowledge the accusations brought against his Order, and thus turning into the defence strategy of keeping silent before the papal commission. He was to completely rely on the Pope's judgement.

Condemning himself to silence, Jacques de Molay had nothing to do but wait. He therefore isolated himself from being the leader of the great protest movement of Templars who had been brought to Paris and were defending the Order and its innocence. Nonetheless, the protest movement were effectively broken when the archbishop of Sens, Phillippe de Marigny, sentenced 54 Templars to be burnt at the stake on 10-12 May 1310. Furthermore, the Order was abolished by the Pope in the Council of Vienne on 22 March 1312. Almost two years later, on March 18 1314, three cardinals sent by the Pope sentenced the Temple dignitaries, Jacques de Molay, Hugues de Pairaud, Geoffroy de Charney and Geoffroy de Gonneville to life imprisonment. Jacques de Molay, feeling betrayed, rose up, took back all of his previous confessions and proclaimed his Order's innoncence, before challenging the King and Pope before God. Geoffroy de Charney was the only dignitary that backed him up. Furious when hearing this, Phillippe IV sent them away to their destiny.

Jacques de Molay was taken to Ile de la Cité in the Seine and burnt alive, along with Geoffroy de Charney, the Commander of Normandy, at the eve of March 18 1314.

Myths

It is said that Jacques de Molay cursed Phillippe le Bel and his descent from his execution pyre. And, indeed, the rapid succession of the last direct Capetian kings of France between 1314 and 1328, the three sons of Phillipe IV, let many to believe that the dynasty had been cursed – thus the name of "Cursed Kings" (Rois Maudits). Also, de Molay apparently challenged the King and the Pope to meet him before the judgement of God within the year was over. Surely, both King and Pope were dead before a new year had come.

Legacy

There is a masonic youth group named the Order of DeMolay. While they use de Molay as an example of loyalty and fidelity they claim no direct connection with the Knights Templar or Jacques de Molay.

Quotes

• "Quar nous navons volu ne volons le Temple mettre en aucune servitute se non tant come il hy affiert." ("For we did not and do not wish the Temple to be placed in any servitude except that which is fitting.")

Related articles

• Knights Templar
• Phillipe IV of France, responsible for J. de Molay's execution.
• Pope Clement V, instrumental in the destruction of the Knights Templar.
• Pope Boniface VIII, Pope which J. de Molay had a close relationship.
• Thomas Bérard, Grand Master of the Order of the Temple during J. de Molay's early days in the order (1256 - 1273).
• Guillaume de Beaujeu, Grand Master of the Order of the Temple from 1273 - 1291.
• Thibaud Gaudin, the Grand Master before J. de Molay from 1291 - 1292.
• Geoffroy de Charney, Commander of Normandy.
• Hugues de Pairaud, Visitor of France.
• Raimbaud de Caron, Grand Commander.
• Geoffroy de Gonneville, Commander of Aquitaine-Poitou.
• Guillaume de Nogaret, councillor to Phillipe IV.
• Ghâzân, Mongol warlord of the Ilkhan khanate.
• Inquisition
• Outremer, the Holy Land.
• Ruad, tiny island which the Templars used in a plan to attack and retake the Holy Land.
• Acre, the last Frankish city to be lost to the Mamluks on the mainland.
• Cyprus, the kingdom which the Templars had their base in their last years.

References and further reading

• Alain Demurger, The Last Templar - The Tragedy of Jacques de Molay, Last Grand Master of the Temple (Translated into English by Antonia Nevill), Profile Books LTD, 2004, ISBN 1-86197-529-5 (First publication in France in 2002 as Jacques de Molay by Éditions Payot & Rivages.

External links

• The Story of J. de Molay
• Templar History's article about J. de Molay
• The Catholic Encyclopedia's article about J. de Molay
• Plaque commemorating J. de Molay
• More info about J. de Molay

Preceded by: Thibaud Gaudin

Grand Master of the Knights Templar 1292–1314

Succeeded by: None