Jacques de Molay
Jacques de Molay , also Jacob de Molay and Jacobus von Molay (* between 1240 and 1250 in Molay , today's Haute-Saône department in the Free County of Burgundy (Franche-Comté); † March 11 or 18, 1314 in Paris ) was the twenty-third and last grand master of the Knights Templar . During his time as Grand Master, King Philip IV of France smashed the Templar Order and Pope Clement V officially dissolved the Order at the Council of Vienne (1312). Two years later Jacques de Molay was executed at the stake along with Geoffroy de Charnay .
Life
origin
Little is beyond doubt about the life of Jacques de Molay before his time as Grand Master of the Templar Order. Even the year of birth cannot be determined with certainty. However, it can be assumed that de Molay was born around 1244. Based on 1265 (entry into the Knights Templar), this results from the fact that the rule of the order provided for the admission of adults, i.e. H. the admission after the accolade , which usually took place at the age of 20 years. However, since there are also cases in which admission to the order took place earlier, this is also possible with de Molay and a year of birth a few years later cannot be ruled out.
The origin is certain that he came from the Free County of Burgundy, today's Franche-Comté . Since de Molay had to be a nobleman in order to become a Knight Templar, the origin can be restricted to two communities: Jacques de Molay came either from the village of Molay in the Chemin district , which was then part of the Rahon fiefdom , or from Molay in the Haute-Saône in the Vitrey district , which was then part of the Traves deanery in the diocese of Besançon . Based on some evidence, it can be assumed that de Molay comes from the place Molay in Vitrey. A de Molay family from the rural, lower nobility has been documented there since 1138. Jacques is possibly a son of Gérard de Molay, who is mentioned in a document in 1233 as a vassal of the Seigneurs of La Rochelle .
The Free County of Burgundy was then part of the Holy Roman Empire , so the de Molays were subjects of the Roman-German Emperor. Jacques de Molay grew up during the time of King Louis IX's crusades . from France. Nothing else is known about his childhood and youth. It can be assumed that the reports and tales of the returning Crusaders from neighboring France also influenced the young de Molay.
De Molay as a templar
In 1265 Jacques was (according to own data) of Humbert de Pairud , general visitator of the Order in France and England, and Amaury de la Roche , the Master of the Order of the province of France in the Order Chapel of the Commandery Beaune in the Knights Templar added. Nothing is known about the motivation for his entry. According to what was customary at the time, one can assume that social or economic pressure led the young nobleman into the ranks of the crusaders or that his father had predestined him for a career in the church (the Knights Templar was considered a religious order). But it is also possible that the liege lord joined the crusade and all vassals had to follow him.
De Molay later stated that he had been to the Orient as a young knight under the grandmaster Guillaume de Beaujeu . Beaujeu was elected Grand Master in 1273. From this it can be concluded that de Molay came to the Holy Land sometime between 1270 and 1282 . At that time, Crusader rule in the region was nearing its end. The Grandes Chroniques de France seems it can be seen, the battle eager young knight against the Grand Master that rebelled to have, because he whose line in the time of the truce with the Sultan of the Mamelukes to seek a peaceful settlement, first refused to endorse.
Grand Master of the Order
In September 1291 - after the fall of Acre and thus the end of the Crusader States - de Molay took part in the General Chapter of the Order in Cyprus and was elected Marshal of the Order as the successor to Pierre de Sevry , who had fallen in Acre. In 1292, probably in February, the Grand Master Thibaud Gaudin died . Jacques de Molay was then elected Grand Master of the Order. This must have been before April 20, 1292: a letter to the master of the province of Aragón with this date, which de Molay signed as Grand Master, is in the Archivo General de la Corona de Aragón in Barcelona .
In 1293 he embarked on an extensive journey to the Occident, which initially took him to Provence . In August 1293 he took part in the General Chapter of the Order in Montpellier . In 1294 he traveled to England and on the occasion of the election of Pope Boniface VIII to Italy. In early 1296 he came to another General Chapter of the Order in Arles . In autumn he returned to Cyprus. The purpose of this trip was initially to reach agreements with the European rulers in order to prevent the intended withdrawal of the Templars' privileges (the Templars were exempt from all duties, taxes and feudal obligations). Intensive negotiations regarding an exchange of lands were also conducted between the Templars and the royal house of Aragon. In England he achieved the reduction of a fine imposed on the local master of the order. He negotiated with King Charles II of Naples about the lifting of special controls on the Templar ships. Most of all, it was about getting support for the Holy Land. After the fall of Acon in 1291, this meant the defense of the remaining Christian states in Cyprus (to which the Templars had also withdrawn) and in Armenia. In addition, the order's greatly reduced reserves of fighters and material had to be replenished. In his negotiations with the individual rulers, de Molay advocated that all exports of the individual temple goods to Cyprus should be exempt from all tariffs. Ultimately, the ground should be prepared for the aspired reconquest of the Holy Land, because this remained the main concern of the knightly orders.
The Templars' headquarters was in Limassol , Cyprus. De Molay sought a compromise with King Henry II of Cyprus. He wanted to limit the income of the orders - this affected the Templars as well as the Hospitallers (Johanniter) and the Cistercians - and forbid them to acquire any further land. In the negotiations about this, de Molay also asked Pope Boniface VIII for mediation.
From 1299 de Molay campaigned massively to recapture the Holy Land together with other Christian armed forces and in alliance with the Mongols. A first attack by the Persian Khan Ghazan at the end of 1299 took place with the participation of Armenian troops and Armenian Templars and Hospitallers contingents. Ghazan sent two letters to the orders of knights in Cyprus, in which he asked for support. However, he did not send these letters off until he had been in the field for weeks. The contingents based in Cyprus could no longer intervene. Ghazan first conquered Aleppo in December . On December 24, 1299 the Khan and his Armenian allies won a brilliant victory over the Mameluks at Homs ; Because of the poor supply situation for the Mongolian cavalry, however, the pursuit of the fleeing enemies soon had to be stopped and the chance of lasting success was thus wasted. Nevertheless, they managed to conquer Syria almost completely in the first months of 1300 . At the same time the Khan intensified his diplomatic efforts. For November 1300 he announced a new campaign.
In the spring of 1300 a small fleet made up of delegations from the Templars, the Hospitallers, the King of Cyprus and the Khan attacked Egypt ; Rosette and Alexandria were sacked. Thereupon they turned north towards Acre and Tartus ; an attempt to take the port city of Maraclea , however, failed. Molay operated the coordination with the allies and the management of the Templar participation in the enterprises from Cyprus. At the end of September Ghazan set out from Tabriz , while the Templars and Hospitallers and the King of Cyprus were setting up their troops on the island of Ruad off Tartus. But an unusually harsh winter brought the Mongol advance to a standstill, and Ghazan had to postpone the attack on the Mameluks until a later date. In the meantime, the Templars held the island and made frequent forays to the mainland from there. In 1302 they were driven from the island and suffered heavy losses (see Siege of Aruad ). The Mongol attacks finally failed in 1303 and Ghazan died the following year. This marked the end of Christian efforts to achieve success through alliances with the Mongols.
De Molay stayed in Cyprus for the following years. In 1306 a revolt broke out in Cyprus in which the king's brother, Amalrich of Tire , took power on the island. In the revolt, which was supported by parts of the local nobility, de Molay and Foulques de Villaret , the Grand Master of the Hospitallers, did not interfere, but subsequently tried to achieve a balance between the warring brothers.
In October 1306, de Molay set out for France. Pope Clement V was residing in Poitiers at the time . He had invited the leaders of the knightly orders to discuss two issues with them: the unification of the knightly orders and the preparation of a new crusade. Both masters of the order had submitted memoranda on this, which should now be discussed (the de Molays have been preserved). Due to illness of the Pope, the date of the meeting was postponed from November 1306 to the coming year.
It is said that there were upsets between the French King Philip IV and de Molay. One reason was that the treasurer of the order (see also Templar Treasure) was also the king's treasurer, as the Templars administered the state finances in France. The treasurer of the order had lent an enormous amount of money to Philip IV, but this would have required the approval of the grand master. In addition, de Molay strongly opposed a union of the crusader orders, from which Philip IV would have benefited in any case, because he figured he had a good chance of becoming grand master of a united order.
All kinds of rumors were circulating in France, England and Spain about alleged misconduct of the Templars. The allegations related to heretical practices such as idolatry, denial of Christ in the reception ceremony and lay absolution, as well as a lack of charity, greed and presumption. Guillaume de Nogaret , a confidante of the French king, had already started investigations against the Templars in 1305 in order to collect incriminating material. This should primarily serve to blackmail the Pope, to whom the Knights Templar was subordinate. During a conversation with the king, de Molay tried to excuse some practices of the Templar Order such as lay absolution. De Molay asked the Pope himself to investigate the allegations. The Pope agreed and reserved the direction of the investigation. He announced that he would begin these investigations in the second half of October 1307.
On June 24, 1307 de Molay took part in the General Chapter of the Order, which he had convened in Paris. Then he went back to Poitiers. On August 24th, Pope Clement V informed the king about the initiation of investigations against the Knights Templar. Allegedly because of the gravity of the accusations, Philip decided to illegally take the investigation into himself and first brought the Inquisitor of France, Guillaume de Paris, before him . In September, Gilles I. Aycelin de Montaigut , the Archbishop of Narbonne , resigned from his office as Chancellor of the King in protest against the violation of canon law. He was succeeded by Guillaume de Nogaret. De Molay returned to Paris at the beginning of October. On October 12th, he attended the funeral services for Catherine de Courtenay as a member of the honorary escort .
Arrest, trial and death
The next day, Friday, October 13, 1307, the Templars were arrested by order of the king. Among those arrested in the Paris Templar Castle (the " Temple ") was the Grand Master Jacques de Molay. Only a few Templars managed to escape.
On October 24th, de Molay was questioned for the first time by the inquisitors . He admitted that when he was accepted into the Order, he was asked to deny Christ and to spit on the cross. He reluctantly obeyed and just spat next to the cross. He vigorously denied that upon admission the knights were asked to resort to homosexual acts in the event of sexual desire. Confessions from other Templars in the first interrogations in October and November also provided the desired confirmation of the suspected heresy . Nogaret immediately used the confessions for a propaganda blow that was intended to discredit not only the Templars, but also the Pope. Philip IV called on the rulers in Europe to take action against the Templars, but his appeal initially had no consequences. It was only when the Pope ordered the Templars to be arrested in the Bull Pastoralis praeeminentiae of November 22, 1307 that the Templars were also arrested in England, Cyprus, Italy or Aragon. However, nowhere did the persecution of the Templars take on such proportions as in France. The Pope tried to bring the arrested Templars into the care of the Church, which Nogaret thwarted by all means.
The king urged the Pope to order the repeal of the Knights Templar, but he wanted to get an idea for himself. He sent two cardinals to de Molay. It was only when the Pope threatened the king with excommunication that they were admitted to de Molay. De Molay retracted his confession and complained about the bad treatment. He was probably tortured. He subsequently relied on the support of the Pope, as he was convinced that the order could not be accused of any heretical misconduct. Carefully selected prisoners were transferred to the Pope to continue the investigation in Poitiers . Of all people, the dignitaries of the order, de Molay among them, were too weak to travel to Poitiers, according to the royal investigative authorities. Allegedly because of their exhaustion, they were taken into Chinon Castle by the king . There de Molay was interrogated again in August 1308, also in the presence of cardinals. He repeated his first confession there.
The Pope ultimately had to agree to a two-pronged process. The investigations against individual knights remained in the hands of the royal French administration, only the proceedings against the order were to remain subordinate to the curia. The Pope personally reserved the right to make a judgment about the leadership of the Order. On November 26, 1309 de Molay was brought before the papal commission of inquiry in Paris. He refused to make any further statements and demanded that the order be defended personally before the Pope. He also insisted on his position when he was last questioned in March 1310. However, there was no longer a meeting between the Pope and de Molay.
The papal commission of inquiry soon came to partially different conclusions than the king’s commissions. The affair threatened to slip away from the king again. Nogaret and Philipp then used the Archbishop of Sens , Philippe de Marigny , as their tool. Marigny was a brother of Enguerrand de Marigny , one of the king's closest confidants. He now presided over the college of judges of Paris, which was responsible for the trial of the Templars in this diocese (the diocese of Paris was then subordinate to the Archbishop of Sens). The Templars, who testified before the papal commission to defend the order, were again accused by Marigny as recidivist heretics and immediately sent to the stake: On May 12, 1310 54 Templars were burned in Paris. Thus the slowly budding resistance of the Templars in the proceedings was finally broken.
On March 22, 1312, the Pope declared the Knights Templar dissolved at the Council of Vienne . A handwriting from Pope Clement from that time found by the historian Barbara Frale in the secret archives of the Vatican proves that he was not convinced of the guilt of the order. When he ordered the repeal of the order, he did so not because of proven misconduct by the order, but because the reputation of the order had been so badly damaged that a re-establishment was out of the question.
When the Pope finally set up a commission to condemn the remaining superiors of the order, they had been imprisoned in Gisors Castle for around four years : in addition to Jacques de Molay, these were the Master of Normandy Geoffroy de Charnay as well as Hugues de Pairaud and Geoffroy de Gonneville . The three cardinals appointed by the Pope, Nicolas Caignet de Fréauville, Arnaud d'Auch and Arnaud Novelli, met in Paris in March 1314. On March 18, 1314, the verdict was announced publicly on the square in front of Notre Dame Church , which was life imprisonment . When de Molay and de Charnay heard the verdict, they felt betrayed by the Pope. They protested violently and retracted all of their previous confessions. The other two were silent. While the papal judicial commission withdrew for further deliberation, Philip, who was not present when the verdict was pronounced, decided the immediate execution of Jacques de Molay and Geoffroy de Charnay: another violation of the law by the king because he acted without waiting for the verdict of the church which the inquisitor Bernard Gui also noted. On the evening of the same day, Jacques de Molay and Geoffroy de Charnay were burned at the stake .
A small plaque on the west side of the Pont Neuf on the Île de la Cité in Paris indicates the place of execution . The plaque is at the foot of the bridge, on the wall opposite the entrance to the park on the western tip of the island.
Historical environment and background
The situation of the crusader states in the Holy Land had been shaped by the incursions of the Mongols and the clashes with the Egyptian sultanate of the Mamluks since 1258 . Bohemond VI. , the count of Tripoli and prince of Antioch , and Hethum I , the king of Lesser Armenia , came to terms with the Mongols and made tribute payments from 1247 onwards. They counted on the Mongols as supporters against the Mameluks. The Kingdom of Jerusalem wavered whether it should lean towards the Mameluks or the Mongols. Although the Kingdom of Jerusalem initially behaved neutrally and allowed the Mamelukes to pass through its territory, it could not prevent the attacks of Sultan Baibars I from being directed against the Crusader states. In 1268 Antioch fell along with other fortresses . When Louis IX. , who wanted to attack the sultanate from the west, died in Tunis in 1270 , Baibars invaded the county of Tripoli and took numerous fortresses of the Templars, the Hospitallers (Johanniter) and the Teutonic Order . In April 1272, the English heir to the throne, Edward, was able to conclude an armistice with the Mameluks. The Mameluks, however, broke the armistice at will.
Mamluk attacks led to the fall of Tripoli in 1289 and the fall of Acre in 1291 . Then the crusader states finally collapsed. The Pope and the crusader barons who had been pushed back to Cyprus, as well as the knightly orders, now increasingly endeavored to cooperate with the Persian Mongol khanate , with the aim of dividing up the areas that the Mamluks had to recapture. Khan Ghazan was able to conquer most of Syria in 1300. However, he was eventually defeated by the Mameluks. When he died in 1304, his successor tried to find a solution at the negotiating table. The tactic of the West to ally itself with the Mongols had failed.
After the fall of the Crusader states, the two great crusader orders, the Templars and the Hospitallers, but also the smaller orders, took up quarters on the island of Cyprus, where they already owned goods. The independent orders with their battle-hardened troops and their extensive possessions de facto restricted the control of the king of Cyprus over the island. On the other hand, however, the king needed the knights to protect against possible attacks by the Islamic fighters. De Molay had to dissuade the King of Cyprus from taxing the Templars and forbidding the further acquisition of goods. This problem was also faced by the other orders on the island.
De Molay was also interested in reforming the order. When the Templars were no longer at war after retreating to Cyprus, he wanted to tighten the rules of the order in some points. The prestige of the knightly orders had declined because they were held responsible for the loss of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Templars were accused of preferring to conclude armistice agreements instead of fighting the enemy. The fact that the individual orders were often at odds with one another had also seriously damaged the reputation of the knightly orders.
De Molay tried to ensure that his order received the economic prerequisites to fulfill its obligation to charity. As early as the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, the Templars had to defend themselves against the charge of a lack of charity. Even then, the demand was made to unite the orders of knights. This demand grew louder after the loss of the crusader states. Merging the orders promised greater efficiency in further crusades to regain the Holy Land. De Molay, however, wanted to ensure the continued existence and independence of his order.
From 1305 onwards, the ambitions of the French King Philip IV were an essential factor . The suggestion had been made from various quarters that a king should be at the head of a united crusader order. The King of Sicily proposed the French king, while the Aragonese, for example, opposed the proposals. Philip IV was not interested in a crusade because of the financial outlay, but the power of disposal over the well-trained and combat-experienced troops of the crusaders and access to their assets seemed tempting to him. Philip did not intend to smash the Knights Templar from the start, rather he wanted to inherit it. The religious orders of knights were subordinate to the Pope only, they were exempt from all secular and ecclesiastical taxes. Their goods, which they owned in large numbers in all European kingdoms, were de facto extra-territorial areas. The order of knights was said to have enormous wealth. Their strong fighting groups were seen by some rulers as a threat to their power.
Philip IV tried constantly to put pressure on the popes. With Boniface VIII he got into an argument because he claimed the tax revenue of the French church for himself. After an assassination attempt was carried out by his confidante Guillaume de Nogaret and two cardinals from the Roman noble family of Colonna, as a result of which the Pope died, he demanded that his successor Clemens V emphatically condemn Boniface.
The curse: facts and legend
The spectacular smashing of the Knights Templar and the execution of the Grand Master, plus the numerous secrets that seemed to surround the Knightly Order, led to a myriad of legends. In the contemporary reports and chronicles of that time, however, the person of de Molay is hardly mentioned. Only the text De casibus virorum illustrium by the Italian Giovanni Boccaccio , which is widely used in numerous copies, devotes a lot of space to the Grand Master, without, however, offering any indications of a legendary embellishment. Boccaccio's father, a Florentine trader, was an eyewitness to the events in Paris. In the chronicles of the 14th and 15th centuries, other events related to the Templars received more attention than the death of the Grand Master: above all the Templars burned in 1310, the trial as a whole and the assignment of the monastic property to the Johanniter . Only three chroniclers of the 15th century mention the execution of de Molay, although in a chronicle from Flanders de Molay is confused with Guillaume de Beaujeu , and in the Chronographia Regum Francorum the execution of 1314 is confused with the burning of the Templars in 1310.
The curse of Jacques de Molay, which he is said to have cast against the king and the pope, occupies a special place in the creation of legends. If one follows the timely reports - i.e. the continuation of the Chronicle of Nangis, written anonymously - and the chronicler Geoffroy de Paris as well as the report Giovanni Villanis , Molay only spoke when he was standing before the cardinals, where he asserted the purity of the order , and then at the stake. Before it was set on fire, he described himself as a good Christian and called on God for his help. In all of these reports there is no mention of a curse or lengthy speeches. Nevertheless, the history of the Templars has always accompanied the rumor that de Molay gave a well-worded speech at the stake in which he invited King Philip IV and Pope Clement V to God's judgment seat within a year, and that he was about to die out announced the Capetian . Pope Clement V actually died on April 20, 1314, presumably of cancer. Philip's death on November 29, 1314 after a hunting accident was viewed by his subjects as a release from tyranny.
As the historian Colette Beaune researched, the Capetians were considered a cursed sex regardless of de Molay. A curse was then considered a cry for help for heavenly justice, and a cry for help was considered heard when a violent death overtook those on whom it weighed. The sins of the royal family, which were cited as reasons for a curse by the contemporaries of Philip IV, were: adultery with the king's daughters-in-law, high tax burdens and an economic crisis, caused by the deterioration of coins, which had put many people into misery, plus persecution Pope Boniface VIII and the Anagni attack . With Villani it is a bishop who pronounces the curse after the assassination attempt on the Pope. Other chroniclers even attribute the curse to Boniface himself.
The curse was finally extended to Clement V at the time of the Templar trials. A Vicenza chronicler, Ferreto de Ferretis , reported in 1330, following his account of the Council of Vienne, of an unknown Templar who appeared before the Pope and unsuccessfully protested his death sentence. This Templar is said to have cursed the Pope and the King at the stake and announced their deaths within a year.
It was not until the 16th century that de Molay's story was embellished more and more and finally his admission to the cardinals was summarized in a single speech. In his chronicle De rebus gestis Francorum Jacques de Molay, commissioned by King Francis I, Paolo Emili puts the famous curse in his mouth - here before he mounts the stake. All subsequent historians have taken on the curse that is now being proclaimed from the stake.
literature
- Bernhard Duhr : The last Grand Master of the Templar Order. In: Voices of the Time . 60th vol., 3rd issue, 118th volume, December 1929, pp. 182-195.
- Jules Viard (ed.): Les Grandes Chroniques de France. Volume 8: Philippe III. le Hardi, Philippe IV le Bel, Louis X. le Hutin, Philippe V le Long. Champion / Société de l'histoire de France, 1934.
- Sabine Delmarti: Jacques de Molay: son histoire, sa personnalité, son rôle au sein de l'ordre des Templiers, son héritage. Paris 1999, ISBN 2-7328-3442-4 .
- Alain Demurger: The last Templar. The life and death of the Grand Master Jacques de Molay. Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-52202-5 .
- Alain Demurger: The Templars. Rise and Fall 1120–1314. Munich 1991, ISBN 3-406-38553-2 .
- Barbara Frale: The Chinon Chart. Papal absolution to the last Templar, Master Jacques de Molay. In: Journal of Medieval History. 30, 2004, pp. 109-134.
- Barbara Frale: L'ultima battaglia dei Templari: dal codice ombra d'oboperza militare alla costruzione del processo per eresia. Viella, Rome 2001, ISBN 88-8334-037-X .
- Barbara Frale: Strategia di un delitto: Filippo il Bello e il cerimoniale segreto dei Templari. Giunti, Florence 2001, ISBN 88-09-02052-9 .
- Barbara Frale: Il papato e il processo ai templari: l'inedita assoluzione di Chinon alla luce della diplomatica pontificia (= La corte dei papi. 12). Viella, Rome 2003, ISBN 88-8334-098-1 ( digitized pages 9-48 , PDF).
- Barbara Frale: I templari. Il Mulino, Bologna 2004, ISBN 88-15-09798-8 .
- Jules Michelet: Le procés des templiers. Imprimerie Royale, Paris 1841, 2 volumes; Reprint, with a foreword by Jean Favier, Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, Paris 1987, ISBN 2-7355-0161-2 , ISBN 2-7355-0162-0 .
- Dieter H. Wolf: International Templar Lexicon. Innsbruck 2003, ISBN 3-7065-1826-0 .
- Piers Paul Read: The Templars. Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-86820-042-3 .
- Frank Onusseit: Knights Templar for Dummies. Weinheim 2008, ISBN 978-3-527-70353-1 .
- Andreas Beck: The fall of the Templars. Freiburg 1997, ISBN 3-451-04575-3 .
- Malcom Barber: The Templars. History and myth. Mannheim 2010, ISBN 978-3-491-96276-7 .
- Nicolaus Heutger : Molay, Jacques de. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 6, Bautz, Herzberg 1993, ISBN 3-88309-044-1 , Sp. 35-38.
Web links
- Literature by and about Jacques de Molay in the catalog of the German National Library
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Thibaud Gaudin |
Grand Master of the Knights Templar 1292–1314 |
- |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Molay, Jacques de |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Molay, Jacobus of |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Grand Master of the Templar Order |
| DATE OF BIRTH | between 1240 and 1250 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Molay |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 11, 1314 or March 18, 1314 |
| Place of death | Paris |