In March 1314, Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was brought before a commission of cardinals in Paris, where he was expected to receive a sentence of lifelong imprisonment. But instead of quietly accepting his punishment, de Molay publicly withdrew his earlier confession and declared that the Knights Templar were innocent of the charges brought against them. Another senior Templar, Geoffroi de Charney, joined him in defending the order, even though both men knew that withdrawing their confessions could have terrible consequences. Because they had previously confessed to heresy and received reconciliation with the Church, the authorities now treated them as relapsed heretics, a charge that could carry the death penalty. King Philip IV acted immediately, and on March 18, 1314, Jacques de Molay and Geoffroi de Charney were burned at the stake in Paris, bringing the story of the Knights Templar to a tragic conclusion. A near-contemporary French verse chronicle, known as the Chronique métrique and associated with Geoffroi de Paris, described the final moments of the two Templars: The master, who saw the fire ready, stripped with no sign of fear. And, as I myself saw, placed himself quite naked in his shirt freely and with good appearance; never did he tremble no matter how much he was pulled and jostled. They took him to tie him to the stake and without fear he allowed them to tie him. They bound his hands with a rope but he said to them: “Gentlemen, at least let me join my hands a little and make a prayer to God for now the time is fitting. Here I see my judgement when death freely suits me; God knows who is in the wrong and has sinned. Soon misfortune will come to those who have wrongly condemned us: God will avenge our death. Gentlemen,” he said, “make no mistake, all those who are against us will have to suffer because of us. In that belief I wish to die . . .” And so gently did death take him that everyone marvelled. A longer speech later attributed to de Molay (of uncertain contemporary attestation) runs: It is just that, in so terrible a day, and in the last moments of my life, I should discover all the iniquity of falsehood, and make the truth triumph. I declare, then, in the face of heaven and earth, and acknowledge, though to my eternal shame, that I have committed the greatest crimes but it has been the acknowledging of those which have been so foully charged on the order. I attest—and truth obliges me to attest—that it is innocent! I made the contrary declaration only to suspend the excessive pains of torture, and to mollify those who made me endure them. I know the punishments which have been inflicted on all the knights who had the courage to revoke a similar confession; but the dreadful spectacle which is presented to me is not able to make me confirm one lie by another. The life offered me on such infamous terms I abandon without regret. According to a later legend, Jacques de Molay used his final moments to summon Pope Clement V and King Philip IV before the judgment of God, warning that they would soon have to answer for what they had done to the Knights Templar. Weirdly, both men died before the end of 1314, only months after de Molay was burned at the stake, which helped turn the story of his supposed curse into one of the most famous legends of the Middle Ages. CONTINUE READING: thewesternspirit.blog/p/frid…