Mass arrests of the Knights Templar

On Friday, October 13, 1307, around 15,000 members of the Knights Templar are rounded up and arrested in France. The mass arrests signaled the end for the wealthy and powerful order of warrior monks founded after the First Crusade to protect Christian pilgrims visiting Jerusalem.  

Officially known as the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, members of the Knights Templar took vows of chastity and poverty. The order received generous donations of land and gold from European nobles to fund its campaigns against Muslim armies in the Holy Land.

After the traditional Crusades to the Holy Land ended in 1291, the Knights Templar grew incredibly wealthy from its vast landholdings and business across Europe, as well as tax-exempt status as a religious order. The order also lent money to nobles and kings, making it arguably the first international bank. In France, where its lavish Paris headquarters was called the Temple, the Knights Templar drew the ire of King Philip IV, whose kingdom was mired in debt.  

In the early 1300s, disgruntled former members of the Knights Templar began spreading rumors that the order was not only financially corrupt, but that its members secretly engaged in devil worship and prohibited sex acts inside the Paris headquarters. Philip IV seized on the sordid accusations as an opportunity to take down the order and steal their wealth.  

Philip IV ordered the arrest of every person associated with the Knights Templar across France. On a single day, October 13, 1307, French authorities rounded up an estimated 15,000 knights, monks, servants and laborers, including grandmaster Jacques de Molay, the leader of the Knights Templar.  

In England, King Edward II, who married Philip’s daughter Isabella in January 1308, faced pressure to follow the French king’s lead. English and Irish members of the Knights Templar were arrested in 1307 and 1308 and held in the Tower of London. Pope Clement V conducted additional arrests in other parts of Europe.  

Prisoners in France were formally accused of 127 heresies, including spitting on the cross, and they were tortured to force their confessions. In France, even elderly knights were starved, hung with weights to dislocate their bones and had their fingers crushed in vises called thumbscrews. Dozens of prisoners died, while others gave false confessions, including de Molay.  

In 1314, de Molay was put on display in Paris to publicly admit his crimes and receive a life sentence. Instead, the grandmaster renounced his confession. King Philip IV ordered de Molay be burned at the stake. According to legend, de Molay cursed Philip IV and Pope Clement V from the flames, and both men were dead within a year.  

The mass arrests of the Knights Templar on Friday the 13th and de Molay’s curse are often cited as one of the origins of Friday the 13th as an “unlucky” day.