Jacques de Molay

Last Grand Master of the Order of the Temple.

Jacques de Molay. Grand Master of the Order of the Temple 1292-18 March 1314 Predecessor Thibaud Gaudin Successor Did not have Personal Information Birth Between 1240 and 1244 Molay Franco County of Burgundy Death 18 March 1314Jul. Paris (Kingdom of France).

• Cause of death Death at the stake
• Religion Catholicism
• Professional information Occupation Knight Templar
• Conflicts Falling from Acre
• Criminal information Criminal charge(s) heresy
• Coat of Arms Shield Jacques de Molay

Jacques Bernard de Molay (Franco County of Burgundy, c. 1240-1244 – March 18, 1314), known as Jacques de Molay, was a Franco-Comtese nobleman and the last Grand Master of the Order of the Temple, who was a military order founded by Hugo de Payens and by other knights who participated in the First Crusade, whose purpose was to protect Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land.

In addition, some scholars on noble subjects include Molay in the genealogy of Lonvy, being Molay a population of the Lordship of Rahon, owned by the father of Jacques de Molay.

Jacques de Molay

Jacques Bernard de Molay was born in Molay, (Franco County of Burgundy), between 1245 and 1250 (although there are certain versions that specify that it was in the year 1243 and others in 1244, in the city of Vitrey, department of Haute Sâone), son of John, Lord of Lonvy, heir to Mathe and Lord of Rahon, large town near Dôle, on which many others depended,

In 1265, in the city of Beaune (France) he joined the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ (later called Knights of the Temple of Solomon), commonly known as Knights Templar or Order of the Temple, receiving the Friar Imbert of Perand, visitor of France and of the Portu, in the Temple chapel of the residence of Beaune.

In 1293, he was titled Grand Master after the death of Thibaud Gaudin on 16 April 1292. Thus became Jacques de Molay the twenty-third and last Grand Master of the Order of the Temple. He organized between 1293 and 1305 multiple expeditions against the Muslims and managed to enter Jerusalem in 1298, defeating the Sultan of Egypt, Malej Nacer, in 1299 near the city of Emesa. In 1300 he organized a raid against Alexandria and was about to recover the city of Tartus, on the Syrian coast, but was defeated.

In 1306, after the expulsion of the Jews, the state of the French economy bordered on ruin. King Philip IV had requested several loans from the Order of the Temple, which he could not return. For this reason he made the currency devalue several times, in the face of the disgust of his subjects. The monarch, desperate, spread the word that the Templars had unchristian behavior, and along with Guillaume de Nogaret, an unscrupulous character, and the royal confessor, Guillem Imbert, concocted a plan to destroy the Order and keep their property.

In 1307, Pope Clement V, Beltran of Goth and the King of France, Philip IV, ordered the arrest of Jacques de Molay and that of the other knights under the accusation of sacrilege against the Holy Cross, simony, heresy and idolatry towards Baphomet and Lucifer. Molay declared and acknowledged, under torture, the charges that had been imposed on him; although he subsequently retracted, and therefore in 1314 he was burned alive at the stake in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, where he again retracted, in public form, of all accusations he had been forced to admit, proclaiming the innocence of the Order and, according to legend, cursing the guilty of the conspiracy:

God knows who is wrong and has sinned and misfortune will soon be overcome upon those who have condemned us without reason. God will avenge our death. Lord, know that, in truth, all those who are contrary to us, for us will suffer Clement, and you also Philip, traitors to the word given, I call you both before the Tribunal of God! To you, Clement, before forty days, and you, Philip, this year...

Within one year, that alleged curse was fulfilled; first with the death of Clement V, who died on April 20, 1314, then with the death of Philip IV (who according to Maurice Druon died of an accident during a hunting party on November 29, 1314) and finally with the death of William of Nogaret, who was poisoned that same year.