Cold Open

It’s dawn on October 13th, 1307 in a grand, walled residence in Paris, France.

Jacques de Molay sleeps soundly in his bed.

Although Jacques is in his sixties, he’s in good health. He’s the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, a powerful and wealthy religious order of the Catholic Church. Jacques has given a lifetime of service to the order. He has become so important that yesterday he was given the honor of acting as a pallbearer at a royal funeral—that of Catherine of Courtenay, sister-in-law of the French king, Philip IV. But Philip is wary of the influence that Jacques wields. The relationship between the Templars and the French crown is strained.

Jacques wakes suddenly. Someone is pounding on the door to his bed chamber. So, he rises and opens the door to a concerned-looking fellow knight, who tells Jacques they’re under attack.

Hurriedly, Jacques follows the knight downstairs and out into the courtyard… where shouts from the street beyond the walls echo through the early morning.

But before Jacques can ask who’s making such a racket, the gates to the Templar compound are forced open and a stream of heavily armed men charges into the courtyard.

A few Templar Knights try to stand in their way, but the strangers quickly subdue them. Then, one of the armed men spots Jacques’s distinctive bald head and full beard pointing in his direction. The strangers move menacingly toward Jacques and order him to surrender. Jacques’s eyes blaze with anger as he tells them to leave the holy ground of the Knights Templar, warning them that his order is under the protection of the Pope and King Philip.

But one of the armed men pulls his sword from its sheath and replies that he’s here on behalf of King Philip—and his orders are clear. He’s to arrest Jacques and every other knight here. Faced with such overwhelming force, Jacques has little choice but to relent. His shoulders slump as he allows himself to be led away, now a prisoner of the king.

The arrest of Jacques de Molay marks a major escalation in the already fractious relationship between two of the most powerful men in Christendom: the Grand Master of the Knights Templar and the King of France. After Jacques’s shocking arrest, seven years of legal wrangling will follow between the church and the king, before the Knights Templar are finally abolished and its last Grand Master is executed on March 18th, 1314.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is March 18th, 1314: The Execution of the Last Grand Master of the Knights Templar.

Act One

It’s an hour before dawn on May 18th, 1291 in the port city of Acre, in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, sixteen years before the arrest of Jacques de Molay.

Trumpets sound in the darkness. Readying his sword, Jacques rushes toward the city walls. He can hear screaming and shouting and the clash of metal. Acre is under attack.

Though it’s still night, torches cast enough light for Jacques to see that the walls of the city have already been breached and his fellow knights are engaged in a frantic hand-to-hand battle with enemy soldiers. The onslaught that Jacques has been expecting for weeks has finally begun.

Nearly 200 years ago, the Pope called upon the kings of Europe to capture the Holy Land from Muslim rule and ensure that Jerusalem remained in Christian hands. The First Crusade, as it became known, was a success. Jerusalem was conquered and new Christian states were established in the Holy Land. But the fighting didn’t end there. Ever since that First Crusade, Muslim rulers have been battling to regain control of the region, and new Crusades have been called to fend them off. Recently, though, the tide has turned decisively in favor of the Mamluk Sultanate, a Muslim kingdom ruled from Egypt. Swathes of territory have already fallen to the Mamluks, and the city of Acre is the last remaining Christian stronghold in the region. Now a Mamluk army has the city under siege, hoping to drive the Christians from the Holy Land once and for all.

Standing in their way are knights from several Christian religious orders, including the most powerful of them all, the Knights Templar. Jacques de Molay isn’t the order’s Grand Master yet. But he’s a veteran of many battles in the Holy Land and, as Mamluk soldiers try to force their way into Acre, Jacques draws his sword and charges into action. He cuts down dozens of Mamluk soldiers, but it’s no use. The Christian knights are forced to retreat, and the further back they’re pushed, the more Mamluks get through the breach and into the city.

Jacques sees many of his brethren fall, among them the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, who is severely wounded and carried away from battle on a shield, his face deathly pale.

The injury to their commander disheartens the Christian soldiers. The remaining Templars fight a desperate rearguard action as they slowly retreat through the city toward its docks. And Jacques makes it onto one of the last ships to leave Acre before Mamluk troops rush into the harbor. And when his ship reaches the safety of open water, Jacques watches the Mamluks hacking indiscriminately at those left behind on the dockside.

It’s a sight that leaves Jacques thirsting for revenge. His ship sails more than 100 miles across the Mediterranean Sea to Cyprus. With the loss of Acre, the last crusader city has fallen, and the Holy Land has been lost. The Knights Templar themselves have suffered significant casualties, including their Grand Master who died of his wounds. Now, the vengeful Jacques is one of the most senior Templar Knights left alive, and it’s not long before he’s appointed the new Grand Master.

In this new post, Jacques thinks the priority for the Knights Templar is to regain a Christian foothold in the Holy Land. So, he soon leaves Cyprus for the Royal courts of Europe, seeking money and soldiers from the Christian kings for a new crusade. But thanks to the catastrophic defeat at Acre, there’s little enthusiasm for the cause. After several years of fruitless lobbying, Jacques realizes that Europe’s leaders are not backing the Templars because the kings and noblemen no longer think there’s a chance of success.

So, to prove that recapturing the Holy Land is still possible, Jacques decides to mount a small-scale campaign. He hopes that a symbolic victory over the Mamluks will kickstart a wider crusade. He builds a fleet of ships and establishes a base on the tiny Mediterranean island of Ruad. Beginning in the summer of 1300, Jacques’s Templar navy raids Mamluk settlements along the Egyptian and Syrian coasts. But the Mamluks fight back and invade Ruad in 1302, razing the Templar base there to the ground.

Running out of options, Jacques will return to Europe for one last attempt to rally support for an invasion of the Holy Land. But there he will stumble into an equally dangerous world of political intrigue—and once he steps foot in France, Jacques de Molay will never leave.

Act Two

It’s November 1st, 1306 in Poitiers, France; fifteen years after the fall of Acre.

Jacques de Molay leaves Poitiers Cathedral after attending Mass to celebrate All Saints Day. He hurries along with his brow furrowed, and his entourage of Templar aides must walk quickly to keep up. Jacques has a busy day ahead. Later he’s supposed to meet with Pope Clement V, but he’s worried. The Pope was conspicuously absent from the All Saints Day service. And it doesn’t feel like a good omen.

Pope Clement has only been in the role for a year, but already has made a major change to the papacy - he’s moved the headquarters of the Catholic church from Rome to Poitiers in central France. That relocation arose from a decade-long power struggle between King Philip IV of France and a previous pope, Boniface VIII. Their relationship reached rock bottom in 1303 when Boniface threatened to excommunicate Philip. In response, Philip’s soldiers broke into the papal palace and beat Boniface so badly that he died of his injuries a month later. Then after Boniface’s successor quickly died in mysterious circumstances, Philip pressured the Catholic Cardinals to choose one of his allies as the next pope. They obliged and as a result, Philip’s close friend became Pope Clement V. Now, Jacques is ready to meet the new pope to discuss Jacques’s plans to retake the Holy Land. But since Clement is little more than Philip’s puppet, Jacques knows that it's the king he really needs to convince.

When Jacques arrives at the papal palace, Clement’s officials greet him politely—but they reveal that the pope is unable to meet today because he’s unwell. Jacques expresses concern, but the papal aides assure him that Clement just has an upset stomach. But every time Jacques returns over the next few days and weeks, he’s told that the pope is still too ill to receive him. Jacques worries that the pope is avoiding him—and his suspicions deepen when Clement sends a letter rescheduling their meeting for May, in six months’ time.

While Jacques waits patiently for his papal audience, disturbing news reaches him: several former Knights Templars who were ejected from the order for inappropriate behavior have accused their former brethren of holding heretical beliefs. They say that the Templars engage in homosexual relationships, spit on the crucifix, deny that Jesus was a prophet, and worship a mummified body as an idol of Satan. And when Jacques finally has his audience with Pope Clement in May, he’s forced to spend his time defending the Templars against these unfounded allegations, rather than convincing the pope of the importance of retaking the Holy Land.

Pope Clement does offer half-hearted support for a new crusade but also reveals that King Philip wants to seize the Templars’ assets and turn over the order’s vast riches to the royal treasury. Hearing that, Jacques finally sees the full picture. First, Philip engineered a French takeover of the Papacy to increase his own power. Now, the king intends to crush the Templars so he can take their wealth.

Jacques spends the next few months trying to keep a low profile, hoping that the controversy will just blow over, that the king’s threats will come to nothing. But when the noblewoman Catherine of Courtenay dies, Jacques is asked to be a pallbearer. He knows he can't turn down the request without causing offense. But he also knows it’s a trap. The night after the funeral, when Philip knows exactly where Jacques will be, he strikes. The king orders raids across France, and every Templar in the kingdom is rounded up.

Under torture by French officials, Jacques confesses to denying Jesus and trampling on the crucifix during Templar initiations. But in a later meeting with two cardinals sent by the pope, Jacques retracts his confession. He’s then interrogated again by the King’s agents, and once more - under torture - confesses. But when he’s questioned by the Pope’s inquisitors, he recants and insists that he is innocent.

During all of this, the French King has fifty-four Templar Knights burned at the stake—but the king doesn’t yet feel confident enough to execute the Templar Grand Master. Instead, Jacques languishes in a French prison.

Five years later, though, with Jacques still behind bars, Pope Clement will finally abolish the order of the Knights Templar. And soon after that, King Philip will decide that there’s only one way for him to deal with the last Grand Master: death by fire.

Act Three

It’s dusk on March 18th, 1314 in Paris, seven years after the arrest of Jacques de Molay.

Outside Notre Dame Cathedral, a pyre is being built. The Archbishop, William of Paris, glances at the darkening sky and urges the men stacking up the wood to hurry. A crowd of onlookers has already gathered, eager to see whether the rumored execution will actually take place.

Earlier today, Archbishop William gathered Jacques and three other senior Templars to publicly announce the sentences imposed on them by a church court: life imprisonment for heresy. Two of the prisoners accepted the sentences without comment, but Grand Master Jacques de Molay, and another Templar Knight both retracted their confessions and insulted the church court. When the French King, Philip IV, heard this, he ordered that the men’s sentences be changed to the grisly punishment reserved for unrepentant heretics: burning at the stake. Now, the Archbishop wants to carry out the sentence and end this sordid affair once and for all.

As the last blocks of wood are placed on the pyre, Jacques and the other man are led out in chains. As he’s fastened to the stake, Jacques turns his body so he can face Notre Dame. He maintains his composure even as the flames begin to consume his body. In his dying moments, he calls out that God will avenge him. And some of the onlookers in the crowd are sure that they even hear Jacques promise that both King Philip and Pope Clement will be dead too within a year.

The death of the Grand Master of the Knights Templar marks the end of a bitter period of political and religious maneuvering in France—but King Philip will not enjoy his victory for long. Jacques’s prophecy will prove accurate. Pope Clement will succumb to a fatal illness just thirty-three days after Jacques’s execution. And Philip will collapse on a hunting trip and die before the year is out. After this unexpected death of the king, France’s ruling dynasty will fall apart, with Philip’s successors all dying young. And by the end of the century, the Papacy will have left France and returned to Rome.

But despite the demise of their persecutors, the Knights Templar will also never recover. The two hundred-year-long history of the crusading order came to an end, when its last Grand Master was executed in Paris on March 18th, 1314.

Outro

Next on History Daily. March 19th, 1965. The wreck of the Confederate blockade runner, SS Georgiana, is discovered by a teenage diver exactly 102 years after she sank on her maiden voyage.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Edited by Joel Callan.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.