The deaths of Philip the Fair and Pope Clement V did not have supernatural aspects in and of themselves, but their timing (and the unpopularity of both men) fostered hostile interpretations of divine justice and supernatural Templar vengeance, particularly in Italy where Philip had been expanding French hegemony. The legends gained strength after Philip's four sons all died without living heirs within the next fifteen years, leaving only the King of England, Isabella of France's son Edward III, as Philip's direct heir and sparking the Hundred Year's War. Molay, it was said, had uttered a curse from the flames that consumed him, one calling Philip and Clement to judgment within the year and prophesying the extinction of Philip's line. Most likely, of course, this story postdated 1328, when Philip's last surviving son died. But Dante Alighieri's enthusiastic placement of Philip in Hell in Inferno (specifically for destroying the Templars), shows that stories of divine retribution were already in circulation by Dante's death in 1321.
The Trial was disastrous for the rights of defendants in late medieval trials involving any accusations of sorcery, and it had lasting effects. Following the Trial, European monarchs felt considerably bolder in choosing their targets. Legal restrictions on torture also appear to have loosened. If a popular and powerful monastic order like the Templars could be brought down, so could anyone.
Worse, though the Templar Trial is often seen in isolation, it in fact occurred as part of an overall pattern of persecution of rich and vulnerable groups during Philip's reign. Philip had previously despoiled and expelled the Lombards (Italian merchants) and Jews from his realm. During the Trial, he and Clement also persecuted the Beguines and Beghards, groups of lay people who practiced the religious life without taking monastic vows. One of their leaders, a mystic known as Marguerite Porete, was burned at the stake in 1310. Her crime? Writing a book about the Holy Spirit. Her true crime, of course, was being a female religious leader in a time when women in the Church were increasingly expected to shut up and do as they were told.
It should probably be no surprise, then, that shortly after this, fears of witchcraft (previously dismissed by medieval Church authorities as pagan superstition) and secret societies began to grow.
