The arrest of the Templars in France on October 13, 1307 radically changed European attitudes toward heresy, witchcraft, torture and criminal prosecution.
The international military order of the Knights Templar was a very familiar group in Crusades-era Europe. But the Templars are best noted for their trial for heresy, which lasted five years, from 1307 to 1312, and its aftermath. Even after it ended, the matter lingered until 1314, a deadly year for French king that put the Templars on trial and the Pope that let him. And thus, the legend of the Templar curse was born.
On October 13, 1307 Philip IV (the Fair), King of France, arrested almost every Templar in his realm in a predawn raid. Initially, he had great success. Through a combination of sleep deprivation and constant harassment that became popular with torturers in the later Inquisition and well into the 20th century, most of the knights (including the Order's Grand Master, Jacques de Molay) confessed to at least some of the main charges within the first few months. Torture of the sergeant brothers was even more brutal. Some brothers claimed that the interrogations had major irregularities under contemporary law-inquisitors were not always present, some of the torturers were drunk and excessive force was often used. One man appeared before the Papal inquiry into the Trial carrying the bones of his own foot, which had been burned out during an interrogation. An unknown number of Templars even committed suicide. Though many popular histories focus obsessively on the knights, the sergeants were the ones who actually mustered a legal defense of the Order in 1309, led by two chaplains of the Order. Philip crushed this budding resistance by burning 65 Templars, who had previously confessed and then participated in the defense, as relapsed heretics in May 1309.
Philip expected to similarly prevail when he burned Jacques de Molay and Geoffroi de Charney in March 1312. But by this time, legends of supernatural vengeance were growing up about the Trial. In one, Nogaret was supposedly passing a group of condemned Templars on their way to the stake. One called out to him that he would be called to judgment within a year. Nogaret died in 1313, so this incident, if it occurred, would have been no earlier than 1312. The legends grew when both Pope Clement V (who had suppressed the Order) and Philip died by the end of 1314. Clement died of a longstanding condition (Malcolm Barber, author of The Trial of the Templars, has speculated that it was stomach cancer) in April. Philip had a strange and fatal fit in the woods while hunting in late November. Thus ended the men who had brought down the Order of the Temple.
