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A lot of people know this day to be a day of bad omen due to the popular movies and superstitions that have been repeated throughout the years. However, few people know the actual origin of such a day of ill omen. Some of you may know the actual history behind it. If so, it's worth revisiting I find, and if not it's a good recounting indeed. Enjoy!
At the closing of the Crusades, in which the Kingdom of Jerusalum was lost and forces withdrawn, it became apparent to both the Church, under lead of Pope Clement V, and King Philip IV of France, that an order of knights had grown to reknown such as to rival both the Church and the King.
This order of knights originally started out as a small band of "warrior monks", who had took upon themselves to safe-guard the pilgrim roads in the eastern countries to protect travelers. As neither the Church nor the King had the men to spare for such duties, they were glad to receive volounteers, who had sworn themselves to poverty, to do the job for them.
With the blessing of both the Church and the King, they started recruiting in order to better perform their duties. In time they became a well known and thought of group of independant knights, dedicated to serving the concerns of saftey among pilgrams journeying to the holy land.
It wasn't overly long before they accumulated enough wealth, land, ranks and influence to make the Church and King nervous. Both feared what such a large and powerful group of free thinking knights might do if they set their mind to it. In hope of crushing a fretted rebellion, the King and the Pope worked convince the Order to disband; a request that was ill received.
When this did not go through, Templars were arrested on Friday October 13, 1307 by the thousands across the land, under allegations including apostasy, idolatry, heresy, obscene rituals and homosexuality, financial corruption and fraud, and secrecy. Confessions were "coerced", in which Templars were recorded to admit spitting on the cross, worshing demons, etc.
Under preassure and threat from King Philip IV, Pope Clement V forced the disbanding of the Order, and the accused parties of Templars were judged and condemned to burn at the stake in Paris.
Jaqcues de Molay, a Grand Master of the Templars, retracted his coerced confession, and was defiant to the end, having been recorded to shout from the flames, "God knows who is wrong and has sinned. Soon a calamity will occur to those who have condemned us to death". Pope Clement died only a month later, and King Philip died in a hunting accident before the end of the year.
In 2001, a document known as the "Chinon Parchment" was found in the Vatican Secret Archives, apparently after having been filed in the wrong place in 1628. It is a record of the trial of the Templars and shows that Clement absolved the Templars of all heresies in 1308 before formally disbanding the Order in 1312.
It is currently the Roman Catholic Church position that the medieval persecution of the Knights Templar was unjust; that there was nothing inherently wrong with the Order or its Rule; and that Pope Clement was pressured into his actions by the magnitude of the public scandal and the dominating influence of King Philip IV.
I remember the very day this document was made public, after hundreds of years, redeeming the Templars. I'm proud to say it's part of my heritage, and that after all these years, at least a small bit of closure could be obtained.
And this, my friends, is the true history of the dreaded day known as Friday the 13th.
At the closing of the Crusades, in which the Kingdom of Jerusalum was lost and forces withdrawn, it became apparent to both the Church, under lead of Pope Clement V, and King Philip IV of France, that an order of knights had grown to reknown such as to rival both the Church and the King.
This order of knights originally started out as a small band of "warrior monks", who had took upon themselves to safe-guard the pilgrim roads in the eastern countries to protect travelers. As neither the Church nor the King had the men to spare for such duties, they were glad to receive volounteers, who had sworn themselves to poverty, to do the job for them.
With the blessing of both the Church and the King, they started recruiting in order to better perform their duties. In time they became a well known and thought of group of independant knights, dedicated to serving the concerns of saftey among pilgrams journeying to the holy land.
It wasn't overly long before they accumulated enough wealth, land, ranks and influence to make the Church and King nervous. Both feared what such a large and powerful group of free thinking knights might do if they set their mind to it. In hope of crushing a fretted rebellion, the King and the Pope worked convince the Order to disband; a request that was ill received.
When this did not go through, Templars were arrested on Friday October 13, 1307 by the thousands across the land, under allegations including apostasy, idolatry, heresy, obscene rituals and homosexuality, financial corruption and fraud, and secrecy. Confessions were "coerced", in which Templars were recorded to admit spitting on the cross, worshing demons, etc.
Under preassure and threat from King Philip IV, Pope Clement V forced the disbanding of the Order, and the accused parties of Templars were judged and condemned to burn at the stake in Paris.
Jaqcues de Molay, a Grand Master of the Templars, retracted his coerced confession, and was defiant to the end, having been recorded to shout from the flames, "God knows who is wrong and has sinned. Soon a calamity will occur to those who have condemned us to death". Pope Clement died only a month later, and King Philip died in a hunting accident before the end of the year.
In 2001, a document known as the "Chinon Parchment" was found in the Vatican Secret Archives, apparently after having been filed in the wrong place in 1628. It is a record of the trial of the Templars and shows that Clement absolved the Templars of all heresies in 1308 before formally disbanding the Order in 1312.
It is currently the Roman Catholic Church position that the medieval persecution of the Knights Templar was unjust; that there was nothing inherently wrong with the Order or its Rule; and that Pope Clement was pressured into his actions by the magnitude of the public scandal and the dominating influence of King Philip IV.
I remember the very day this document was made public, after hundreds of years, redeeming the Templars. I'm proud to say it's part of my heritage, and that after all these years, at least a small bit of closure could be obtained.
And this, my friends, is the true history of the dreaded day known as Friday the 13th.