03/19/2026
Today, March 18th, marks the 712th anniversary of the martyrdom of Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar.
He was born in the French village of Molay around the year 1243. Almost nothing is known of his early life, but he joined the Templars at the age of 21, and served 42 years.
Jacques de Molay was elected Grand Master in 1293. Immediately, he set off to England, France, Aragon and Italy to garner support for a new crusade to the Holy Land. By this time, unfortunately, the Templars were regarded as the men who had lost the Holy Land, and monarchies were becoming distrustful of them. France, in particular with its financial woes, was feeling overrun with returning, aging knights, who still were free from any kind of taxation or even civil laws, by virtue of Papal bulls that held the Order above anyone but the Pope.
The circumstances of the arrests on October 13th, 1307, and the next seven years of torture and trials of the Templars are well known. By 1314, both the Pope and public opinion had completely abandoned the Knights Templar. The four senior Templar officers in Phillip’s custody were fairly old by this point, with the youngest being Geoffroi de Charney, who was almost 60. Jacques de Molay was in his 70s, and had spent most of his time in solitary confinement.
On March 18th, 1314, the four men were finally led onto a platform in front of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral to hear the charges and make their public confessions. The charges were read, and two of the men accepted their fate of perpetual imprisonment. They were led away.
However, Jacques de Molay and his compatriot Geoffroi de Charney did not follow suit. Weakened with age and imprisonment, de Molay shouted in a voice that startled the assembly that he and his fellow Templars were innocent of all charges. They were returned to their cells at once, while Phillip called together his council and quickly pronounced sentence. Being found guilty as “relapsed heretics,” their penalty was the stake.
Each man was stripped down to his shirt and tied to the stake. Jacques de Molay, with unbelievable courage, asked not only that he be turned to face the Cathedral, but that his hands be freed, so that he could die in prayer. His request was granted. The two men were then burned alive by the Inquisitional method that began slowly with hot coals, so that their agony could be prolonged as long as possible.
According to legend, Jacques de Molay did not go quietly. Instead, he died defiantly shouting his innocence and that of the Templars, calling on King Phillip and Pope Clement to both meet him before the throne of God in one year’s time, where they would all be judged together. Both men would indeed be dead within the year. One month after the death of de Molay, Pope Clement V, age 54, died of cancer. Phillip the Fair, age 46, would die in a hunting accident, on November 29th.
