Thanks to Masonic mythology and, to a large extent, at the suggestion of the French novelist Morris Druon with his series "Cursed Kings", the last Grand Master of the Templars, Jacques de Molay is usually portrayed as such a noble old man, the wise leader of a powerful organization, treacherously repressed by the evil and greedy French king. Is it necessary to say that this pastoral (however, like the vast majority of all Templar myths), does not even come close to reality. With this article, I fulfill this promise - that is, on the basis of figures, facts and using reliable sources, I will try to prove that de Molay was a weak person, a mediocre leader and an incompetent politician, whose stupidity, political blindness led to the defeat of the order.

kitchen hawk

The whole life and career of the order of the future Grand Master can be fit in a few lines. Jacques de Molay was the son of a nobleman from Franche-Comté. Let us remember this fact, because it played an important role in all subsequent events. Why? Because this small area at that time was part of the county of Burgundy, which in turn was part of the Holy Roman Empire, which means that the de Molay family was not a vassal of the French crown. Jacques de Molay's year of birth is unknown. According to his own account, he was admitted to the order in 1265, at a young age, so it can be assumed that he was born sometime in the middle of the thirteenth century.

The further biography of Jacques de Molay is completely connected with the order. In the early 70s, he arrived in the Holy Land, where, for two decades, he carried out the unremarkable service of a brother-knight. Times change, but military orders remain unchanged. There is such a cruel officer joke: "He is still forty-five, and he is already a senior lieutenant." Translated into civilian language, this means that in the army, where at all times a career has been made very quickly, for twenty years without the slightest promotion, either an absolutely worthless person or a violator of discipline who is not friends with the authorities can sit. There is no doubt that brother-knight Jacques was a type of the well-known today “kitchen dissident”, who in the home circle angrily condemns the existing government and tells what and how to do, while he himself is not able to command even a platoon ...

In the protocols of the trial of the Templars, testimonies have been preserved that Jacques de Molay, along with other crusaders, both Templars and laymen, reproached the Grand Master Guillaume de Gode for a conciliatory policy with Muslims and evading hostilities. The fact is remarkable. After all, if we recall the two-century history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, we can see that it was precisely the policy of “hawks” that led to the biggest and tragic defeats of the defenders of the Holy Land, which, contrary to strategic interests and common sense, demanded a “holy war” ... Could the “kitchen hawk” Jacques de Molay, during the period of de God's mastership, for two decades keeping the Latin East from participating in senseless and doomed to defeat wars, to receive at least the smallest promotion? Unlikely.

For us, something else is important here. If, after spending two decades in the East, de Molay could not understand all the intricacies of Eastern politics, then he did not fit in any way for the position of head of the order, and even in such difficult times. However, at the same time, he had certain (and considerable) ambitions. Again, according to one of the witnesses to the process, in 1291 he allegedly stated that: "I would destroy in the order what he does not like, and which can bring great harm to the order." This statement is usually interpreted as an allusion to the heresy with which the order was accused, but it rather indicates the ambition of Jacques and his desire to lead the order.

Since 1285, Jacques de Molay has been serving in Acre. Nothing is known about his exploits during the siege of the city. One thing is for sure - he was not among the last Templars who defended the Master's Tower to the end and died under its rubble, because after the fall of Acre and the surrender of Sidon (and it is possible that earlier) he was found in Cyprus.

burgundy spy

Since Guillaume de Beaugh died leading the defense of Acre, the motley Cypriot repatriates, mostly administrators and business executives, having probably decided that their finest hour had struck, hastily assembled the supreme chapter and elected a new head of the order. They became the great preceptor Thibaut Godin. Among the seventeen electors, a simple, unremarkable brother, the knight Jacques, who by that time was already well over forty, was most likely as an “old-timer” in terms of age and length of service. What happened next was a common thing among bureaucrats. Thibaut Gaudin enlisted the support of the chapter, probably by promising high positions of order in exchange for votes. One way or another, Jacques de Molay became a great preceptor the same day.

Here it is necessary to explain separately what this position meant. The Grand Preceptor of the Temple headed that part of the order that was located on the territory of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, was the second person in the general hierarchy after the Grand Master, and also, after the death of the Grand Master or his absence, acted as locum tenens.

Thibaut Gaudin, having marked his short reign with one unsuccessful campaign in Armenia (in which, by the way, Jacques de Molay did not take part), died in 1293. The elections of the Grand Master were again held in Cyprus, where, after the loss of all Christian possessions in the Middle East, the headquarters of the order was officially transferred.

There were two contenders for the twenty-third Grand Master. During the process, the brother-knight from Limoges testified during interrogation that most of the convention in Cyprus - the knights from Limousin and Auvergne - wanted to elect their fellow countryman, the general visitor (that is, the head of the order in the West) Hugues de Perot, as Grand Master. And here again an event occurred that characterizes Jacques de Molay, to put it mildly, far from the best side.

Back in 1291, in the presence of Grand Master Thibault Gaudin, he swore that, having received (most likely in exchange for his vote) the position of Grand Preceptor, he would not apply for the post of Grand Master, and if the next elections took place, he would support Hugh de Perot, high order dignitary, moreover, dressed in the confidence of the French king.

But at the supreme chapter, when there was a discussion of the candidacy of Hugh de Pero, Jacques, again according to the testimony, Jacques de Molay literally demanded his election with threats, saying “ ... to them, from which they have already made a cloak, that is, a great preceptor, they would also make a hood, that is, the great master himself, because, whether they wish or not, he will become a master, albeit through violence ".

Now is the time to remember the origin of Jacques de Molay. The fact is that just at that very time, Count Othon IV of Burgundy sold his native Franche-Cote to the French crown, but the barons of this land refused to become vassals of the French king and, with the support of the English king, opposed him with weapons. Thus, the election of the Grand Master turned into a struggle between the pro-English and pro-French parties.

To completely clarify the picture, it must be added that Othon de Grandson was present at the elections. This Savoyard knight was a childhood friend and confidant of Edward of England. Otho was Edward's emissary in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, participated in the defense of Acre in 1291, in 1292, together with the Grand Masters of the Knights Templar and the Hospitallers, went to fight in Armenia, and in 1293 served as a link between the King of England and the rebellious barons from Franche-Comté. It was this influential person, a significant figure in European secret politics, who, with his authority, was able to tip the scales in the direction of an unremarkable ordinary brother-knight, which in the eyes of the dignitaries of the order was certainly Jacques de Molay.

The newly elected Grand Master turned out to be a grateful man. Otho was assigned an annual annuity of 2000 Turkish livres from the order treasury, which was later confirmed by Pope Clement V.

Could Philip the Handsome be satisfied with what is happening in the order? To answer this question, you need to evaluate this outstanding politician himself.

King Philip IV was a pragmatist and statesman. Assuming the throne at the age of 23, in almost thirty years of his reign, he methodically transformed France from a semi-feudal conglomerate into a strong centralized and capable state, laying the foundation for a future absolute monarchy.

What tasks did he have to solve? The first and most important thing is to "level" the state that he inherited. France in the 13th century was a motley mixture of the lands of the “royal domain” (which were the private property of the king), long-standing vassal holdings, such as the counties of Champagne and Blois, territories conquered already in the 13th century, to which Languedoc belonged, as well as thousands of various possessions , church lands and independent cities. Not to mention the border lands, which at that time were Flanders, Burgundy and Guyenne, where such a patchwork reigned, in comparison with which Russia of the period of feudal fragmentation looks like a totalitarian state.

Philip solved internal issues competently and tough, but always in the legal field! Lands of petty nobles interspersed in the royal domain were bought and exchanged. Baronial courts in towns and villages were legally replaced by royal balls. In order to increase taxes, the king convened a parliament, which was attended by representatives of all three of the then estates.

Philip's personnel policy also cannot but inspire respect. He, a direct descendant in the eleventh generation of the Duke of Paris, Hugo Capet, who was once elected the first French king, did not surround himself with the highest aristocracy, but put talented nominees from the ignorant nobles and commoners to government posts. He was a man of strong will, always subordinated personal interests to the state and was not afraid to make dirty linen in public - he exposed his sons to the general ridicule, publicly exposing their wives of adultery, and then sentenced the eldest daughter-in-law to death so that his son could marry again. If we add to this his personal modesty and non-acquisitiveness (the king in private life was not fond of balls and luxury), as well as the fact that Philip was an exemplary family man, it becomes clear that the picture of the “greedy king” familiar to us, to put it mildly, does not correspond to reality. .

The entire foreign policy of this monarch was subordinated to the main goal that the Capetians had been striving for for many generations - the "rounding" of state borders, the resolution in their favor of all litigations about disputed territories and the suppression of any external interference in the internal affairs of the state entrusted to him. The dispute over Guyenne, which was then part of the continental possessions of the English crown along with Aquitaine, long before the start of the Hundred Years War, made England and France natural and irreconcilable enemies, and Edward of England supported all Philip's continental enemies in every possible way.

Needless to say, that the election of the Grand Master, and even with the direct assistance of England, with which France was then at war, the Burgundian Jacques de Molay and, moreover, a native of a rebellious province, Philip regarded unequivocally as a threat to the state interests of France. For comparison, imagine that in 1943, a protege of Hitler was unexpectedly elected head of the Russian Orthodox Church and appreciate what “joy” Joseph Vissarionovich would have experienced in this case.

Yours among strangers

Ninety percent of the profitable possessions that filled the treasury of the Knights Templar were in France. If Jacques de Molay had at least a little political sanity, the very next day after his election he would have forgotten about his English patrons and began to look for a common language with the most powerful European monarch, on whom the fate of the weakened Order of the Temple depended entirely.

Immediately after the election, Jacques de Molay goes to Europe.. Always and at all times, the first international visit of a new head of state or an influential international organization is a landmark event, which is watched by the whole world. It would seem that the first and most logical step for the Grand Master would be to arrive in Paris, where the European headquarters of the order was located. But what is really happening? The Grand Master behaves as if he is afraid of Philip the Handsome, as a mischievous schoolboy is afraid of a teacher!

First, he visited Provence (which was part of the Holy Roman Empire), stopped there in the city of Montpellier, and in August 1293, it was there that he gathered the supreme chapter. Then he went to Aragon and from there to England. From England, the path of Jacques de Molay lay again not to Paris, but to Naples, where in 1294 he attended the conclave that elected Boniface VIII pope. There is a strong impression that Jacques de Molay, contrary to political necessity and common sense, was frankly afraid to enter France.

He got to France only in the third year of his stay in Europe. In 1296, probably having secured security guarantees from the new pope, who entered into power, he arrived at the Temple of Paris, where he held several chapters. At the same time, there was no information about his meeting with Philip beautiful, however, the “warmth” of their relationship may be evidenced by the fact that in the documents of that period relating to the order, Philip openly ignores the existence of Jacques de Molay. In February-March 1296 (just at the very time when Jacques held chapters and accepted neophytes into the order), the king confirmed donations to the order three times, however, in the letters signed by him, the name of the Grand Master is not mentioned!

Pro-English crusader"

At the same time, events took place in Foggy Albion that had no analogues in the history of the order for its almost two hundred years of existence. The Templars took the ban on the shedding of Christian blood very seriously. All cases when the brothers of the Temple raised arms against their fellow believers are exclusively related to protecting themselves and their own lands from armed aggression, and in order to comply with this rule, the order often went into direct conflict with secular sovereigns. So, in the middle of the 13th century, the Templars of the Morea (Frankish possessions in Greece) categorically refused to fight against the Greeks, for which the Prince of Achaia Villardouin deprived them of many of their previously granted possessions. Therefore, what happened in 1298 in England was a blatant departure from all traditions. After the uprising of William Wallace began in Scotland, King Edward I, who fought with the French in Flanders, concluded a truce with Philip the Handsome, returned home and began to prepare an army to pacify the rebellion. At the same time, he, among others, took the oath and put into operation all the Templars and Hospitallers.

For brothers-military monastic orders, reporting directly to the pope, the oath to the secular sovereign was in itself a serious violation of the charter, for which they were expelled from the order. Well, participation in a secular war and the shedding of the blood of Christians could have ended in execution or a long prison term, there were similar precedents. However, Jacques de Molay, who had returned to Cyprus by that time, swallows such humiliation as if it were a matter of course.

Personally, I think that Edward, forcing the knight brothers to fight, did the right thing. Both as head of state and as a crusader king who had his own personal account with the Holy See, I already wrote about this in an article about the reasons for the fall of Acre. However, in this case, one can unequivocally evaluate the actions of Jacques de Molay, who did not even try to at least nominally be indignant at the willfulness of the English king and condemn the brothers who violated the charter - it was the usual ostrich position. Could the French king fail to note that the Grand Master calmly allows his knights to fight on the side of the main enemy? I think no.

In addition to purely political consequences, this story had another extremely bad aspect. Most of the English Templars died at the Battle of Falkirk. And this at a time when the order so needed warriors in the East!

Untalented strategist

In 1299, Mahmud Ghazan Khan, the ruler of Azerbaijan and Iran, launched an attack on Syria. He turned to the kings of Georgia, Armenia and Cyprus with a request for help and, although he was a Muslim, made an alliance with them. In December, thanks to the help of Georgian and Armenian Christians, he managed to defeat the Mamluks, but he did not take advantage of his victory and returned to the East. Christians expected the return of the Tatars, and now the Templars were ready to enter into an alliance with them.

Not realizing that after the Mongol khan converted to Islam, an alliance with the Tatars was more illusory than ever, the Grand Master began to prepare an invasion. He turned to the brothers of the order in Spain with a demand for the supply of food and weapons. On June 20, 1300, King Henry of Cyprus with his army and the troops of two monastic orders, the Hospitallers and the Templars, raided Egypt and the Syrian coast. They captured the offshore island of Antarados (Ruad), landed on Tortosa, and were able to push inland as far as Maraclea. In November of the same year, Amaury, brother of the king and constable of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, together with the Templars and Hospitallers, who marched under the command of their Grand Masters, repeated the attack on Tortosa. The Templars again took possession of the island of Antarados, fortified on it and began to expect the arrival of the Tatars.

In April 1301, Jacques de Molay, in a letter to the English king, reported that the Khan was delayed due to an uprising organized by one of his relatives, and that he, the Grand Master, was counting on his arrival in September. At the same time, in letters to the monarchs of that period, he did not ask for help, but expressed his devotion to both kings and testified to the loyalty of the order.

The Templars, engaged in trivial piracy, held the island until the autumn of 1302, when they were attacked by the Mamluks. This tiny island, located less than three kilometers from the Syrian coast, for many years served as an excellent cover for the coastal fortress of Tortosa, but as a strategic base for the invasion, it was in no way suitable. Despite the presence of strong walls and a convenient harbor, he had one "small" flaw - the complete absence of sources of fresh water. Considering that it takes two days to sail from there to the Cypriot coast with a passing bucket, it is obvious that with a simple naval blockade, such an outpost quickly turns it into a trap for the defenders and keeping the main forces of the order on it was a perverted form of suicide. What the doomed Templars themselves, apparently, understood perfectly well - at the first signs of the blockade, the less persistent brothers simply fled from Antrados, and those faithful to their duty were left to the mercy of fate.

After the defenders of the island ran out of provisions and ammunition, they surrendered. Of those who "surrendered to the will of fate", 500 archers, Turkopols or sergeants were killed (since they could not be expected to pay a ransom). In total, 120 knights and 300 commoners died. The knight brothers who surrendered, contrary to their promises, were sent to Cairo, where almost all of them died in prison because they refused to renounce their faith.

So ingloriously ended the last military operation of the Templars, the collapse of which lies entirely on the conscience of the Grand Master. Not owning the strategic situation, he relied on the empty promises of an unreliable ally, chose an extremely unfortunate place for the base, did not evacuate the doomed troops and did not take any measures to ransom the brothers. It is authentically known that they wrote from Cairo, asking for ransom money not to their master, but to King Jaime of Aragon!. Do you like this Master? I don't.

Talentless politician

Having suffered a crushing defeat and mediocrely having lost the remnants of the military forces of the order, Jacques de Molay openly withdraws from solving pressing problems and plunges headlong into squabbles between the rulers of the Cypriot kingdom. With all the remaining forces, he supports the overthrow of the legitimate king by his brother Amory, apparently hoping to win his favor in this way and gain a foothold on the island.

But Cyprus, from its very conquest by Richard the Lionheart, was an unreliable refuge for the Templars. The income from the landed estates that existed there was not enough to support the brothers, Turkopols, hired crossbowmen and servants. The king distributed most of the island as fiefs to his supporters, moreover, for several decades the aristocracy of the Holy Land returned to Cyprus and there were constant disputes about rights and income. It had to be admitted that Cyprus could not serve as a convenient place for the order to deploy. So the erroneous choice of a place for the headquarters of the order can be safely added to the list of incompetent actions of Jacques de Molay.

Traitor

The last act, which showed his spiritual weakness and complete political failure, was his behavior towards his direct overlord, Pope Boniface.

Of course, this pontiff was far from an angel. Just one story about how he cleared the Holy See for himself speaks volumes. Pope Celestine V was a very old and sincerely religious person, far from worldly fuss. At night, with the help of a mouthpiece, the future pope, having made his way into the room adjacent to the pontiff's bedroom, depicted a "voice from heaven" demanding that Celestine leave the pulpit. Taking everything at face value, Celestine refused the tiara. Boniface was an excellent orator, a connoisseur of law, a subtle diplomat, but a man "devoid of any moral sense."

He followed in the footsteps of Gregory the Great, imposing the primacy of the Roman Church over royal power. However, if the famous reformer pope, who spent two days in his palace of the penitent German emperor, was a spiritual person and tried to build a theocratic superstate, then Boniface used all the authority accumulated by the church over a thousand years of its active existence, just to create a trivial international business Corporation "Holy Throne". He shamelessly used all the tax and customs privileges, imposed his henchmen-bishops on the French dioceses and tried with might and main to dictate his will to the European monarchs. Could this please the French king?

By the summer of 1303, the confrontation between Boniface and Philip had reached the point of direct and open hostility. The pope had prepared and was about to announce a bull excommunicating the French king from the church. Philip, in turn, took adequate measures. He prepared an indictment in which many secular and religious crimes were attributed to the pope, practically all those that in the near future would be attributed to the Templars.

On September 7, 1303, the royal minister Guillaume Nogaret, at the head of a small detachment, left for Italy, and, with the support of the Roman aristocratic family, Colonna made a daring attack on the papal residence in Anagni. Boniface was arrested and was only able to avoid deportation to France for the royal court because of Nogaret's quarrel with the Colonna family. However, the shock experienced was so great that dad, who was already under eighty, soon died.

Now let's see how the Templars and Jacques de Molay himself behaved in this situation.

Shortly before the attack on the pope, on June 13, 1303, the general visitor of the Order of the Temple, Hugues de Perot, together with the Prior of the Hospitallers in France and the preceptors of several provinces, endorsed the verdict on Pope Boniface issued by the French king. Jacques de Molay, as in the case of the English Templars, preferred to sit out in Cyprus and remain silent, which once again testifies to his weakness and extremely low authority.

To be sure, Hugh de Pero, the losing candidate for Grand Master, was King Philip the Handsome's man and could act under pressure. However, hostile actions over the head of the immediate superior, committed in relation to the head of the church and on the side of the secular authorities, if they are three times justified from the point of view of the current situation, this is clearly a shameful perjury, and Jacques de Molay, as the head of the order, was obliged to at least express his indignation.

However, the fact is not ruled out that by such a silent betrayal, Jacques, as in the case of Edward, went to buy the favor of the French king.

Crusader frame by frame

The widespread opinion that the new pope Clement V, elected in 1304, was an obedient tool in the hands of Philip the Handsome, is not true. As a Frenchman by nationality, he did nothing that would be contrary to the interests of France, however, throughout his short pontificate, all his decisions clearly indicate that he put church interests above secular ones.

He was sincerely concerned about the liberation of the Holy Land and, having passed the inauguration, he immediately summoned the masters of the main military monastic orders to discuss with them the plan for a new Crusade.

Two most interesting documents have come down to us - letters from the Grand Master of the Hospitallers, Fulk de Villaret, and a letter from Jacques de Molay, in which they present their vision of a future war. Very revealing documents. Fulk's letter to de Villaret is a document written by a strategist and politician who perfectly understands the tasks that need to be solved, the ways to solve them and the real possibilities. The letter of Jacques de Molay is a typical proclamation of a party worker, where the main attention is paid to organizational issues. The Grand Master basically justifies the inadmissibility of combining these two orders together. The merger of the Hospitallers and the Templars could have been of great benefit, and the fact that Jacques de Molay refused this indicates that personal power and status were more important to him than the main goal of the crusaders.

In 1305, during the unrest in Paris, the king was forced to resort to the help of de Perot and took refuge from the rebels behind the strong walls of the Templar fortress. Probably deciding that the truce with England concluded by that time, the support of the new pope and the services rendered to the French crown in the fight against Boniface strengthened his position, in 1307 Jacques arrived in Paris, where he made another and, this time, the last ( free) stupidity.

Naive suicide

After conducting an audit of the treasury, he expels the treasurer Jean de Tourno from the order for having issued a loan to the king in the amount of 400,000 Florentine gold coins.

In order to appreciate the scale of Jacques' stupidity, you need to go back and see how the relationship between the order and the French kings developed. Guillaume de Beaugh was a representative of the highest French nobility and a relative of the uncle of Philip the Handsome, Charles of Anjou. During his mastery, the treasury of the Temple of Paris actually merged with the treasury of the crown - the position of financial manager of the Order of the Temple and the royal house was performed by one person. Moreover, this position became hereditary, because the treasurer expelled by Jacques de Molay was the successor to his relative in this post! The king so favored this man that during the process he took him under personal protection. Jacques de Tournay (unlike Jacques de Molay) lived until at least 1327.

The desire of the Grand Master to independently control the financial flows of the order is quite understandable. However, in his position, it was suicidal stupidity to ignore the personal requests of the pope and the king to return to the position of treasurer. All further "favor" of Philip to Jacques de Molay clearly indicates that the king, who did not forgive insults (but more betrayal of state interests), had already pronounced a sentence on him and was waiting for a convenient moment.

It's time to see how our hero disposed of the considerable accountable funds entrusted to him. At the trial, many Templars complained about his stinginess. Indeed, he "cut" the budgets of many houses, called for thrift, and he himself traveled around Europe without chic, almost incognito. Personally, I do not see this as a great statesman's mind - after all, in this way he destroyed the image of a rich and powerful organization that had long been formed in the eyes of the laity. However, when it came to gaining someone as a friend of the order or maintaining friendship with someone, he showed attractions of unheard-of generosity. When pirates attacked the castle of Count Guy of Paphos in 1302, the Grand Master bought him and his family for 45,000 silver coins, and also gave the brother of the King of Cyprus, Count Amory of Tire, 50,000 bezants. The annuity for Oton de Grandson has already been mentioned. The brother of the papal treasurer, a member of the order, and the papal sleeping bag, brother Juan Fernández, were given several estates in Spain, and there are many such examples. Such behavior characterizes Jacques de Molay as a typical grassroots man who is unable to understand the rules of the game in the big leagues. He cajoles with absurdly large handouts people of little importance, who are part of the environment of prelates and monarchs, gives bribes to “the janitor’s dog, so that it is affectionate”, instead of speaking on an equal footing and without intermediaries with the first persons of Europe, as many of his great predecessors did.

Blind man

Most likely, two events influenced the choice of a particular date. The first was the death of King Edward of England on July 7, 1307. The second is the death of Catherine de Courtenay, wife of Charles de Valois, brother of the king. With the death of Edward, everything is clear, his son and successor Edward II did not favor the order, and, as subsequent events showed, the Templars and their Grand Master lost the support of the English crown. The role of Catherine de Courtenay requires a separate explanation.

In addition to close-range plans, the House of Capet had far-reaching strategic aspirations. And they were aimed at subjugating the Holy Roman Empire, dominating the Mediterranean and the new colonization of the Holy Land. These plans were quite real and they were supposed to be carried out by the younger brother of Philip the Handsome, Karl of Valois.

Karl was, according to his contemporaries, "a real knight." Lacking the restraint and subtle statesmanship of Philip, he showed himself as a knightly nature, a charismatic personality and a successful military leader, and therefore, like no one, met the interests of the Capetian house as a future crusader emperor. However, in all the crusading undertakings, Charles was pursued by failures. In 1298, two attempts to nominate him for the post of German emperor failed. Marriage with Isabella de Courtenay, daughter of Philip, the titular emperor of the Latin Empire, gave Charles the ghostly crown of Constantinople, which, however, allowed him to become the head of a new crusade. However, the premature death of his wife deprived Karl of this title. Judging by the way Charles of Valois tried to protect the Templars and take revenge on their persecutors, the Order of the Temple played an important role in his personal plans, but Philip had already made a decision. An organization useless for France, headed by the unpredictable and frankly stupid Jacques de Molay, who no longer had serious support from European monarchs, was doomed.

Jacques de Molay, blinded by royal grace, like a rustic simpleton, missed the preparations for mass arrests.

Coward

The day after the funeral, October 13, 1307, all the Templars in France were taken into custody. And here Jacques de Molay behaves not like a Grand Master responsible for the fate of his order, but like a frightened layman to death.

Three days of solitary confinement and the threat of torture were enough for him to “confess” to everything that was asked of him. On October 24 and 25, in the presence of the inquisitor and a large number of witnesses, the Grand Master confessed that when he was accepted into the order, he denied Christ three times and spat, though not on the cross, but on the floor next to it. The Grand Master, in words “causing sympathy, and with a heart full of repentance,” asked for forgiveness for himself and the order, and also urged the rest of the Templars in a letter to confess what they were accused of.

The brothers of the order were accustomed to discipline and could not imagine that their master was simply chickened out. As a result of this public self-incrimination, of the 138 Templars interrogated in Paris, only four pleaded not guilty.

However, Pope Clement V did not silently "swallow" the royal slap in the face and did everything in his power to take the trial of the Templars under the jurisdiction of the church and ensure that it was carried out as objectively as possible.

In subsequent years, Jacques de Molay turns into a weak-willed puppet of big European politics, a ping-pong ball with which the pope and the king are thrown. Undoubtedly, the ill-fated Grand Master, by his quick and repeated confessions, as well as by the fact that he persuaded other brothers to confess, allowing him to intervene in the process of the Inquisition, took upon himself a huge blame.

Jacques de Molay "emboldened" only in the third year of his imprisonment, when he was transferred to Paris and was able to be interrogated without the presence of royal advisers. Sensing the weakening of the regime, he renounces his previous testimony and on November 26, 1309 appears before the papal commission. Based on the text of the protocol of this hearing, Jacques de Molay behaves extremely inconsistently, unintelligently and impulsively. Abstractly complains about poor defense. The fact that in the conclusion "could spend only four deniers a day." He asks for help and advice from the chief organizer of the process, the royal legalist Plezien. He suddenly becomes indignant and demands that "the truth about what the order is accused of becomes known to the whole world." After that, even the theologians sincerely trying to help the order no longer take it seriously.

Refusal of previously given testimony became another stupidity, and a criminal stupidity, because with his throwing Jacques de Molay doomed hundreds of innocent brothers to a painful death. Obviously, having despaired of finding support from the head of the order in February-March 1310, more than 600 Templars in Paris declared that they were ready to defend the order on their own, which immediately provoked mass executions, because in the procedural system of the Inquisition, the “refuseee” was a criminal much more than a repentant sinner.

In May 1310, 58 Templars were condemned and burned at the stake by local councils in Paris, and 9 Templars in Senlis. Unlike the Grand Master, going to their death, ordinary brothers defended their order, and not their own skins, and in part they achieved this - after the Templars began to massively renounce their previous testimony, the papal commission was forced to stop its investigation.

The dissolution of the Knights Templar was announced at the highest body of the Roman Church, the ecumenical council, whose decisions could not be reversed even by the pope. The cathedral opened in the fall of 1311 in the Provencal city of Vienne, but the decision to dissolve the order was made

For the king of France, the issue of condemning the Templars by this time was no longer on the list of important and urgent matters, but what had been started had to be completed.

For Pope Clement, the decision to dissolve the order was the result of a very unpleasant compromise. Clement hesitated to the last, unable to decide whether to convert the order. The accusations of heresy, blasphemy and obscenity that were brought against the Templars were at one time put forward by bribed witnesses against Boniface VIII. From the very beginning of his pontificate, Clement V was under pressure from King Philip, who forced him to condemn Boniface, and to declare himself and his adviser Guillaume de Nogaret zealots for the purity of the Church and to clear any charges related to the attempt on Anagni. It is very likely that it was Philip's threats to start this process again that forced the pope and the cardinals to liquidate the Templar order. Clement V was afraid of this process, because, even with a successful outcome, he could cause great damage to the Holy See. He saved the authority of the Church by sacrificing the Knights Templar. But who knows, if in the place of the Grand Master then a not so insignificant person as Jacques de Molay, in which direction the scales would have leaned?

Deadly stupidity

The Pope reserved the final decision regarding the fate of the Grand Master and three more senior dignitaries of the order, but the right to pass judgment on them was given to three cardinals - henchmen of the French king. On March 18, 1314, four Templars were put on public trial on the dais in front of Notre Dame Cathedral, where they were sentenced to life imprisonment.

And here Jacques de Molay made, this time the last in his life, a fatal mistake. It is difficult to say what agreements he had with the royal emissaries, but for the former Grand Master, the sentence to life imprisonment was a complete surprise.

He probably did not even understand what the fact that Gisors was appointed as the place of serving the term - in those days a border fortress between England and France. The fact that this was a propaganda step, and no one was thirsty for the blood of four outsiders is also evidenced by the fact that among the convicts was the royal protégé, the general visitor Hugo de Pero, who disappeared without a trace after the trial. Most likely, the king would have simply let Jacques de Molay quietly end his days in a remote monastery, under a false name, but here he managed to demonstrate the most complete stupidity.

The Grand Master, unexpectedly for everyone, denied his confessions, declared that the order was innocent and reproached himself because of their false confessions made earlier. The example of Jacques de Molay was followed by the preceptor of Normandy, Geoffroy de Charnay. There was no sense in this outrageousness - no performances could change anything. The order was destroyed. Only a few individual Templars were acquitted. Having received the remission of sins, they dispersed to the monasteries. Starting the whole process over again meant dooming those who still survived to torture and death.

The king's patience was overflowing. Probably not wanting to take risks in anticipation of what other knee the unpredictable old man would throw out, he ordered that he be burned at the stake that same evening. The unfortunate Geoffroy de Charnay was the last victim of Jacques de Molay's stupidity - he probably supported his boss, thinking that he knew what he was doing, for which he paid with his life.

In order to understand how mediocre Jacques de Molay was, it is worth comparing how the Grand Master of the Hospitallers acted at the same time and under similar circumstances. Fulk de Villaret. If Philip's plans included the destruction of the Order of the Hospitallers, then the first reason that prevented their execution was precisely the personality of the Grand Master. The initiative, practical mind and caution of the Grand Master, the decisive actions of the Supreme Chapter aimed at reforms, as well as a happy coincidence, helped the Hospital avoid the fate of the Templars.

At a time when Jacques de Molay struggled with overdue changes and enforced discipline, he resolutely reformed the order, dividing it into national "languages" units. Arriving at Pope Clement in 1306-1307, he presented his plan for the liberation of the Holy Land, but he did not stick his head in the noose - he did not go to Paris and at the time when the arrests of the Templars began he was in the papal residence. Having visited Avignon, in July 1309, Fulk, in September-October of the same year, without stopping in Paris, returned to Marseilles, and from there departed to the East, where in 1310, together with the Genoese, he captured the strategically convenient island of Rhodes, which became the stronghold of the Hospitallers until 1522!

Jacques de Molay lived an unworthy life full of mistakes and stupidity. The court of the French king and the sentence are fully consistent with his deeds. I hope that sooner or later the court of history will pass judgment on him.

Jacques de Molay did not belong to the highest circles of the aristocracy, so very little is known about his life before joining the Order. The Templars were not particularly interested in the mundane past of the members of the order. It is known that he was born in Burgundy on March 16, 1244. Most likely, he did not receive any education, which was normal for a knight. At the age of 21, in 1265, he entered the Order of the Poor Knights of the Jerusalem Temple. Apparently, he was really looking forward to the time of this moment - 21 is the minimum age from which one could join the order.

De Molay did not achieve great military success in the Order, but it would be strange to expect success from the crusaders in the Middle East at the end of the 13th century. The last time Jerusalem was lost was in the year of de Molay's birth, in 1244. The crusaders will not take it again. But so many times they lost the city and got it back so many times that the knights, especially de Molay, did not want to believe it. So they continued to fight. But Jacques de Molay makes a career in the bowels of the Order - in England. There he receives the title of Grand Preceptor of England, becomes a prominent member of the Order. In 1293, at the age of 49, Jacques de Molay became Grand Master of the Order. And one of his main tasks during the 90s was to raise money for a new Crusade.

There are various assessments of de Molay's activities. One of them is that the last Grand Master is the most incompetent Grand Master. In particular, he is blamed for an incorrect assessment of the situation in the Holy Land, an attempt to create a bridgehead for the offensive - in 1301 the Crusaders take the island of Arvad - the loss of a bridgehead in just a year and inept intrigues. However, it is not entirely clear in this version what the Templars, rooted in Western Europe, were supposed to do, where all the Christians were around (there remained the financial sphere in which the knights succeeded by inventing letters of credit). Naturally, the Grand Master tried to somehow return the Holy Land.

Mole under interrogation. (wikipedia.org)

Another assessment says that Jacques de Molay was a martyr who suffered from the machinations of the greedy king, who could not come to terms, firstly, with the power of the Popes, namely, under Philip IV, the Avignon imprisonment of the Popes begins. Moreover, Philip the Handsome actually brought Boniface VIII, the predecessor of Clement V, to the grave. And secondly, with the wealth of the Templars, who obeyed only the Pope and God.

Either at the end of 1306, or at the very beginning of 1307, de Molay visits Paris at the invitation of Philip IV. The king is very affectionate, saying that he may ask de Molay to become the godfather of one of his children. Such an honor! Such closeness to the august person! There, in Paris, the Grand Master meets with Pope Clement V, who became pope in 1305. In fact, a protege of Philip IV. Discuss the upcoming Crusade. However, de Molay is intractable on one issue - he is against the unification of the Templars with the Hospitallers. The king had personal reasons to unite the orders: firstly, resentment - he was not accepted into the Templars at one time. Secondly, it is necessary to attach at least one, third son somewhere. Why not a new grand master of a new order? De Molay, clinging to trifles, tried to resist this. And what else to cling to when it is absolutely clear that the two orders in Cyprus are cramped?

The day before October 13, 1307, when all the Templars in France were to be arrested (many managed to escape), Jacques de Molay attended the funeral of a person of the royal family, a relative of the king, Princess Catherine de Courtenay, wife of Charles de Valois. And he stood next to the king and held in his hand a piece of cord with which the coffin was edged. He did not know that secret preparations had been going on for 3 weeks to round up the Templars. The knights were taken by surprise. The reason was the denunciation of Ekyo de Fluaran, expelled from the Order. Allegedly, the members of the Order, upon entering, denied Christ, spat on the crucifix and worshiped an idol. Then they found more witnesses - you never know offended and envious, ready to tell everything that is needed. And if they don’t want to ... but who cares what people want there? Let's make it.

Jacques de Molay. (wikipedia.org)

Under torture, de Molay admitted that the Order had fallen into heresy. Then he refused his words, but eventually gave in again. For the fact that he fell into heresy a second time, he was burned on a slow fire. While it burned, and it burned for a long time, according to the legend, he managed to curse the king and the Pope (then they will add more descendants). Made an appointment in a year in heaven. Pope Clement V died a month later of illness, Philip IV fell off his horse seven months later.

Great prophecies Korovina Elena Anatolyevna

The cursed prophecy of Jacques de Molay

At the beginning of the 14th century, an uprising broke out in Paris against royal requisitions. At that time, King Philip IV the Handsome (1268–1314; reigned from 1285) of the Capet dynasty was sitting on the French throne. True, Philip himself was only half French: his father, of course, was the King of France, Philip III, but his mother was Isabella of Aragon, daughter of King Jaime I of Aragon. No wonder that with such a “pro-Spanish” origin, the Parisians did not like Philip, although they called him Beautiful. However, not only the origin, but the very character of the king was controversial. He really was handsome, had a noble appearance, graceful manners. In addition, he attended divine services every day, scrupulously observed the fasts and other requirements of the church charter, and even wore a hair shirt under his clothes. Only now, in his affairs, this modest and schemnik did not know how to restrain himself: he had a cruel character, an iron will and went to the intended goal with unshakable perseverance, showing complete unpredictability in actions. No wonder contemporaries called him "a mysterious figure."

Jacques de Molay. 19th century drawing

However, in the second decade of his reign, it became clear that the treasury of France was depleted by eternal wars, and even the exorbitant taxes that the king introduced could not save Philip from ruin. When he took a completely desperate step - he ordered the minting of gold and silver coins, lightening their weight - this led to popular indignation.

First, the Parisians took to the streets, then the whole country rose. The frightened king had to take refuge in the fortress city of Temple, which was erected by the ancient order of the Templars-templars for their top leadership. At that time, the Supreme Grand Master (otherwise - the Grand Master) of the order was Jacques de Molay, an old friend of King Philip, the godfather of his daughter. Of course, he did not refuse to shelter the disgraced lord and even sent his knights to suppress the rebellion.

The forces of the Templars were in abundance, because the order was founded 200 years ago, when in the XII century crowds of crusaders poured into the East. Not only adventurous warriors went to Jerusalem, but also pilgrims, simple curious, fundraisers who gathered all over Europe for the Crusades. They needed escort and protection along the way. This duty was assumed by the members of the Order of the Temple, which arose in 1118-1119. Hence another name for the Knights Templar - the Templars. However, while helping pilgrims and crusaders, the order did not disdain to collect for itself, or rather, to rob a myriad of treasures of the East. And when the Templars returned to Europe, their chests were bursting with gold and precious stones, pearls and spices, which, as you know, were highly valued. The chapter of the order hired the best architects and builders. So in all countries, including Germany, Italy, England, Spain, Portugal, Flanders and other less significant lands, impregnable castles-fortresses appeared, the main among which was the majestic and gloomy Temple.

And so, in order to brighten up the stay of King Philip, to cheer him up, the gray-haired and majestic Grand Master Jacques de Molay led his friend-ruler along the corridors and rooms, climbed with him on the fortress walls with high loopholes, narrow slits-windows and descended into the unobserved dungeons. And there, in the secret cellars of the womb of the Temple, Philip the Handsome for the first time in his life saw the untold riches of the Order, accumulated over 200 years.

What to do, the king is weak, like ordinary people ... The greedy gaze of the beggar king rested on forged chests stuffed with gold, on leather bags with diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds. And at the same moment, Philip realized that he was ready for anything, just to get all these riches of the order of the Templars-templars. And no friendship, no cross-kinship by daughter could save Philip the Handsome from a fatal step - returning to Paris after the suppression of the uprising, he accused the order of heresy. The same order that hid him and helped save the throne.

However, in order to bring an accusation, the consent of the Pope himself was required, and King Philip obtained permission from Pope Clement V to dissolve the Knights Templar. Moreover, Philip explained to the pope that he owed the order a huge amount of money, which he could not return, but if the treasures of the Templars passed into his hands, then the king would give half of his debt to Clement. In a word, there was a topic for collusion.

And so, having a papal bull in his hands, King Philip ordered the arrest on Friday 13 (!) October 1307 of all members of the order living in French possessions. By evening, 15,000 Templars were in chains, of which 2,000 were knights who had the right to bear arms, that is, just those who could fight back.

Fearing that Grand Master Jacques de Molay might slip away, the king committed an absolutely dishonorable act. The day before the general arrest, when no one suspected that the Templars were being hunted, on October 12, the funeral of the suddenly deceased daughter-in-law of Philip the Handsome took place in the royal palace of Paris. The king decided to use them. As a relative, the godfather of his daughter, he invited the master to the funeral ceremony. The gray-haired old warrior Jacques de Molay even carried a funeral veil, which was considered a sign of special trust. And what was the amazement of the master when the next day he, along with 60 leaders of the order, was taken into custody by order of the treacherous king! ..

In a word, all those arrested - both the chapter of the order and its ordinary members - were taken by surprise, subjected to interrogations and horrific tortures. An incredible heresy was blamed on everyone: allegedly, members of the order rejected the name of Christ, desecrated religious shrines, worshiped the devil, performed wild rites of sodomy, bestiality, and, as is usually stated in such cases, "drank the blood of innocent Christian babies."

Torture, rearing and "Spanish boots" did their job - the knights began to slander themselves, confessing their worst sins. In one day near Paris, 509 knights were burned alive. But executions and torture continued for several more years - so many people were in the order.

However, there were also those who, after being forced to confess to unthinkable accusations, retracted the testimony obtained under torture. “It was you who said that I confessed! one of the sufferers shouted to the judges. “But did I confess this during your interrogation?” Did I take on my soul the monstrous and absurd fruit of your imagination? No messers! It is torture that asks, and pain answers!”

The shrews were burned with special cruelty - alive on a slow fire that burned for almost a day. This horror happened in the blessed month of March 1310 on a field near the monastery of St. Antonio near Paris, where 54 knights died. The monastery had to be closed for several years - the suffocating and nauseating smell did not disappear in any way ...

March 13 (again this fatal figure), however, according to other sources, 14 or even 15 (everything got confused in a hurry), 1314, the Grand Master of the Order, Jacques de Molay, was burned alive on a slow fire along with three comrades. The day before, he still managed to publicly declare his innocence. And when the flames enveloped him from all sides, the words of either curses or prophecies of the Grand Master rang out over the execution square: “Philip and Clement, not even a year will pass before I call you to the judgment of God! And may the offspring of Philip be cursed to the thirteenth generation. Do not be Capet on the throne of France!

The words of the old master were fulfilled - the higher powers did not doubt their righteousness. Less than a month later, Pope Clement V died. And his death was terrible. Philip IV immediately after the execution of the Grand Master began to suffer from a debilitating disease that doctors could not recognize. And on November 29, 1314, the fiend king died in monstrous agony.

His eldest son, who ascended the throne under the name of Louis X, reigned for only two years (from 1314 to 1316) and died in convulsions from a fever. He was only 27 years old. True, his wife, Clementia, was expecting a child. They even managed to christen the newborn baby John I, but he also died. The throne passed to the second son of Philip IV - Philip V. He reigned for six years (from 1316 to 1322), but he was also carried away by terrible dysentery, in which he suffered so much that he screamed out loud for a couple of weeks.

There were no sons left after Philip V, so the throne passed to the last son of Philip the Handsome - Charles IV. He reigned from 1322 to 1328, was married three times, but did not have a single child. True, after his death it turned out that the last wife, Jeanne d'Evre, was pregnant. All the Capetians looked forward with hope to the birth of their son, Charles IV. But the unfortunate queen on April 1, 1328 gave birth to a daughter. What a great joke came out - Master de Molay, along with his Templars, had a good time in Heaven.

The prophecy was fulfilled - direct inheritance through the male line broke off and the Capetians perished from the throne of France forever. And the curse was not needed until the 13th generation. All the daughters left after the Capetian kings either died in infancy or lived barren. And a new dynasty ascended the throne of France. On May 29, 1329, a representative of the Valois family, Philip VI, was crowned in the Cathedral of Reims.

That's just the treasury of the kingdom, as it was empty, it remained. But how is it, everyone wondered, didn’t the treacherous Philip IV the Handsome get the treasures of the Templars? No - God marks the rogue!

The crafty Pope Clement V, back in 1312, managed to secretly sign a bull that began with the words “To the Providence of Christ”, and ended with two orders: the Knights Templar order is dissolved, and its treasures are returned to the bosom ... of the Holy Church. In a word, when Philip IV announced the confiscation of the funds of the Order of the Temple, he was told that it was not worthwhile to covet the church - and you can get a summons to the holy inquisitorial court.

The king then went berserk. He even announced that it was not the whole church that was the heir to the Knights of the Temple, but only one of its orders, which the king hastily elevated, the Order of St. John. But the Johnites were poor and did not find the means to pay the necessary taxes to the church on time.

Philip IV, in a rage, ordered the start of the transportation of chests from the cellars of the Temple. But when the people sent by him arrived at the fortress, already abandoned by the templars, its dungeons were empty. Since then, there has been a legend about the missing treasures of the Templars. The sixth century adventurers and enthusiasts of all stripes are looking for gold-silver and precious stones, but, alas ...

Or maybe it's fortunate. It is unlikely that Jacques de Molay did not put a spell on the treasures, which, according to legend, he instructed his most faithful associates to transport from the fortress to safe places. So it’s better not to find treasures with such spells ...

This text is an introductory piece.

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March 18 is the day of the execution of Jacques de Molay, the 22nd last Grand Master. The complete Kabbalistic circle of perfection from 0 to 22 has been completed!

It happened in 1314, i.e. 696 years ago. The first mass arrests of the Templars in France took place seven years earlier, on the night of October 13, 1307. This is Friday the 13th, which has long been considered an unlucky day in Russia.

Why is Russia mourning for the Templars? And does the execution of Jacques de Molay have anything to do with Russia? The answer is "Yes". The most direct. The descendants of Yaroslav the Wise along the line of Anna Yaroslavna fell under the anathema of Jacques de Molay for eternity, because Philip the Handsome, who ordered the execution of Jacques de Molay, is the heir of Anna of Russia from her first marriage to King Henry I of France. The direct descendants of Anna of Russia ruled France more than two and a half centuries, occupying the throne eleven times, until 1382. If we take into account not direct descendants, then they still rule both the European Union and Britain. Ideologically, Anna Yaroslavna influenced the politics of France until the very last days of the French monarchy, because. on her gospel, in the Slavic language, brought from Kyiv, as a dowry from Russia, the monarchs of France swore an oath, assuming the royal throne (now the Gospel is called Reims, since it is kept in the Reims Cathedral).

Jacques de Molay, in turn, is the successor of the second son of Anna of Russia, from her second marriage - Hugh the Great Count of Vermandois, one of the leaders of the Crusade. Therefore, among the descendants of Anna of Russia was Baldwin II, who occupied the throne of the Latin (Constantinople) Empire. From a religious point of view, the descendants of Anna of Russia from her first marriage opposed the ideas of the Crusaders, who were defended by the descendants of Anna of Russia from her second marriage. In this case, a certain blood confrontation is visible. And all this directly links the execution of Jacques de Molay, as well as the anathema sent by him, - with Russia and with the House of Yaroslav the Wise, which includes: the Svyatoslavichi, and Vsevolodovichi, and Danilovichi, and Monomakhovichi, and Olgovichi, and Alexander Nevsky.

Given this relationship, it seems logical that after the death of Jacques De Molay, the Templars went to the homeland of Anna of Russia, along with the entire Templar treasury and the Templar library, which was probably no worse than the US Library of Congress - a symbol of modern American Freemasonry.

Almost simultaneously with the disappearance of the Templars after the execution of Jacques de Molay, the so-called institution of "spiritual Jarls" disappeared in Europe. This Institute of Yarls arose, incl. on Ladoga, during the reign of Anna Yaroslavna and the first crusades. And the film “Arn the Knight Templar” recently released in Europe, based on the book “The Way to Jerusalem”, does not accidentally indicate that “all roads lead” after all to Jerusalem, to the Temple of Solomon, which he holds in his hands Nicholas Mozhaisky.

And this is another story that connects Jacques De Molay with Russia. It concerns the ancient icon of St. Nicholas of Mozhaisk and St. Nicholas Cathedral of the Mozhaisk Kremlin.

There is a hypothesis that the icon of Nikola Mozhaisky, the Guardian of Russia, one of the most famous in Russia, was painted immediately after the execution of Jacques de Molay and is directly related to the Templars, because Nikola himself holds the Sword in one hand, and the Temple in the other hand Solomon (Mosque of Omar) - a symbol of the Templars. It is impossible not to notice the following, here in this ancient description of the icon of St. Nicholas of Mozhaisky:

“Yes, Nikola has a miracle worker ... not a veil of deesis with new miracle workers“ 22 silver images, ... and on a veil a cross planted with pearls ... ”(“ Materials on the history of Mozhaisk ”).

The 22 new miracle workers mentioned in this description symbolize either the 22 Grand Masters or the number 22 that governs the world. The same number 22, as well as the number 555, is present in the decor of the St. Nicholas Church of the Mozhaysky Kremlin, dedicated to St. Nicholas of Mozhaysky.

It is believed that the St. Nicholas Church of the Mozhaisk Kremlin was built in honor of the 500th anniversary of the execution of Jacques de Molay. Its construction began before the war of 1812, and completed after the war - in 1814.

The fact that the most widely celebrated 500th anniversary of the execution of Jacques de Molay was celebrated in Russia, in particular, by the construction of a new temple in honor of the icon of St. Nicholas of Mozhaisky, identified in a number of hypotheses with Master Jacques de Molay, increases the reliability of the legend about the Templars who settled in the 14th century on the territory of Russia.

V. Kukovenko, author of the book “Masonic Architecture and Freemasons of Mozhaisk” writes that “Until the Great French Revolution, as many believed, the curse of the master continued to hang over the royal house of France. Shrouded in a halo of suffering, secrets, mystics and exotics of chivalrous times, the Templars entered the Masonic lodges. It must have been there, among the European Freemasons, that the continuation of the legend of the Grand Master was born: in the twilight of the prison before his execution, Jacques de Molay established four lodges: the Neapolitan for the East, the Edinburgh for the West, the Stockholm for the North and the Parisian for the South. And these lodges managed to carry through the centuries the rites and secrets of the Templars. And not only rituals, but also hatred for the enemies of the order.

On January 21, 1793, Louis XVI executed the unfortunate descendant of King Philip the Handsome. When the monarch's head fell into the sawdust basket, a man in black jumped onto the platform, dipped his hands in royal blood and shouted into the crowd: “Jacques de Molay! You are avenged!"

Especially spread Templarism in the Masonic lodges of Sweden, from where it came to Russia. Presumably the Masonic Constitution of the Swedish rite was brought from Stockholm in 1776 by the real Privy Councilor, the “diamond prince”, A.B. Kurakin. Perhaps the year of the introduction of the Swedish rite in Russia is indicated by the southern side of the main quadrangle of Novonikolsky Cathedral (Mozhaisk). Its size in inches is 1774...

A few years later, in 1782, at a general Masonic convention in Wilhelmsbaden, Russia received the status of the 8th province of Strict Observation (Swedish system).

The fascination of the Russian nobility with Freemasonry soon took on the character of a mass epidemic and resulted in forms hardly familiar to the West. The desire to live among Masonic secrets led to the fact that even estates were built, to the extreme saturated with the symbols of free masons. The most striking example is Tsaritsyno near Moscow ...

In the same years, and again near Moscow, in Vyazemy, the estate of Nikolai Mikhailovich Golitsyn (great-grandson of B.A. Golitsyn), the marshal of the nobility of the Zvenigorod district, was built. At the end of the 17th century, or rather, in 1694, this estate in Vyazemy was granted by Peter I to his tutor, Prince Boris Alekseevich Golitsyn "for salvation during the Streltsy rebellion" (Vyazema's estate is located in the Odintsovo district, next to the Golitsino platform, a little away from the Mozhaisk highway).

The architecture of the estate in Vyazemy bears the undoubted stamp of Freemasonry. In the main buildings, lodges were preserved, on which the letters “J” and “M” were placed, as a reminder of Jacques de Molay ... In 1812, Kutuzov spent the night in this palace during the retreat of the Russian army. Following him, Napoleon also stopped here, and not a single thing from the furnishings and not a single book from the library was touched. Has worldwide Masonic solidarity emerged?”

Maybe Masonic solidarity...

But I believe that it did not make sense for Napoleon to take anything from the estate in Vyazemy, because. it was present in abundance in France. He went to Russia for something more sacred, just like in his Egyptian campaign. In 1812, during the invasion of Napoleon, for example, a silver shrine was stolen, in which the relics of the Holy Prince of Chernigov were kept, brought by Christians to Chernigov, after his execution in the Horde and a pillar of fire that rose at night over the body of the murdered Prince of Chernigov from the House of Yaroslav the Wise. The secrets of the House of Yaroslav the Wise seemed to be of value to Napoleon, as well as, indeed, to the khans of the Golden Horde.

V. Kukovenko in his book mentions another Masonic symbol - "the hill of virtue under the sun of truth" in the northeast of the Mozhaisk Kremlin. “The first such hill is in Dubovitsy, a name near Moscow. … You should pay attention to the following detail. The temple in Dubovitsy was consecrated on February 11, 1704 in the presence of Peter I. Is it really to the 390th anniversary of the death of de Molay? Such an assumption is not entirely fantastic. Some researchers and historians quite definitely indicate that Peter I was initiated into Masons ... this initiation took place in England. In addition, B.A. Golitsyn was very close to Peter and participated in all the undertakings and whims of the young king ... The foundation of the temple was consecrated on July 22nd. This number 22 also attracts attention. Too many events in Masonic history are marked by this number ... And, although the church was built on the Golitsyn estate, Peter I is listed in the documents as the “temple builder” ... "

Indeed, July 22 is the day of Mary Magdalene. I have already emphasized it in the article How America Rules the World with the Sacred Number 22: Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22 and the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

However, I will draw your attention to the fact that the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker with 22 "silver images of new miracle workers" appeared long before the formation of the United States of America. Those. the number 22 is more ancient and influenced the fate of Russia long before the appearance of the Washington Lodge No. 22. But it so happened that in America they more deeply understood the sacred essence of this number and its sacred female component, because it is most famous for the dates of the days of Mary Magdalene (July 22), Mary of Egypt (April 22) and the Nativity of the Virgin (September 22 - autumn equinox), as well as dates close to the dates of the great conceptions. The male component of the number 22 is represented by Nikolin's day on May 22, which was previously Yarilin's day. On this day, a monument to Lybid and her three brothers was erected in Kyiv. So St. Nicholas the Wonderworker is associated with the number 22 on the day of St. Nicholas of the Veshny.

Given the names mentioned above, which are associated with the number 22, it is impossible to say that this number is diabolical and satanic, which was used by the "bad masons".

It's just that the Freemasons - followers of the Templars, show more strongly the worship of the mother of God and the women who were next to Jesus during the years of his life.

V. Kukovenko saw this female theme in the architecture of the Mozhaisk Kremlin in the size of the chapel built next to the St. Nicholas Church. Its width is 14.14 meters, which is closest in Log 1431. “But what could the number 1431 be like, the author asks? The only noteworthy event is the burning of Joan of Arc. Although such Masonic legends are not known to me, it is possible that her feat and tragic death occupy an important place in the dedication of the degree of “Knight of the Royal Arch”.

But what can connect the Virgin of Orleans and the Templars? Let's make some assumptions. According to the order charters, the initiation of any noble person into the Knights of the Temple provided that his ancestors, brothers and their streams join the same order with him. It was like a spiritual communion, divine grace, spreading over many generations. It is possible that the Masons found documents about the belonging of the ancestors of Joan of Arc to the Templars. This gave her every right to consider her a knight of the temple, especially since she received the usual knighthood from the hands of Charles II. As you know, women were not accepted into the Order of the Templars, but here, in view of the exclusivity of her deeds, a deviation from the rules was allowed. It is possible that the degree "Knight of the Arch" originated in her honor, as an allusion to her family name.

The hypothesis that “quasi-female Freemasonry” can arise in such a hereditary way was set forth by me using the example of Helena Roerich in the article “Women's Freemasonry”, “Women's Gospel”, a woman is the High Priest and Head of the Church. The fact is that Helena Roerich is the direct heiress of the "Savior of the Fatherland" Kutuzov, a well-known freemason who had the order name "Green Laurel", and who won the battle of Borodino near Mozhaisk. Interestingly, Roerich always had a figurine of Joan of Arc on the table, although she herself felt like Nefertari, the wife of Pharaoh Ramses II.

V. Kukovenko perceives the tradition of building chapels as Masonic, referring to the history of the Templars. “Pope Innocent II in 1139 issued a bull in which he allowed the Templars to build their own chapels: “We grant you the right to build chapels in all places related to the order of the Temple, so that you and your loved ones could serve services there and be buried there. For it is obscene and dangerous to the soul when brothers who have made a vow, going to church, should mingle with the rabble of sinners and men who visit women.

I came across a mention of a similar kind of important feature of early Christian worshipers in the book The Last Gospel. Manor and house churches, prayer rooms - all these are signs of not wanting to "mingle with the rabble of sinners."

Those. such objects themselves indicate that those who previously professed Christianity, as well as initiates or members of Masonic lodges, took part in their creation.

I cannot help but recall a chapel not far from St. Nicholas Church in the village of Nikolo-Berezovka. The chapel itself was just converted later into a double bed, where I was born.

The presence of a chapel, as well as legends about underground passages under the St. Nicholas Church, the dark face of St. Nicholas Zakamsky, similar to the dark face of St. Maurice - the Black Magus, creates a kind of mystical line in the direction from Mozhaisk towards the Kama River and this village of Nikolo- Berezovka, in which the English princess Elizabeth (Ealla the Swan), the sister of the last Empress of Russia, saw something mysterious and mystical. Again, by mystical coincidence, Anna the Russian Queen of France, after the death of her first husband, retired to Sanslis, the main attraction of which is the Church of St. Maurice - the Black Magus.

Here Anna Yaroslavna entered into a second alliance with the Valois and her son Hugo the Great Vermandois, the hero of the Crusades, would have been conceived here. ("The Bavarian Swans of the Hohenzollerns and the White Eagles of Tsarevich George")

Dark-faced Saint Mauritius (Maurice) of Thebes in the Middle Ages was the patron saint of many Roman dynasties in Europe, and later of Roman emperors. In 926, Henry I (919-936) even ceded the existing Swiss canton of Aargua in exchange for the spear of the martyr Mauritius. Some emperors were anointed in front of the altar of St. Mauritius in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The sword of Saint Mauritius was last used at the coronation of the Austrian Emperor Charles as King of Hungary in 1916. In the Monastery of the city of Saint Maurice in Austria has always been the main center of veneration for Thebes, the monks every day deduct a special service to these saints, and celebrate their day on September 22 of each year ".

Here we again meet with the number 22, but already in the context of the Black Magus of St. Maurice.

Saint Maurice is related to Nicholas of Mozhaisk, along with a dark face and the number 22, also a sword (spear), which, judging by what was said above, was more expensive than secular titles.

And if V. Kukovenko hypothesizes that Nikola Mozhaisky is a symbol of Jacques de Molay. Then I rather tend to believe that Nikola Mozhaisky is a symbol of the Black Magus guarding the sacred dynasties.

I think that the churches (cathedrals) of Peter and Paul, which are being built next to the St. Nicholas churches, or next to St. Nicholas, are of great importance in this mystical ensemble.

In this case, I rather focus on the testament of my godmother to pay attention to what happened in my small homeland. As I now know, Peter and Paul “followed Nicholas”, and therefore the small Beryozovskaya church of Peter and Paul “echoes” in my life. And now I am writing these lines not far from the Cathedral of Peter and Paul, which is considered the closest analogue of the St. Nicholas Mozhaisk Church.

And where, in this case, is St. Nicholas Church and St. Nicholas - I ask myself a question. And Nicholas - Nicholas I approved the project of this Cathedral of Peter and Paul in Peterhof.

V. Kukovenko also describes the Cathedral of Peter and Paul, adjacent to the St. Nicholas Church in Mozhaisk, ... According to V. Kukovenko, the author of the project of the Mozhaisk Kremlin is V. I. Bazhenov. He is also the author of the unfulfilled project of restructuring the Kremlin, which implies its “modernization” by including images of the Egyptian pyramid, which for some reason is called pagan in the book, as well as the Cathedral of Peter and Paul, which should symbolize, in his understanding, the hope that has not yet come true “Moscow - Third Rome".

V.Kukovenko also sees the following analogy: Peter and Pavel, on the one hand, and Hugo de Payance, together with Godefroy de Saint-Omer, on the other hand.

Architect V.I. Bazhenov singled out F.V. Karzhavin among his employees. From the age of seven he lived in Paris, in the house of his uncle Yerofei Nikitich. Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn (1734-1803), the Russian ambassador to France, a friend of Voltaire and Diderot, patronized Karzhavin. Fedor learned about a dozen languages ​​in Paris. Upon arrival in Russia in 1765, he taught at Moscow University and the Trinity-Sergius Lavra.

The Golitsyn princes are mentioned in the book by V. Kukovenko “Masonic architecture of the Masons of Mozhaisk” more than once. Also, in particular, in connection with the vow of Alexander I regarding the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. The vow was given by the emperor after the victory in the War over Napoleon. The work on the project was supervised by Alexander Nikolaevich Golitsyn. The project was developed by A.L. Vitberg. Emperor Alexander was inspired by the project, but suddenly abandoned it.

August 1, 1822 was followed by the highest rescript of Alexander I on the prohibition of all lodges in Russia. ... The emperor died three years, three months, three weeks after the promulgation of the rescript, almost on the same day that Philip the Handsome died. Philip's death took place on November 29, 1314.

It is no accident, as we see, that Mozhaisk became the center of Russian Freemasonry and continues to be so now ... since A.V. Bogdanov, the “chief mason” of modern Russia, was born in Mozhaisk, chairman of the central committee of the Democratic Party of Russia, Candidate for the post of President of Russia in the elections of 2008 of the year. Although his participation in the elections is somewhat surprising, in general, Freemasons do not participate in public politics. But Mozhaisk in his biography is logical.

It is known from the history of Russia that not a single “Devil-Invader”, including Hitler, could overcome the “Mozhaisk line of defense”. The famous Battle of Borodino took place, again, near the Holy City of Mozhaisk ... And according to one of the legends, “on the eve of the Battle of Borodino, Count Saint Germain, the Great Teacher of the East and a member of the Himalayan Community, entered Kutuzov’s tent. He gave Kutuzov the necessary advice. And also a certain ring sent by the Brotherhood to trusted people.

This legend is reproduced in the memoirs of Helena Roerich, the direct heiress of the "Savior of the Fatherland" Kutuzov on the mother's side.

It must be said that in the 18th century, almost all of the Russian nobility were en masse in Masonic lodges. Manor and home churches, prayer rooms - all these are signs of the concept of early Christianity, which spread to Russia in the 18th century.

If we focus on the symbols of the Black Magus - St. Maurice, the Sword and the Spear, as well as the number 22, then the St. Nicholas Cathedral of the Mozhaisk Kremlin symbolized the Protection of the true Royal dynasty, related to Rome and the Crusaders, i.e. the Templars.

The task of the adherents of the Mozhaisk temple was to return to the throne the sacred dynasty, the Guardian of which is Nikola Mozhaisk and excommunicate from power all those who are illegally on the throne, including the damned offspring of Philip the Handsome, who betrayed the Templars because of stinginess and unwillingness to repay debts.

I can assume that Napoleon belonged to the dynasty that did not fit into the plans of the Templars. And no matter how he tried to destroy in the bud the resurgent centers of the Templars in Russia, and no matter how he tried to strengthen himself with rarities and relics of the princes of the House of Yaroslav the Wise, his plan failed.

There is a very controversial judgment that all Templars and Freemasons are anti-monarchists, especially after the execution of Jacques de Molay. In fact, they did not oppose the monarchy. It was the monarchy that opposed them, deciding to take possession of the wealth of the Templars. The execution of Jacques de Molay was marked in history by the descendant of Anna of Russia - the Queen of France - Philip is handsome. For this very reason, the descendants of Yaroslav the Wise along the line of Anna Yaroslavna also fell under the curse of Jacques de Molay. And if the Templars who went underground were chasing someone, then it was for the damned families that pop up in the person of the monarchs, and by no means for all the monarchies of the world.

It can even be assumed that Napoleon went to Russia, being excited by the construction of the St. Nicholas Church of the Mozhaisk Kremlin.

Perhaps he saw this as a threat to his imperial status. Napoleon ultimately lost him in connection with this campaign.

It is symbolic that the act of surrender of France to Russia was drawn up and signed by Major General Mikhail Orlov, the son of Tatyana Yaroslavova, whose surname is consonant with the name of Anna Yaroslavna, Queen of France.

The Yaroslavs, Yaroslavnas and Yaroslavovs, represented by Mikhail Orlov, "clicked on the nose" of Napoleon and witnessed the superiority of Russia over France.

Coincidence? If coincidence, then indicative ...

For some, this is a conspiracy of the Devil against the authorities, and for someone, the overthrow of the Devil from the throne ...

As you can see, there is a very complex system of relationships here ...

And there is a high risk of starting to fight against those who really need to be supported.

Only the following conclusion is not in doubt: Debts must be repaid ...

The unwillingness of their ancestor to pay his own bills cost too much to the descendants of Philip the Handsome ...

Can they now get rid of this eternal anathema of Jacques de Molay?

That's the question …

And it is even more important than the current competition for thrones...

Perhaps this was the first such a large-scale and so brilliantly conducted police operation. To ensure that none of the Templars could leave, the French king Philip the Handsome sent orders ahead of time to his seneschals Seneschal(from lat. Senex and Old German. Scale- senior servant) - one of the highest court positions in France X-XII centuries. Later, seneschals meant the military-administrative and military institute of royal officials. 1 countrywide. The prescriptions were to be opened at the same time at dawn on October 13, 1307 (this day fell on a Friday). The letters contained an order to arrest all the Templars in the territory under their jurisdiction.

The defeat of the order was forced, although not unconditionally, supported by Pope Clement V, which is not surprising, because he got to the throne of St. Peter solely thanks to the French king Philip the Handsome and was, in essence, his obedient puppet. Since Jacques de Molay was absent in France - in Cyprus he was preparing for a war with the Saracens - Clement ordered him to arrive in France. Jacques de Molay obeyed, not realizing that he was heading into a trap.

There are quite a few sources about the life and work of Jacques de Molay. There are all the more so because after the arrest, the master was interrogated repeatedly and answered numerous questions about the activities of the order and his participation in it. However, the documents cover mainly the period of his biography after joining the Knights Templar. Little is known about his youth.

Life before the order

Jacques de Molay was born in eastern France in what is today Vitré-sur-Mans in Franche-Comté (2010 population was 291). The name Franche-Comté appeared only in 1478, and earlier this area was called the county of Burgundy. The Burgundian county, we note, very often opposed the Frankish kings - first the Merovingians, and then the Carolingians.

The place where Jacques de Molay was born. The commune of Vitré-sur-Mance today.

maps.google.com

The exact date of birth of the future last master of the Templars is unknown. Historians estimate his birth between 1244 and 1249. It is only known about his family that it was not the most noble noble family, that is, rather, they were middle-class nobles.

The initial period of Jacques de Molay's activity as a Templar has little information. It is only known that he entered the order in 1265. The Holy Land during this period was subjected to the onslaught of the Mamluks Mamluks military caste in medieval Egypt. Recruited from young slaves of predominantly Turkic origin. In 1250 the Mamluks seized power in Egypt. The Mamluk cavalry was considered one of the strongest in combat until Napoleon's campaign in Egypt. 2 . And the very next year, Jacques de Molay went to the East. In 1291, the Mamluks launched a vigorous offensive against the Frankish lands in the Holy Land. After a two-month stubborn siege, they took the last point of European chivalry - the fortress of Acre. The Templars, who were part of the garrison of Acre, were the most stubborn defenders and remained on the walls to the last, covering the retreat of the galleys evacuating women and children into the sea. During the siege, wounded by an arrow, the 21st Master of the Templars, Guillaume de Beaugh, fell. Barbara Freil, a historian of the Templars, believes that de Molay was a relative of Guillaume de God. 3 . Jacques de Molay himself also fought on the walls, and then evacuated to Cyprus with the remnants of the Templars.

After the death of de God, Thibaut Godin was elected head of the order, but already in April 1292 he died. His early death required new elections. Hugh de Peyrot and Jacques de Molay competed for the post of master. However, Mole, having received the votes of the Burgundians, won.

Master of the Knights Templar

In 1293, the new master went to Europe to put the affairs of the order in order and restore diplomatic relations with the most important courts. The situation was rather complicated. The fact is that initially the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, as the Order of the Templars was officially called, was created to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land and the main purpose of its activity was to protect the Holy Land. But with the loss of the last stronghold, the meaning of the existence of the Templars seemed to disappear. It was necessary to develop a new paradigm for development away from the Holy Land.

Jacques de Molay first visited Marseille, where he called the brothers to order and held measures to strengthen discipline. And this was necessary, because if in the Holy Land the Templars were the most combat-ready and bravest unit, then on the continent, far from battles, but close to temptations, many brothers unscrewed somewhat. The saying "drinks like a Templar" was very popular in Europe at that time.

Pope Boniface VIII.

Fresco by Giotto in the Lateran Basilica.

Then de Molay went to Aragon to ensure a strong position of the order in this kingdom, which is extremely important in terms of transporting goods - the king of Aragon, Jacques II, was at the same time the king of Sicily. Jacques de Molay successfully resolved the friction between the local Templars and the king of Aragon and went to England to the court of Edward I in order to discuss the abolition of the heavy fines imposed by the English king on the master of the Temple. After that, Jacques de Molay went to Rome, where he helped the new Pope Boniface VIII (December 1294) take the throne of St. Peter in the election of the Pope. The help of Jacques de Molay consisted in a large number of gifts with which he endowed the voters, hinting for whom they should give their balls during the voting.

In the autumn of 1296, after a long and successful tour, Jacques de Molay returned to Cyprus. Here he had to moderate the ardor of Henry II of Cyprus, who set his sights on the property and privileges of the Templars on the island. From Cyprus, de Molay conducts an economic policy designed to increase the income of the order, and also recruits new Templars. His goal was to organize an expedition to reconquer the Holy Land, because this was precisely the reason for the existence of the order.

The idea to recapture Jerusalem did not leave Jacques de Molay, he believed in the possibility of organizing a new crusade. However, the military-political situation was little conducive to a new crusade, at least by the forces of European chivalry alone. And then a new plan is born in the head of Jacques de Molay, which even today seems very unusual.

Brother Gerard, founder of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem (Hospitallers).

Engravings by Laurent Automobiles, 1725.

Under the threat of the Mamluk invasion was not only Cyprus, which the Templars made a stronghold, but also Armenia. We are talking about the so-called. The Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, located in the southeastern region of Asia Minor, approximately in the place where modern Turkey borders on Syria. Of course, apart from the name, the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia has nothing in common with modern Armenia. In 1298, the Mamluks captured the castle of Roche-Guillaume, which was located in the Armenian kingdom, but in 1237 the Templars owned it. Built on a rock, the castle occupied a strategic position and controlled the road to Cilicia. In connection with this event, Jacques de Molay and the Grand Master of the Hospitallers Hospitallers or Johnites, or the Knights of Malta (fr. Ordre des Hospitaliers) - founded in 1080 in Jerusalem as an Amalfi hospital, a Christian organization whose purpose was to care for the poor, sick or wounded pilgrims in the Holy Land, later turned into a military order. One of the Masters of the Hospitallers (Maltese) was the Russian Emperor Paul I. 4 Guillaume de Villaret visited the Cilician Kingdom of Armenia.

yellow crusade

Such a poetic name was given to this cycle of events by Lev Gumilyov. But the outstanding literary gift of Lev Nikolaevich more often than allowed, prevailed over him as a scientist. An overly romantic attitude towards the Mongols, unfortunately, sometimes forced him to insert descriptions into books that had little to do with reality. In the interpretation of Lev Gumilyov (in the book "In Search of a Fictional Kingdom"), the matter looked like this.

At the kurultai of 1253, held in the upper reaches of the Onon, the Mongols allegedly decided to liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims. It should be noted that Onon is a river in Mongolia, that is, it is located in a straight line at a distance of about 6.5 thousand kilometers from Jerusalem. Unfortunately, Lev Nikolayevich, in support of his hypothesis, did not give at least one reason why the Mongols needed to organize a military campaign to such a distance to liberate a completely unnecessary city for them.

Further, Gumilyov continues, the Mongols sent Khan Khulagu, whose wife was Christian, to carry out this event. On the way to Jerusalem, Hulagu destroyed the Baghdad caliphate, assumed supreme power over Georgia and brutally suppressed the uprising of the Georgians, who were not happy with this development. This undermined the liberation ardor of the Mongols, who, if they had not been torn away from the cause of the liberation of the Holy Land by the Georgians, could have captured Palestine in 1259.

In addition, Gumilyov reports in his book, the Templars acted treacherously, who, instead of helping the Mongols, declared that they would not let them into the Holy Land. For which, according to Lev Nikolaevich, in the end they paid the price. Here is what he writes: “Having betrayed the Mongols and Armenians, whom they did not allow to go on the counteroffensive until the end of 1263, the crusaders were left alone with the Mamluks ... From 1307 to 1317, the terrible process of the Templars lasted ... But did they remember, in the intervals between tortures, ... that it was thanks to their order that… the Christian population of Syria was destroyed,… the goal of the crusades, the Holy Land, was lost forever” L.N. Gumilyov, "In search of a fictional kingdom", Klyshnikov, Komarov and Co., Moscow, 1992, pp. 162-163 5 .

Why such a conscientious scientist as Lev Gumilyov composed this tale is not very clear. Perhaps several factors combined here: and insufficient awareness of the activities of the Templars of that period (after all, it is unlikely that Lev Gumilyov, who at one time was twice in the camp, could freely travel to Europe to work in the archives, and many documents about the Templars became known after his death L.N. Gumilev), and some strange romantic attachment to the image of the Mongols, forcing him in any historical conflicts to create the image of the Mongols as the noblest of people, and everyone who did not rejoice at their arrival, Gumilev reproached for short-sightedness, deceit, etc. .P. In fact, everything was somewhat different.

Khan Hulagu really had a Nestorian wife Nestorianism- a branch of Christianity, condemned at the Ephesus (Third Ecumenical) Council in 431. It was named after its chief apostle, the Antiochian theologian Nestorius. The main principle of Nestorianism is that in the person of Christ, from birth, two natures are inseparably connected - God and man. 6 , and indeed led the Mongol campaign in the Middle East. However, his goal was not the liberation of Jerusalem at all, but the capture of Persia. Lev Gumilyov is trying to pass off the usual border skirmishes between the new geopolitical players in the region - the Mongols and the Mamluks - as confirmation that Hulagu allegedly had plans for Palestine. But historical facts show that having received Persia, Hulagu no longer thought about any new conquests. In Persia, he founded the Ilkhanid (Hulaguid) dynasty, the Persian Mongols. And only the entrance to the arena at the end of the 13th century by Jacques de Molay shuffled the geopolitical cards in a new way.

At the time of Jacques de Molay's visit to Armenia, the Ilkhanid state was ruled by Khan Gazan, a Muslim by religion. Jacques de Molay decided to organize a military alliance between Henry II of Cyprus, King of Armenia Hethum II, Khan Ghazan and the Templars. The purpose of the alliance was the mutual desire to drive the Mamluks out of Asia Minor.

Ghazan Khan on horseback.

Persian miniature

From December 1299 to 1300, the Mongols carried out a number of fairly successful military operations against the Mamluks. Jacques de Molay himself decided to operate at sea (the Templars traditionally had a very strong fleet). Together with the Hospitallers and Henry II of Cyprus, the Templars equipped a fleet of sixteen galleys and a dozen smaller ships with the aim of attacking Egypt, that is, the base territory of the Mamluks. In July 1300, the Templar fleet sacked Rosetta and Alexandria, after which Jacques de Molay notified Khan Ghazan that he should intensify his actions against the Mamluks in Syria. Khan Gazan had nothing against it and suggested that the allies come with their troops to Armenia and start offensive operations from there. The King of Cyprus sent 300 knights to Armenia.

The Templars captured the island of Arvad and held it until 1302, creating a base for future offensive operations. Ghazan, during the second campaign, in September 1302 took and sacked Damascus, but as soon as his troops left Syria, Damascus again went over to the rule of the Mamluks. In general, the situation was in a state of unstable parity: the alliance of the Templars, the king of Cyprus, the Armenian king and the Mongols had the strength to inflict sensitive blows on the Mamluks, but did not have enough strength to maintain the success achieved for a long time. It is difficult to say how it would have ended, but in 1304 Khan Gazan died and the project of Jacques de Molay to recapture the Holy Land with the help of such an unusual union, one might say, ceased to exist.

Fall of the Grand Master

On November 14, 1305, the Gascon nobleman Raymond Bertrand de Gos became pope. He put on a tiara under the name of Clement V - he was the first of the popes to be crowned with a tiara Tiara- a triple crown, a high egg-shaped headdress, topped with a small cross and three crowns and having two falling ribbons at the back, which was worn by the popes from the beginning of the 14th century to 1965. 7 . This pope was an obedient instrument of the ambitious policy of the French king Philip IV the Handsome. Clement V became the first pope to leave Rome and move to the city of Avignon in southern France, giving rise to the historical period known as the Captivity of Avignon. Avignon captivity- the period from 1309 to 1378, when the residence of the heads of the Catholic Church was not in Rome, but in the French city of Avignon. 8 .

In 1306, Clement V (or maybe Philip the Handsome) decided to unite the Knights Templar with the Order of the Hospitallers, who also found refuge in the Kingdom of Cyprus. Clement V motivated his decision by the fact that the united order would be able to more easily organize the liberation of the Holy Land from the Mamluks. Jacques de Molay very arrogantly rejected the idea of ​​a merger, stating that a new crusade could only succeed with the combined forces of the entire European chivalry of at least 20 thousand people. In response, Clement V summoned Jacques de Molay to France.

Philip IV Handsome.

National French Library

Arriving in France, Jacques de Molay learned that the French king was collecting charges against the Templars, preparing something like a trial against them. Allegedly Philip Handsome Philip IV the Handsome(French Philippe IV le Bel, 1268-1314) - King of France since 1285, King of Navarre 1284-1305, Count of Champagne and Brie 1284-1305, son of Philip III the Bold, from the Capetian dynasty. 9 wants to accuse the Templars of depraved behavior, bribery, greed, illicit contacts with Muslims and - much worse - dangerous heretical practices. Jacques de Molay did not like Philip the Handsome, he accused him of the murder of Pope Boniface VIII, whose election he had so promoted in his time.

Boniface VIII in 1302 issued the bull "Unam Sanctam", in which he outlined the principles of the supremacy of the power of the popes over the secular power of any king. The Master of the Knights Templar, who reported directly to the Pope, liked the concept. But to the ambitious French king, she was like a bone in the throat. The question was, in fact, about what power would rule the Christian world: the popes of Rome through the most powerful military alliance - the Order of the Templars, or the Christian world would submit to the earthly power of the most powerful king. In short, Boniface VIII was assassinated within a year of this scandalous bull. The intentions of Philip the Handsome may not have included the murder of the pope, but the head of the detachment sent by the king to arrest the pope, Guillaume de Nogaret, overdid it. Boniface VIII was badly injured in the attempted arrest and died three days later. Of course, Jacques de Molay knew all this, but for the time being he left it without consequences.

Having received news of the intentions of Philip the Handsome in relation to the order, Jacques de Molay, apparently not very afraid of the French king, in August 1307 demanded that Clement V openly investigate the rumors. Here the countdown has already begun for days, if not for hours. Philip the Handsome understood perfectly well that he was unlikely to stand openly against the power of the entire Knights Templar. Was there a self-serving subtext in his subsequent actions? Yes, the Templars were a very rich order, and of course the French king could not help but remember their wealth. However, the main motive was precisely the political one - the question was who would rule Western Europe (although this term was not yet used in those centuries).

Maubuson Abbey, where on August 24, 1307, Philip the Handsome discussed the problem of the Knights Templar.

Modern photo

On August 24, 1307, Philip the Handsome gathered in the abbey of Maubuisson (Abbey Maubuisson) a meeting with especially trusted persons. The meeting discussed the question of how to deal with the Templars as quickly and painlessly as possible. As a result, a plan was worked out, the implementation of which was entrusted to Guillaume de Nogaret, the royal lawyer and adviser to the king. It was quite a remarkable person. As mentioned above, the king entrusted him with the arrest of the Pope. Guillaume was the author of the royal decree of 1306 for the arrest and expulsion of all Jews from France and the confiscation of their property. In general, the man was tenacious and fearless.

De Nogaret approached the matter very carefully. On September 14, 1307, on the day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a sealed order drawn up by de Nogaret was sent to all seneschals and bailiffs of France. However, the contents of the packages were ordered to be examined only at dawn on October 13, 1307. Such a scheme was developed so that an operation to exterminate the Knights Templar began simultaneously throughout France.

Knowing nothing about the preparations of Philip IV, Jacques de Molay arrived in Paris on October 12, 1307 for the funeral of the wife of Charles of Valois, the brother of the king. The Grand Master was received with all the honors befitting a person of his rank.

Early in the morning of October 13, 1307 - this day fell on a Friday - the responsible royal officials opened the sealed envelopes and found in them an order to arrest all the Templars in their territory. The mousetrap closed.

Accusations against Jacques de Molay

It may seem strange that it was so easy and painless to carry out an operation to arrest almost all members of the most powerful and militantly strongest European chivalric alliance. This can be compared to Captain von Stauffenberg Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Count von Stauffenberg (German: Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, 1907-1944) was a Wehrmacht colonel, one of the main members of the group of conspirators who planned the 20 July Plot and carried out an attempt on the life of Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944. After the collapse of the conspiracy, he was shot on July 21 in Berlin. 10 On July 20, 1944, he arrested all the top and middle leaders of the SS throughout Germany and everything would have gone smoothly for him. Of course, the Knights Templar were not that numerous, but the royal forces thrown against them were not many thousands either. It was a medieval reality, when an army of three hundred knights already seemed large, and a thousand knights seemed like just a huge armada. Rather, it was something else.

Arrest of Jacques de Molay.

The Templars simply could not believe in the scale of the king's plan and were sure that they would soon be released, and therefore did not resist - they did not know that the action was taking place simultaneously throughout France. Moreover, it can be assumed that for some time the outcome of the entire operation was completely ambiguous. This assumption is supported, in particular, by the fact that Pope Clement V tried as far as possible to distance himself from the actions of the king. Upon learning of the arrests on October 13, he rushed to Poitiers and appointed a consistory Consistory, in the Roman Catholic Church - a special meeting of the Sacred College of Cardinals under the Pope. 11 cardinals in order to create a tribunal in which the pope and the cardinals were to hear complaints and accusations from both sides. The consistory lasted several days, after which Clement V, as he was not dependent, opposed the actions of the king, writing a letter to Philip on October 27, 1307, protesting against the arrests of the Templars. Philip the Handsome poured cold contempt on the pope's message. All the Templars who escaped arrest on October 13 but appeared before the tribunal to testify were arrested.

The exact number of arrested Templars is unknown to this day. Some documents speak of hundreds of arrests, some even of the number of more than a thousand arrested Templars.

Of course, the most important prisoner of Philip was Jacques de Molay, who so imprudently arrived in Paris just on the eve of the arrests. He, as well as all the Templars, were charged with stereotypical accusations: the denial of Christ, obscene kisses between brothers, sodomy, worship of the idol Baphomet. Jacques de Molay partially admitted to the accusations, but denied that he allegedly spat on the cross when he entered the order in 1265. De Molay's confession changes the vector of attitude towards the Order. The kings of England and Aragon tend to follow the example of Philip the Handsome.

Clement V also tries to participate in the interrogations of the Templars, but the French king obstructed him. Finally, under the threat of excommunication, Philip the Handsome finally allowed the papal envoys to interrogate Jacques de Molay personally. This happened on December 27, 1307. Jacques de Molay declares to the cardinals that he is completely innocent, and his testimony was obtained under torture. Moreover, he gives them a document in which he orders all the Templars who confessed to anything to retract their testimony. Clement V decides to suspend the royal procedure, but the king is adamant and the interrogations continue with passion.

Chinon Parchment

One of the most important documents related to the personality of Jacques de Molay is the so-called. parchment from Chinon Chinon is a city on the Vienne River in western France. Since 1205, Chinon has been on the list of royal estates. 12 , Chinon parchment. This document was kept in the secret archives of the Vatican. Vatican secret archive officially founded on January 31, 1612 by Pope Paul V by highlighting particularly important documents relating directly to the pastoral ministry of popes from the general collection of the Vatican Library. The archive contains millions of documents dated from the 8th to the 21st centuries. The total length of storage shelves covering two floors is 85 km. The archive has been open to scholars since 1881. 13 . In 2002, the Italian historian Barbara Freil, who studied the history of the Templars, discovered the existence of this document, and in 2007 its text became available to the public. Barbara Freil studied many hundreds of documents relating to the Knights Templar. She, in particular, believed that Baphomet, known from many protocols of interrogation of the Templars, was nothing more than the Shroud of Turin. Shroud of Turin- a piece of white cloth 4.3x1.1 m, on which there is a clearly distinguishable imprint of a human head, visible as if in a negative image; it was believed that this is a piece of shroud in which the body of Jesus Christ was wrapped after being taken down from the cross. After research in 1988 based on the radiocarbon method, it was recognized that the shroud was made no earlier than the 13th century. However, a number of other researchers point out that the Prayer Codex of the 12th century allegedly contains a reference to the Shroud of Turin. 14 , which was worshiped by the members of the order.

As for the Chinon parchment itself, it says that in the period from August 17 to August 20, 1308, at the initiative of Pope Clement V, a commission was formed of three authorized cardinals for additional interrogation of Jacques de Molay and the arrested members of the General Staff of the Knights Templar. The commission interrogated the following persons: brother Jacques de Molay, master of the Knights Templar, brother Rambaud Carombe, brother Hugues de Peyrot (Jacques de Molay's main competitor for the post of head of the order), brother Geoffroy de Gonville, Geoffroy de Charnay (who was later burned with Jacques de Molay). The purpose of the interrogations was to clarify the question of whether it is possible to cancel excommunication in relation to the indicated members of the order and, having forgiven them for their sins, return them to the bosom of the Church.

Investigators focused mainly on the accusations that members of the brotherhood admitted against themselves: sodomy, condemnation of God, unnatural kisses between members of the order, spitting on the cross and worship of an idol (Baphomet). Jacques de Molay was interrogated last, on August 20, 1308.

The interrogation of each of the highest leaders of the order took place according to a uniform pattern: the Templar entered the hall where the commission met, swore an oath to answer truthfully, then a list of accusations against him was read out, protocols of their earlier interrogations were given, the denunciations available to them were read out, a list of their requests for absolution and resolution to these requests.

About Jacques de Molay in the Shion parchment it is said that he was asked whether he pleaded guilty for the promised reward, gratitude, out of hatred for any person or out of fear of being subjected to torture. Jacques de Molay answered in the negative. When asked if he was subjected to torture after his arrest, he answered in the negative.

As a result of the interrogation of Jacques de Molay, the cardinals decided: “After this, we decided to grant the grace of absolution for his actions to brother Jacques de Molay, master of the order; in the form and manner described above, he condemned in our presence the above heresies and any other heresies, and swore personally on the holy gospel of the Lord, and humbly asked for the remission of sins. Therefore, he was again restored in unity with the Church and again accepted into the communion of believers and the sacraments of the Church.

In relation to the other interrogated members of the General Staff of the Templars, excommunication from the Church was also canceled and they were given absolution. However, this did not mean at all that the royal court canceled its conviction. Everyone, including Jacques de Molay, was destined for life imprisonment.

Interrogations, trial and execution

After receiving absolution, Jacques de Molay was left in Chinon. On November 26, 1309, he appeared before a new papal commission to investigate the activities of the Templars. The commission met in the presence of Guillaume de Nogaret, who was developing the operation on October 13, 1307 to destroy the Knights Templar at lightning speed. For the brilliant implementation of this operation, de Nogaret received the title of Privy Seal of France, that is, something like a Minister of Justice.

Jacques de Molay again attempted to defend himself by deflecting the charges. He was reminded of the previous year's commission and that he then recognized the justice of the accusations, having renounced heresies. During interrogations, Jacques de Molay began to behave in a rather strange way, constantly changing defense tactics. At some point, he declared that the "poor illiterate knight" (he meant himself) did not know Latin, and therefore could not fight on equal terms with the royal lawyers-chickers, and in order to hire qualified defenders, he did not have enough funds. De Molay also recalled that no other structure has shed so much of its blood in defense of Christ as the Templars have shed. In the end, he refused to speak to the commission any longer and demanded a personal meeting with Pope Clement V. Of course, he did not receive this audience.

In December 1313, Clement V appointed a new commission of three cardinals to try Jacques de Molay, Hugues de Peyrot, Geoffroy de Gonville, and Geoffroy de Charnay, Grand Prior of Normandy. In March 1314, Jacques de Molay and Geoffroy de Charnay took back their words of 1307 and again declared their complete innocence. The judges immediately accused them of recidivism. Relapse in the Catholic medieval Church meant a serious crime, implying that the accused, who repented of sins, returned to his heresy again, that is, if initially he could fall into heresy unknowingly and, sincerely repentant, receive forgiveness, then in case of relapse, he chooses heresy knowingly.

The execution of Jacques de Molay and Geoffroy de Charnay.

As a result, Jacques de Molay and Geoffroy de Charnay were sentenced to be burned at the stake. On March 18, 1314, King Philip decided to organize a burning on the Jewish island jewish island(fr., Ile aux Juifs) - located in Paris to the west of the island of Cité, not far from the Palace of Justice; got its name because of the executions of Jews carried out here in the Middle Ages. 15 .

The last minutes of the life of Jacques de Molay are known from the memoirs of Geoffroy of Paris, a priest and clerk from the royal office, who was near the fire during the execution. He describes the moment of execution as follows: Jacques de Molay climbed the fire in one shirt, despite the cold weather. The guards were about to tie his hands, but he smiled and said: “Gentlemen, at least leave my hands free so that I can pray to God. I die freely and God knows my innocence and knows who is to blame and sin and misfortune will soon fall on those who falsely condemned us. God will avenge our death. All those who are against us will suffer. In this faith I want to die. This is my faith and I ask you in the name of the Virgin Mary, who gave birth to our Lord, do not cover my face when you light the fire. His request was granted and he no longer uttered a word, accepting death in silence, surprising everyone around him. Geoffroy de Charnay went to the stake after his master and, before his death, having delivered a laudatory speech in honor of Jacques de Mole, he also accepted a martyr's death.

Another eyewitness to the scene, a certain Florentin, claimed that during the night after the burning, some adepts collected the bones of Jacques de Molay and Geoffroy de Charnay and hid them in a sacred place for religious rites.

A curse

Such a tragic death and the very personality of the executed could not but arouse the human imagination. Already from the XIV century, the personality of Jacques de Molay and the Templars began to acquire romantic features. So, Boccaccio mentions de Molay in his "De casibus virorum illustrium" A cycle of stories, summarized in nine books, telling about the famous - real and mythical - heroes of the past. The cycle was written in the period from 1355 to 1373. 16 . What impressed the imagination of later generations was that the chief judges of the Templars, King Philip IV and Pope Clement V, died suddenly within a few months of the execution of Jacques de Molay. Moreover, the children of Philip the Handsome also very quickly left the historical scene and the Valois dynasty reigned in France.

All this gave the descendants the basis for creating a legend about the curse of Jacques de Molay. Indeed, before his execution, he actually promised a quick death to all his tormentors. This idea was most fully developed by the French writer Maurice Druon. Maurice Druon(French, Maurice Druon), 1918-2009, French writer, member of the Resistance, Minister of Culture in the government of Georges Pompidou; in 2002 met with Vladimir Putin. 17 , in his famous series of novels "Cursed Kings".

However, there is a more prosaic version. The Templars were a very branched and most influential organization in medieval Europe. Despite the fact that the operation on October 13, 1307 was successful, a clearly large number of people who were not directly members of the order, but sympathized with him, remained at large. They allegedly helped the curse of Jacques de Molay come true. After all, it was not difficult for a hidden supporter of the Templars from the retinue of Clement V and Philip the Handsome to organize their murder and hide.

Like it or not, we are unlikely to ever know. But it is known that on January 21, 1793, when the head of the French king Louis XVI fell under the blow of a guillotine knife, some unknown person separated from the crowd of onlookers, immersed his hands in the still warm blood of the king and, showing his outstretched bloody palms to the crowd, exclaimed: “ You have been avenged, Jacques de Molay! No one knows who this man was or where he then disappeared to.