Friday the 13th of October 1307

by William F. Mann, author of several books including The Last Refuge of the Knights Templar

The dark aura that enshrouds Friday the 13th has certainly grown since its awakening on that fateful night in October of 1307.

It was a night of terror and indescribable horrors. The king of France, Philippe IV, in collusion with his holy conscript, Pope Clement V, had conspired for over a year to eradicate the entire French arm of the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ of the Temple.

The plan for troops loyal to the church and state to strike the entire Templar network of French preceptories, temples and working farms at midnight on the 13th was simple yet audacious. The Templars had other plans though. When the royal hammer struck, it was discovered that the Templar’s vast riches, along with most of the Templars, had been spirited away the night before to the Templar port of La Rochelle. From there the treasures, along with its guardians, were divided into thirteen gallies and shipped to Scotland, England, Portugal, Denmark and, of all places, directly to North America.

Legend has it that eighteen heavy wagons containing everything from gold and silver to ancient relics and artifacts – including the treasure discovered by the nine original knights under the ruins of the Temple of Solomon following the First Crusade – made its way across France under the cover of darkness to the coastline.

Of course, it was apparent to all involved that the Templars had learned of the king’s plans beforehand. It is said that the plans were secretly revealed to the grand master of the Paris Temple, Jacques de Molay, by the French queen herself. Regardless of who warned the Templars, the king’s and pope’s plans had been foiled.

Darkness had overcome darkness. Yet out of the unspeakable horror came a light of secret knowledge, which spread underground right up to the present day.

Surprisingly, it had been decided by the Templar High Council that Grand Master de Molay would sacrifice himself by staying behind and allowing himself to be taken. De Molay consequently suffered seven years of torture, only to be burnt at the stake on the 11th of March, 1314. The grand master’s end came painfully, with de Molay forced to hobble to the stake carrying what was left of his own ankle bones. His feet had repeatedly been roasted over a hot flame in order to make him confess to a variety of false heretical atrocities.

It is said that just prior to taking his last breath, de Molay recanted his confession and cursed before God not only the king but the pope. As the story goes, both the king and pope would die within the year, as would the king’s royal lineage over the next 14 years. Whether the death of the king’s offspring was aided by trained assassins loyal to the Templars or by the curse itself, the result was the same. 

Thus, the horror and evil that occurred on the evening of Friday the 13th and its subsequent events would live on in infamy. The movie actions of Freddie Krueger, Michael Myers and Chuckie pale against what actually occurred that original evening. The horrors of the torture chamber located beneath the throne of the French king can only be imagined.

Why had this turn of events occurred at all?

The Knights of the Temple, or Knights Templar as they would come to be known, had rightfully outgrown their place in history. Ostensibly, their initial purpose was to act as the shock troops of the Church. Answerable only to the Pope, over the previous 200 years, the Templars had successfully seized and held Jerusalem from the Muslims and the Saracens; only to lose their seat in the Holy Land to Saladin through the arrogance and stupidity of one of their own, Grand Master Guy de Lusignan.

The real issue was that, through superior intelligence and cunning, the Templars had established virtually their own economy, monopolizing the wool trade across Europe. Blending money-lending and agricultural production, the Templars had become the target of the French king, because the crown was beholding to the Templars, as it had borrowed immense sums to finance a number of provincial wars.

Yet the immense physical riches ranked second to the original Treasure of the Temple of Solomon, which supposedly contained secret scrolls from the Library of Alexandria, the religious artifacts of the Jewish Temple, and the relics of the Holy Family, including Jesus, Mary Magdalene and their children, even the genealogical records of the Holy Family.

The key here is not to get hung up on the possibility that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that there remains an unbroken ancestral line back to the children produced through this holy union. The real treasure that the Templars guarded was ancient knowledge, speaking of a new world, which lay to the west of the Atlantic Ocean.

Here was the real reason behind the church’s desire to obliterate the Order of the Temple. Indeed, the Templars may have possessed relevant knowledge that spoke to a Holy Family dynasty but the Church could have as easily dismissed evidence of this as they had done so for centuries. What the Church wouldn’t be able to deny, once revealed, would be the existence of a new world beyond their influence.

What many do not realize is that the Church had very quickly, following their rather reluctant support of King Philippe for the original raid on the 13th of October, 1307, absolved the Templars of all wrong-doing less than a year later.  In September 2001, historian Barbara Frale found a copy of what is now known as the Chinon Parchment in the Vatican Secret Archives. This document, dated 20 August 1308, explicitly confirms that in 1308 Pope Clement V absolved Jacques de Molay and other leaders of the Order who were captured at the same time, including Geoffrey de Charney and Hugues de Pairaud, of all charges. Another separate Chinon parchment, directly addressed to the French king specifically states that absolution had been granted to all those Templars that had confessed to heresy "and restored them to the Sacraments and to the unity of the Church."

Some 300 years after the death of de Molay and the dissolution of the Knights Templar, the fraternal order of Freemasonry began to emerge from the shadows in northern Europe, specifically in France and Scotland. Officially, this development of the Craft evolved out of the stonemason guilds, which had formed in the 1400s in order to facilitate the construction of a series of cathedrals across Europe.

Unofficially, it is whispered that the Templar ritual would provide the basis of Freemasonry and a direct perpetuation of the ritual and order would materialize in Ireland and then Scotland in the early 18^th century. It was also whispered that it was the Templar Order who financed the construction of the cathedrals, embedding within them ancient knowledge, which was preserved within the Temple of Solomon’s ruins.

Then, in the 1760s, German Freemasons introduced a specific Templar connection, claiming that the Order, through its occupation of the Temple of Solomon, had been the repository of the secret knowledge perpetuated by those Templar refugees who had escaped France on the evening of Friday the 13th.

Regardless of what country gets to claim to be first, there is undeniable proof, which soon will come to light, confirming that Freemasonry evolved directly from a continuous line of Templar ritual originating with the medieval French Templars.

The modern-day Masonic Knights Templar is an international philanthropic and chivalric order affiliated with York Rite Freemasonry, which comes under the Grand Lodge of England. Unlike the initial degrees conferred in a Masonic Lodge, which only require a belief in a Supreme Being regardless of religious affiliation, the Order of Knights Templar is one of several additional Masonic Orders in which membership is open only to Freemasons who profess a belief in the Christian religion.

The current Templar Order in Canada falls under the Sovereign Great Priory of Canada, having received its charter from the Grand Lodge of England in 1855. The full title of this Order in Canada is The United Religious and Military Orders of St John of Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes and Malta and of the Order of the Temple. Within the United States it continues as the Grand Encampment of the Knights Templar of the United States of America.

As the current Supreme Grand Master of the Sovereign Great Priory – Knights Templar of Canada, I have now enjoyed the benefit of being privy to the secret knowledge, understanding and wisdom, which has been passed down for 1000 years. Sadly, many things have been learned as a result of that fateful night back in 1307; yet it can be said that “Out of Chaos, comes Order!” Indeed, the number 13 definitely holds true.

M. Em. Kt. William F. (Bill) Mann, GCT
Supreme Grand Master
Sovereign Great Priory – Knights Templar of Canada