JACQUES DE MOLAY

LAST GRAND MASTER KNIGHTS TEMPLAR 

BY Lorne Pierce 32 degree

Past Assistant Grand Chaplain A.F.& A.M. Ontario

Foreword By

D.G. McIlwraith 33 degree

Sovereign Grand Commander A.A.S.R. for the Dominion of Canada

1943

FOREWORD

It is, I think, a fair assumption that most of us who have received

the Consistory degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite

have felt a passing curiosity as to the identity of "the

illustrious personage represented by the initials," whose martyrdom

is re-told in the Thirtieth Degree.  But very few, I am sure, have

come away with the urge to turn back the pages of Masonic history

to discover who and what he was, and why his memory is revered

nearly six hundred and fifty years after his death.

In the succeeding pages Ill .'. Bro .'. Lorne Pierce has painted a

vivid picture of the growth of a great Order and of the death of

its last Grand Master.  Once again he has made a valuable and most

interesting contribution to Masonic education, which should meet

with peculiar appreciation among our Brethren who have received the

chivalric and philosophic grades.

I commend it to all Consistories of our jurisdiction as an aid to a

clearer understanding of the historical background and teaching of

the Thirtieth and Thirty-second Degrees.

D.G.McILWRAITH.

 Jacques de  Molay LAST GRAND MASTER KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

1.

The origin of knighthood is lost in the dim past. In early England

a knight seems to have been a youth who attended a member of the

court; it was a position of honour and of service and might lead in

time to Royal recognition and rank.  In Germany the early knight

may have been regarded much in the same way, a disciple. In both

countries the knights were obviously ambitious and high-spirited

youths as one might expect.  It was in France, however, that the

idea of chivalry arose, and this conception quickly spread

throughout Europe.  Some knights had made themselves useful to

Earls or Bishops, that is the principal landlords and magnates and

military chiefs of the realm, and might be classed as superior

civil servants in times of peace, becoming leaders of the armies,

both secular and religious, in times of war.  There were, of

course, many foot-loose knights wandering about Europe in quest of

adventure, but on the whole a knight was a responsible link in the

Feudal chain reaching from the king to the peasant. In time the

ideal of chivalry came to prevail, and the high honour accompanying

it seems to have derived from prehistoric Teutonic custom. The

candidate had to submit to a rigorous investigation of his

character and qualifications.  Then the community turned out to

welcome him with fitting ceremony and investiture with sword and

shield, with belt and sword, or with gilt spurs and collar, usually

by the knight's father or some exalted personage. In time t hose

who had fought against the Saracens became pree minent, and were

accorded rank and dignity independent of birth or wealth.

The Knights Templar, or Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and of the

Temple of Solomon, was one of the three out-standing military

orders of the Middle Ages in Christendom.  The brotherhood was

founded, about 1118, by Hugues de Payns, a nobleman residing near

Troyes, in Burgundy, and Godefroy de St. Omer (or Aldemar), a

Norman knight.  Their original purpose was to protect pilgrims to

sacred places, more especially those who sought the Holy Sepulchre.

At first there were eight or nine Knights Templar.  They b ound

themselves to each other as a brotherhood in arms, and took upon

themselves vows of chastity, obedience and poverty according to the

rule of St. Benedict.  It is also recorded that they pledged

themselves to fight against ignorance, tyranny and the enemies of

the Holy Sepulchre, and "to fight with a pure mind for the supreme

and true King." Baldwin I, King of Jerusalem, assigned them

accommodation in his palace, which stood on the site of the T emple

of Solomon. In this way their name, Templars, was der ived.  At

first the knights wore no uniform or regalia, nothing in fact save

the cast-off garments that were given to them in charity.  It was

the poverty, sincerity and zeal of the order in its first years

that endowed it with importance.  They sought out the poor and the

outcast, the excommunicated as well as the unwanted, and shepherded

them within their fold.

Hugues de Payns, accompanied by several of his knights, returned

home in 1127 for the purpose of securing adequate ecclesiastical

sanction for some of the special privileges which the order had

usurped.  Among the very special privileges was immunity from

excommunication, which threatened a good deal of trouble.  Bernard

of Clairvaux, the greatest abbot of his day, received Hugues de

Payns, and not only praised the Knights Templar, but went much

further.  The future St. Bernard did not attend the Council of

Troyes in 1128, at which the Rule of the Temple was drawn up, but

he seems to have inspired it - the constitution, ritual, discipline

and very core of the order.  Finally there got abroad the idea,

that in the rule of the order there existed a "secret rule," and a

legend speedily grew up around this "lost word." In time this was

the undoing of the order.  The whole Rule of the Temple was

probably never written out, its more essential parts bein g

conveyed by word of mouth, by symbol and sign, and protected by

proper safeguards.  The point of importance was, that the order now

had ample acknowledgement and authority, and from this moment

onward power and treasure flowed into its hands in an unending and

broadening stream.

II

The Templars and the Crusades are forever associated in history and

legend.  The Templars, in an astonishingly short time, spread over

Christendom.  They had thousands of the fattest manors in the

Christian world. They became the bankers of the age, the money

exchange between Europe and the East, the trust company of the

time.  They provided loans to princes, dowries for queens, ransoms

for great warriors, safety deposit vaults for the treasure of

emperors and popes.  Their chapters were the schools of dipl omacy

of the time, training grounds for prospective rulers, colleges in

commerce and finance, sanctuaries for all who needed protection,

high or low.  It was inevitable that they should attract to

themselves the envy of the less fortunate orders and guilds.  In

time, in fact before the death of St. Bernard, in 1153, they had

not only received the tribute of kings and cardinals in the form of

lands and treasure, but they freed themselves from the n ecessity

of paying tax, tithe or tribute to any power, prince or pope, which

privilege they claimed as defender of the Church.  This was enough

to bring upon themselves the inevitable reckoning for overreaching

ambition, but they went further, very much further.  They not only

claimed exemption from excommunication, but claimed exemption from

all papal decrees except those specially aimed at them by name, and

they owed allegiance to no power or authority on earth except their

own head, the Bishop of Rome.  They had become a separate social,

economic, political and re ligious order, cutting across and

transcending kingdoms, principalities and archdioceses, with only

the Vice-gerent of God superior to their Grand Master.  The

enormous powers of the Knights Templar were bound to be challenged

by the popes as well as kings who demanded loyalty within their

realms.  The order found itself in increasingly compromising

situations, the victim of treachery on the part of kings and

princes of the Church, or the instigator of trickery and subterfuge

on i ts own part to preserve its powers.  The King of France,

Philip the Fair, set out to unite the Hospitallers and the Templars

into one grand order, The Knights of Jerusalem, the Grand Master of

which was always to be a prince of the royal house of France.  The

Grand Master of the Knights Templar invariably was Master of the

Templars at Jerusalem, and in Cyprus after the loss of the Holy

Land to the Turks.  He came in time to live in a sumptuous manner,

befitting his great wealth and vast powers.  In th e field, during

the campaigns, he occupied a great tent, round, with the black and

white pennant flying above its high peak, bearing the red cross of

the Templars.  Regional Grand Commanders were accorded similar

honours and no one took precedence over them except the Grand

Master, when he was present.

We know little concerning the initiation ceremonies of the Knights

Templar.  Probably there was some cleansing ritual, robing in

white, the all-night vigil and Holy Communion, gilt spurs, sword or

other gift of honour, and finally the oath and accolade.  Certainly

the order was a Christian institution.  Their war-cry - Beauseant!

- also inscribed on their banners and pennants, pledged loyalty to

their friends and promised terror to their foes.  Likewise both a

prayer and a pledge were the well-known words:

Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam.

Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Name be the glory.

III

Jacques de Molay was the twenty-second and last Grand Master of the

Knights Templar.  He was born about 1240 at Besancon, in the Duchy

of Burgundy, and was of noble but poor family.  He was admitted to

the order of knighthood, in 1265, at Beaune and proceeded shortly

to the Holy Land, under the Grand Master William de Beaujeu, to

fight for the Holy Sepulchre.  Jacques de Molay remained in the

Holy Land for many years, for he was still with the order in

Jerusalem when, about 1295, he was elected Grand Master upon the

death of Grand Master Gaudinius - Theobald de Gaudilai.  After the

loss of Palestine by the Templars, de Molay took his few remaining

knights to the Island of Cyprus.  In 1305 he was summoned to a

conference with the Pope, Clement V, who stated that he wished to

consider measures for effecting a union between the rival Templars

and Hospitallers.  A long and bitter feud had existed between the

two great orders.  However, both had agreed not to accept

disciplined members who might desire to transfer their allegiance

from one order to the other.  Also, in battle, it was permitted

members who became hopelessly separated from the main body of one

order to rally under the cross of the rival order if near.

Jacques de Molay, accompanied by sixty knights