On October 13, 1307, over 140 Templars in France were arrested by order of King Philip IV. They are tortured to confess to charges of heresy.
This is the end of one of the most powerful and progressive orders of the Catholic Church for its time.
The royal agents also detained the Grand Master Jacques de Molay himself, the Grand Visitor Hugo de Peiro, the treasurer and four other high dignitaries. The official charges were heresy, idolatry, sodomy and desecration of relics. They were said to spit on the cross, eat children and corpses, and serve the devil.
The full list comprised 117 charges. The Templars were subjected to unheard-of tortures by the Inquisition, during which many broke. And when 54 brothers were burned in Paris by order of Philip the Beautiful, the order lost the strength to fight for survival and was dissolved by the decision of the Council of Vienna in 1312. In the meantime, he was banned by Pope Clement V, and his properties and lands were confiscated.
Four high dignitaries of the order were sentenced to life imprisonment. According to legend, upon hearing his sentence, the Grand Master and Prior of Normandy, Jacques de Molay, angrily protested: "The Order is holy and innocent, and you yourselves are guilty of betraying and slandering it!" The same day the sentence was commuted to death. The four were burned at the stake. Legend has it that when the flames engulfed him, the old man Mole cried out: "The king and the pope can rule over our bodies, but not over our souls!" After which he cursed his murderers with the promise to bring them before God's judgment within a year. And indeed - Pope Clement V and King Philip IV died in the period determined by the Templar. And France entered a severe period of disasters that lasted for centuries.