JAMES OF MOLAY. — Last Grand Master of the Order of the Templars. Born probably near Cintrey (Haute-Saône) about 1244. Admitted to the Order of the Templars in 1265, he departed for the Holy Land about 1270. Visitor of the Templars in England in 1293, he was elected Grand Master in 1294 and resided in Cyprus, where the seat of the Order had been transferred after the loss of Acre (1291). Summoned before Clement V on 6 June 1306, he defended the Order against the project of fusion with the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem and declared himself in favor of a new Crusade (see his memoirs of 1306–1307, S. Baluze-G. Mollat, *Vitae Paparum Avenionensium*, III, Paris 1921, pp. 145–54).
Arrested by order of Philip the Fair on 13 Oct. 1307, together with all the Templars of France, he was required to answer to the infamous charges against the Order. Overcome by fear, on 24–25 Oct. 1307, before the Faculty of Theology at Paris and the King’s men, he made declarations which he retracted the following spring before the papal commissioners.
The Pope reserved the continuation of the affair (Feb. 1308). But a campaign of libels, the charges against the Order brought before the Assembly of Notables at Tours (11–20 May 1308), the interview at Poitiers with the King (27 June 1308), and new declarations from the prisoners at Chinon (Aug. 1308) prevailed upon the resistance of Clement V.
In Nov. 1309, J. did not renew his confessions, but neither did he defend the Order. His contradictory attitude has given rise to controversy. It seems he acted under the impulse of fear. Following the suppression of the Order of the Templars (3–11 March 1312), three cardinals condemned him to perpetual imprisonment. The King’s Council applied the punishment of fire to him on 18 March 1314 at Paris, on the Île de la Cité. J. died declaring his Order innocent.
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