Geoffroi de Charney - Legacy and The Curse

Legacy and The Curse

The fact that, in little more than a month, Pope Clement V died in torment of the loathsome disease thought to be lupus, and that in eight months Philip IV of France, at the age of forty-six, was killed by an accident while hunting, necessarily gave rise to the legend that de Molay had cited them before the tribunal of God. Such stories became legend among the people, whose sense of justice had been scandalized by the whole affair. Even in distant Germany, Philippe's death was spoken of as a retribution for his destruction of the Templars, and Clement was described as shedding tears of remorse on his death-bed for three great crimes, the poisoning of Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor and the ruin of the Templars and Beguines.

Author Malcolm Barber has researched this legend and concluded that it originates from La Chronique métrique attribuée à Geffroi de Paris (ed. A. Divèrres, Strasbourg, 1956, pages 5711-5742). Geoffrey of Paris was "apparently an eye-witness, who describes Molay as showing no sign of fear and, significantly, as telling those present that God would avenge their deaths".