Today is 13 March 2024, but thankfully it’s a Wednesday, not a Friday. Why thankfully? Well, we all know the old belief that Fridays which fall on the thirteenth day of a month are considered to be very unlucky. It occurred in October 2023, and will happen again in September and December this year, then not until June 2025. But why are we so superstitious about that particular combination of days and date?
According to this link “….Some attribute the origins to the Code of Hammurabi, one of the world’s oldest legal documents, which may or may not have superstitiously omitted a 13th rule from its list….” I can’t argue one way or the other on that particular matter, of which I know absolutely nothing, but I do know that the main cause of the date’s infamy today concerns the Templar knights, which great Order came to a brutal end in the early morning hours of Friday, October 13, 1307. Their crime? To have much more wealth than the jealous and avaricious King of France, Philip IV, who’d do anything he felt necessary to acquire other people’s money. [Hmm, he was clearly a Tudor ancestor.] The other great player in this terrible story was Pope Clement V, who didn’t do all he could to stand up to Philip.
Anyway, Philip trumped up terrible charges against them and had them rounded up and punished in inhumane conditions. Finally, “….in the spring of 1314, Grand Master Molay and several other Templars were burned at the stake in Paris, bringing an end to their remarkable era, and launching an even longer-lasting theory about the evil possibilities of Friday the 13th….”
The history.com link above is very thorough, and deals with Dan Jones’s book.
The history.com site also contains two little videos about the subject. But as far as I can tell (unless I’ve missed it) there is no mention of the notorious Templar curse associated with Fridays that fall on the thirteenth of a month.
So what of the curse? If you go to this link you can read all about it, but the following extract explains much:
“….By March 1314 the last of the Templars were burnt at the stake, supposedly cursing the Pope and Philip IV that they would both die within the year….Philip’s last year was troublesome. He found out two of his daughters-in-law were committing adultery. Their lovers were brutally put to death in the market square at Pontoise and the women were thrown into prison. His rigid morality could not cover up the scandal. In November Philip suffered a stroke while out hunting and died soon after at Fontainebleau….His reign helped to enhance the borders and governmental structures of France but his three sons followed him in quick succession as Kings in their own right and his Capetian line died out in 1328….The Pope died in April 1314. According to the book, The Knights Templars the Pope’s body was placed in a church overnight and the church caught fire and the body turned to ashes….”
But please go to the National Archives site to learn a great deal more than those basic facts, including a number of other interesting links.
It’s abundantly clear that Philip IV “the Fair”, certainly did not live up to his sobriquet, except perhaps in his looks, and they, of course, are in the eye of the beholder. In every other respect fair he was not.
But there you have it, the origin of the Friday the Thirteenth superstition.
murreyandblue 
1 comment