Commander's sword

Paris, March 11, 1314. On the Île de la Cité, fire ignites the pyre where Jacques de Molay, 23ʳᵈ and last Grand Master of the Order of the Temple, will perish. It was the end of an order and the beginning of a legend that, seven centuries later, continues to intrigue us. Dante was the first to compare their martyrdom to the Passion of Christ, a comparison that Simonetta Cerrini takes up here to give her narrative the form of a Way of the Cross. The papal bull of March 22, 1312, ordering the suppression of the Temple, serves as a breadcrumb trail. The historian leads the investigation, drawing on the labyrinthine mass of archives to shed light and open up the fair trial they never had. It was, in fact, the first major political (and religious) trial in medieval Europe. The author brings the Templars back to life, as we finally hear their prayers from the depths of the cells where they were locked up for months on end and tortured, their words lost against the accusations of heresy, impiety, sodomy... Centuries later, we are touched by their sense of abandonment, their fears, but also their faith, which is still sustained by a certain glimmer of hope, destroyed forever by the flames of the pyres.

Release date: October 24, 2018

► Buy the book (link paid by Amazon)