Medieval justice was often harsh and unforgiving, with severe punishments like amputations, be-headings, and being burned alive serving as deterrents for crime and dissent. These brutal penalties reflected the intense social order of the time, where maintaining authority and fear was paramount. Learning about these punishments offers insight into the darker side of medieval life and law.
Because the Templar knights believed wholeheartedly in their mission they considered it an honor to die in battle as they would be assured a place in heaven!
This was probably a good thing as the knights’ templar were ‘shock troops’ that were on the front line, they were always in the thick of things in battle and specialized in breaking up enemy front lines and causing fear and disarray amongst enemy troops front-lines.
Unlike other Orders like the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights whose main purpose was to protect and care for the ill, injured, and dying. The Knights Templar was created simply as a fearsome fighting force.
Because of this willingness to ‘get stuck in’ the Knights Templar were always being injured or killed and because of the violent martial nature of their order, it often was often, only a short-term vocation!
Grand Masters Who Lost Their Heads
Well, they didn’t lose their heads, they had their heads chopped off to be more accurate. Grand Master Gérard de Ridefort was beheaded during the Siege of Acre by the infamous Muslim Leader Saladin in the year 1189.
Grand Master Bernard de Tremelay and an army of around 40 Templar Knights were also beheaded during the Siege of Ascalon in 1153 – Ascalon was Fatimid Egypt’s greatest and most important frontier fortress City!
Bernard de Tremelay and his knights were surprised to find themselves alone in the city as the rest of their crusader army had failed to follow them through the breached city walls.
Inside the city walls, they became quickly outnumbered and surrounded by the city’s local population who attacked, killed, and chopped off all their heads, including that of Grand Master Bernard de Tremelay.
Burned Alive
King Philip IV owed the Templars a lot of money, so he convinced his friend Pope Clement V that the Templars were guilty of heresy and other crimes and plotted to have them arrested.
On Friday the 13th of 1307 a large number of Templar knights were arrested and tortured until they confessed to heresy in the Order.
The organization was then disbanded, Jacques de Molay The only remaining Grand Master was taken prisoner and burned at the Stake in Paris – the year was 1314.
