END OF THE ORDER
Once the Crusades were over and Muslim forces controlled Jerusalem, military orders, including the Templars, were blamed for the loss of the Holy Land. After the Mamluks conquered the city of Acre in 1291, the Templars and other orders retreated to the island of Cyprus.
This prompted demands to reform the military orders.
Philip IV of France, who was in huge financial debt to the Templars, ordered the mass arrest of French Templars on 13 October 1307, confiscating their property and wealth.
Prosecutors charged the Templars with worshipping idols, spitting on the cross and kissing one another in their induction ceremonies. Under torture, the Templars confessed to the charges. In 1308, Pope Clement V absolved the Templars of heresy, but the order and its reputation had already been damaged. In March 1312, Pope Clement V disbanded the Templars as an organisation, and the order’s members were arrested across Europe. Two years later, Jacques de Molay, the last grand master, was burned at the stake in Paris on a charge of relapsed heresy.