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Friday, the 13th & it's Connection to the Knights Templar

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Jeremy Dokken
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« on: April 13, 2007, 10:49:41 am »

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone.  The reason that Friday, the 13th has been considered unlucky is commonly thought to be because the Knights Templar were arrested on one, seven hundred years ago.

But is that actually the case or is it a recent phenomenum?

Why Friday the 13th Is Unlucky
From David Emery,

The Unluckiest Day of All


The astute reader will have observed that while we have thus far insinuated any number of intriguing connections between events, practices and beliefs attributed to ancient cultures and the superstitious fear of Fridays and the number 13, we have yet to happen upon an explanation of how, why or when these separate strands of folklore converged — if that is indeed what happened — to mark Friday the 13th as the unluckiest day of all.
There's a very simple reason for that — nobody really knows, though various explanations have been proposed.

The Knights Templar

One theory, recently offered up as historical fact in the novel The Da Vinci Code, holds that it came about not as the result of a convergence, but a catastrophe, a single historical event that happened nearly 700 years ago. The catastrophe was the decimation of the Knights Templar, the legendary order of "warrior monks" formed during the Christian Crusades to combat Islam. Renowned as a fighting force for 200 years, by the 1300s the order had grown so pervasive and powerful it was perceived as a political threat by kings and popes alike and brought down by a church-state conspiracy, as recounted by Katharine Kurtz in Tales of the Knights Templar (Warner Books: 1995):

"On October 13, 1307, a day so infamous that Friday the 13th would become a synonym for ill fortune, officers of King Philip IV of France carried out mass arrests in a well-coordinated dawn raid that left several thousand Templars — knights, sergeants, priests, and serving brethren — in chains, charged with heresy, blasphemy, various obscenities, and homosexual practices. None of these charges was ever proven, even in France — and the Order was found innocent elsewhere — but in the seven years following the arrests, hundreds of Templars suffered excruciating tortures intended to force 'confessions,' and more than a hundred died under torture or were executed by burning at the stake."

A Thoroughly Modern Phenomenon

There are drawbacks to the "day so infamous" thesis, not the least of which is that it attributes enormous cultural significance to a relatively obscure historical event. Even more problematic, for this or any other theory positing premodern origins for Friday the 13th superstitions, is the fact that no one has been able to document the existence of such beliefs prior to the 19th century. If people who lived before the late 1800s perceived Friday the 13th as a day of special misfortune, no evidence has been found to prove it. As a result, some scholars are now convinced the stigma is a thoroughly modern phenomenon exacerbated by 20th-century media hype.

Going back a hundred years, Friday the 13th doesn't even merit a mention in E. Cobham Brewer's voluminous 1898 edition of the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, though one does find entries for "Friday, an Unlucky Day" and "Thirteen Unlucky."  When the date of ill fate finally does make an appearance in later editions of the text, it is without extravagant claims as to the superstition's historicity or longevity. The very brevity of the entry is instructive: "A particularly unlucky Friday. See Thirteen" — implying that the extra dollop of misfortune attributed to Friday the 13th can be accounted for in terms of an accrual, so to speak, of bad omens:

Unlucky Friday + Unlucky 13 = Unluckier Friday. If that's the case, we are guilty of perpetuating a misnomer by labeling Friday the 13th "the unluckiest day of all," a designation perhaps better reserved for, say, a Friday the 13th on which one breaks a mirror, walks under a ladder, spills the salt, and spies a black cat crossing one's path — a day, if there ever was one, best spent in the safety of one's own home with doors locked, shutters closed and fingers crossed.


Sources:


Bowen, John. "Friday the 13th." Salon magazine, 13 Aug 1999.

Brewer, E. Cobham. The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. (1898 Edition in Hypertext).

"Days of the Week: Friday." The Mystical World Wide Web.

de Lys, Claudia. The Giant Book of Superstitions. New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1979.

Duncan, David E. Calendar: Humanity's Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year. New York: Avon, 1998.

Ferm, Vergilius. A Brief Dictionary of American Superstitions. New York: Philosophical Library, 1965.

Krischke, Wolfgang. "This Just Might Be Your Lucky Day." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 1 Nov 2001.

Kurtz, Katharine. Tales of the Knights Templar. New York: Warner Books, 1995.

Opie, Iona and Tatem, Moira. A Dictionary of Superstitions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Panati, Charles. Panati's Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things. New York: Harper Collins, 1989.

Scanlon, T.J., et al. "Is Friday the 13th Bad for Your Health?" British Medical Journal. (Dec. 18-25, 1993): 1584-6.


http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/historical/a/friday_the_13th_4.htm
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Bianca
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« Reply #1 on: April 28, 2007, 08:56:03 am »




I'll say it's an unlucky day:

When I woke up this last Friday the Thirteen, I turned on my computer and it was dead as

a doornail!!

Actually, in Italy the number 13 is a very lucky number and there are golden pendants made
to use as amulets, much like the others found there, the horn and the little hand etc.

My daughter has one, as she was born Tuesday the 13th, l967.

Our unlucky day is Tuesday and, believe me, she has plenty of bad luck - much of it self-
inflicted - in spite of her 13 pendant........
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Mia Knight
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« Reply #2 on: April 29, 2007, 06:13:48 am »

Wow, that is interesting, Bianca, I suppose it is lucky in Italy cause the Vatican was the one that ordered the Templars to be rounded up or did the tradition start before that..?

I am part Italian myself, by the way, but unfortunately have never been to glorious Italia!
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Bianca
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« Reply #3 on: May 01, 2007, 06:34:04 pm »



Mia mia,

If that is your picture, you are a great example of Italian womanhood.

Che Bella!  You'd make heads turn in Roma!
 

Frankly, I never gave it much thought, I mean the meaning of THIRTEEN.  In spite of
all my eccentric ways, I am not superstitious.  So your guess is as good as mine.

As for the Vatican and the Templars:  I have no use for either, nor for the CRUSADES.
One of the great occasions of SHAME, for the Church.  Nothing new under the Sun:

FOLLOW THE MONEY holds true for them, as it does for today's events.


Ciao, Bella

B
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Mia Knight
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« Reply #4 on: May 04, 2007, 02:41:57 am »

Bianca,

Thanks for the compliment!  I have heard that Italian men tend to quite ardent in their desires and aren't afraid of showing it in Italy. I would like to go there someday when I can better afford it.

I never had much interest in the Templars of the Crusades either until I read the Da Vinci Code. My interest in both has totally increased after reading that. 

What did they find in the Temple of Solomon, and why did the church want to kill them for it?  It is all a very big mystery and I can't resist a mystery, I suppose it is my version of Alantis.

Cia!

Mia
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Bianca
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« Reply #5 on: May 04, 2007, 07:15:54 pm »



Mia,

I really don't think the Templars found anything of extraordinary value in
Jerusalem.

If you read the history of those times, the Templars became exceedingly
rich - as a matter of fact they became what one could say was the first
"Overseas Bank".  Because of robbers, people would deposit money with
them in Europe before setting out for Jerusalem, or wherever in the near
East.  Along the way, or at destination, they would redeem their money
from Templar Agents along the way.

After the purge, the 100 or so ships they owned vanished in thin air, never
to be seen again.  So did their vast, fabulous wealth.

Please keep in mind that the Templars formed as monks who took up the
sword to protect pilgrims on their way to Sacred Sites.  They took vows
of chastity and POVERTY, like regular monks.....

As today, the story is always explained by FOLLOW THE MONEY. It's a sad
commentary on human nature, isn't it?  The innocent always suffer and/or
die..........

Love and Peace,
B
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Jeremy Dokken
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« Reply #6 on: May 05, 2007, 07:40:02 am »

Hi Bianca,

I have to differ with you on the history of the Knights Templar.  The idea that they were escorts for travellers to the Holys Land didn't come about until many years after they first appeared on the scene.  No one knows for sure what they were doing there at first.  In any event, they started out as only  about nine of ten poor knights so they couldn't have been protecting too many travellers.

There is evidence that they were doing excavations beneath the Temple Mount, that much is a fact. When they first got to Jerusalem, they vanished for about nine years, simply performing excavations.  Then, when they finally found something (no one knows what it was exactly) they raced back to Rome and suddenly got all these priviliges - all the wealth and power. They were the first bankers, but wouldn't have gotten that privilige either had the church not allowed them to do it.  Obviously, they either found something to either blackmail the church or gain it's favor cause it bent a lot of the rules to please the Templars and make them rich.

The Templars also picked up a lot of customs from their enemies, the Saracens, but that is another story.

Anyway, you don't go from taking a vow of poverty (their symbol - two poor guys sharing the same horse) to riches beyond belief unless someone is either allowing you to do it, or you have something to blackmail that someone.

Jeremy

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Bianca
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« Reply #7 on: May 05, 2007, 08:24:30 am »



You are right, Jeremy!  Actually, my point was really GREED.  I sort of tend

to like to erase much of the Church's history of the past two thousand

years.  Even in my very young years I was not too much for "fiction",

unless it was "Historical Fiction".  I got too much of it, it has gotten to

the point that the West's history - in those years - is so involved with

the Church, that I try to avoid it.  I am being kind.

Love and Peace,
B
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Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
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