Friday the 13th: The Templar Connection
The superstition of Friday the 13th is one of the most widespread pieces of popular folklore in the modern Western world. According to the superstition, the combination of the day of the week (Friday) with the day of the month (the 13th) is unlucky. Many tall office buildings skip the 13th floor, and many people suffer from a specific phobia of the day, called paraskevidekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia.
One popular explanation of the superstition links it to the arrests of the Knights Templar on Friday, October 13, 1307. According to this tradition, the date of the Templar arrests was the origin of the unlucky-day superstition. The story is well known, but it is, in fact, largely a modern myth.
This cluster page examines the Friday the 13th superstition and its connection to the Templars. It is a companion to The Trial of Jacques de Molay and to Templar Mythology, Symbolism and Hidden Knowledge.
The Arrest of October 13, 1307
The story begins on the morning of Friday, October 13, 1307. According to the standard account, royal officers acting on sealed letters from King Philip IV of France moved simultaneously against every Templar house in France. The Grand Master Jacques de Molay was seized at the Temple in Paris, the Order’s great fortress and treasury in the heart of the city. Several hundred other brothers were arrested, including the Preceptor of France, the Preceptor of Normandy, and most of the senior officials of the Order in France.
The coordinated nature of the arrests suggests that the date was chosen deliberately. Why October 13, 1307? There are several possible explanations:
- Astrological considerations: The date may have been chosen for astrological reasons. Some modern historians have suggested that Philip IV, who was known to be interested in astrology, may have chosen the date for its unlucky associations.
- Practical considerations: The date may have been chosen simply because it was a Friday, and Fridays were a time of prayer in the Christian calendar. The Templars would have been gathered at their houses for the Friday liturgy, making the arrests easier.
- Deliberate symbolism: The date may have been chosen to give the arrests a symbolic significance, especially if Philip wanted to associate the arrests with the biblical number of apostasy (13) and the day of the crucifixion (Friday).
The first major modern writer to connect the arrests to the Friday the 13th superstition is hard to identify, but the connection appears in mid-twentieth-century popular works on the Templars and the occult. The connection was popularised in the 1970s and 1980s by a series of books on the Templars and the occult.
For the full story of the arrests, see The Trial and Suppression of the Knights Templar.
The Origins of the Friday the 13th Superstition
The Friday the 13th superstition actually has a much longer history than the arrests of 1307. The number 13 has been considered unlucky since antiquity, and the day Friday has been considered unlucky since the early Christian era.
The Unlucky Number 13
The number 13 has been considered unlucky for at least two thousand years. Several explanations have been offered:
- Norse mythology: In Norse myth, the god Loki was the 13th guest at a dinner in Valhalla, and he tricked Hod into killing the god Balder. This story is the source of the modern “13 guests at a table” superstition.
- The Last Supper: In Christian tradition, Judas Iscariot was the 13th guest at the Last Supper, the betrayal of Christ.
- The calendar: In some older calendar systems, the year had 12 full months, and the 13th month was considered unlucky.
- Modern psychology: The fear of the number 13 is called triskaidekaphobia, and is one of the most common specific phobias in the modern world.
The Unlucky Day Friday
The day Friday has also been considered unlucky for centuries. Several explanations have been offered:
- Christian tradition: In Christian tradition, Friday was the day of the crucifixion of Christ, and the day of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.
- Hangings: In the early modern period, public hangings in England were traditionally held on Fridays, contributing to the day’s association with bad luck.
- The bad luck of the Templars: One possible medieval origin of the Friday superstition, often cited in popular literature, is the supposed arrest of the Templars on a Friday, but the connection is more modern than medieval.
The Combination: Friday the 13th
The combination of Friday with the 13th of the month as a particularly unlucky day is a relatively modern superstition. The earliest recorded example of the specific Friday the 13th superstition is the publication of a song, Nickerbocker, in 1869 by Henry Sutherland Edwards, who was reporting on the stock market crash of Friday, September 24, 1869. The song’s lyric, “Friday 13, beware of the 13th Friday,” is the first known reference to the specific day.
The connection between the Templar arrests and the superstition is, in other words, a retrospective myth. It is a story that has been told and retold, but it is not supported by historical evidence that the Friday the 13th superstition existed before the 20th century.
The Popular Myth
Despite the historical problems, the story of the connection between the Templars and Friday the 13th has become one of the most popular and persistent elements of the modern Templar mythology. The story is told in:
- Popular history books on the Knights Templar.
- Numerous documentaries, including the History Channel’s The Curse of 13 and similar shows.
- Various novels, including the Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco.
- The 1999 film The 13th Warrior (John McTiernan, based on Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead), in which the day of an attack on a Norse village is said to be Friday the 13th, although the film is set in the 10th century, long before the Templar arrests.
- The 1999 novel The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry, in which Friday the 13th is central to the plot.
The modern mythology of the Order. See Templar Mythology, Symbolism and Hidden Knowledge.
The Day of the Arrests
It is worth noting that the date of the Templar arrests was, in the medieval calendar, a Friday. The medieval liturgical calendar included a special Friday mass, and Fridays were days of fasting and prayer. It is possible that Philip IV chose the date for religious reasons, or for the practical reason that the Templars would have been gathered at their houses for the Friday liturgy.
Whatever the case, the date of October 13, 1307, was a significant date in the history of the Order, and the legend of the day has persisted for centuries. The story of the arrests is told in The Trial of Jacques de Molay and in The Trial and Suppression of the Knights Templar.
Conclusion
The Friday the 13th superstition is one of the most widespread pieces of popular folklore in the modern Western world, and its connection to the Templars is one of the most popular elements of the Templar mythology. The connection is, in fact, a modern invention, but the story has had a long and powerful afterlife in popular culture. The arrests of October 13, 1307, were a major event in the history of the Order, and the date has been remembered in popular tradition for centuries.