Why Is Friday the 13th Unlucky?
The superstition that Friday the 13th is unlucky is one of the most widespread pieces of popular folklore in the modern Western world. Many tall office buildings skip the 13th floor, and many people suffer from a specific phobia of the day, called paraskevidekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia. The most popular explanation of the superstition links it to the arrests of the Knights Templar on Friday, October 13, 1307, but the connection is, in fact, a modern myth.
This article examines the history of the Friday the 13th superstition and its connection to the Templars. It is a companion to Friday the 13th: The Templar Connection and to Templar Mythology, Symbolism and Hidden Knowledge.
The Templar Connection
The most popular modern explanation of the Friday the 13th superstition links it to the arrests of the Knights Templar. 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 on the morning of Friday, October 13, 1307. The Grand Master Jacques de Molay was seized at the Temple in Paris, and several hundred other brothers were arrested.
The story of the arrests is told in Friday the 13th: The Templar Connection and in The Trial and Suppression of the Knights Templar.
The connection between the date and the superstition appears in mid-twentieth-century popular works on the Templars and the occult, including the 2006 documentary The Curse of 13. The connection is now a major element of the modern Templar mythology.
The Origins of the 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 number 13 was considered unlucky long before the arrests of the Templars. The 13th century itself, the century of the Templar arrests, was considered an unlucky century by medieval chroniclers.
The Origins of Friday as an Unlucky Day
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.
Friday has been considered an unlucky day in Western culture since at least the 14th century, and the association was well established by the time of the Chaucer in the 14th century and Shakespeare in the 16th century.
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 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.