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Historical person

Clement V

1264–1314

Clement V, born Bertrand de Got, was pope from 1305 to 1314 during a period of intense conflict between the papacy and the French monarchy. Before his election he had been archbishop of Bordeaux. The conclave that chose him followed a long deadlock after the death of Benedict XI, and Clement never established his court at Rome. His pontificate instead operated largely from southern France, helping begin the period conventionally known as the Avignon Papacy, although the permanent institutional settlement there developed gradually.

Clement’s reputation is dominated by his dealings with Philip IV of France and the Knights Templar. After Philip ordered mass arrests of Templars in 1307, the pope initially resisted unilateral royal action but eventually authorised wider proceedings under enormous political pressure. At the Council of Vienne in 1312 Clement suppressed the order administratively without issuing a straightforward judicial conviction of the whole institution and transferred much of its property to the Hospitallers. He also attempted crusading and ecclesiastical reforms before dying in 1314, the same year as Philip IV.

In Michael Jecks’ The Last Templar, A second death, in which an abbot is burned alive, confirms that someone is using fire to conceal a connected series of crimes. Baldwin’s skill is rooted in a history he keeps hidden: he survived the destruction of the Knights Templar after Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V moved against the order. Clement V is treated fictionally in Michael Jecks’ The Templar's Penance.

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Clement V (1 series)

Last Templar Mysteries in Order

by Michael Jecks 32 books 4.2(20,880)

The Last Templar Mysteries follow Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, a survivor of the suppression of the Knights Templar, and his friend Simon Puttock, a Devon bailiff. Most of the sequence is set between 1316 and 1327, when the two men investigate deaths in villages, monasteries, ports and cathedral…

All books in this series