Vatican Archives Exonerate Knights Templar

It has spawned endless flights of speculation and has even become popularly attached to the stigma surrounding Friday the 13th. But the arrest, expurgation and subsequent controversy surrounding the fall of the Knights Templar in the dawning years of the 14th century may now finally have a little more light cast on them. Accused of myriad crimes, the Templar Order was destroyed in 1307; its Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, burned at the stake. But were the knights heretics as the French king maintained? It seems not. A new book set to be published by the Vatican and based on recently discovered documents long misfiled in the voluminous Secret Archives reportedly "absolves them; rather completely. Will the release of the book put the brakes on the cottage industry that has developed around templar lore? Probably not. But it will be available on October 25th.