The Flight of the Master of Lombardy (13 February 1308) and Clement V's Strategy in the Templar Affair : A Slap in the Pope's Face

International audienceOn the night of the 13 th of February 1308, exactly 4 months after the general arrest of the Knights Templars in France on the orders of King Philip IV the Fair, Giacomo da Montecucco, the master of the Templar province of northern Italy and a cubicularius of Pope Clement V, escaped from the papal Curia. A direct source provides us with a detailed account of Clement's special frustration and great wrath after Giacomo's flight. The master of Lombardy's defection, it is suggested here, could hardly have come at a worse time, because it thwarted the strategy recently adopted by the pope in what had become a trial of strength with the king of France. This paper examines the meaning of this episode in the light of a general interpretation of the Templar affair