On Friday October 13, 1307 the Order of the Temple was destroyed. Thousands of its members were captured, tortured and killed. Most of them burned alive by the Church , including their families. Nowadays , Leonor (Marta Nieto) , a young teacher, accompanied by his friend Sara (Barbara de Lema) , flees to a small town , called Villafranca , located in the mountains to attempt to recover from the death of her husband and the loss of the baby she was expecting. She takes refuge in the daily activity with the children of the school and the friendship that she establishes with Miguel (Juanjo Pardo) , a forest agent . But the hostility of the inhabitants of the region and visions that torment herself lead her to believe that she is going crazy, as an irresistible mysterious force heads her to be related to that story of betrayal and death seven hundred years ago. "La Loba" (Marga Escudero) , a strange woman despised by all, will end up revealing the truth of that riveting and marvelous story. Along the way , Leonor meets some mysterious Templarios who had fled from the castle of Montsegur, and from Languedoc, after the massacres and bonfires executed on Friday the 13th , 1307 by Philip IV of France , the Beautiful , and his accomplice Pope Clement V . Meanwhile , a greedy Mayor and his two hoodlums are looking for the Templar Cup of Hope , Sword of Innocence, and Book of Freedom to sell to the highest bidder .
This bizarre film results in a confusing tangle of medieval mythology and fantasy in which a young widow encounters Templar spirits and witches appearing here and there without much sense . The movie is deeply marred by a pounding and annoying musical score that interrupts the action , composed by means of synthesizer by director Pablo Ibañez himself . However, the film benefits itself from the recreation of some historical events of the Order of the Templars and the always interesting trajectory of this famous Order . Actors give mediocre acting , stars Marta Nieto as Leonor, a young teacher who flees to a small town in the mountains to try to recover from the death of her husband and the loss of the baby she was expecting due to car accident , while Juanjo Pardo is a forest agent who establishes friendship with her and showing up two known secondaries in brief roles : El Langui as a henchman of the nasty Mayor and Miriam Diaz Aroca as a medieval ghost. The motion picture was lousily directed by Paco Ibáñez.
The historical fact developed in the picture is as follows : In 1119, the French knight Hugues de Payens approached King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and proposed creating a Catholic monastic religious order for the protection of these pilgrims. King Baldwin and Patriarch Warmund agreed to the request, probably at the Council of Nablus in January 1120, and the king granted the Templars a headquarters in a wing of the royal palace on the Temple Mount in the captured Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Temple Mount had a mystique because it was above what was believed to be the ruins of the Temple of Solomon. The Crusaders therefore referred to the Al-Aqsa Mosque as Solomon's Temple, and from this location the new order took the name of Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, or "Templar" knights. The order, with about nine knights including Godfrey de Saint-Omer and André de Montbard, had few financial resources and relied on donations to survive. Their emblem was of two knights riding on a single horse, emphasizing the order's poverty. The Templars were closely tied to the Crusades; as they became unable to secure their holdings in the Holy Land, support for the order faded. Rumours about the Templars' secret initiation ceremony created distrust, and King Philip IV of France, while being deeply in debt to the order, used this distrust to take advantage of the situation. In 1307, he pressured Pope Clement V to have many of the order's members in France arrested, tortured into giving false confessions, and then burned at the stake. At dawn on Friday, 13 October 1307-a date sometimes incorrectly cited as the origin of the popular stories about Friday the 13th King Philip IV ordered Jacques de Molay and scores of other French Templars to be simultaneously arrested. Claims were made that during Templar admissions ceremonies, recruits were forced to spit on the Cross, deny Christ, and engage in indecent kissing; brethren were also accused of worshipping idols, and the order was said to have encouraged homosexual practices. The film also deals with the¨ Chinon Parchment¨, it is a historical document discovered in September 2001 by Barbara Frale, an Italian paleographer at the Vatican Apostolic Archive. On the basis of this document she has claimed that, in 1308, Pope Clement V absolved the last Grand Master, Jacques de Molay , and the rest of the leadership of the Knights Templar from charges brought against them by the Medieval Inquisition. In addition, a letter exists, supposedly written by the three cardinals to King Philip IV, in which they inform him of the absolution granted to the high-ranking officers of the Knights Templar . The text of the Chinon Parchment is also supported by records in register Avignonese 48 of the Vatican Secret Archives, published in Processus Contra Templarios.
