The ARCHIM database (hosted by the French National Archives / Archives Nationales) is a foundational digital image repository that provides free public access to some of the most critical, rare, and fragile primary documents in European history. When it comes to “unlocking medieval Templar records,” ARCHIM holds a particularly famous, digitized section dedicated entirely to the Trial of the Knights Templar (1307–1314).
Rather than relying on centuries of myth and speculation, the database allows historians and the public to examine the exact legal and administrative evidence that brought down the world’s most powerful medieval military order. Key Templar Records Inside ARCHIM
The digitized records originate from the Trésor des chartes (the historical treasury of charters compiled by the French monarchy) under the archive shelf marks J 413 to J 417. The most noteworthy items available for digital viewing include:
The 22-Meter Interrogation Roll (J 413, No. 18): This is a massive procès-verbal consisting of 44 parchment sheets sewn together to create a singular roll 22 meters long. It details the day-by-day interrogations and confessions of 138 Templars conducted in Paris between October 19 and November 24, 1307. It includes the firsthand testimony of Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and final Grand Master of the Knights Templar, before he was eventually burned at the stake.
The Royal Arrest Orders (J 413, No. 22): An official, authorized contemporary copy (vidimus) of King Philip IV’s highly secretive, coordinated September 1307 order to arrest all Templars across France simultaneously on charges of heresy, blasphemy, and systemic corruption.
Seized Property Inventories (J 413, No. 29): A six-page parchment inventory detailing the exact financial assets, lands, livestock, and goods confiscated from the Templars in the region of Caen (Normandy) immediately following their arrest, showing the cold logistics behind the sudden destruction of their wealth.
Regional Interrogations (J 413, No. 20): Documentation of the trials of thirteen specific Templars in Normandy, interrogated by royal commissioners and Dominican friars acting as inquisitors. Why the ARCHIM Access Matters