Heroic Dreams - All Things Medieval

Paraskavedekatriaphobia is the fear of friday the 13th!

And today, being friday the 13th I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the root of where this peculiar superstition came from. It, like so much of what we know, do, think, and have, is rooted in medieval times. It is quite amazing how the Middle ages were such a strong formative time for the culture we have today. The crusades, Dark ages, renaissance, philosophy, architecture, art, and so much more come to us from the Middle ages.

The real, and exact origin of friday the 13th may never be known but there are some leading theories that make a lot of sense.

Middle Ages Poster

The Knights Templar 

The most plausible origin of this fear is rooted in the political struggle for pwer between King Philip of France and the Knights Templar. On Friday, October 13, 1307 King Philip of France in an attempt to destroy the knights templar organization issued a warrant for all of them to be arrested. Thousands were hunted down, arrested, tortured and executed. From then on Friday the 13th was considered by Templars to be a very unlucky day.

The Norse Legend: There is a legend that twelve gods had a feast in Valhalla and this feast was crashed by the god Loki (this made him the 13th guest). He plotted to have the god of joy and happiness killed and when this happened the world was plunged into darkness.

The Calendar

For centuries, throughout the middle ages, and as the world grew from being village oriented to being more widespread there was a constant battle over the calendar and many kings, popes, and others attempted to enforce a uniform week/month/year calendar on the world. This caused a lot of conflict and political struggling between followers of the different systems. The inordinate fear of the number 13 may have been propaganda created by the followers of the Gregorian Calendar (it has 12 months) against the followers of the older lunisolar calendar which had 13 months in some years.

Everyone will admit that the fear of friday the 13th is an archaic and  medieval thing and it feels like something that is a remainder of the crazy middle ages. Yet while we all pretty much scoff and it and make fun of it there still is a little part of each of us that wonder if there could be something more to it!

Be careful today

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