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The Knights Templar started London's first bank (2017)

243 points by dananjaya86 4y ago

onion2k 4y ago
I can't wait for "Assassin's Creed: Excel" to really capture the spirit of this.
- 867-5309 4y ago
  for now, you can play Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Sword:_The_Shadow_of_the_Templars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Sword:_The_Shadow_of_th...
  - Cognitron 4y ago
    This game happens to be free on gog.com today: https://www.gog.com/#giveaway https://www.gog.com/#giveaway scroll down a little
- antihero 4y ago
  Make it "Assassin's Creed: ExCeL" so we can have a DLR level.
- louthy 4y ago
  Is that part of 'Assassin's Creed: Office 365'?
dr_dshiv 4y ago
Nice article. Wish they had gone on to cover Cosimo Medici! He was the best. Inventing banking and then using the profits to fund the renaissance? Need people like that today.
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  > Need people like that today. Florentine maecenas were no different from billionaires today chasing each other in space races. They didn't sponsor artists for the sake of art but rather as a display of wealth and power. Edit: I am clarifying intention here, it does not mean that the side effects don't have a net positive, but they are unlikely to come from a purely altruistic place.
  - dr_dshiv 4y ago
    Cynicism aside, the renaissance was a real phenomenon. Among many other things, Cosimo Medici restarted the Academy, hiring the philosopher Marsilio Ficino to translate Plato (which had been lost to the west for nearly 1000 years), Plotinus, Hermes Trismegistus, etc. The reintroduction of classical ideas and modes of thought had a profound impact on the development of Europe over the next 200 years. Meanwhile, many of Ficino’s own philosophical books remain untranslated today… (Btw, if this is anyone else’s interest, I’ve helped to translate Ficino’s philosophy of pleasure: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RZYHWmptuPbpZcUbDdqNvBJD6EUiNkZL-YlQAVSoehM/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RZYHWmptuPbpZcUbDdqNvBJD...)
  - bazoom42 4y ago
    > They didn't sponsor artists for the sake of art but rather as a display of wealth and power. Perhaps, but we still got the art.
  - VoodooJuJu 4y ago
    Although many so-called "nobles" certainly funded the arts for such vain purposes, I guarantee that many other nobles were funding art for its own noble sake.
  - recuter 4y ago
    Pardon me, so? Back to the dark ages?
  - HeckFeck 4y ago
    We can never know the exact intention of anyone, especially figures long in the past. I find it hard to believe that wealthy eccentrics didn't (or don't) enjoy things for their own sake. If you have a pile of money and the chance to create something great, that'd fill you with wild excitement I can only imagine.
- fooker 4y ago
  >Inventing banking and then using the profits to fund the renaissance? How about productizing electric cars and satellite internet to fund space exploration?
- s3000 4y ago
  >Inventing banking and then using the profits to fund the renaissance? Need people like that today. When it comes to culture, do we still need funding? The internet offers connection and replication. What is preventing the people with the right skills from coming together and creating the next level of civilization?
  - sofixa 4y ago
    Well those people still need to eat, have a roof over their head, etc. so that they live comfortable enough lives to be able to create whatever it is they're creating.
    - s3000 4y ago
      When somebody offers food and shelter, people will fill the space and they will create whatever that person asks them to do. They will create Netflix productions and Google chat apps and Meta VR spaces. The internet allows people to connect without the initial need for funding. If funding is needed, the internet makes it possible for a team to discover investors and foundations that would add financial support. The limiting factor are not resources but teams.
      - imtringued 4y ago
        We need money not for funding, but rather to organize the division of labor. The strange thing is that money does not come with obligations to those holding it, only privileges, so it can be withheld from the market, leading to the appearance that there is a lack of funding.
  - dragonelite 4y ago
    In 2022 its influencers and fake news peddler which the oligarchs sponsor.
docdeek 4y ago
> If you had been at the great fair of Lyon in 1555, you could have seen the answer. Lyon's fair was the greatest market for international trade in all Europe. This is interesting to me as I live in the city and it's long been a center for trade, geographically positioned on two major rivers and with access to Paris, Switzerland, and Italy. Try as I might, though, I can't Google up anything about that fair in 1555 - does anyone have a link to a Wikipedia-style/level article about it?
- noja 4y ago
  This? https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foires_de_Lyon https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foires_de_Lyon
  - blowski 4y ago
    Interestingly, the English equivalent of that page describes an event that's been happening only since 1985.
    - rozenmd 4y ago
      There's a fairly significant amount of information locked away in language-specific Wikipedia - many French things have a stub article in English, and an absolute essay in French
- halfbrite 4y ago
  The Foires de Lyon are likely being referenced, but that specific year is more than likely a reference to the Grand Parti de Lyon -- which was neither a party or a faire.
  - docdeek 4y ago
    Thanks - the Grand Parti de Lyon was what I was finding when I was searching and it didn’t align with the idea of the Foires I was expecting to find.
teleforce 4y ago
I'm pretty sure they got this 'original' idea from the practice of their Muslim contemporaries. This is a very similar concept to the origin of cheque where it's too dangerous to carry gold and cash along the silk road from Middle East countries to China and beyond.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  Stupid question, but wouldn't stealing a cheque work back then? I mean I can imagine only known people would be allowed to cash it. Plus there's more benefits to carrying a cheque, large quantities get difficult to move around (same with cash money, which is one reason that higher denominations are discouraged)
  - hef19898 4y ago
    It sure worked. One of the reasons the value of those cheques dropped with distance to the issuer. Basically, it was a trust based system. And one that worked extremely well. With added benefits for those that figured out proper accounting around assets, liabilities and so on. The Italian bankers did, the Hanse (North German economic and trade super power made of individual merchants) did not, for example.
  - kqr 4y ago
    A cheque would be both easier to travel with (thus exposing yourself to less harm) but also comparatively illquid (can perhaps only be redeemed in a few locations which may not be realistically accessible to highwaymen).
  - wahern 4y ago
    I'm not sure if the rules were the same as far back as then, but the modern rule (or rules, plural, as they're a consequence of several rules) that a bank (either the drawee bank or an intermediate paying/depository bank, depending on the circumstances) is liable for a fraudulently cashed check has existed for centuries, IIRC. And just like today, it doesn't much matter if an impersonator forged a payee's or endorsee's signature, amount, etc; a bank is still on the hook. (And IIRC a bank is liable only upon a prima facie showing of forgery, as opposed to whatever stronger burden of proof would normally adhere.) Of course, the defrauding party is liable to which ever bank was on the hook, but the rules operate to rather clearly make a bank strictly liable in the first instance so there's minimal confusion in the banking system regarding settlements or settlement disputes, and the drawer (person who wrote the check) is the most protected of all. This incentivizes banks to "know your customer" (long before modern regulatory regimes), as well as for banks to only deal with other reputable banks. In legal jurisdictions that do a lot of international commercial transactions, rules such as these are typically held paramount unless specifically and clearly overridden by local law. Relatedly, jurisdictions that don't abide the so-called Lex mercatoria tend not to become centers of international commerce. If the drawer weren't strongly protected, the utility of checks would severely diminished.
seanhunter 4y ago
If you ever come to London I would highly recommend a visit to that area[1]. take the district line to "Temple" and walk into temple court. This is a set of interconnecting pretty courtyards surrounded by buildings used as offices for lawyers working at the nearby high court. These courtyards have a feel similar to an Oxford/Cambridge college and have been used as settings for "Harry Potter" and other films (to give you a flavour). As you wander through, eventually you will come across a statue of two knights on the back of a single horse, symbol of the templars[2]. Next to this is the Temple Church[3], with its distinctive round medieval tower where the templars themselves are buried. This is a lovely place to listen to concerts etc. I used to deliberately get the tube to temple every day so I could walk through this area to work because it's really lovely. [1] https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/51.51245/-0.11150 https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/51.51245/-0.11150 [2] This is the scene in the main photo in TFA [3] https://www.templechurch.com/ https://www.templechurch.com/
- mathnmusic 4y ago
  Streetview link: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5130263,-0.1102586,3a,75y,98.74h,102.83t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s6gn6fE5nWc00IAGDAdrDNg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5130263,-0.1102586,3a,75y,98...
- traceroute66 4y ago
  > This is a set of interconnecting pretty courtyards surrounded by building Yes, London is quite unique amongst global cities for having these sorts of treasures hidden right in the centre. Another good example in that area is Linconln's Inn Fields[1] which is a quiet sanctuary just off the horrors of Holborn. Venture up the road to the City of London and there are maybe dozens more. It is, sadly, an art form that has been lost in the "relaxed planning" era of the New-Build garbage. Fortunately the older areas are protected from the grubby hands of the greedy property developers due to various legal constraints in place ranging from Listed Building status to more obscure ones. [1]https://goo.gl/maps/YxAnXeDBsiv9dkRH7 https://goo.gl/maps/YxAnXeDBsiv9dkRH7
- twic 4y ago
  Just as the City of London is a weird little legal fossil within London, the Inns are even weirder legal fossils within the City: https://www.middletemple.org.uk/about-us/freedom-information/inn-local-authority https://www.middletemple.org.uk/about-us/freedom-information... The practical consequences are extremely minor - but the Inner and Middle temples can give themselves planning permission, and issue themselves alcohol licenses!
verisimi 4y ago
Those wonderful knights templar! Brave Christian crusaders! Warrior monks! > Our financial system today has a lot in common with this model. This bit might be true, but what was the real story?
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  > what was the real story? Some of the grittier truth may be about political expediency of taming "knights". Monty Python caricatures aside, until (and beyond) the Templars, many were marauding bands of privateers looting their way around Europe. Sending them off to do God's work while letting them play at "banking" the spoils was probably a neat solution to not having a standing army, but still keeping a cadre of loyal battle-hardened dudes on a string. When their use expired, as maturing nation states found them less convenient, King Philip IV ordered them rounded up (apocryphally on Friday 13th) in a betrayal I think George Lucas adapted as the fate of The "Jedi".
  - tgv 4y ago
    The Templars were not set up to send off bandits and do God's work. They started as protection for pilgrimage, set up an system to move funds from Europe into the Holy Land to support their work (which included hiring quite a few mercenaries), which turned into banking, and were half-coerced into some of the Crusades (notably not the first), because they were indeed the experienced, hardened and loyal soldiers that were needed. But they did not "bank" the spoils, and regular Crusaders weren't roaming thieves either.
    - nonrandomstring 4y ago
      > regular Crusaders weren't roaming thieves either Absolutely not. From what I've read they were extraordinarily disciplined. My point was that "knights" more generally until then, are mischaracterised as "good and noble" but were really freelancers [1]. The Templars obtained a better defined security role. [1] just occurred to me there may be some etymology there. EDIT: Aha! https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/freelance-origin-meaning https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/freelance-orig...
Neil44 4y ago
I did a walking tour of Bruges the other week and heard an interesting story about salt. Salt was a valuable commodity and could function as currency, carrying it around was risky and impractical. So there was a guild house that became a place where you could store your salt and get given a little note about how much salt they owed you. Later on if you wanted to exchange the value of your salt with someone else it became more practical to swap the little notes directly rather than trek down to the salt house and swap physical salt so people started doing that. Boom, paper money. I find all these kind of stories fascinating.
- luxpir 4y ago
  It's where the term "salary" came from, if I'm not mistaken. Roman thing?
  - eyko 4y ago
    You're correct. Funny enough, this is also obscure knowledge even in e.g Spanish. We use the word salario (from latin salarium) which has the same meaning as in latin: words ending in -ario (lat: -arium) is used to denote association, like in templario (templar) or revolucionario (revolutionary). For some reason, however, nobody thinks of "salario" as something associated with salt (sal). I guess it's so strange in today's world that money would be used for the specific purpose of buying salt, that it simply doesn't click.
    - mudita 4y ago
      This blog by a classicist claims that the word salary is indeed coming from the latin words salarium and sal, but that it is not clear what the connection is, that there is neither evidence for the explanation that Roman soldiers were paid in salt nor that it was an allowance for the specific purpose of buying salt: http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/01/salt-and-salary.html http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/01/salt-and-salary.ht... Regarding the latter he writes: "As I said above, ‘salt allowance’ isn’t a terrible guess. But I strongly suspect it’s much more metaphorical than that. Compare how the Greek word for a salary was opsōnion, literally ‘(money) for buying opson’, where opson means ‘fish, relish, sauce’. That doesn’t mean Greek workers were given a ‘fish allowance’: it means that there was a generalised idea that wages went on traded goods like fish, and not on things like barley which land-owners would grow for themselves. Similarly, in Rome, grain allowances were a common thing; it could easily make sense to interpret salarium as ‘everything-else-money’."
quickthrower2 4y ago
One way to do this over large distances is the bank of Alice and the bank of Bob meet and exchange papers/signatures/codes in advance, enough to do a years worth and then they can verify each other’s cheques until the next exchange. They could settle in gold. For fraud prevention this system might allow for a “personal identification number” for the cheque to be memorised.
dalbasal 4y ago
We're in a time when histories of money attract a bit more interest. We are exiting a period where theoretical/rhetorical histories^ are a little less dominant. In any case, it's interesting how often religion is deeply involved in what we would now call the financial services sector. In many ancient civilisations, temples minted coins and performed other banking-esque functions. Many ancient law codes dedicate a lot of ink to debt, and debt-related things. I wonder how much of the Templars' methods were picked up in the Mediterranean and Levant, where civilisation was deep rooted and continuous. ^I want to use the term "pseudohistory," but without the accusatory implications. What I mean is models with thought experiment at their core. EG historical materialism, Smith, etc
dools 4y ago
Not so much the first bank, but the first PayPal.
- twic 4y ago
  Of course back then it was just Papal.
- hef19898 4y ago
  The term "bank" comes from literal banks that served as a bank to sit on and a box to keep money in. PayPal is just a glorified cheque processor.
  - dools 4y ago
    The term "bank" comes from the Italian word "il banco" which is a bench or counter top. It is a reference to the original money changers who sat on benches and provided financial services to merchants. Those services, which were the origins of banking, were mostly about issuing loans and changing money. The services rendered as described in the original article are of a payment system which allows you to deposit cash in one location and withdraw it in another. This is far more similar to the service provided by PayPal, than it is to the primary service provided by a bank which is to issue loans, and to be sanctioned by the state in order to do so.
xkcd1963 4y ago
So I read the text until "Checks and balances" and found a mistake in the text which makes me believe now this was written by AI and maybe audited by a human.
overthemoon 4y ago
> We don't actually know how the Templars made this system work and protected themselves against fraud. Was there a secret code verifying the document and the traveller's identity? Really? We don't know? If that's true, that surprises me.
- chiefalchemist 4y ago
  It does sound odd. Having some understanding how it worked would validate the theory. Else it only sounds like a theory, albeit with perhaps a couple limited documented instances.
- sophacles 4y ago
  Is it that hard to beleive? The templars were a secret society (that is they had private initiation ceremonies just like any frat, social club, etc today - although the vows they swore were probably taken far more seriously). They had a lot of money. That money was confiscated by force, including the torture and killing of members. This was backed up by lots of claims of devil worship and the like to get common people to be OK with it. The money was tied to the records. Is it that surprising that in this process all the records were destroyed? The powerful didn't want the records and the legal hassle they entail, they just wanted the gold. The common folks didn't want to be spiritually corrupted by the blasphemous works (that they likely couldn't read anyway). The records were probably burned or scraped clean and re-used (see palimpsest) since paper and parchment were expensive commodities. There may be a document or two hiding in various corners of some old monastary library or in some book binding somewhere - as recently as 2001 some records surfaced from the vatican secret archives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinon_Parchment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinon_Parchment but like a lot of other knowledge of that era, most of it is probably lost.
robot9000 4y ago
- ValentineC 4y ago
  You could name them, because I have no idea if you're referring to modern-day bankers, the lawyers who took over their premises, or some other organisation.
  - kasey_junk 4y ago
    Almost certainly an anti-Semitic trope. But perhaps they are referencing Huguenots: https://www.huguenotsociety.org.uk/blog/huguenots-and-the-world-of-finance-part-one https://www.huguenotsociety.org.uk/blog/huguenots-and-the-wo...
  - twic 4y ago
    He can only mean the Templi Resurgentes Equites Synarchici. The less said of whom, the better.
    - mherdeg 4y ago
      A distant predecessor of Tristero, no doubt.
- barbecue_sauce 4y ago
  The Order of Christ?
- dang 4y ago
  Sorry, but you can't do this here. Since your account has posted unsubstantive and flamebait comments in quite a few other contexts too, I've banned it. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
pbhjpbhj 4y ago
In Our Time, BBC radio show with Melvyn Bragg, has an episode on the Templars; https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001cpwt https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001cpwt. Worth a listen if you're interested and want an inciteful overview.
- onetokeoverthe 4y ago
motohagiography 4y ago
Too bad so few popular and reliable records exist, as I would be really interested in what their leverage ratio was for loans to deposits, what calendar they used to synchronize everywhere in the world (presumably astronomical), whether the Templars picked it up by learning and adapting Islamic Hawala during the crusades, what the Medicis did differently (covered a bit in Fergusson's The Ascent of Money). The necessary conditions for their early portfolio risk management practices would be fascinating, and probably even available in surviving Islamic texts. The vow of poverty seemed to be the lynchpin of templar banking, where the way to solve the basic principal/agent problem and ensure the alignment of interests to make the templars disinterested in the transactions themselves other than ensuring their integrity. Relating to money with a vow of poverty doesn't mean suffering, it's just a vow to eschew the trappings and symbols of wealth, as the whole system relied on Templars recognizing that they did not need money when instead they had power. They could afford to be humble. This problem of how to find and prove people who can be trusted to uphold higher values that create stability continues to today I'm sure. If you are ever in Portugal, I recommend seeing the last Templar castle in Tomar. I found its scale and engineering quite spectacular, as well as how well it appears to have been preserved.
- waihtis 4y ago
  > If you are ever in Portugal, I recommend seeing the last Templar castle in Tomar. I found its scale and engineering quite spectacular, as well as how well it appears to have been preserved. Thank you for the tip. Absolutely stunning in the pictures alone, made a note to visit this place.
- yucky 4y ago
  > whether the Templars picked it up by learning and adapting Islamic Hawala during the crusades Doubtful. Money lenders/changers existed long before Islam (something about Jesus flipping their tables over in the Temple), and Hawala from my understanding is a flat commission based service (not interest based), since usury is forbidden.
  - motohagiography 4y ago
    Christianity forbids usury as well, hence why hawala seemed like a plausible candidate system for how the Templar banking system may have scaled. Interest calculations are complicated, where something simple like a commission scales easily. Given what we know now about economics and how systems scale, it seems like there is a systems view of the necessary conditions that might shed some new light on some history that has a lot of woo around it.
dav_Oz 4y ago
>They can use their international reach to try to sidestep taxes and regulations. And, since their debts to each other are a very real kind of private money, when the banks are fragile, the entire monetary system of the world also becomes vulnerable. We are still trying to figure out what to do with these banks. We cannot live without them, it seems, and yet we are not sure we want to live with them. Governments have long sought ways to hold them in check. Sometimes the approach has been laissez-faire, sometimes not. Few regulators have been quite as ardent as King Philip IV of France. Very interesting leaps taken to come to the conclusion that Philip IV ("government") was trying to "regulate" the private money sector, back then. First of all he waged very costly wars (against Aragon, England and Flanders) and found himself - no surprise - with unmanageable debt i.e. not enough silver (also a very important difference between today's "banking") in 1295. By that time even the Templars hadn't enough money to help him out so he began to loan from the much richer Florentine bankers and to devalue his own royal currency (tied to silver) with the high price of social unrest/domestic instability. The crackdown on Templars preceded a power struggle with the clergy (a common theme in the centuries before and afterwards) represented by the pope Boniface VIII. Long story short: Philip IV won and consequently established the nearly 70 years long so called "Avignon Papacy". The next pope Clement V was basically under his thumb. Only in this greater context could he go on and "restructure" the "Templar Banks", technically the property of the Church. Of course in this cascade of perpetual debt and wars he utilized all his domestic "regulatory" powers[0]: constantly raising taxes (1289), seizing assets of Lombard merchants (1292), heavily debasing currency (1295), unheard/provocative taxation (50%) of the French clergy (1296), expelling Jews and seizing all their assets (1306). [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_IV_of_France#Finance_and_religion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_IV_of_France#Finance_...
- coliveira 4y ago
  > he waged very costly wars Kings of the time didn't think of the modern trick: (1) making gold useless to make tax payments and (2) creating your own fiat money, with no backing on anything but the power to make more wars.
andrepd 4y ago
A factoid that I knew thanks to Don Rosa stories!
danabrams 4y ago
Didn’t read the article, but just going by the headline—London must have had a bank before 2017.
spicymaki 4y ago
The tragic end to the Knights Templar brings to mind David Graeber's idea of bringing back the jubilee: https://davidgraeber.org/articles/after-the-jubilee/ https://davidgraeber.org/articles/after-the-jubilee/ Excerpted from Wikipedia: 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. Rumors 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 to have many of the order's members in France arrested, tortured into giving false confessions, and then burned at the stake. Under further pressure, Pope Clement V disbanded the order in 1312. -------------------- Perhaps if they were not so scrooge-like, their order would still be around today. The financial stress of our debt-laden culture has led to deep mistrust, cospiracism, disfunction, environmental harm, and the stunting of growth for developing nations around the world. We should learn from these stories of the past.
- FredPret 4y ago
  International banks have spearheaded an absolute explosion in global economic growth. Looking at your story above, Philip was the bad actor and the Templars should've played politics better (maybe lending money to the pope as well?)
  - coliveira 4y ago
    > lending money to the pope The Pope was the owner of everything. It was, after all, a catholic order. The game here was very much the King of France attacking the money power of the Church, instead of an isolated problem with the Templars.
  - dgb23 4y ago
    > International banks have spearheaded an absolute explosion in global economic growth. I assumed it's the other way around. Economic growth comes from technical and cultural advancements. Banks are a symptom of that growth.
    - 4y ago
photochemsyn 4y ago
The actual title of this article is "The warrior monks who invented banking", but there is a fairly extensive literature on Roman banking dating back at least 1000 years previously: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_finance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_finance In particular, the Sulpicii of Puteoli left some records of what look like modern banking practices: https://www.world-archaeology.com/books/bankers-of-puteoli-the/ https://www.world-archaeology.com/books/bankers-of-puteoli-t... > "Much of the business of the Sulpicii consisted of short term loans, of amounts ranging from £1,000 to £20,000 and for periods of up to a month – for the sake of simplicity, I am reckoning a sesterce as being the equivalent of £1. A number of loans took place at auction sales – for these were a large part of the activity of a Roman forum – a Roman forum must have been very much like e-Bay. A banking house would manage the auction and supply immediate payment to the vendor, but would allow the purchaser several days to pay; if more time was needed, this could be provided at a cost."
anon23anon 4y ago
This would explain so much of the conspiracy around them.
johnohara 4y ago
This article was an interesting (and quick) read. Thanks for posting it. FTA: Few regulators have been quite as ardent as King Philip IV of France. ... He owed money to the Templars, and they refused to forgive his debts. ... the last grandmaster of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, was brought to the centre of Paris and publicly burned to death. Which is a novel way to default on your loan, close your account, and start doing business with Florentine Franzesi bankers. The royal treasure was transferred from the Paris Temple to the Louvre around this time. In other words -- he seized the Templars assets. It's against this backdrop that the wikipedia page on Philip IV of France achieves renewed vitality and is worth perusing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_IV_of_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_IV_of_France
bretbernhoft 4y ago
I've heard that the Knights Templar could transform common metals into gold, at a rate comparable to ancient Egypt.
lofaszvanitt 4y ago
Read Maurice Druon's books called The Accursed Kings. It explains a lot about the topic and also sheds light on some of the happenings today ;).
peter_d_sherman 4y ago
>"But at this particular fair, gossip was starting to spread about an Italian merchant who was there, and making a fortune. He bought and sold nothing: all he had was a desk and an inkstand. Day after day he sat there, receiving other merchants and signing their pieces of paper, and somehow becoming very rich. The locals were very suspicious. But to a new international elite of Europe's great merchant houses, his activities were perfectly legitimate. He was buying and selling debt, and in doing so he was creating enormous economic value. A merchant from Lyon who wanted to buy - say - Florentine wool could go to this banker and borrow something called a bill of exchange. This was a credit note, an IOU, but it was not denominated in the French livre or Florentine lira. Its value was expressed in the ecu de marc, a private currency used by this international network of bankers. And if the Lyonnaise merchant or his agents travelled to Florence, the bill of exchange from the banker in Lyon would be recognised by bankers in Florence, who would gladly exchange it for local currency. Through this network of bankers, a local merchant could not only exchange currencies but also translate his creditworthiness in Lyon into creditworthiness in Florence, a city where nobody had ever heard of him - a valuable service, worth paying for." PDS: Fascinating!

243 points by dananjaya86 4y ago

onion2k 4y ago

I can't wait for "Assassin's Creed: Excel" to really capture the spirit of this.

867-5309 4y ago
for now, you can play Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Sword:_The_Shadow_of_the_Templars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Sword:_The_Shadow_of_th...
- Cognitron 4y ago
  This game happens to be free on gog.com today: https://www.gog.com/#giveaway https://www.gog.com/#giveaway scroll down a little
antihero 4y ago
Make it "Assassin's Creed: ExCeL" so we can have a DLR level.
louthy 4y ago
Is that part of 'Assassin's Creed: Office 365'?

dr_dshiv 4y ago

Nice article. Wish they had gone on to cover Cosimo Medici! He was the best. Inventing banking and then using the profits to fund the renaissance? Need people like that today.

DoingIsLearning 4y ago
> Need people like that today. Florentine maecenas were no different from billionaires today chasing each other in space races. They didn't sponsor artists for the sake of art but rather as a display of wealth and power. Edit: I am clarifying intention here, it does not mean that the side effects don't have a net positive, but they are unlikely to come from a purely altruistic place.
- dr_dshiv 4y ago
  Cynicism aside, the renaissance was a real phenomenon. Among many other things, Cosimo Medici restarted the Academy, hiring the philosopher Marsilio Ficino to translate Plato (which had been lost to the west for nearly 1000 years), Plotinus, Hermes Trismegistus, etc. The reintroduction of classical ideas and modes of thought had a profound impact on the development of Europe over the next 200 years. Meanwhile, many of Ficino’s own philosophical books remain untranslated today… (Btw, if this is anyone else’s interest, I’ve helped to translate Ficino’s philosophy of pleasure: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RZYHWmptuPbpZcUbDdqNvBJD6EUiNkZL-YlQAVSoehM/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RZYHWmptuPbpZcUbDdqNvBJD...)
- bazoom42 4y ago
  > They didn't sponsor artists for the sake of art but rather as a display of wealth and power. Perhaps, but we still got the art.
- VoodooJuJu 4y ago
  Although many so-called "nobles" certainly funded the arts for such vain purposes, I guarantee that many other nobles were funding art for its own noble sake.
- recuter 4y ago
  Pardon me, so? Back to the dark ages?
- HeckFeck 4y ago
  We can never know the exact intention of anyone, especially figures long in the past. I find it hard to believe that wealthy eccentrics didn't (or don't) enjoy things for their own sake. If you have a pile of money and the chance to create something great, that'd fill you with wild excitement I can only imagine.
fooker 4y ago
>Inventing banking and then using the profits to fund the renaissance? How about productizing electric cars and satellite internet to fund space exploration?
s3000 4y ago
>Inventing banking and then using the profits to fund the renaissance? Need people like that today. When it comes to culture, do we still need funding? The internet offers connection and replication. What is preventing the people with the right skills from coming together and creating the next level of civilization?
- sofixa 4y ago
  Well those people still need to eat, have a roof over their head, etc. so that they live comfortable enough lives to be able to create whatever it is they're creating.
  - s3000 4y ago
    When somebody offers food and shelter, people will fill the space and they will create whatever that person asks them to do. They will create Netflix productions and Google chat apps and Meta VR spaces. The internet allows people to connect without the initial need for funding. If funding is needed, the internet makes it possible for a team to discover investors and foundations that would add financial support. The limiting factor are not resources but teams.
    - imtringued 4y ago
      We need money not for funding, but rather to organize the division of labor. The strange thing is that money does not come with obligations to those holding it, only privileges, so it can be withheld from the market, leading to the appearance that there is a lack of funding.
- dragonelite 4y ago
  In 2022 its influencers and fake news peddler which the oligarchs sponsor.

docdeek 4y ago

> If you had been at the great fair of Lyon in 1555, you could have seen the answer. Lyon's fair was the greatest market for international trade in all Europe. This is interesting to me as I live in the city and it's long been a center for trade, geographically positioned on two major rivers and with access to Paris, Switzerland, and Italy. Try as I might, though, I can't Google up anything about that fair in 1555 - does anyone have a link to a Wikipedia-style/level article about it?

noja 4y ago
This? https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foires_de_Lyon https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foires_de_Lyon
- blowski 4y ago
  Interestingly, the English equivalent of that page describes an event that's been happening only since 1985.
  - rozenmd 4y ago
    There's a fairly significant amount of information locked away in language-specific Wikipedia - many French things have a stub article in English, and an absolute essay in French
halfbrite 4y ago
The Foires de Lyon are likely being referenced, but that specific year is more than likely a reference to the Grand Parti de Lyon -- which was neither a party or a faire.
- docdeek 4y ago
  Thanks - the Grand Parti de Lyon was what I was finding when I was searching and it didn’t align with the idea of the Foires I was expecting to find.

teleforce 4y ago

I'm pretty sure they got this 'original' idea from the practice of their Muslim contemporaries. This is a very similar concept to the origin of cheque where it's too dangerous to carry gold and cash along the silk road from Middle East countries to China and beyond.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
Stupid question, but wouldn't stealing a cheque work back then? I mean I can imagine only known people would be allowed to cash it. Plus there's more benefits to carrying a cheque, large quantities get difficult to move around (same with cash money, which is one reason that higher denominations are discouraged)
- hef19898 4y ago
  It sure worked. One of the reasons the value of those cheques dropped with distance to the issuer. Basically, it was a trust based system. And one that worked extremely well. With added benefits for those that figured out proper accounting around assets, liabilities and so on. The Italian bankers did, the Hanse (North German economic and trade super power made of individual merchants) did not, for example.
- kqr 4y ago
  A cheque would be both easier to travel with (thus exposing yourself to less harm) but also comparatively illquid (can perhaps only be redeemed in a few locations which may not be realistically accessible to highwaymen).
- wahern 4y ago
  I'm not sure if the rules were the same as far back as then, but the modern rule (or rules, plural, as they're a consequence of several rules) that a bank (either the drawee bank or an intermediate paying/depository bank, depending on the circumstances) is liable for a fraudulently cashed check has existed for centuries, IIRC. And just like today, it doesn't much matter if an impersonator forged a payee's or endorsee's signature, amount, etc; a bank is still on the hook. (And IIRC a bank is liable only upon a prima facie showing of forgery, as opposed to whatever stronger burden of proof would normally adhere.) Of course, the defrauding party is liable to which ever bank was on the hook, but the rules operate to rather clearly make a bank strictly liable in the first instance so there's minimal confusion in the banking system regarding settlements or settlement disputes, and the drawer (person who wrote the check) is the most protected of all. This incentivizes banks to "know your customer" (long before modern regulatory regimes), as well as for banks to only deal with other reputable banks. In legal jurisdictions that do a lot of international commercial transactions, rules such as these are typically held paramount unless specifically and clearly overridden by local law. Relatedly, jurisdictions that don't abide the so-called Lex mercatoria tend not to become centers of international commerce. If the drawer weren't strongly protected, the utility of checks would severely diminished.

seanhunter 4y ago

If you ever come to London I would highly recommend a visit to that area[1]. take the district line to "Temple" and walk into temple court. This is a set of interconnecting pretty courtyards surrounded by buildings used as offices for lawyers working at the nearby high court. These courtyards have a feel similar to an Oxford/Cambridge college and have been used as settings for "Harry Potter" and other films (to give you a flavour). As you wander through, eventually you will come across a statue of two knights on the back of a single horse, symbol of the templars[2]. Next to this is the Temple Church[3], with its distinctive round medieval tower where the templars themselves are buried. This is a lovely place to listen to concerts etc. I used to deliberately get the tube to temple every day so I could walk through this area to work because it's really lovely. [1] https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/51.51245/-0.11150 https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/51.51245/-0.11150 [2] This is the scene in the main photo in TFA [3] https://www.templechurch.com/ https://www.templechurch.com/

mathnmusic 4y ago
Streetview link: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5130263,-0.1102586,3a,75y,98.74h,102.83t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s6gn6fE5nWc00IAGDAdrDNg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5130263,-0.1102586,3a,75y,98...
traceroute66 4y ago
> This is a set of interconnecting pretty courtyards surrounded by building Yes, London is quite unique amongst global cities for having these sorts of treasures hidden right in the centre. Another good example in that area is Linconln's Inn Fields[1] which is a quiet sanctuary just off the horrors of Holborn. Venture up the road to the City of London and there are maybe dozens more. It is, sadly, an art form that has been lost in the "relaxed planning" era of the New-Build garbage. Fortunately the older areas are protected from the grubby hands of the greedy property developers due to various legal constraints in place ranging from Listed Building status to more obscure ones. [1]https://goo.gl/maps/YxAnXeDBsiv9dkRH7 https://goo.gl/maps/YxAnXeDBsiv9dkRH7
twic 4y ago
Just as the City of London is a weird little legal fossil within London, the Inns are even weirder legal fossils within the City: https://www.middletemple.org.uk/about-us/freedom-information/inn-local-authority https://www.middletemple.org.uk/about-us/freedom-information... The practical consequences are extremely minor - but the Inner and Middle temples can give themselves planning permission, and issue themselves alcohol licenses!

verisimi 4y ago

Those wonderful knights templar! Brave Christian crusaders! Warrior monks! > Our financial system today has a lot in common with this model. This bit might be true, but what was the real story?

nonrandomstring 4y ago
> what was the real story? Some of the grittier truth may be about political expediency of taming "knights". Monty Python caricatures aside, until (and beyond) the Templars, many were marauding bands of privateers looting their way around Europe. Sending them off to do God's work while letting them play at "banking" the spoils was probably a neat solution to not having a standing army, but still keeping a cadre of loyal battle-hardened dudes on a string. When their use expired, as maturing nation states found them less convenient, King Philip IV ordered them rounded up (apocryphally on Friday 13th) in a betrayal I think George Lucas adapted as the fate of The "Jedi".
- tgv 4y ago
  The Templars were not set up to send off bandits and do God's work. They started as protection for pilgrimage, set up an system to move funds from Europe into the Holy Land to support their work (which included hiring quite a few mercenaries), which turned into banking, and were half-coerced into some of the Crusades (notably not the first), because they were indeed the experienced, hardened and loyal soldiers that were needed. But they did not "bank" the spoils, and regular Crusaders weren't roaming thieves either.
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    > regular Crusaders weren't roaming thieves either Absolutely not. From what I've read they were extraordinarily disciplined. My point was that "knights" more generally until then, are mischaracterised as "good and noble" but were really freelancers [1]. The Templars obtained a better defined security role. [1] just occurred to me there may be some etymology there. EDIT: Aha! https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/freelance-origin-meaning https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/freelance-orig...

Neil44 4y ago

I did a walking tour of Bruges the other week and heard an interesting story about salt. Salt was a valuable commodity and could function as currency, carrying it around was risky and impractical. So there was a guild house that became a place where you could store your salt and get given a little note about how much salt they owed you. Later on if you wanted to exchange the value of your salt with someone else it became more practical to swap the little notes directly rather than trek down to the salt house and swap physical salt so people started doing that. Boom, paper money. I find all these kind of stories fascinating.

luxpir 4y ago
It's where the term "salary" came from, if I'm not mistaken. Roman thing?
- eyko 4y ago
  You're correct. Funny enough, this is also obscure knowledge even in e.g Spanish. We use the word salario (from latin salarium) which has the same meaning as in latin: words ending in -ario (lat: -arium) is used to denote association, like in templario (templar) or revolucionario (revolutionary). For some reason, however, nobody thinks of "salario" as something associated with salt (sal). I guess it's so strange in today's world that money would be used for the specific purpose of buying salt, that it simply doesn't click.
  - mudita 4y ago
    This blog by a classicist claims that the word salary is indeed coming from the latin words salarium and sal, but that it is not clear what the connection is, that there is neither evidence for the explanation that Roman soldiers were paid in salt nor that it was an allowance for the specific purpose of buying salt: http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/01/salt-and-salary.html http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/01/salt-and-salary.ht... Regarding the latter he writes: "As I said above, ‘salt allowance’ isn’t a terrible guess. But I strongly suspect it’s much more metaphorical than that. Compare how the Greek word for a salary was opsōnion, literally ‘(money) for buying opson’, where opson means ‘fish, relish, sauce’. That doesn’t mean Greek workers were given a ‘fish allowance’: it means that there was a generalised idea that wages went on traded goods like fish, and not on things like barley which land-owners would grow for themselves. Similarly, in Rome, grain allowances were a common thing; it could easily make sense to interpret salarium as ‘everything-else-money’."

quickthrower2 4y ago

One way to do this over large distances is the bank of Alice and the bank of Bob meet and exchange papers/signatures/codes in advance, enough to do a years worth and then they can verify each other’s cheques until the next exchange. They could settle in gold. For fraud prevention this system might allow for a “personal identification number” for the cheque to be memorised.

dalbasal 4y ago

We're in a time when histories of money attract a bit more interest. We are exiting a period where theoretical/rhetorical histories^ are a little less dominant. In any case, it's interesting how often religion is deeply involved in what we would now call the financial services sector. In many ancient civilisations, temples minted coins and performed other banking-esque functions. Many ancient law codes dedicate a lot of ink to debt, and debt-related things. I wonder how much of the Templars' methods were picked up in the Mediterranean and Levant, where civilisation was deep rooted and continuous. ^I want to use the term "pseudohistory," but without the accusatory implications. What I mean is models with thought experiment at their core. EG historical materialism, Smith, etc

dools 4y ago

Not so much the first bank, but the first PayPal.

twic 4y ago
Of course back then it was just Papal.
hef19898 4y ago
The term "bank" comes from literal banks that served as a bank to sit on and a box to keep money in. PayPal is just a glorified cheque processor.
- dools 4y ago
  The term "bank" comes from the Italian word "il banco" which is a bench or counter top. It is a reference to the original money changers who sat on benches and provided financial services to merchants. Those services, which were the origins of banking, were mostly about issuing loans and changing money. The services rendered as described in the original article are of a payment system which allows you to deposit cash in one location and withdraw it in another. This is far more similar to the service provided by PayPal, than it is to the primary service provided by a bank which is to issue loans, and to be sanctioned by the state in order to do so.

xkcd1963 4y ago

So I read the text until "Checks and balances" and found a mistake in the text which makes me believe now this was written by AI and maybe audited by a human.

overthemoon 4y ago

> We don't actually know how the Templars made this system work and protected themselves against fraud. Was there a secret code verifying the document and the traveller's identity? Really? We don't know? If that's true, that surprises me.

chiefalchemist 4y ago
It does sound odd. Having some understanding how it worked would validate the theory. Else it only sounds like a theory, albeit with perhaps a couple limited documented instances.
sophacles 4y ago
Is it that hard to beleive? The templars were a secret society (that is they had private initiation ceremonies just like any frat, social club, etc today - although the vows they swore were probably taken far more seriously). They had a lot of money. That money was confiscated by force, including the torture and killing of members. This was backed up by lots of claims of devil worship and the like to get common people to be OK with it. The money was tied to the records. Is it that surprising that in this process all the records were destroyed? The powerful didn't want the records and the legal hassle they entail, they just wanted the gold. The common folks didn't want to be spiritually corrupted by the blasphemous works (that they likely couldn't read anyway). The records were probably burned or scraped clean and re-used (see palimpsest) since paper and parchment were expensive commodities. There may be a document or two hiding in various corners of some old monastary library or in some book binding somewhere - as recently as 2001 some records surfaced from the vatican secret archives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinon_Parchment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinon_Parchment but like a lot of other knowledge of that era, most of it is probably lost.

robot9000 4y ago

ValentineC 4y ago
You could name them, because I have no idea if you're referring to modern-day bankers, the lawyers who took over their premises, or some other organisation.
- kasey_junk 4y ago
  Almost certainly an anti-Semitic trope. But perhaps they are referencing Huguenots: https://www.huguenotsociety.org.uk/blog/huguenots-and-the-world-of-finance-part-one https://www.huguenotsociety.org.uk/blog/huguenots-and-the-wo...
- twic 4y ago
  He can only mean the Templi Resurgentes Equites Synarchici. The less said of whom, the better.
  - mherdeg 4y ago
    A distant predecessor of Tristero, no doubt.
barbecue_sauce 4y ago
The Order of Christ?
dang 4y ago
Sorry, but you can't do this here. Since your account has posted unsubstantive and flamebait comments in quite a few other contexts too, I've banned it. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

pbhjpbhj 4y ago

In Our Time, BBC radio show with Melvyn Bragg, has an episode on the Templars; https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001cpwt https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001cpwt. Worth a listen if you're interested and want an inciteful overview.

onetokeoverthe 4y ago

motohagiography 4y ago

Too bad so few popular and reliable records exist, as I would be really interested in what their leverage ratio was for loans to deposits, what calendar they used to synchronize everywhere in the world (presumably astronomical), whether the Templars picked it up by learning and adapting Islamic Hawala during the crusades, what the Medicis did differently (covered a bit in Fergusson's The Ascent of Money). The necessary conditions for their early portfolio risk management practices would be fascinating, and probably even available in surviving Islamic texts. The vow of poverty seemed to be the lynchpin of templar banking, where the way to solve the basic principal/agent problem and ensure the alignment of interests to make the templars disinterested in the transactions themselves other than ensuring their integrity. Relating to money with a vow of poverty doesn't mean suffering, it's just a vow to eschew the trappings and symbols of wealth, as the whole system relied on Templars recognizing that they did not need money when instead they had power. They could afford to be humble. This problem of how to find and prove people who can be trusted to uphold higher values that create stability continues to today I'm sure. If you are ever in Portugal, I recommend seeing the last Templar castle in Tomar. I found its scale and engineering quite spectacular, as well as how well it appears to have been preserved.

waihtis 4y ago
> If you are ever in Portugal, I recommend seeing the last Templar castle in Tomar. I found its scale and engineering quite spectacular, as well as how well it appears to have been preserved. Thank you for the tip. Absolutely stunning in the pictures alone, made a note to visit this place.
yucky 4y ago
> whether the Templars picked it up by learning and adapting Islamic Hawala during the crusades Doubtful. Money lenders/changers existed long before Islam (something about Jesus flipping their tables over in the Temple), and Hawala from my understanding is a flat commission based service (not interest based), since usury is forbidden.
- motohagiography 4y ago
  Christianity forbids usury as well, hence why hawala seemed like a plausible candidate system for how the Templar banking system may have scaled. Interest calculations are complicated, where something simple like a commission scales easily. Given what we know now about economics and how systems scale, it seems like there is a systems view of the necessary conditions that might shed some new light on some history that has a lot of woo around it.

dav_Oz 4y ago

>They can use their international reach to try to sidestep taxes and regulations. And, since their debts to each other are a very real kind of private money, when the banks are fragile, the entire monetary system of the world also becomes vulnerable. We are still trying to figure out what to do with these banks. We cannot live without them, it seems, and yet we are not sure we want to live with them. Governments have long sought ways to hold them in check. Sometimes the approach has been laissez-faire, sometimes not. Few regulators have been quite as ardent as King Philip IV of France. Very interesting leaps taken to come to the conclusion that Philip IV ("government") was trying to "regulate" the private money sector, back then. First of all he waged very costly wars (against Aragon, England and Flanders) and found himself - no surprise - with unmanageable debt i.e. not enough silver (also a very important difference between today's "banking") in 1295. By that time even the Templars hadn't enough money to help him out so he began to loan from the much richer Florentine bankers and to devalue his own royal currency (tied to silver) with the high price of social unrest/domestic instability. The crackdown on Templars preceded a power struggle with the clergy (a common theme in the centuries before and afterwards) represented by the pope Boniface VIII. Long story short: Philip IV won and consequently established the nearly 70 years long so called "Avignon Papacy". The next pope Clement V was basically under his thumb. Only in this greater context could he go on and "restructure" the "Templar Banks", technically the property of the Church. Of course in this cascade of perpetual debt and wars he utilized all his domestic "regulatory" powers[0]: constantly raising taxes (1289), seizing assets of Lombard merchants (1292), heavily debasing currency (1295), unheard/provocative taxation (50%) of the French clergy (1296), expelling Jews and seizing all their assets (1306). [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_IV_of_France#Finance_and_religion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_IV_of_France#Finance_...

coliveira 4y ago
> he waged very costly wars Kings of the time didn't think of the modern trick: (1) making gold useless to make tax payments and (2) creating your own fiat money, with no backing on anything but the power to make more wars.

andrepd 4y ago

A factoid that I knew thanks to Don Rosa stories!

danabrams 4y ago

Didn’t read the article, but just going by the headline—London must have had a bank before 2017.

spicymaki 4y ago

The tragic end to the Knights Templar brings to mind David Graeber's idea of bringing back the jubilee: https://davidgraeber.org/articles/after-the-jubilee/ https://davidgraeber.org/articles/after-the-jubilee/ Excerpted from Wikipedia: 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. Rumors 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 to have many of the order's members in France arrested, tortured into giving false confessions, and then burned at the stake. Under further pressure, Pope Clement V disbanded the order in 1312. -------------------- Perhaps if they were not so scrooge-like, their order would still be around today. The financial stress of our debt-laden culture has led to deep mistrust, cospiracism, disfunction, environmental harm, and the stunting of growth for developing nations around the world. We should learn from these stories of the past.

FredPret 4y ago
International banks have spearheaded an absolute explosion in global economic growth. Looking at your story above, Philip was the bad actor and the Templars should've played politics better (maybe lending money to the pope as well?)
- coliveira 4y ago
  > lending money to the pope The Pope was the owner of everything. It was, after all, a catholic order. The game here was very much the King of France attacking the money power of the Church, instead of an isolated problem with the Templars.
- dgb23 4y ago
  > International banks have spearheaded an absolute explosion in global economic growth. I assumed it's the other way around. Economic growth comes from technical and cultural advancements. Banks are a symptom of that growth.
  - 4y ago

photochemsyn 4y ago

The actual title of this article is "The warrior monks who invented banking", but there is a fairly extensive literature on Roman banking dating back at least 1000 years previously: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_finance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_finance In particular, the Sulpicii of Puteoli left some records of what look like modern banking practices: https://www.world-archaeology.com/books/bankers-of-puteoli-the/ https://www.world-archaeology.com/books/bankers-of-puteoli-t... > "Much of the business of the Sulpicii consisted of short term loans, of amounts ranging from £1,000 to £20,000 and for periods of up to a month – for the sake of simplicity, I am reckoning a sesterce as being the equivalent of £1. A number of loans took place at auction sales – for these were a large part of the activity of a Roman forum – a Roman forum must have been very much like e-Bay. A banking house would manage the auction and supply immediate payment to the vendor, but would allow the purchaser several days to pay; if more time was needed, this could be provided at a cost."

anon23anon 4y ago

This would explain so much of the conspiracy around them.

johnohara 4y ago

This article was an interesting (and quick) read. Thanks for posting it. FTA: Few regulators have been quite as ardent as King Philip IV of France. ... He owed money to the Templars, and they refused to forgive his debts. ... the last grandmaster of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, was brought to the centre of Paris and publicly burned to death. Which is a novel way to default on your loan, close your account, and start doing business with Florentine Franzesi bankers. The royal treasure was transferred from the Paris Temple to the Louvre around this time. In other words -- he seized the Templars assets. It's against this backdrop that the wikipedia page on Philip IV of France achieves renewed vitality and is worth perusing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_IV_of_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_IV_of_France

bretbernhoft 4y ago

I've heard that the Knights Templar could transform common metals into gold, at a rate comparable to ancient Egypt.

lofaszvanitt 4y ago

Read Maurice Druon's books called The Accursed Kings. It explains a lot about the topic and also sheds light on some of the happenings today ;).

peter_d_sherman 4y ago

>"But at this particular fair, gossip was starting to spread about an Italian merchant who was there, and making a fortune. He bought and sold nothing: all he had was a desk and an inkstand. Day after day he sat there, receiving other merchants and signing their pieces of paper, and somehow becoming very rich. The locals were very suspicious. But to a new international elite of Europe's great merchant houses, his activities were perfectly legitimate. He was buying and selling debt, and in doing so he was creating enormous economic value. A merchant from Lyon who wanted to buy - say - Florentine wool could go to this banker and borrow something called a bill of exchange. This was a credit note, an IOU, but it was not denominated in the French livre or Florentine lira. Its value was expressed in the ecu de marc, a private currency used by this international network of bankers. And if the Lyonnaise merchant or his agents travelled to Florence, the bill of exchange from the banker in Lyon would be recognised by bankers in Florence, who would gladly exchange it for local currency. Through this network of bankers, a local merchant could not only exchange currencies but also translate his creditworthiness in Lyon into creditworthiness in Florence, a city where nobody had ever heard of him - a valuable service, worth paying for." PDS: Fascinating!