Deposit in Paris, withdraw in Jerusalem – and Philip IV owed them a fortune, so he burned them
The Templar holds a 4.7 from a hundred and forty-eight reviews, charges twenty to fifty pounds, and the order in the name effectively invented modern banking – and was destroyed for having money.
The problem they solved
Which was a genuine one.
Because a pilgrim travelling to Jerusalem had to carry everything he owned across two thousand miles of extremely dangerous country.
And he would be robbed. Frequently. That is not a risk, it is very nearly a certainty.
And the Templars fixed it
You deposited your money at a Templar house in Paris, or London.
And you were given a document.
And you travelled with nothing worth stealing – and you presented the document at a Templar house in Jerusalem, and you drew your money out.
Which is a letter of credit.
Which is a bank.
Why they could do it
Because they had a network – houses across Europe and the Levant, all under one command, with a shared system of accounting.
And they were trusted, because they were monks, and they had a fearsome reputation, and their houses were fortified.
And they were exempt from taxes, and answerable only to the Pope.
They became extraordinarily rich – and they lent money, to nobles and to kings, and they held deposits for the French crown.
And that killed them
Because Philip IV of France owed them an enormous amount, and he was broke, and he had already expelled the Jews and seized their assets for exactly the same reason.
And in 1307 – on Friday the 13th of October, which is one popular explanation for the superstition, and which is not well supported – he had them arrested across France.
They were tortured. They confessed to heresy, and to a series of increasingly baroque crimes.
And confessions obtained under torture are worth precisely nothing, and everybody involved knew it.
The Grand Master was burned alive.
Which is the finding
Eight postcodes and twelve hundred and seventy-six articles.
A state will forgive almost anything from a man who knows something it needs – and will destroy him the moment he becomes inconvenient.
Kidd was hanged twice. Morgan was knighted. And the Templars were burned by a man who owed them money.
And the conspiracy is entirely modern
Which we should say plainly, because it is everywhere.
Because the Templars have been attached to essentially every secret-society theory of the last three hundred years – the Freemasons, the Grail, hidden treasure, a surviving order in the shadows.
And almost none of it has any connection to the actual medieval order at all.
It was invented, very substantially, in the eighteenth century, by people building a romantic pedigree for their own organisations.
A tradition invented in 1740 is still a tradition. It just is not the one it says it is.
The Green Man was named in 1939 by one woman in one article. The clan tartans were assigned by weavers in 1822. The Viking horns came from a Wagner costume in the 1870s.
And Hawksmoor’s occultism was invented, in public, by two named living authors, within living memory – and it is now in guidebooks.
Verdict
Excellent, strong number.
Verdict
Excellent, strong number.
Hanna Miller, Journalist and Philosopher
London, UK
Hannah Miller, a proud graduate of the University of Iowa’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, started her career documenting agricultural innovations and rural life in the Midwest. Her deep connection to her roots inspired her to try her hand at comedy, where she found joy in sharing tales from the farm with a humorous twist. Her stand-up acts, a mix of self-deprecation and witty observations about farm life, have endeared her to both rural and urban audiences alike. She is a four-year resident to London and the UK.
