The Templars became bankers as well on a very big scale, how did that crop up? So this is sort of connected with the maritime side and communication networks that they established. If you're going on crusade you'll need to do two things probably. You could borrow money off the Templars, and also they can transfer it long distances overseas. Instead of carrying money across the Mediterranean, which is risky for many reasons, you could get a credit note from the Templars like a medieval travellers check. They develop this form of international monetary transfer because of the networks that they have stretching around Europe in the Mediterranean.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the military order founded around 1119, twenty years after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem. For almost 200 years the Knights Templar were a notable fighting force and financial power in the Crusader States and Western Europe. Their mission was to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land, and they became extremely wealthy yet, as the crusader grip on Jerusalem slipped, their political fortune declined steeply. They were to be persecuted out of existence, with their last grand master burned at the stake in Paris in 1314, and that sudden end has contributed to the strength of the legends that have grown up around them.
With
Helen Nicholson
Professor of Medieval History at Cardiff University
Mike Carr
Lecturer in Late Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh
And
Jonathan Phillips
Professor of Crusading History at Royal Holloway, University of London
Producer: Simon Tillotson