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Background
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There are many places we can start our journey looking at the evolution of modern banking, and every major civilisation through the ages has set values on items, minted coins and levied taxes to pay for wars and civic amenities.
This document takes a look at some of the major breakthroughs in banking – starting in Europe from buried Viking hoards, through crusading pilgrims securing their goods in a Templar House run by knights belonging to Catholic militia, to Renaissance Merchants setting up the what is to this day the oldest bank in the world.
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Early Coin, Tax & Liability
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Initially taxes were taken in goods such as pigs, cows and grain, but as civilisations grew and value was perceived in rare materials (for example silks, silver, gold, spices to name but a few), currencies were developed.
Early civilisations – the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans were great builders, and their temples were typically the most substantial buildings at the heart of their cities and were used for storage of valuables, money lending and, as they traded (and also warred), widely with others these temples were often targeted (“sacked”) for their wealth.
It is said that the earliest banks were created when Julius Caesar took the gold out of the temples and created dedicated banking buildings and formalised money lending. For the first time nobles who defaulted had to forfeit lands and were responsible for their own debt and were not able to simply pass it down to their descendants.
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Real Buried Treasures
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It is fascinating when, from time to time, a metal detectorist finds a Viking hoard in Great Britain (and also across the rest of Northern Europe). In 2015 the Watlington Hoard was uncovered by James Mather, a private detectorist who was following a hunch on private land in rural England. The hoard now resides in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and has an estimated value of around £1.35m ($1.75m).
As is illustrated, these found hoards are often made up of contemporary coins (c.800-c.1150AD), silver crosses, brooches, bangles and other silver trinkets.
During Viking raids to the north-East coastlines of Scotland, Northumberland and northern England the Vikings (not yet exposed to Christianity), found plentiful sources of silver in churches and abbeys and thought little of ransacking and killing to attain the treasures. Crucifixes, communion cups and candlesticks were all subject to melting down for coin.
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It was a time of chaos and change.
Viking raids on settlements and towns were common and devastating.
To counter this, our wealthy local lord, rather than store his silver at home (in danger of being looted by raiders and unscrupulous neighbours) wouldn’t carry his pot of coins and wealth with him as he travelled to repel the invaders. He would choose to bury his goods next to a prominent tree for later collection, much safer than carrying his material wealth into a battle or skirmish.
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Hoards found today are the ones left by the individuals who didn’t make it back from the fight. There are also stories of those who simply couldn’t find the landmark again!
Coinage and other forms of portable wealth have been around for millennia. Long before the Vikings, there were the Romans and the Greeks before that. Before them, the Assyrians and of course the Babylonians.
Every major power of their day has coins; most are stamped with the image of the leader of their time because money represents power – literally.
Older hoards from Roman times have been surfaced (possibly left behind when the last Roman settlers evacuated Briton in face of the Vandal hordes streaming in from Northern Europe (around 405 CE). Hoards from more recent times (the 11th Century) have also been found in England – with a notable case just recently in Somerset – the Chew Valley hoard – a collection of over 500 silver coins from the time of the Norman invasions – some of the coins show King Harold and others William 1 (the Conqueror).
Either way – there were no banks available to protect these valuable and vulnerable stashes and the safest place available was a hole in the ground.
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Crusading Knights Templar – One of the First Banking Systems
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The origin of one of the first western banks was in the heart of the Crusades.
In November 1095, Pope Urban II made a rousing speech at the Council of Clermont in France, calling for all Christians in Europe to war against Muslims in order to reclaim the Holy Land and he sent out a Papal Bull (an edict) to all the peoples under the dominion of the Catholic Church to go and take back Jerusalem from the Muslim settlers there. Join the Crusade and earn your place in heaven.
The call was answered by between 60,000 and 100,000 of the faithful. Amongst these were a large number of wealthy knights of various realms who banded together to form crusading armies. Whilst they crusaded in the name of God, there was clearly an appetite to add to their riches with foreign lands and the spoils that come with war. The first Crusade was followed over the next 200 years by another 9, each led by Kings and Emperors from all over Europe.
At this time powerful knightly orders came to exist, such as the Knights Hospitallers, set up in 1099 to care for and defend Jerusalem City, and who went on to build places of healing along the same routes and expand their presence to Rhodes, Malta & St Petersburg over time. Theirs is a whole other story which continues to this day.
The most notable and certainly the ones at the heart of our story are The Knights Templar. The Templars were a Catholic Military Order founded in 1119 and recognised in 1139 again by Papal Bull, this time by Pope Innocent II. The Templars were headed up by Hugues de Payens and Godfrey de Saint-Omer. These knights were considered to be an elite fighting force and as they grew, they set about building fortified commanderies along the physical routes to the Holy Land. At their height they had over 1000 stronghold buildings (called Templar Houses) in their order. There are many threads to the story of the Templars, this document picks out the most colourful (oh, and the most relevant).
Contrary to popular belief (mostly fed by the legendary tales of Robin Hood), there was very little British involvement in the early crusades, with only the third and ninth being led by a Norman (French) Briton. At that time of the first Crusade, 1096AD, Briton was little more than a damp outpost of Normandy, 30 years into the occupation by William the Conqueror (See 1066, The Battle of Hastings). William the Bastard (as he was also known) was counting and cataloguing his holdings and newly acquired wealth (recorded in the Domesday book) and was very busy building Cathedrals.
And this now brings us to Banking; crucially, the Templars had already created a system of letters of credit (early cheques), that could be passed between Templar Houses along the route.
These notes stated that whoever held such a promissory note, had deposited their portable wealth at a particular Templar House or Chapel (likely in their originating country) when they started their crusade and had access to their wealth in the new place in which they found themselves.
The very first Traveller’s cheques!
For the first time, there was a safe place to store portable wealth. No longer a simple hole in the ground.
Of course, to use the facilities the depositor would be charged a small percentage of that wealth to secure the goods. In addition, for peace of mind, the pilgrims were charged for protection during the long, dangerous journey there and maybe back (depending on the outcome) and over the course of the Crusades 1096-1274, the Knights Templar became fabulously wealthy.
It wasn’t just the rich faithful (trying to squeeze their ‘camel through the eye of a needle’) who took part in these adventures though; the poor also embarked on pilgrimages. Motley bands of pilgrims joined together – and were often escorted by the Templars who offered protection along the way.
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With the Templars travelling by horse and forging the routes to places such as Antioch, many of the poor crusaders travelling on foot would arrive to find that the knights had established supply lines, taking over farms along the route. They had already established chapels and hostelries within castles to enable travellers to top up all of their needs – both spiritual and physical.
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When Saladin defeated The Crusaders and forcibly kicked them out of Jerusalem (Battle of Hattin, 1187) the Templars began to lose their reputation and their position of trust. Over the next 100 years they drew back their great reach and by the turn of the 14th century, King Philip IV of France, believed to be massively in debt to the Templars demanded that they be controlled. In 1307, there were mass arrests amid claims of heresy, diabolic initiation ceremonies with nearly of the Knights Templar in France burnt at the stake.
The final indignity came with yet another Papal Bull from Pope Clement V in 1309, dissolving the order, ordering all remaining Templars to be arrested wherever they might be, and handing over all of their remaining wealth to, of all people, the Knights Hospitallers!
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