The Knights Templar were a military/banking institution that grew up during the Crusades. When Jerusalem was conquered by the Crusaders in 1099, many wealthy people from Crusader countries went to visit. The people that lived in the area knew that a sizable fraction of the European visitors making the trek from coastal ports to Jerusalem were rich, which made them good targets for thieves and robbers. The Knights Templar were formed originally to guard these folks.
But somewhere along the line, somebody had a really great idea: You could give your money to a Knight Templar, anywhere in the regions they practiced in, which was eventually all of Europe and the middle east, and he would give you a coded note on a piece of paper. Encrypted in this note, apparently, was the amount of money this person had in Templar banks, and some information to identify the rightful owner of the money, so a robber could not steal the paper. You could take such a paper to any Templar bank, and extract any or all of your money. The Templar would destroy your original note in your presence and give you a new one representing your new balance, and the money you'd asked for. The Knights Templar took a small percentage of each transaction, but it quickly was recognized that this was the best way to travel with money, and many merchants took advantage of their services, even for travel that did not involve the Holy Land.
Even though they only took a small percentage, the Knights Templar quickly became very, very rich. The Pope, the King of France, and others became jealous of their wealth, and on Friday the 13th of October, 1307, the Knights Templar were banned, and soldiers slaughtered as many as possible and took the money from their banks. Their elderly leader at the time, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake. It's not clear how the money was restored to its rightful owners, but enough must have been to prevent the Pope and King from joining de Molay at the stake.
The Freemasons, founded around 400 years after 1307, purport to be descended from the Knights Templar. Whether this is true or not (other people claim the Freemasons date back to, and include, Alexander the Great and the folks who built the Parthenon), they have incorporated a lot of symbology from the Knights Templar. Their youth group is named for Jacques de Molay.
The superstitions around Friday the 13th are often thought to be related to the destruction of the Knights Templar. perhaps, but such superstitions didn't seem to exist until well in to the 19th century. Probably not, but it's not impossible.
Prior to 1307, Switzerland had been a bunch of small tribes. But early in the 14th century, these tribes came to be united under what came to be called "The Old Swiss Confederacy", they adopted as their national flag the familiar white cross on red background, and they began to be more important in European affairs. The founding documents of the confederacy date to 1291, but it is very likely that surviving Knights Templar escaped to Switzerland and began running stuff. The similarity between the Knights Templar symbology and the Swiss flag is too strong to ignore, and that Switzerland became the bankers for the world, including the kings and popes, is a clear similarity. They learned to make themselves so valuable to those more powerful than themselves that they would be protected. Many people have pointed this out--most popularly Dan Brown in the Da Vinci Code--but it is probably a lot more subtle than he made it seem.
One of the parts of this story that I find most interesting is the money transfer code. As far as I can tell, no part of this has survived. An important part of the process was that there was ever only one copy of the client's letter--the original was burned in the clients presence while a new one was being created, and after 1307, they were worthless. But the Knights Templar must have had internal records--paper stolen or destroyed in an accident for example, and they'd have needed to move actual money around according to the movement of clients. Modern banks do exactly the same stuff, although they generally use centralized computers. The basic protocol, though, is pretty straightforward. Any code or cypher that's isomorphic with the vernacular can be used, but it has to be relatively hard to crack. There's always been a lot of mumbo jumbo associated the the Knights Templar and Freemasons, so they probably use a lot of slang, intending to deceive. It might be a rotating key that uses some hash of the client's name or origin or other properties. And there has to be a good technique for detecting forgeries. But all that has to be stored is the clients name and description, and the amount of money on account. As long as protocol is followed: only one copy of the paper may exist, and it's impossible to forge, then it is secure.
It was a time that Europe was just coming out of the dark ages, beginning to look around and travel, but the 12th and 13th centuries were still pretty dark and dangerous, still very much a libertarian paradise...a paradise for thieves, not really for anybody else. For merchants and others with wealth, The Knights Templar's service would have been incredibly valuable.
No comments:
Post a Comment