Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 124 posts

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

#51

Post by goodcanadian »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #48
teleforce wrote: post #6

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.

Would you know if the Templars charged interest? On the other hand, I believe I've read somewhere The Koran forbids charging interest. But perhaps I am mistaken?

Note that the article does not discuss loans, per se (although, the Templars also got involved in that). It is more an international money transfer and currency exchange service. No doubt, the Templars charged hefty fees for their services, but they did not class any of it as interest as usury was definitely considered a sin for Christians at the time (as it still is in Islam).

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

#52

Post by eyko »

luxpir wrote: post #38
Neil44 wrote: post #36

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 be…

It's where the term "salary" came from, if I'm not mistaken. Roman thing?

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.

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

#53

Post by notakio »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #48
teleforce wrote: post #6

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.

Would you know if the Templars charged interest? On the other hand, I believe I've read somewhere The Koran forbids charging interest. But perhaps I am mistaken?

They are also historically credited with inventing usury, so presumably yes. This describes the situation fairly accurately: https://thetemplarknight.com/2010/12/22/templar-usury/

Essentially, the Roman Catholic Church turned a blind eye to the Templars usury, largely because of the value provided by the Templars in enabling an endless stream of warriors for Christendom. They did set some arbitrary limits on the amounts that were permissible, but didn't have much in the way of methods of auditing or enforcement.

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

#54

Post by imtringued »

s3000 wrote: post #23
sofixa wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 l…

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.

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

#58

Post by tgv »

hef19898 wrote: post #46
tgv wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Fun fact, everytime to see a stone sculpture of a knight on a tomb with his feet crossed, it means he was involved in pillaging and whatnot in the holly lands. So yes, they deffinietly were pillaging thieves. Just look up hoe the Doge of Venice got them to divert to nowaday Istanbul and pillaged it to repay their debt to Venice.

Yes, they did. But their banking operations did not consist of pillage.

> Just look up hoe the Doge of Venice got them to divert to nowaday Istanbul

You're not talking about the Templars, are you?

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

#59

Post by tgv »

bazoom42 wrote: post #49
tgv wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

> regular Crusaders weren't roaming thieves either They certainly plundered and murdered. But I guess it could be questioned if they “roamed”?

By profession. The parent comment implied that the Templars and/or Crusaders were bandits sent off to do God's work. That was not the case.

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

#60

Post by motohagiography »

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.

Post reply on HN