Europe's inner demons

Down to the final evacuation of Outremer (as the Christian kingdom in the Holy Land was called) in 1291, the Templars were its valiant defenders. Crusades came and went, but the Templars were always there, as outposts of Christendom in the alien and hostile world of Islam. Their only permanent allies were the Hospitallers, who had transformed themselves into a military order on the model of the Templars. For the greater part of the time — indeed, from the fall of Edessa in 1144 onwards — these two military orders were carrying on, against overwhelming odds, a struggle which in the end they were bound to lose. Their courage and devotion were unrivalled. That the Franks were able to keep their foothold in the East for nearly two centuries was mainly due to the fighting qualities of the Templars and Hospitallers.

But in the West too the Temple was a power to be reckoned with. As was the case with other monastic orders, the rule forbade individual members to own property but permitted the order to do so. Immediately after the synod of Troyes in 1128 the king of France made gifts of land, and thereby launched the order on its career as a landed proprietor. Monarchs and nobles all over western Europe followed suit, and within fifteen years the Temple owned lands in Castile, Brittany, England, Languedoc, Apulia, Rome, Germany and Hungary. With the increase in trade during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries these properties grew in value. Moreover every knight who joined the order for life surrendered all his wealth to it. Inevitably the order became very rich.

During the disastrous Second Crusade, in 1147, Louis VII was deeply impressed by the unfailing military and financial support which he received from the Templars. But for their help, he admitted, he could not have survived for a moment. He borrowed heavily from them; and on his return to France he repaid the loan by giving the order land on the outskirts of Paris. Very soon a huge fortress had sprung up there — a great tower and four lesser towers, equipped with a wharf of its own, equipped also with its own police force and its own jurisdiction. The privileges it enjoyed were such that it attracted immigrants from other parts. The Paris Temple was in effect an autonomous township, and it became the headquarters of the whole order in the West.

The original purpose of the order in the West was to support the fighting forces in the East. The houses scattered over the face of Europe dispatched the excess revenue from their estates to the headquarters in the Holy Land; and they also served as depots for recruiting and training men for war against the infidel. But the order soon acquired other functions, undreamed of by its founders and unconnected with the struggle against Islam. The Templars’ houses — which were really castles — were regarded as models of safety. Popes and monarchs travelling abroad were happy to be accommodated in them. Both in France and in England the Templars’ headquarters were frequently used as safe deposits for the crown jewels and even for public monies.^*

All monies collected for the Holy Land were entrusted to the Temple for conveyance, and so were tithes destined for the papal curia.

The Temple went into banking. Trade was growing, and with it the demand for currency; but it was difficult and expensive to transport large quantities of gold. The Temple seized the opportunity to establish a credit system. It began by arranging the transfer of deposits for the convenience of pilgrims, so that on their arrival in the Holy Land they would no longer find themselves penniless; and soon it extended similar services to merchants. With its far-flung organization and its reputation for probity, the order was able to issue letters of credit which were accepted by traders in every Christian country. Before even the Italian banks had entered the scene, the Temple had developed a system of international banking. It even lent money for the crusades — and lent it, moreover, at interest. The Church might condemn “usury”—the Temple circumvented the ban by collecting interest under the guise of rents.

The Paris Temple in particular became the centre of European finance. For France it also became an unofficial ministry of finance, which again and again tided the kingdom over financial crises. For the French monarchy the Temple could always raise a loan, whether for a royal dowry or for a war. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, on the very eve of the catastrophe which was to destroy it, the Temple advanced the full dowry for the daughter of Philip the Fair on her betrothal to the heir of England. At the same time the treasurer of the Paris Temple, Hugues de Pairaud, was appointed receiver and warden of all the royal revenues.