The Real History Behind the Templars

by Sharan Newman

  Also, not all of those donations came without strings.

  For example, in April 1145, two women of Arles, Maria and Sclarmandia, and, oh yes, their husbands and all their children, sold property to the Templars. They were very specific about the money they would receive as a “gift” in return: 250 sous of Melgueil in new money and 150 sous in small change.40

  Generally, the charters aren’t as up front about sales as this one was. Most people wanted it to appear that they were giving property or rights for the good of their souls. For instance, in 1142, a man named Arnaud gave the Templars “willingly, of my own accord all that I have or should have in the town of Burcafols.”41 He adds that he does this “for the love of God and the remission of my sins and those of my family and to receive life everlasting, Amen.”42 It’s only in the final sentences that it’s mentioned that the Templars are giving him fourteen livres morebetani and ten sous and a carton of wheat of the measure of Toulouse.43

  Many times the price of the property being “donated” is called a “charity.” In 1152, Bernard Modul received forty sous from the Temple as charity for some land his brother had given the Templars of Douzens. Apparently Bernard also had a claim to the land. In return, Bernard released his claim.44

  Reading through the surviving charters, it appears that a large part of the “donations” to the Templars were actually sales.

  Also, the Templars accepted what were called “corrodians.” This system was something like the retirement homes that take a large fee up front and promise to house and feed the residents until they die. An early example of a Templar corrody comes from 1129. Pierre Bernard and his wife gave themselves and their property to the Temple. In exchange for this, the Templars promised to feed and clothe them for the rest of their lives. Pierre and his wife weren’t that old at the time, for they put in a clause about the care of their children, “if we have children.” 45 That meant that, while the Templars did get everything the donors owned, they might well be supporting the family for two generations.

  In some cases the corrodies also included a set amount of money to be paid by the Templars every year along with “a tallow candle nightly, firewood as needed, and a groom assigned by the preceptor to serve them.”46

  The Rule of the Templars implies that there are times when they expected to run short of ready money. “When the time after Easter comes for the great expenses that the houses have to pay from the harvests, and the commanders tell the Master that they don’t have enough meat, the Master may go to the brothers and ask their advice. And if the brothers agree to give up meat on Tuesday, then they may do without. But when the wheat is harvested, then the meat should be restored.”47Although the Templars tried to get rents in money, most of the time they seem to have been land rich and cash poor.

  BANKERS TO THE KINGS

  Outside of their military activity, the Templars are best remembered as financiers, holding the treasuries of England and France in their commanderies, making loans to all the best families of Europe, and transferring large amounts of funds from one end of the continent to the other.

  The Templars seem to have gotten into the banking business almost by accident. It started with King Louis VII of France. On his expedition to Jerusalem in 1148, he ran short of money and borrowed from the Templars. He had to write home to his regent, the abbot Suger, telling him to pay the Templars in Paris “thirty thousand sous in the money of Poitou.”48Fortunately, Suger came through with the cash.

  When Louis came home, he placed the royal treasury, what was left of it, in the safekeeping of the Templars in Paris.49 He made a Templar, Theirry Galeran, royal treasurer.50Galeran had been in Louis’ service for many years and had gone on the crusade with him.

  From that time, the French royal treasury was generally in the care of the Templars. Under Louis’ son Philip Augustus, the treasurer of the Temple took in and counted the money the king received, under the watchful eyes of six of the burgesses of Paris and a M. Adam.51 The Templar brothers Giles and Hugh seem to have filled the same office under Saint Louis.52 Right up through the early years of King Philip the Fair, the Templars not only held the treasure for the king, but also kept an account of creditors and debtors and the amounts owed.53

  However, the Temple in Paris was never more than a holding place for cash. The treasurer of the Templars was not normally a royal official. He did not have any part in financial planning nor did he audit accounts. The Temple took money in, stored it, and paid it out.54Most of the time the Templars were more like warehouse guards than bankers.

  Statements were sent to the kings (and other clients) three times a year, at Candlemas (February 2), Ascension (forty days after Easter; the date changed), and All Saints’ Day (November 1). There are only a few fragments of these statements for the French kings. From one fragment we learn, however, that, in 1202/03 the provosts of Paris deposited 18,000 livres in the care of Brother Haimard at the Temple. The bailiffs deposited 37,000 livres with Brother Haimard and a further 5,000 livres with Brother Guérin.55In 1292 at Candlemas, the treasury took in 72,517 livres, 19 sols, and 7 denarii. Expenses were 125,000 livres, 1 sol, and 0 denarii. At Ascension, it took in 121,806 livres, 18 sols, and 3 denarii and paid out 111,073 livres, 9 sols, and 3 denarii.56

  If it was good enough for the king of France, it was good enough for the nobility, too. Louis IX’s brother Alphonse of Poitiers had all his revenues sent directly to the Temple in Paris.57Alphonse even sent unrefined silver to the Temple from his mines in Orzals through the commander in Rouergue.58

  The Templars even obliged by carrying depositors’ funds for them while on crusade. When Louis IX went on his first crusade and was unfortunate enough to be captured, Jean de Joinville broke into the money boxes belonging to some of the noblemen (over the protest of the Templar guarding them).59

  There is some record of kings in other countries using the Temple as a safe place to keep their cash. In 1203, King Emeric of Hungary received a quantity of silver from Archbishop Urane and deposited it with the Templars.60

  The Templars must have had some sort of holding fee for this, but they couldn’t and didn’t charge interest on loans and they also didn’t lend money left in their keeping.

  It isn’t clear how much of the Templar income came from banking. They kept money for people at their commanderies and moved it from one side of the sea to the other. They made loans, especially to royalty. But kings are notoriously slow to repay. It seems that most of the money kept in Paris and London belonged to depositors. When Hubert de Burgh, the justiciar of King Henry III of England, fell from power, Henry tried to appropriate the money that Hubert had deposited at the Temple. The master refused to turn it over without Hubert’s permission.61 Hubert was “convinced” to give it.

  There are several other cases where depositors’ money was stolen by the kings or nobleman. In 1263, Prince Edward went to the New Temple and “broke open a number of chests and carried off a large sum of money belonging to others.”62

  Banking may have been more high profile than lucrative, and the dangers involved in transporting valuables were high. There is no indication that the Templars ever had mounds of cash and treasure for their own use, especially not in the London and Paris houses.

  The Templars did not invent modern-style banking. For centuries Jews had been arranging among themselves to deposit funds at one place and pick them up at another. Most monasteries accepted goods for safekeeping and also loaned money at interest, despite prohibitions on usury.63 The Italian city-states, particularly Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, had a trading empire that including banking. The Templars were simply one group among many.

  The difference is that the Templars were trusted by royalty, particularly the kings of France and England, to handle their business affairs. The Temple commanderies in both London and Paris served as the royal treasuries. This meant that the treasure stored there belonged to the king. It could be retrieved at any time. The Templars took a fee for guarding it but they didn’t
dare use it to invest in other loans or enterprises.

  Sometimes the Templars themselves needed to transmit funds. In 1304, Walter de la More, Templar master of England, needed to travel to see the Grand Master. He paid a sum to a group of Florentine bankers, the Mari, who had an office in London. Walter was supposed to retrieve it at the Mari bank in Paris but the Paris officers of the company had skipped town.64No reason is given as to why Walter hadn’t handled the matter through the Temple, but it’s possible that he wasn’t sure there would be enough cash in the Paris commandery to take care of his needs.

  The Templars did indeed have a lot of property in western Europe, but they usually didn’t receive rent for it in money, but in produce. Part of their earnings went to feed the poor and themselves. Also, one-third of everything that was taken in went to the East to maintain the fighting force.

  FOR years some people have been assuming that somehow in 1307 all the commanderies in France got wind of the impending arrests and either hid or removed everything of value. Then they all just went to bed and waited for the king’s men to come for them. I find this hard to believe. First of all, it implies an amazing lack of self-preservation among the knights. But mostly, it seems very unlikely that all the bustle of collecting and sending away valuables could have been accomplished without someone noticing. The streets of Paris were narrow and crowded. Carts big enough to carry tons of treasure couldn’t have made it through. Also, there were city gates that were shut every evening and guarded. If anyone had tried to get out with a large amount of goods, they would have been stopped and the boxes searched. If the Templars had tried to get away by the Seine River, they still would have had to cross town to do it.

  The entire city would have heard them.

  Finally, the supposed treasure not only has never been found but it has never even been described. All these things together make me think that nothing left Paris from the Temple before the arrests.

  The treasure of the Templars, if there was any, wouldn’t have been in London or Paris in any case, but in Cyprus in the Templar headquarters. On the day of their arrest in Cyprus, an inventory was taken of Templar goods. At Nicosia, along with a lot of crossbows and foodstuffs were 120,000 white bezants (coins made of a mix of silver and some gold). That seems like a lot to me but legends begin early, and a near contemporary chronicler insists that “no one knew where in the world they hid the rest, nor has anyone been able to find out.”65

  1Matthew Paris, Chronicles, ed. and tr. Richard Vaughan (Gloucester: Sutton, 1894) p. 241.

  2Please see The Templars and the Saint for more on this episode. For William, see Grand Masters 1191-1292/93.

  3Please see How to Tell if You Are Reading Pseudohistory.

  4Georges Lizerand, Le Dossier de l’Affaire des Templiers (Paris, 1923) p. 47.

  5Ibid., p. 50, “cervoise pour les garsons et pour les ouvriers.”

  6Ibid., “qui est a la fame mons. Roger de Planes et est en gages, si comme le cammandoour et Bertin deu Couisel disoient.”

  7Ibid., p. 52.

  8 Evelyn Lord, The Knights Templar in Britain (London, 2002) pp. 27-30. I find it very responsible of the master not to keep a loaded crossbow in the house.

  9William of Tyre, Chronique, ed. R. B. C Huygens (Turnholt, 1986) 12, 7, p. 553. “Quibus quoniam neque eccesia erat neque certum habebant domicilium, rex in palatio suo, quod secus Templum Domini ad australem habet partem eis ad tempus concessit hibiaculum, canonici vero Templi Domini plateam, quam circa predictum habebant platinum, ad opus officiarum certis quibusdam conditionibus concesserunt.”

  10This often happens. Baldwin moved into what was called the “Tower of David.” Since he had four daughters, he may have been looking for a place with more bathrooms.

  11Adrian J. Boas, Jerusalem in the Time of the Crusades: Society, Landscape and Art in the Holy City Under Frankish Rule (London: Routledge, 2001) p. 79. Boas quotes the chronicler, Fulcher of Chartres. “Because of our lack of resources we were not able even to maintain this building in the condition in which we found it. For this reason it is mostly destroyed.”

  12William of Tyre, 12, 7, p. 554.

  13Marquis d’Albon, Cartulaire de l’Ordre du Temple (Paris, 1912) p. 2.

  14Ibid.

  15Please see chapter 11, Fulk of Anjou.

  16Thomas W. Parker, The Knights Templars in England (University of Arizona Press, 1983) p. 15.

  17D’Albon no. 124, p. 87.

  18Please see chapter 8, Go Forth and Multiply.

  19D’Albon listed every charter he could find from 1119 through 1150. The compilation is 500 pages.

  20Paul Orliac, La Cartulaire de La Selve, La Terre, Les Hommes at le Pouvior en Rouergue au XIIe Siècle (Paris, 1985) p. 76.

  21Alan Forey, The Templars in the Corona of Aragon.

  22 Parker, pp. 52-53.

  23 Ibid., p. 56.

  24Malcolm Barber and Keith Bate, The Templars: Selected Sources Translated and Annotated (Manchester University Press, 2002) pp. 184-90.

  25Jean de Joinville, Histoire de Saint Louis tr. M. Natalis de Wailly (Paris, 1865) p. 57.

  26R. H. C. Davis, The Medieval Warhorse (London, 1989) pp. 65-97. Page 62 also has a neat illustration of how the horses were boarded on the ships.

  27Helen Nicholson, The Knights Templar (London, 2001) p. 183.

  28Nicholson, p. 191. One interesting thing about this is that the wool the merchants were selling was still on the sheep. They were being charged for selling wool futures.

  29Omne Datum Optimum, in d’Albon, p. 376. “Ea etiam que de eorum spoiliis ceperitis, fidenter in usus vestros convertatis, et, ne de his, contra velle vestrum, portionem alicui dare cogamini, prohibemus.”

  30Alan Forey, The Templars in the Corona of Aragon (Oxford University Press, 1973) p. 25ff.

  31William of Tyre, 17, 27, pp. 797-99.

  32 Milites Templi, in Rudolf Heistand, Papsturkunden für Templar und Johanniter (Göttingen, 1972) p. 215, “si forte locus ipse indterdictus sit, . . . in anno aperiantur ecclesie et et exclusis excommunicates divina official celebrentur.”

  33Forey, p. 17.

  34Joseph F. O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain (Cornell University Press, 1975) pp. 233 and 258. Ramiro did his duty, had a daughter to inherit, and returned to the monastery.

  35Forey. p. 22.

  36Contrary to popular opinion, people in the Middle Ages did wash.

  37Laurent Dailliez, Régle et Statuts de l’Ordre du Temple (Paris, 1972) p. 143, rule no. 140.

  38Charles Gladitz, Horse Breeding in the Medieval World (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997) p. 158.

  39Dailliez, p. 152, rules no. 169 and 170.

  40D’Albon, p. 227, no. 352, “ccl solidos Melgoriensis nove monete et cl solidos de numis.”

  41Cartulaire des Templiers de Douzens ed. Pierre Gérard and Élisabeth Magnou (Bibliothéque Nationale, 1965) p. 114, no. 121.

  42Douzens, p. 115, no. 121.

  43Ibid.

  44Ibid., p. 51, no. 41.

  45Ibid., p. 269, no. 11.

  46Parker, p. 23.

  47 Dailliez, p. 130, rule no. 96.

  48Sugerii Abbatis S. Dionysii, Opera, Episotolae LVII and LVIII, columns 1377-1378. “Debet autem eis reddere triginta milia solidorum Pictaviensis monetae, de quisbus licet mihi bonum responsum dederit.”

  49Achille Luchaire, Institutions Françaises (Paris, 1892) p. 588.

  50Sugerii, column 1402, in a letter from the Archbishop of Sens. “Vidimus enim fratrem Geleranum, qui custodiet Parisiu domum Templi, redeuntem a dominus rege.”

  51Ferdinand Lot and Robert Fawtier, Histoire des Institutions Franaise au Moyen Age: Tome II—Institutions Royale (Paris, 1958) p. 188

  52Luchaire, p. 589.

  53Ibid.

  54Bryce Lyon and A. E. Verhulst, Medieval Finance (Brown University Press, 1967) p. 41.

  55 John W. Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages (California University Press, 198
6) p. 166.

  56Lot and Fawtier, p. 191. Until everything was put on the decimal system, the l, s, and d became the shorthand for “pounds, shillings and pence” in England, just in case you ever wondered.

  57Boutaric, Louis IX et Alphonse de Poitiers (Brionne, 1879) pp. 181-312. There is no indication that the Templars were financial advisers. They simply took in the money and kept accounts.

  58Boutaric, pp. 208-10. The records don’t say who refined the silver.

  59Jean de Joinville, “Life of St. Louis,” in Chronicles of the Crusades tr. M.R.B. Shaw (Penguin, 1963) p. 259.

  60Thomas of Spalato, ExThomae Historia Pontificum Salonitanorum et Spalatinorum in Monumenta Germania Historia Scriptores ed. G. H. Pertz. Vol. 29, p. 577.

  61Parker, p. 60. From his prison cell, Hubert gave the required permission. What a good sport!

  62Ibid., p. 61.

  63Bernard of Clairvaux.

  64Demurger, p. 121.

  65 Amaldi, quoted in Alain Demurger, Jacques de Malay: Le crepuscule des templiers (Biographie—Payot, Paris, 2002) p. 319, note 27. “Il resto havevano nascoso cosi secramente che alcun del mondo non ha possuto saver niente di quello.” Demurger adds, “Courage treasure seekers! It’s to Cyprus one must go!”