Discussion 1 – Knights Templar
1. Research the Knights Templar and briefly discuss its contribution in the evolution of
International Banking.
Christianity came to widespread popularity after its rise in Rome with Empreror
Konstantine’s approval of it. Christians from all parts of the Middle East and Western and
Eastern Europe were encouraged to visit the most sacred places , particularly in Jerusalem,
in observation of their religious devotion. Although Jerusalem was overtaken by the
Rashidun (Sunni) Muslims in 637, Christians still made their fateful voyage even under the
intimidating Muslim control. Despite the debate about whom Jerusalem really belongs to
(which may be debated for eternity), Christians at the time decided that hundreds of years
of massacring and Muslim sieges should end.
1118, Jersaulem, shortly after the First crusade led by Holy Roman Catholic Europe to
retake the “Holy Lands” (Israel) from Muslim conquests of the Levant.
Hugues de Payens, a French knight and nobleman, approached the current King of
Jerusalem with eight of his fellow knights who were actually all related. Jerusalem had just
been retaken; Christian pilgrims were coming in from everywhere. Hugues formed the new
order of the knights originally known as the “Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the
Temple of Solomon” but ultimately known as the Knights Templar. The Order would go on
to be the most revered and even feared knights of their time, for their life long devotion to
the defense of the Holy Land. In 1139, Pope Innocent II issued a new papal order that
granted the Knights Templar extraordinary financial power: they could pass freely through
