ANST - re: templer inovations

[Baronman at aol.com]

In a message dated 98-02-01 20:53:38 EST, Wolf writes:

>>and "checks " (personal promisary notes backed and honored by some
>>central financial authority ... in europes case, the banks ... in
>>chinese case, the government)


and Sir Cian writes

>The chinese may have been first, but it is easier to trace the lineage from
>european
>Orders to european banks.  Not the first, just the first (t)here.

Since my area of research only encompasses  the East and European scopes, I
may very well be mistaken about the FIRST to invent checks, but if Wolf is
right, it appears that the Chinesse were first with checks through a
government agency.  However- the Templars not only dealt with Monarchs but
with individuals too- giving thr traveler the ability to deposit money in a
English or French depository maintained by the Temple and withdrawing it by
presenting the proper coded writing to the Templar depository - say,  in
Jerusalem.  This was the first time travelers could move freely through
troubled areas and not worry about being robbed of ALL their money.  This also
neccessitated the keeping of large sums of money in these depositories, which
is what got the attention of Phillip the Fair of France, who tried to suppress
the Templars with trumped up charges of heresy while in cahoots with his
puppet Pope, so that he could borrow the money in the French depository.  This
attempted to liberate money from the Temple ( BTW- money the Temple refused to
loan to Phillip, because he was a bad risk) occured on a Friday the
thirteenth, and since that day, has been considered unlucky.  Just a little
side bar-- when Phillip's men finally broke into the Templar's depository, the
money was gone.  Must have been a leak somewhere- guess things have not
changed too much over the years.

Baron Bors of Lothian

il dit tout ce qu'il veut,
malheureusement il n'a
rien a' dire.
============================================================================
Go to http://www.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.