International banks have spearheaded an absolute explosion in global economic growth. Looking at your story above, Philip was the bad actor and the Templars should've played politics better (maybe lending money to the pope as well?)
Banks are a massively significant cultural innovation. I can pay someone in a different country by pressing a button and it's a reliable, robust system.
In those days, it was a huge deal to be able to pay a merchant in France by giving gold, or even a paper representing ownership of gold, to a bank in England. Before, you had to send the money on a ship and hope for the best.
International banks led to a massive explosion in trade and global prosperity.
Not really. An international bank is one legal entity in two places. If you deposit 1 kg of gold in place A, your business partner can withdraw it in place B, minus fees of course. The bank still has to transfer the gold to make up the difference at a later date. The benefit is the merchants don’t have to do this themselves anymore.
The pope and the Catholic church lost its power a few centuries later.
Eventually in Europe everything was subsumed by the government creating all powerful nation states.
The Pope was the owner of everything. It was, after all, a catholic order. The game here was very much the King of France attacking the money power of the Church, instead of an isolated problem with the Templars.
