DOCUMENTS-English Policy toward America in 1790-1791, II.; Two Letters of Richard Cromwell, 1659; A Letter of Marquis de La Fayette, 1781; A Henry I.'s Writ regarding the Local Courts DOCUMENTS-George Rogers Clark and the Kaskaskia Campaign, 1777-1778; A Letter from De Vergennes to La Fayette, 1780; Portions of Charles Pinck- ney's Plan for a Constitution, 1787; A Letter of James Nicholson, 1803 The American Historical Review THE FINANCIAL RELATIONS OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS TO THE ENGLISH CROWN1 THE HE order of the Knights Templars is familiar to all readers of the history or romance of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries for its courage, military prowess, wealth, and somewhat arrogant pride. The Templars together with the Knights of the Hospital of St. John long formed the most stable element in the Holy Land and their military services there have received full recognition. But the order also rendered important services to Christendom in a very different field of action. In the unwarlike atmosphere of the counting-room, the soldiers of the Temple, for over a century, handled much of the capital of western Europe, becoming expert accountants, judicious administrators, and pioneers in that development of credit and its instruments, which was destined to revolutionize the methods of commerce and finance. This civil aspect of the Knights Templars is comparatively little known. The custom of storing treasure at the New Temple in London is described and illustrated by Mr. Addison whose history of the order appeared in 1842.2 Professor Cunningham, in the third edition of his Growth I The following contractions are used in the foot-notes that follow: Bond is the abbreviated reference to Extracts from the Liberate Rolls, by E. A. Bond Archeologia, XXVIII. London, 1840. Delisle is for " Mémoire sur les Opérations Financières des Templiers. Mémoires de l'Institut National de France." Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, XXXIII. Paris, 1888. R. C. is for Record Commission. Rot. Claus. is for Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum, 1204-1227. Record Commission. 2 vols. London, 1833-1844. Rot. Pat. is for Rotuli Litterarum Patentium, 1201–1216. Record Commission. London, 1835. R. S. is for "Rolls Series." Ed. T. D. Hardy. Ed. T. D. Hardy. Rymer is for Fadera, ed. Thomas Rymer. Record Commission, 1816-1869. 2 History of the Knights Templars, pp. 122-125. AM. HIST. REV., VOL. VIII.-I Ι vols. London, |