Predecessors

The Knights Templar

Popular history paints the Knights Templar as vile sorcerers or the keepers of the Holy Grail. None of these stories are precisely true.

The Templars were a secular military group devoted to a religious purpose- protecting Christian travellers between Western Europe and the Holy Land. Initially funded by alms, they eventually created both the first international banking system and the Company's business model. Under the cover of protecting pilgrims and traders, they were able to confiscate "unholy" relics for the Clients and largely prevent the fusion of Eastern and Western sorcerous scholarship. With the Dispensations (and, some say, Investments) that they reaped, they became an even more effective military force

Some company historians admire the Templars as their antecedents. Others, however, revile them for destroying most of the artifacts and documents that they confiscated. Their knowledge

Eventually, the Templars got too rich for their own good. In 1307, King Philip of France arrested the knights and brought them up on charges of heresy and demon-worship. Whether he was aware of the irony of these charges is hotly disputed.