AlpinLuke

In "The Warriors and the Bankers" the historian Alan Butler and Stephen Daphoe suggest that a part of the Templars escaped from the trial and the persecution, found a refuge among the Swiss Alps.

They note that in the period in which 3 cantons started a rebellion against Leopoldo I, the military capability of the Alpine farmers were amazing [and they had not that great military tradition].

The Duke saw his force of 5,000 units defeated by a local force of only 1,500 units. [It was the ambush at Morgarten].

Popular tales mention knights with white mantles helping the farmers [something which makes the pair with Scotland ...].

Now, the Cantons developed also a great and efficient banking system and as we all know the symbolism was templar in a quite clear way [just the Swiss flag is simply the negative of the symbol of the Temple].

How can we consider such an hypothesis?

Gorge123

I think maybe unlikely.

irishcrusader95

its all very circumstantial, i'm very sceptical on any templar myths that they survived after the dissolution and if any members did then they were no longer templars such as those who joined a different christian order in spain, i forget the name of it.

oshron

great for an Assassin's Creed setting, not so great for historical fact

funakison

Ah the templars and all that missing gold. Even though the French were pretty good at rounding up the templars some almost certainly escaped. No doubt a few of them made their way to Switzerland. i would imagine the numbers were pretty small and inconsequential.

DreamWeaver

A nice idea, sounds like a good plot, but Im not so sure.

beorna

AFAIK is the oldest bank in Switzerland was the Zyli Bank from 1741 and its seat is St. Gallen, neither Uri, Schwyz nor Unterwalden!

AlpinLuke

To be accurate Italian banks had connection with Luzern and Zürich in XIV century. The two cities in 1383 created the first public exchanges.

In any case, also considering this primordial banking services, there is a temporal gap to cover [I would say at least 60 years].

kazeuma

In accurate I hate to say. Firstly the Templars DID NOT have any treasure to begin with to start the banks. Due to constant failures of the crusades and the crusader states it is unlikely the famed Templar treasure never existed in the first place - they spent it all up and lied about it in order to keep their prestige. So when the King of France broke up the Templars, all he found was nothing but some knights he tortured to death trying to keep their fraud a secret.

All they had was two things they invented - the traveller's cheque and double-entry book-keeping (double-entry book keeping is very useful for cooking the books - saying that you have money when you don't). However, the Swiss did learn from the banking empire created by the Templars, the traveller's cheque, and double-entry bookkeeping, and as well as the ability to keep a secret.

AlpinLuke

The treasure of the Temple existed more in the dreams of King Philip than in reality ...

The mentioned hypothesis of a templar legacy in Swiss land is more focused on methods and techniques than on an eventual treasure to make a starting capital.