The Knights Templar's Lost Treasure: Real or Myth?

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The secret behind the Templars' great wealth was that they were the only universal bank in Europe during a period of economic expansion, and there were no central banks and (especially) reserve requirements to inhibit profit growth in any way. If they hadn't been closed down by the French king and had survived a generation or so later, they would have been the poster-child for the ugly things that can happen in a recession when there are no central banks and no reserve requirements (i.e. unlimited contraction). The superstitious soldiers who swarmed over the Templars' commanderies when the French king closed them down couldn't understand why, when they broke into the treasuries, all they could find were a bunch of dusty books. Those account books, of course, WERE the wealth, accounting and double-entry bookkeeping having been invented in northern Italy at about the same time as the Templars were setting up shop. The fact that people still believe in magical treasures says a lot about superstition and credulity in modern times. Have we really made any progress since the Middle Ages ?