in Europe and the Middle East; they bought and managed farms and vineyards they built churches and castles they were involved in manufacturing, import and export they had their own fleet of ships and at one point they even owned the entire island of Cyrprus. The Templar arguably qualifies as the world's first multinational corporation" -- Reference Wikipedia.org back to 183) 184 " The Knights Templar were disbanded by King Philip IV of France, who was deeply in debt to the Order" King Philip was already deeply in debt to the Templars from his war with the English and decided to seize upon the rumors for his own purposes. He began pressuring the Church to take action against the Order, as away of freeing himself from his debts.
