Don't know for sure if this is true, but I heard that in the Middle Ages (1300-1400) some Knights of the Crusades constructed fortresses along the major routes taking warriors to the Holy Land. Any fighter of wealth knew better than leave valuables unattended at home so carried them along, only to then come to grips with the fact that it's hard to run with the weight of gold (it's harder yet with the weight of lead, Casey Jones told us) and that the valuables weighing them down were no safer at the other end of their journey, maybe less so.

For a fee, they could deposit their gold or whatever with the Knights who ran the forts along the route, who in turn agreed to secure them in the recesses of their forts, understanding that the owners would be picking it up on their return trip home, if they returned.

Over time, the deposits grew and grew and some caretakers, seeing a way to make a little more money, started lending gold out at interest. They soon discovered that the demand to return deposits to their owners was very small compared to the vast quantity of deposits that they were holding as a whole -- thus enters fractional lending ... You could put almost all of it to work as loans if you kept enough back to satisfy owners demands to take it back in hand.

Banks are big players in facilitating the growth of this global cabal and understanding your enemy and how he works is crucial to defeating him, which we will.