The court of one of the founding fathers of the Knights Templar, Hugues I Count of Champagne (c.1074–1130) stood at the old city of Troyes. Troyes has been in existence since the Roman era, as Augustobona Tricassium. It stood at the hub of numerous highways, primarily the Via Agrippa. Key to its international position.
At the end of the ninth century, following depredations to the city by Normans, the counts of Champagne chose Troyes as their capital. It remained the capital of the Province of Champagne until the Revolution. It developed to be a major trade center.
During the Middle Ages, Troyes was an important trading town, and gave its name to the troy unit of weight. The Champagne cloth fairs and the revival of long-distance trade and new extension of coinage and credit were the real engines that drove the medieval economy of Troyes.
Before that, Troyes and Provins had been administrative centers in Charlemagne's empire that developed into the central towns of the County of Champagne and the Brie Champenoise Region.
The Champagne fairs were an annual cycle of trading fairs at Champagne and Brie, regions in Northern France. From their origins in local agricultural and stock fairs, the Champagne fairs became an important engine in the reviving economic history of medieval Europe. "Veritable nerve centers" serving as a premier market for textiles, leather, and spices. At their height, in the late 12th and the 13th century, the fairs linked the cloth-producing cities of the Low Countries with the Italian dyeing and exporting centers, with Genoa in the lead.
As such Troyes' geographic key position, the concentration of expertise
on international trade, coinage and credit, all under the protection of
the lords of the Earldom of the Champagne, was the ideal site for
sparking, founding and harbouring the first "multinational enterprise"
on trade and finance: the Knights Templar.
sources: wikipedia themes on Troyes and Champagne fairs; illustrations shows Roman roads network France source