Braavos Was Real — And It Hijacked a Holy War | Game of Thrones vs Real History

The Iron Bank of Braavos always gets its due — and in Game of Thrones, that's a threat. But a merchant republic on a mudflat did it for real: in 1201 Venice chartered a fleet to an army of crusaders who couldn't pay the bill, and three years later it owned three-eighths of the Roman Empire. This is the true history behind Braavos and the Iron Bank. A city with no king, run by shopkeepers, that elected its ruler through a ten-round lottery so no one could bribe it. A blind doge in his nineties who turned a holy war into a debt collection. A gold coin that never changed for five hundred years. And the Florentine banking houses — the Bardi, the Peruzzi, the Medici — who bankrolled the kings of Europe and got destroyed by them. Because here's the part the show softens: when Cersei stiffs the Iron Bank, the bank wins. When Edward III stiffed the two biggest banks on Earth, the banks died and the king went and won Crécy. New here? Start with The Wars of the Roses — the true story behind the Starks and the Lannisters, then come back for this one.