How did large money transfers happen before modern banks and coinage?

Before banks per se, there weren’t any large transfers. Wealth or value was transferred either through property title deeds or goods being bartered.

There wasn’t much of a need to do transfers of money (in those days money was gold, silver, and other precious metals, plus prized commodities). Unless of course one was looting everything after a war, in which case, the armies literally had carriages to transfer away the loot.

Because trade was localized to a few hundred miles at best, there wasn’t much of a need to transfer money 1000s of miles away. Whatever was transferred, was simply a physical exchange amongst a group of men and women residing in the very small geographical radius.