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The Knights Hospitaller (also known as the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, Knights of Malta, Knights of Rhodes, and Chevaliers of Malta) is an organization that began as an Amalfitan hospital founded in Jerusalem in 1080 to provide care for poor and sick pilgrims to the Holy Land. After the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade it became a Catholic military order under its own charter, and was charged with the care and defense of pilgrims to the Holy Land. Following the loss of Christian territory in the Holy Land, the Order operated from Rhodes, over which it was sovereign, and later from Malta where it administered a vassal state under the Spanish viceroy of Sicily. Although this state came to an end with the ejection of the Order from Malta by Napoleon, the Order as such survived. The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta (abbreviated SMOM) is considered to be the main successor to this tradition. The Order of the Dames of Malta is the female auxiliary to the Knights. Foundation and early history In 600, Abbot Probus was commissioned by Pope Gregory the Great to build a hospital in Jerusalem to treat and care for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. In 800, Charlemagne, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, enlarged Probus' hostel and added a library to it. About 200 years later, in 1005, Caliph Al Hakim destroyed the hostel and three thousand other buildings. In 1023, merchants from Amalfi and Salerno in Italy were given permission by the Caliph Ali az-Zahir of Egypt to rebuild the hospice in Jerusalem. The hospice, which was built on the site of the monastery of Saint John the Baptist, took in Christian pilgrims traveling to visit the Christian holy sites. It was served by Benedictine Brothers. The monastic hospitaller order was founded following the First Crusade by the Blessed Gerard, whose role as founder was confirmed by a Papal bull of Pope Paschal II in 1113. Gerard acquired territory and revenues for his order throughout the Kingdom of Jerusalem and beyond. His successor, Raymond du Puy de Provence, established the first significant Hospitaller infirmary near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Initially the group just cared for those pilgrims who made it to Jerusalem, but the order soon extended into providing an armed escort to pilgrims. The escort soon grew into a substantial force. Together with the Knights Templar, formed in 1119, they became one of the most powerful Christian groups in the area. The order came to distinguish itself in battles with the Muslims, its soldiers wearing a black surcoat with a white cross. By the mid-12th century, the order was clearly divided into military brothers and those who worked with the sick. It was still a religious order and had useful privileges granted by the Papacy. For example, the order was exempt from all authority save that of the Pope, and it paid no tithes and was allowed its own religious buildings. Many of the more substantial Christian fortifications in the Holy Land were the work of either the Templars or Hospitallers. At the height of the Kingdom of Jerusalem the Hospitallers held seven great forts and 140 other estates in the area. The two largest of these, their bases of power in the Kingdom and in the Principality of Antioch, were the Krak des Chevaliers and Margat. The property of the Order was divided into priories, subdivided into bailiwicks, which in turn were divided into commanderies. Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor, pledged his protection to the Knights of St. John in a charter of privileges granted in 1185. Knights of Cyprus and Rhodes The rising power of Islam eventually pushed the Knights out of their traditional holdings in Jerusalem. After the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (Jerusalem itself fell in 1187), the Knights were confined to the County of Tripoli, and when Acre was captured in 1291 the order sought refuge in the Kingdom of Cyprus. Finding themselves becoming enmeshed in the politics of that kingdom, their Grand Master Guillaume de Villaret created a plan of acquiring their own temporal domain, selecting Rhodes to be their new home. His successor Fulkes de Villaret executed the plan, and on 15 August 1309, after over two years of campaigning, the island of Rhodes surrendered to the knights. They also gained control of a number of neighboring islands, as well as the Anatolian ports of Bodrum and Kastelorizo. The Knights Templar were dissolved in 1312 and much of their property was given to the Hospitallers. The holdings were organized into eight tongues (one each in Aragon, Auvergne, Castile, England, France, Germany, Italy, and Provence). Each was administered in turn by a Prior or, if there was more than one priory, by a Grand Prior. At Rhodes and later Malta, the resident knights of each "tongue" were headed by a Bailli. The English Grand Prior at the time was Philip Thame, who acquired the estates allocated to the English tongue from 1330 to 1358. On Rhodes, now known as the Knights of Rhodes, they were forced to become a more militarized force, fighting especially with the Barbary pirates. They withstood two invasions in the 15th century, one by the Sultan of Egypt in 1444 and another by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in 1480 who after the fall of Constantinople made the Knights a priority target. In 1494 they created a stronghold on the peninsula of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum). They used pieces of the partially destroyed Mausoleum of Maussollos, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, to strengthen Bodrum Castle. In 1522 an entirely new sort of force arrived when 400 ships under the command of Sultan Suleiman delivered 200,000 men to the island. Against this force the Knights, under Grand Master Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, had about 7,000 men-at-arms and the walls of the city. The siege lasted six months, at the end of which the survivors were allowed to leave Rhodes and retreated to Sicily. Knights of Malta After seven years of moving from place to place in Europe, the Knights were established on Malta in 1530, when the Holy Roman Emperor, King Charles V of Spain, gave them Malta, Gozo and the North African port of Tripoli in perpetual fiefdom in exchange for an annual fee of a single Maltese falcon, which they were to send on All Souls Day to the Viceroy of Sicily, who acted as the King's representative. (This historical fact was used as the plot hook in Dashiell Hammett's famous book The Maltese Falcon.) It was from here that the Hospitallers continued their actions against the Muslims and especially the Barbary pirates. Although they had only a small number of ships, they nevertheless quickly drew the ire of the Ottomans who were less than happy to see the order resettled. Accordingly, Suleiman assembled another massive invasion force in order to dislodge the Knights from Malta, and in 1565 invaded, starting the Great Siege of Malta. This siege proved one of the great victories of history for an undermanned and vastly outnumbered defense force, numbering some 700 knights and about 8000 soldiers. The Turks had an estimated 40,000 troops against the the holdings of the Knights of Malta. Thus the siege of Malta commenced with the knights knowing loosing Malta would leave Sicily vulnerable to Turkish invasion. After many months of Battle and outnumbered nearly 5 to 1 the Knights of Malta managed to send the Turkish army home with only 15,000 able men left and no victory for their trouble. Turmoil in Europe The Order lost a number of its European holdings following the rise of Protestantism, but survived on Malta. The property of the English branch was confiscated in 1540. In 1577, the German Bailiwick of Brandenburg became Lutheran, but continued to pay its financial contribution to the Order until the branch was turned into a merit Order by the King of Prussia in 1812. The "Johanniter Orden" was restored as a Prussian Order of Knights Hospitaller in 1852. The Knights of Malta had a strong presence within the Imperial Russian Navy and the pre-revolutionary French Navy. When De Poincy was appointed governor of the French colony on St. Kitts in 1639, he was a prominent Knight of St. John and dressed his retinue with the emblems of the order. The Order's presence in the Caribbean was eclipsed with his death in 1660. He also bought the island of Saint Croix as his personal estate and deeded it to the Knights of St. John. In 1665, St. Croix was bought by the French West India Company, ending the Order's exploits in the Caribbean. In 1789, France erupted in revolution and anti-clerical and anti-aristocratic furor, forcing many French knights and nobles to flee for their lives. Many of the Order's traditional sources of revenue from France were lost permanently. The French Revolutionary Government seized the assets and properties of the Order in France in 1792. The loss of Malta Their Mediterranean stronghold of Malta was captured by Napoleon in 1798 during his expedition to Egypt. As a ruse, Napoleon asked for safe harbor to resupply his ships, and then turned against his hosts once safely inside Valletta. Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim failed to anticipate or prepare for this threat, provided no effective leadership, and readily capitulated to Napoleon -- arguing that the Order's charter prohibited fighting against Christians. He resigned his office and retreated into obscurity. The Order continued to exist in a diminished form and negotiated with European governments for a return to power. The Tsar of Russia gave the largest number of knights shelter in St. Petersburg and this gave rise to the Russian tradition of the Knights Hospitaller and recognition within the Russian Imperial Orders. In gratitude, the knights elected Emperor Paul I as the new Grand Master. Following Paul's murder in 1801, in 1803 a Catholic master was restored to the Order in Rome. By the early 1800s, the Order had been severely weakened by the loss of its priories throughout Europe. Only 10% of the Order's income came from traditional sources in Europe, with the remaining 90% being generated by the Russian Grand Priory until 1810. This was partly reflected in the government of the Order being under Lieutenants, rather than Grand Masters in the period 1805 to 1879, when Pope Leo XIII restored a Grand Master to the Order. This signalled the renewal of the Order's fortunes as a humanitarian and religious organization. In 1834, the revived Order established a new headquarters in Rome. The revived organization is known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Revival in England as the Venerable Order of St. John of Jerusalem The property of the Order in England was confiscated by Henry VIII because of a dispute with the Pope over the dissolution of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which eventually led to the dissolution of the monasteries. Although not formally suppressed, this caused the activities of the English Langue to come to an end. A few Scottish Knights remained in communion with the French Langue of the Order. In 1831, a British Order was founded by French Knights and became known as the Most Venerable Order of St. John of Jerusalem in the British Realm. It received a Royal Charter from Queen Victoria in 1888 and spread across the United Kingdom, the British Commonwealth, and the United States of America. However, the Most Venerable Order of St John of Jerusalem was only recognized by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in 1963. Its most well-known activities are based around St. John Ambulance. The modern Sovereign Military Order of Malta The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, better known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta or SMOM, remains a Catholic order which claims sovereignty under international law and has been granted permanent observer status at the United Nations, although its claims of sovereignty are disputed by some scholars. [2] SMOM is considered to be the main successor to the medieval Knights Hospitaller, also known as the Knights of Malta, and today operates as a largely religious, charitable and hospitaller organization. St. John's Guild of Renaissance Actors. |
| The proceeding historical text was copied in part from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia at www.wikipedia.org Under the GNU Free Documentation License. |
