Knights Hospitaller: Order of St John from Jerusalem to Rhodes

The Knights Hospitaller, formally the Order of St John of Jerusalem, began as a hospital for pilgrims in Jerusalem and grew into one of the great military orders of the crusades. Recognised by the pope in 1113, the order fought to defend the crusader states, held famous castles in Syria, and after 1291 ruled the island of Rhodes until 1522. Unlike the Templars, the Hospitallers survived the Middle Ages and still exist today.

Origins: a hospital in Jerusalem

Around 1070, merchants from the southern Italian city of Amalfi founded a hospice for Latin pilgrims in Jerusalem, near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, dedicated to St John the Baptist. Its staff were lay brothers who cared for the sick and poor.

When the crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099, the hospital’s head, known as Gerard, won the favour of the new rulers, who granted it lands and income. On 15 February 1113 Pope Paschal II issued the bull Pie postulatio voluntatis, taking the hospital under papal protection and recognising it as an independent religious order with the right to elect its own head.

The hospital in Jerusalem became famous across Christendom. A late twelfth-century description suggests it could care for up to about 2,000 patients, and the order’s rule taught the brothers to serve patients as “our lords the sick”.

From hospital to military order

Gerard’s successor, Raymond du Puy (master from about 1120 to about 1160), gave the order a written rule and expanded it. Inspired in part by the Templars, founded around 1120, the Hospitallers began hiring and then recruiting knights. By the 1130s they were defending castles, and in 1136 the king of Jerusalem entrusted them with Bethgibelin, on the frontier with Fatimid Ascalon.

The order’s members were divided into knights, sergeants and chaplains, all bound by vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Their habit was black with a white cross; in battle they later wore a red surcoat with a white cross. A network of estates and houses in Europe, grouped into priories, sent money, supplies and recruits to the East.

Castles and battles in the Holy Land

In 1142 or 1144 Count Raymond II of Tripoli gave the order the great fortress later known as Krak des Chevaliers, which the Hospitallers rebuilt into one of the finest castles of the Middle Ages. In 1186 they acquired Margat (Marqab) on the Syrian coast.

The Hospitallers fought in almost every major campaign of the crusader states. At the battle of Hattin in 1187 Saladin defeated the kingdom’s army, and afterwards he ordered the execution of the Templar and Hospitaller prisoners, seeing them as the Franks’ most dangerous soldiers.

After the loss of Jerusalem the order’s headquarters moved to Acre. The Mamluk sultan Baybars took Krak des Chevaliers in 1271, Margat fell in 1285, and when Acre fell in 1291 the wounded master, Jean de Villiers, escaped to Cyprus.

The Knights of Rhodes

On Cyprus the order looked for a new base. Under Master Fulk de Villaret it attacked the Byzantine island of Rhodes in 1306 and completed its conquest by about 1310. There the Hospitallers became a sovereign naval power, with a fleet of galleys that raided Muslim shipping and defended Christian trade in the Aegean.

When Pope Clement V suppressed the Templars in 1312, the bull Ad providam transferred most of their property to the Hospitallers, greatly increasing the order’s wealth in Europe, though much of it was costly to recover from kings and lords.

On Rhodes the brothers were organised by langues (“tongues”), national groupings such as Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon, England and Germany, with Castile added in 1462. Each had its own inn in the town. The order withstood a Mamluk siege in 1444 and a major Ottoman siege in 1480 under Pierre d’Aubusson.

In 1522 Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent besieged Rhodes with a vast army. After about six months, Grand Master Philippe Villiers de L’Isle-Adam negotiated a surrender, and the knights left the island on 1 January 1523, as told in the article on the siege of Rhodes.

Malta and afterwards

In 1530 Emperor Charles V granted the order Malta, together with Tripoli in North Africa. As the Knights of Malta they withstood the Ottoman Great Siege of 1565 and built the fortified capital of Valletta. Napoleon seized Malta in 1798 on his way to Egypt, ending the order’s territorial rule after 268 years on the island. Most of the knights were expelled, and the order spent the following decades without a permanent home.

The order re-formed in the nineteenth century and today, as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, has its headquarters in Rome and runs hospitals and relief work in many countries. It is recognised as a sovereign entity under international law and maintains diplomatic relations with many states.

Medicine and charity

Throughout its history the order kept its original vocation. Its statutes laid down that patients should have good bedding, proper food and the attention of physicians, which was unusual in the twelfth century. Pilgrims of any background could be admitted, and the hospital also cared for abandoned children and distributed alms to the poor.

On Rhodes the knights built a large new hospital in the fifteenth century, and the building, completed around 1489, survives today as the island’s archaeological museum. In Valletta the Sacra Infermeria of the sixteenth century continued the tradition, treating hundreds of patients at a time.

Hospitallers and Templars

The two great military orders of the crusades are often confused. The Templars were founded as a fighting order around 1120, while the Hospitallers began as a charitable institution and took on military duties later. Both answered directly to the pope, held estates across Europe and garrisoned castles in the East.

They were frequently rivals, competing for donations and sometimes backing opposing factions in the politics of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Proposals to merge them were made in the late thirteenth century. The rivalry ended with the suppression of the Templars in 1312, when the Hospitallers inherited much of their wealth.

Key people

• Gerard (died 1120): head of the Jerusalem hospital, venerated as Blessed Gerard, founder of the order.
• Raymond du Puy: master who gave the order its rule and began its military role.
• Fulk de Villaret: master who led the conquest of Rhodes.
• Pierre d’Aubusson (1423–1503): grand master who defended Rhodes against the Ottomans in 1480.
• Philippe Villiers de L’Isle-Adam (1464–1534): grand master during the siege of 1522 and the move to Malta.

Timeline

• c. 1070: Amalfitan merchants found the hospital of St John in Jerusalem.
• 1113, 15 February: Pope Paschal II recognises the order.
• 1136: The order receives the frontier castle of Bethgibelin.
• 1142 or 1144: The order receives Krak des Chevaliers.
• 1187, July: Hospitaller prisoners executed after Hattin; Jerusalem falls in October.
• 1291, May: Fall of Acre; the order moves to Cyprus.
• 1306–1310: Conquest of Rhodes.
• 1312: Templar property assigned to the Hospitallers.
• 1480: Ottoman siege of Rhodes repelled.
• 1522–1523: Rhodes surrendered to Suleiman; the knights leave on 1 January 1523.

Why it matters

The Hospitallers combined two medieval ideals, charity to the sick and holy war, in one institution. They shaped warfare and castle-building in the crusader states, defended the Christian frontier in the Mediterranean for centuries after the crusades ended, and their medical tradition lives on in organisations around the world.