St John

The very fabric of the history of the Order of St John must be firmly based into the worldview of the Bible. The Bible gives a history of the world and of Jerusalem which is foundational to an understanding of what became the Order of St John.

One figure in the Bible of importance is that of the prophet Elijah, who called Israel back to faith.

Another event which took place between the Old and New Testaments was the successful revolt of the Maccabeans, which led to Judea being an independent state for a time during the Greek period before the conquests of the Romans. It is said that the Maccabeans founded the first hospital in Jerusalem. Certainly the pool at Bethesda within the city was a gathering place for the sick, infirm and incurables.

Malachi prophesied at the end of the Old Testament that Elijah would return and turn the hearts of the fathers toward the children. The prophet John the Baptist, a contemporary of the earthly ministry Jesus Christ, was said to be the first fulfilment of this prophecy. John the Baptist preached to the Jewish people a message of personal and national repentance.

“And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (The Gospel of St Luke, 1:17).

The name “St John” refers to John the Baptist. According to the Bible, all believers are referred to as “saints”.

BELOW: Illustration of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus.

John the Baptist baptizes Jesus in the Jordan River

Christianity

Christianity is about following the teachings of Jesus as well as believing in His provision of salvation for mankind by His death and rising from the dead.

Although Christianity suffered various persecutions in its early years, it eventually rose to take over the Roman Empire. The Emperor Constantine did much to reverse the fortunes of Christianity which led to its taking over the entire Roman Empire.

As there was a need to defend and understand both the fact of the divinity of Christ as the Son of God, and of the three persons of the Trinity, the Apostles’ Creed is taken to be a basic definitive description of Christianity:

I believe in God the Father Almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth:

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,

Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,

Born of the virgin Mary,

Suffered under Pontius Pilate,

Was crucified, dead, and was buried,

He descended into hell;

The third day he rose again from the dead,

He ascended into heaven,

And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;

From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost;

The holy catholick Church;

The communion of saints;

The forgiveness of sins;

The resurrection of the body,

And the life everlasting. Amen.

BELOW: The Holy Bible.

Pilgrimages

A pilgrimage, or in the old French, “pelegrinage”, which gives its name to the peregrine falcon, means to undertake a journey in a devotional spirit to a sacred place or some encounter of spiritual significance. From a Protestant and Western perspective, the superstitions of the medieval period led to the multiplying of shrines and fabricated relics.

From the time of Emperor Constantine there was interest within the Empire for Christians to travel to the Holy Land and to visit various shrines and places of interest. Constantine’s mother St Helena, it is said, was involved in raising hospitals in the Holy Land. Those “hospitals” were more like hostels, where travellers could come and stay, and with the additional role of a hospice to meet physical needs. Certainly by the time of Justinian the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, there was a hospital in Jerusalem. Allegedly a hospital was also set up by orders of the Pope at about 600 AD called St Maria Latina in order to rival the Greek-speaking Christians’ hospital.

With the rise of Islam and the Arab conquest of Jerusalem, the role and importance of hospitals increased. Christians visiting Jerusalem benefited from arrangements made with the caliphs, though this did not always spare the buildings. In about 1010 a caliph destroyed the hospitals at Jerusalem.

In 1048 the early Hospitallers were at work serving pilgrims and caring for the sick. The Turks attacked and killed many in Jerusalem which incensed Europeans and eventually led to the crusades.

BELOW: Jerusalem.

Amalfi

The foundational history of the Order of St John is in the Christianity and influence of the Eastern Roman Empire known as the Byzantine Empire.

Amalfi, a city and provincial region on the Italian coast, was part of the Byzantine Empire from approximately the end of the reign of the Emperor Justinian to the High Middle Ages. For a great part of that period, the Greek language, coinage with the image of the Eastern Emperor and influence of the Eastern Orthodox religion were dominant in Amalfi.

Amalfi was an important and prosperous maritime trade centre, with trade routes though the eastern Mediterranean, including Islamic ports. In 839 Amalfi became a city state but still with nominal and legal ties to the Byzantine Empire. It became an autonomous duchy in 958, retaining an ultimate suzerain relationship with the Byzantine Empire.

Amalfi had strong ties with Eastern Roman Empire and the Islamic Fatimids. It created outposts in the Eastern Mediterranean including Constantinople. Even to the twenty first century, the influence of Byzantine architecture and traditions are notable in that region.

Around 1023 merchants from Amalfi approached the caliph of Egypt with a plan to rebuild several hospitals, for males and for females, in Jerusalem.

From 1034 Amalfi came under control of neighbouring countries, who also had been under Byzantine rule, but were now shifting decisively toward the Western Catholic power.

In about 1048 or so, land which had been purchased by the Amalfian merchants was used for a hospital, and was worked by Amalfians to help travellers. Relative peace reigned between the Christians and the Muslims until the Turks arrived. Different histories give accounts of outrages done by Muslims against Christians in 1065 and in 1076.

The Amalfians working in the male hospital began to call themselves the brothers of St John. It is highly important that the founding of the Order be seen as pre-dating the year 1054, when the Roman Catholics officially split from the Eastern Orthodox with the Great Schism.

This provides great proof that the Order is not a Roman Catholic monopoly, but was highly influenced by Byzantine factors, including the fact that the Amalfians had been part of the Byzantine world. A power struggled was rising between the Catholic West and the Byzantine East, and with the coming of the Turks and their barbarous actions, the East suffered while the West took the initiative.

Amalfi was under Norman control from 1073 and during the time of the first crusade.

BELOW: The flag of Amalfi.

The first crusade

With the Turks in power in the Holy Land, travelling to Jerusalem by Christian pilgrims was hazardous. With the Islamic forces making incursions, Western Europe put out the call for a crusade in 1095. The crusaders made their way to Jerusalem arriving in 1099.

With Jerusalem taken, the new Christian presence provided a welcome respite to the Hospitallers there. Both pilgrims and crusading soldiers could therefore be cared for in the hospital of St John at Jerusalem, which had its mission to meet the needs of travellers and care for the sick. Those injured in battle could have their wounds tended in the Hospital of St John. Blessed Gerard, who had been at work there since at least 1084, became the first Rector of the Order.

Some days after the battle Duke Godfrey of Bouillon, visited his wounded comrades from whom he heard nothing but praise of the good Gerard and the Hospitaller brothers. Godfrey became the first king of the new kingdom but he refused to wear a crown of gold where the Lord had worn a crown of thorns. The new kingdom embraced the whole of Palestine together with the Principalities of Antioch and Edessa.

The fame of the Hospitallers had gone abroad, wealth flowed in upon them, kings and princes gave of their substance. At the hands of Baldwin I they received a large share of the booty taken from the infidels. From being poor and having given of themselves to serve others, in the space of a few years they became rich.

The Hospitallers prospered in this environment and aspired to independence forming a more formal (and prosperous) Order. They drew up a code of rules for their future guidance in which they prescribed a vow of obedience (the vow being made in the presence of the Patriarch).

In 1113 the Pope confirmed the rules they had drawn up, and granted them permission on the death of Gerard to elect his successor as Grand Master, by their own votes, without the interference of any temporal or spiritual power whatever. He further granted them exemption from the obligation of paying tithes to the Patriarch, and confirmed all the donations made, or to be made to them. Here ended the authority of the Pope over the Order from that time, with the Order has been free from all authority, spiritual or temporal. They here became a law unto themselves, and they acknowledged no other, in so far as the Order was concerned. However, later, as the Order began to own and operate estates and hospitals in Europe, obviously actions there were amenable to these country’s laws.

BELOW: A representation of the Blessed Gerard.

Militarisation

The Pope granted the Hospitallers the privilege of electing their Grand Master, and they chose Raymond du Puy in the year 1118. One of the first acts of Raymond du Puy was to combine the duties of a religious serving brother with those of a soldier, thus making it a military order. Under the leadership of du Puy the organisation was divided into three ranks: knights, men at arms and chaplains.

Here we see the transformation of the unarmed hospital attendant into an armed knight, ready and willing to meet the foe on any part of the earth’s surface. Thus the rise of the knights.

Chivalry began as the ideals of action, thought and behaviour of a horse-riding knight. Chivalry developed out of the warrior culture of the Germanic peoples, who had conquered the Christian Roman Empire, and had themselves turned Christian. Thus, after the Dark Ages, a Christian warriors’ code developed in Western Europe as centred on France. The Normans now controlled Amalfi, and with the influx of the crusaders into the Middle East, their influence was also seen in the Order of St John.

The Hospitallers under as a religious and military Order responsible for the care and defence of the Holy Land assisting Baldwin II of Jerusalem with armed troops. The Hospitallers and the Templars (which had been founded in 1118) became the most formidable military Orders in the Holy Land. The two orders were brothers in arms, though sometimes rivals.

In 1130 the Pope announced that the Hospitallers then retained at their own expense a body of horse and foot soldiers to defend the pilgrims going to and returning from the Holy Places, and invited the clergy to “minister to the necessities of the Order out of their abundant poverty.”

The Order participated in ensuing crusades. The Second Crusade was instigated by the fall of Edessa (1144), and by the fear of Jerusalem sharing its fate. The siege of Damascus failed miserably. The crusaders in dishonour then withdrew to Jerusalem and thus ended the crusade. The Hospitallers took part in the Siege of Ascalon in 1153.

Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor, pledged his protection to the Knights of St John in a charter of privileges granted in 1185.

The statutes of Roger de Moulins (1187) dealt with the service of the sick. The statutes of the ninth grand master, Fernando Afonso of Portugal (circa 1200) distinguished between secular knights, who served only for a time, and the professed knights, attached to the Order by a perpetual vow.

The fall of Jerusalem in 1187 was a great blow to the Order. Not only was that city the capital of the Christian world, it was much more to them. It was the Order’s birthplace and the scene of its early activities. In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre the Society had been invested with its spiritual and temporal constitution, its monastic and military powers. The venerable founders and early workers who had died in the field of battle or elsewhere slept there. Its sacred traditions were for the most part identified with the city. To preserve or help the holy sepulchre was one of its vaunted privileges.

When Jerusalem fell, its magnificent church and hospital which had taken 100 years of struggle to build and pay for, and upon which depended its religious and charitable ministrations, passed into other hands. Yet even in the last days the Conqueror Saladin, impressed with the care taken by the Hospitallers of the sick and wounded of all creeds, gave the Knights permission to stay in the city a whole year longer until the sick were entirely healed.

Before his triumphal entry Saladin caused the bell of the Patriarchal Church “The Mosque of Omar” to be broken and melted and the Church itself to be washed with rose water and reconsecrated to Allah. It is well known that Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem are the three most sacred shrines of Islam.

At the height of the of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Hospitallers held seven great forts and 140 other estates in the area. This included Krak de Chevaliers in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Margat in Syria in the Principality of Antioch.

The property of the Order was divided into priories, and those divided into bailiwicks and those divided into commanderies.

As early as the late 12th century the Order had begun to achieve recognition in England and Normandy, which resulted in the building of Sutton-at-Hone Preceptory in Kent, Knights Gate, Queenington in Gloucestershire and Kilmainham Priory at Dublin in Ireland.

The final scene of the drama, the fall of Acre took place in 1291, when the city was invested by the Turks. Peter de Beaujeu, the Templar Grand Master, was by common consent then chosen governor. After the first assault, Ludignan, the last King of Jerusalem, was the first to abandon his post and under cover of night to sail for Cyprus. The three military orders covered their banners with wreaths of glory. It is said that of the Templars and Hospitallers only ten of the former and seven of the latter escaped. With the fall of Acre the Western Christian power in the East was crushed, and Asia and Africa were cleared of crusaders.

BELOW: An illustration of the Order in Palestine.

Acre

The defeat of the Christian army of occupation at the Battle of Tiberias in 1187, where the Hospitallers and Templars were well nigh exterminated, and the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin who had be come Sultan were the propelling motives of the Third Crusade. It was brought about by the fall of Acre, Tyre, Beirut and Nicopolis, when the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem became a prey to the victorious Saladin.

It is said that after the defeat at Tiberias Saladin offered their lives to the surviving Knights of St John and the Templars on condition of their becoming Muslims. These 230 devoted champions spurned the offer and were put to the scimitar. Thus ended the Frankish kingdom after a turbulent life of 88 years.

The Third Crusade (1190) was the most important. The Emperor Barbarossa took command of the forces for the recovery of Palestine, but at an early stage of the proceedings he lost his life by drowning. Thus Philip Augustus of France and Richard the Lionheart of England were left in command.

Acre was retaken (1191) but not until 200,000 Christian soldiers had found a grave before its walls. Jealousy caused Philip to retire from the campaign on pretence of ill health and return to France. From Acre Richard led the crusaders to Jaffa, again inflicting upon Saladin a severe defeat. He also captured Ascalon. However he could not recapture Jerusalem as his had been thinned by war, hunger and disease. He concluded a long truce with Saladin which secured for the Christians the right of pilgrimage to the holy places without molestation or taxation.

From this time the headquarters of the Order were at Acre. The arrival of the German contingent before Acre was celebrated by the institution of the Teutonic Order of Knighthood which became the forerunner of the Prussian monarchy.

The Fourth Crusade was largely a failure. Its leader, Baldwin of Flanders, conducted his army to Constantinople where he established a short lived Latin Empire, during which time the Roman See held a nominal supremacy over a portion of the Eastern (or Greek) Church.

The Sixth (or bloodless) Crusade (1228) was secured a peace for Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and Joppa. After 20 years twenty years Jerusalem fell once more before the Tartars (1248).

At this time, the Knights of St John wore a white eight-pointed cross upon the breast. They always dressed a black mantle which is why names such as the Black Order and Black Knights have been used. However, over the centuries, as its knights participated as parts of the armies of the crusaders, they also wore a red surcoat and/or cloak with a white eight-pointed cross on the breast.

After this followed the unsuccessful crusades led by St Louis King of France.

The affairs of the Christians in Palestine then went rapidly from bad to worse. The Latins got fighting among themselves. In 1259 a sanguinary battle took place between the Hospitallers and Templars which crippled both Orders. The Muslims thus had an easy triumph. The Mameluke chieftain who had captured St Louis in Egypt became Sultan and acquiring the Syrian States poured his united forces into Palestine. The Latin garrisons and military orders made a gallant defence and stout resistance. At one siege 90 Hospitallers died in the breach.

The Grand Master at this period was Hugh de Revel, who was succeeded by Nicholas de Lorgne (1278). After a vain attempt to rally his disheartened forces, De Lorgne died of a broken heart, and was succeeded by John de Villiers who escaped the Siege of Acre (1291).

BELOW: An illustration of the Templars and Hospitallers together.

siege_of_acre_1291__version_3_by_lacedemon-d4620y7-e1550782868752.webp

Cyprus, Rhodes and the Langues

The Hospitallers remained active through the crusades with the loss and gain of Jerusalem, and with the loss of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1291, when they were forced to escape from the city of Acre to the island of Cyprus.

Acre was the last rendezvous where the Hospitallers, Templars and Teutonic Knights fought side by side. It very nearly became the grave of the two first-named Orders. It was the point of departure from Palestine for them all. The Templars came to an end some years later due to their secret heresies.

The Grand Master and five Knights escaped from Acre and landed at the island of Cyprus. Henry II. of Cyprus, a prince of Norman blood allowed them to set up their standard in the town of Limisso, one of the chief towns in the island. They began to reorganise.

At a Chapter-General held at Limisso, it was resolved to fortify the town, and erect it into a regular establishment of hospitality. Here also we have the beginning of the naval policy of the Order. It was resolved to use the ship which had conveyed them from Acre, in clearing the coasts from the continued attacks of Saracen pirates.

A navy in a single ship, not a great thing certainly, but nevertheless the beginning of a policy which afterwards won the Island of Rhodes.

Finding themselves becoming enmeshed in Cypriot politics, the grand master Guillaume de Villaret called a Chapter General to decide the question of a new home for the Order.

At this time the Pope attempted to subjugate the Order. Taking advantage of their miserable state, he proposed to unite the Hospitallers and Templars into one Order, whose common Grand Master, to prevent jealousy, should be elected by neither of them, but by the Papacy. This proposal was promptly rejected by both Orders.

In 1300 the Order cooperated with the Mongols as they attempted to defeat the Muslims in Palestine. However, the Saracens had destroyed the fortifications of Jerusalem, and the Mongols had to retreat owning to a civil war in Tartary, leaving the Christians unable to resist the advances of the Egyptian Mamluks.

In 1306 Grand Master Fulk de Villaret received sums and recruits from Europe, including liberal donations from Genovese women, for the acquisition of Rhodes. Rhodes was part of the Byzantine Empire, so they made an arrangement with the Byzantine Emperor, who gave them permission to conquer Rhodes, which was a pirate haven.

Foulques de Villaret executed the plan, with a fleet taking the knights to Rhodes. In 1310, after more than four years of campaigning, the main city on Rhodes surrendered to the knights. The Order set up their own kingdom on Rhodes and also gained control of a number of neighbouring islands and the mainland port of Halicarnassus.

The island of Rhodes lies 18 kilometres off the coast of Turkey and is one of the largest Greek islands. The island is 79.7 long and 38 km wide, with a total area of approximately 1,400 square kilometres and a coastline of approximately 220 km. The surface of the island is diversified, and it is traversed from north to south by a mountain range, the highest point of which, Mount Attavyros, rises to an elevation of 1,216 metres. Limestone is the main bedrock. The climate of the island is good and its soil fertile. The island has many trees and flowering plants.

The city of Rhodes is located at the northern tip of the island with its harbour, as well as other villages. At that time the inhabitants of the city were Knights of the Order, merchants of every nation, local Rhodians (Greeks) and Jews.

Once in possession of Rhodes the Hospitallers occupied themselves in putting the island into a state of defence. Under Villaret’s able superintendence the ramparts of the city were promptly restored. On Rhodes the Hospitallers, by then also referred to as the Knights of Rhodes, were forced to become a more militarised force, fighting especially with the Barbary pirates.

The Order by this time had spread around Europe, with hospitals being built in various countries. The Order grew so large, and having spread so much abroad, that it operated in seven areas of Europe, or “langues”, meaning languages. One of these was England, which included Scotland, Wales and Ireland. The governing body of each division was called a Grand Priory, and the chief officer the Grand Prior. The supreme council was called the Chapter General, and the supreme ruler the Grand Master.

Having gained freedom from outside control their numbers increased rapidly. So great was the influx of new members that it was found necessary to sub-divide the Order into eight language divisions. The Langues or Tongues were first created in 1301-1304 under Grant Master de Villaret. Seven Langues were created, which later were made into the eight: Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon, England, The Holy Roman Empire (Greater Germany) and Castile.

England included Scotland and Ireland, while Castile included Portugal and Leon. The governing body of each division was called a Priory or, if multiple priories in a Langue, a Grand Priory, and the chief officer the Grand Prior. The supreme council being called the Chapter General, and the supreme ruler the Grand Master.

In 1334 the Knights defeated Andronikos III Palaiologos and his Turkish auxiliaries. In 1374, the Knights took over the defence of Smyrna, and held it until 1402. In 1402 they created a stronghold on the peninsula of Halicarnassus. They withstood an invasion by the Sultan of Egypt in 1444.

After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, it was feared that Rhodes would be the next point attacked, the Commander D’Aubusson with the assistance of European courts and bankers, spent large sums of money on arms, military and naval stores. He also enlarged the ditches and raised a great wall on the sea side of the town, the cost of which was defrayed from the private purse of the Grand Master Ursini. Peter D’Aubusson, who afterwards became Grand Master, was not only a great financier, but a talented engineer well instructed in the most improved system of fortifications, and as such eminently fitted, as the event proved, for putting the island in a complete state of defence.

Sure enough, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror turned his attention to Rhodes in 1480. The knights had collected supplies and called in their brethren and mercenaries from Europe, and had strengthened their position.

In 1480 the Turks landed on Rhodes and soon 70,000 men were encamped around the city. As the siege settled in, the Turks found that they could not stop European ships resupplying the city, so the Turks planned to capture the Fort St Nicholas. Massive guns fired onto the city, and at St Nicholas. The knights strengthened their defences and an amphibious assault on that sight was defeated.

The Turks then built a floating bridge of planks nailed down to trunks of trees. However, their attempt to get the bridge across failed. Therefore the Turk attempted to bombard the city with stones and fire, but the knights worked tirelessly at constructing defences and when finally the assault came, it failed and the Turks were forced to quit the island.

The next great siege was in 1522, some forty years later. A force of 400 ships under the command of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent delivered up to 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, including 20 English knights.

During the six month siege, Rhodes was practically lost. Only 1,500 knights were left fit for duty, while the Turks had lost 44,000 men in the fighting. The ammunition and supplies of the defenders were exhausted. So L’Isle-Adam and the Turks came to terms, and so the Christians retreated from Rhodes to Sicily. The Order survived in Candia, Messina and Citta Vecchia for seven years.

Despite the defeat, both Christians and Muslims regarded the conduct of L’Isle-Adam as extremely valiant, and the Grand Master was proclaimed a Defender of the Faith by the Pope.

BELOW: A layout of the Hospitaller Order’s defence of Rhodes.

Preceptory

Sovereign Order of St John of Jerusalem

Knights Hospitaller

Royal Black Knights