The Military Order of the Knights Hospitaller - Crusades History

The Knights Hospitaller was a medieval Catholic military order founded in 1113 CE with the full name of 'Knights of the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem'. After their base was relocated to Rhodes in the early 14th century CE, the order's members were often called the Knights of Rhodes and when they moved again in 1530 CE, this time to Malta, they were subsequently known as the Knights of Malta. The original purpose of the order was to provide aid and medical care to Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, but it soon became a military order which acquired extensive territories in Europe and whose knights made significant contributions to the Crusades in Iberia and the Middle East. The Knights Hospitaller, identified by their distinctive white eight-pointed cross on a black background, participated in many other campaigns besides, notably those involving the Byzantine Empire. The order still exists today in several modified forms in many countries worldwide, ranging from the Roman Catholic Sovereign Military Order of Saint John to the volunteer Saint John's Ambulance Brigade.

The order was first established at the Hospital of Saint John in Jerusalem c. 1080 CE (or even earlier) by a group of merchants from Amalfi in Italy. The John it was originally dedicated to was the 7th-century CE patriarch John the Almsgiver, but he was later replaced as patron by the more universally known and more popular Saint John the Baptist. At the hospital, which had two branches - one for men and another for women, charitable aid was offered to pilgrims in the Holy Land, especially the ill and poor, although there were even some non-Christians amongst its patients. The hospital was run under the auspices of the Benedictines monks of the Latin Church of Santa Maria Latina in Jerusalem and then, in 1113 CE the organisation was officially recognised as a religious order by Pope Paschal II (r. 1099-1118 CE). In the same year, its first master, the Blessed Gerard, was officially appointed and its members recognised as monks. Following the capture of Jerusalem by western armies in the First Crusade (1095-1102 CE), the order was reorganised and made more militaristic from 1120 CE by the then master Raymond du Puy. Between 1135 and 1154 CE the church granted the order independence from any local religious authority.

The Hospitallers, as they would become known, eventually ran most of the hospitals in the Holy Land and even started to build them in Europe, one of the earliest being in Utrecht in 1122 CE. The hospital at Jerusalem was, of course, the most famous, and its 75 x 40 metre (250 x 130 ft) building could accommodate over 1,000 patients. Such was the respect from the Muslims for the institution that even when Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria (r. 1174-1193 CE), conquered Jerusalem the Hospitallers were allowed a year to shut it down and move patients away.

The gradual establishment of command posts (commanderies) across Europe ensured the order a steady supply of funds, materials and recruits. Generally, the outposts fed one-third of their revenue back to the order's headquarters. By the second half of the 12th century CE, the order had established itself as a reliable source of well-armed and well-trained knights immensely useful to Crusader armies and the newly established Christian states of the Latin East.

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