We praise our names
But the poverty of idle talk will become obvious,
When to raise your cross for ramen
We will not be ready these days.
Christ, full of love, is for us,
He died in the land that was given to the Turks.
Let's flood the fields with a stream of enemy blood,
Or our honor is forever disgraced!
Conan de Bethuis. Translation by E. Vasilyeva
Typically, Western European knights defeated Muslims on the battlefield, and not only when they fought bravely and decisively - these were the qualities for which chivalry has always been famous - but also acted in an organized manner. But it was precisely organization that the knights most often lacked. The reason was that every feudal knight depended on little on anyone, since his peasants were engaged in subsistence farming, and the society itself was distinguished by non-economic forms of forced labor. Moreover, in personal valor he could easily surpass both the duke and the count, and even the king himself! Suger, abbot of Saint-Denis, in his treatise “The Life of Louis VI, nicknamed Tolstoy,” spoke in detail about how in 1111 he planned to punish Hugh du Puizet, since he was engaged in robbery, and besieged his castle in Beauce. Although the king’s army suffered heavy losses, he still took Hugo’s castle, but he treated Hugo himself very gently: he just sent him into exile, although he could have hanged him. Then Hugo returned, declared that he had repented, and Louis VI forgave him. Then Hugo again built the donjon and... took up robbery and other outrages, so that the king was simply forced to go on a campaign against his obstinate vassal again. And again Hugo’s dungeon was burned, and Hugo himself was punished, and then, when he repented once again, they were pardoned again! But then he repeated the same thing for the third time, and it was then that the king became seriously angry: his keep was burned, and Hugo himself was sent to the Holy Land to atone for his sins before God. He never returned from there, and only after that the inhabitants of Bose were able to breathe easy.
Crusader warrior 1163 – 1200 Fresco on the wall of the chapel of Cressac-Saint-Genis (Charente). The most famous are the frescoes painted on the northern wall. The top row of images tells of the battle with the Saracens that took place in 1163 at the foot of the Krak des Chevaliers castle, when Emir Nureddin, who besieged the castle, was completely defeated by a surprise attack by the Frankish cavalry.
Many other knights were distinguished by the same, if not greater, arbitrariness in that era. And it would be nice in peacetime! No, and on the battlefield they behaved in an equally inappropriate manner! And if some proud knight, before the rest, rushed to the enemy camp in order to be the first to rob it, or fled from the enemy when it was necessary to stand steadfastly in one place and fight the enemy, the king could well lose even the most successful battle!
Making sure that knights were disciplined was what many military leaders dreamed of, but no one could achieve this for many years. Everything changed when the “expeditions” to the East began. There, having become closely acquainted with the Eastern culture, which was completely different for them, the leaders of the West decided that the church itself could become the “basis” of knightly discipline. And all you need to do for this is... make monks out of the knights and at the same time hint that in this way they will get closer to their cherished salvation!
Knights-Crusaders of Palestine: from left to right - Knight-Crusader of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem (founded in 1099); Hospitaller; Templar, knight of the Order of St. Jacob of Campostela, Teutonic Knight of the Order of St. Mary of Teutonia.
And so the spiritual knightly orders of the crusader knights appeared, created in distant Palestine. But they were only copied from very similar “organizations” among Muslims! After all, it was there, in the East, at the end of the 11th – beginning of the 12th century that such military-religious orders as Rahkhasiyya, Shuhainiya, Khaliliyya and Nubuwiyya appeared, some of which in 1182 were united by Caliph an-Nasir into one large and united spiritual order for all Muslims. knightly order of Futuwwa. Members of this order had a purely knightly rite, when the entrant was girded with a sword, after which the candidate drank “sacred” salty water from a special bowl, put on special trousers and even, as in Europe, received a blow with the flat side of the sword or hand on the shoulder. That is, chivalry itself, as such, came to Europe from the East, which, by the way, is also mentioned in Ferdowsi’s poem “Shahnameh”!
Although, who was the first and from whom to borrow the very idea of a spiritual knightly order is also, in general, unknown - or rather, this is a very controversial issue! After all, long before these events, in the lands of Africa, namely in Ethiopia, there already existed... the ancient Christian order of St. Anthony, and historians quite rightly consider him the oldest among all other knightly orders in the whole world.
The cross was a popular figure on ancient knightly coats of arms.
It is believed that it was founded by the Negus - the ruler of Ethiopia, who was known in the West as "Prester John", after St. Anthony either in 357 or 358 fell asleep in the Lord. Then many of his followers decided to go into the desert, where they took vows of monastic life to St. Vasily and created a monastery “in the name and heritage of St. Anthony." The order itself was founded in 370 AD, although even a later date compared to all other orders will still be “early”.
Stairs to the cave of St. Anthony the Great. Perhaps salvation can be found here...
Orders with the same name were later in Italy, France and Spain, and were branches of the order, whose headquarters were in Constantinople. It is interesting that the Ethiopian order has survived to this day. The head of the order is its grandmaster and at the same time the President of the Royal Council of Ethiopia. They admit new members very rarely, and as for the vows, yes, they are completely chivalrous. The badge of the order has two degrees - the Grand Knight's Cross and the Companion Cross. He has the right to indicate in his official title the initials KGCA (Knight Grand Cross) and CA (Companion of the Order of St. Anthony).
Crosses of the Order of St. Anthony.
Both badges of the order have the appearance of a golden Ethiopian cross, covered with blue enamel, and on top they are also crowned with the imperial crown of Ethiopia. But the breast star is the cross of the order, does not have a crown, and is superimposed on an eight-pointed silver star. The order ribbon is traditionally sewn from moire silk, has a bow at the hip, and its color is black with blue stripes on the edges.
The clothing of the knights of the order were black and blue robes, on the chest of which a blue three-pointed cross was embroidered. Senior knights were distinguished by double crosses of the same color. The order's headquarters was located on the island of Meroe (in Sudan), and throughout Ethiopia the order owned both women's and numerous men's monasteries. The order was simply incredibly rich: its annual income was no less than two million gold. Thus, the idea of such orders was first born not in the East, and, as you see, not in Europe, but in... sultry Christian Ethiopia!
Well, the palm in the creation of the very first order in Palestine belonged to the Johannites or Hospitallers. Usually, non-specialists associate its foundation with the first crusade, although the real order is slightly different. It all started when Emperor Constantine came to Jerusalem to find here (and he found it!) the life-giving cross of the Lord, well, the same one on which Jesus Christ was crucified. Then many other holy places were found in the city, which were mentioned in the Gospel, and churches immediately began to be built in these places.
It is clear that any Christian would be very pleased to visit all these places, receive grace from God and hope for the salvation of his sinful soul. But the journey to the Holy Land for the pilgrims was filled with dangers. And when someone got there, they often took monastic vows and stayed to continue doing good to other pilgrims at the same monastic hospitals. In 638, Jerusalem was captured by the Arabs, but for all this “activity” the conditions remained virtually unchanged.
And so, when in the 10th century Jerusalem turned into a world center of Christian piety, a pious merchant was found - yes, there were those then, named Constantine di Panteleone, originally from the Italian trading republic of Amalfi, who in 1048 asked permission from the Egyptian Sultan to build in the city of another shelter for sick pilgrims. They called it the Jerusalem Hospital of St. John, and the emblem of the hospital was the white eight-pointed Amalfi cross. That is why his servants began to be called Johannites, or hospitalers (from the Latin hospitalis - “hospitable”).
Battle for Agra. Miniature from the manuscript “History of Outremer” by Guillaume de Tire, 14th century. (National Library of France).
For 50 years, the Hospitallers lived quite peacefully - they went after the sick and prayed, but then the Crusaders besieged Jerusalem. According to legend, Christians, like all other residents of the city, were “put on the walls.” And then the cunning Johannites began to throw not stones, but fresh bread onto the heads of the Christian knights! The authorities immediately accused the Johannites of treason, but a miracle happened: right in front of the judges, this bread turned into stone, which proved their innocence, so they were acquitted! When Jerusalem fell on July 15, 1099, Duke Godfrey of Bouillon rewarded the brave monks, and some of his knights even became members of their brotherhood in order to protect pilgrims traveling to the holy city. First, the status of the order was approved by the ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Baudouin I, in 1104, and nine years later, Pope Paschal II confirmed his decision with his bull. And this charter of Baudouin I and the papal bull have survived to this day and are located in the National Library of the island of Malta in the city of La Valletta.
Louis VII and King Baudouin III of Jerusalem (left) fight the Saracens (right). Miniature from the manuscript “History of Outremer” by Guillaume de Tire, 14th century. (National Library of France).
The military brothers of the order were not mentioned in documents until 1200, when they were divided into brother warriors (blessed to wear and use), brother doctors and brother chaplains, who performed the necessary religious rites in the order. The military brothers obeyed only the Pope and the Grand Master of the Order. At the same time, they owned lands, churches and cemeteries. They were exempt from taxes, and it was established that even bishops did not have the right to excommunicate them!
Modern Hospitaller Reconstructors.
It received its name, the Jerusalem Order of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John, in 1120 under the first master Raymond Dupuis. Along with the usual monastic attire, the knights wore a black cloak, on the left shoulder of which was sewn a white eight-pointed cross. On campaign, they wore a surcoat, usually scarlet in color, with a white linen cross on the chest with flared ends. They symbolized the following: the four ends of the cross are the four Christian virtues, and the eight corners are the eight good qualities of a true believer. And, of course, the cross against a bloody background symbolized knightly fortitude and loyalty to the Lord. The banner of the order was a rectangular red cloth with a white cross.
Fort in Larnaca, Cyprus. There were crusaders here too.
In 1291, the order left Palestine and moved to the island of Cyprus, and 20 years later settled on the island of Rhodes, where it remained until 1523, when it was driven out by the Turks. 42 years later, the knights of the order moved to Malta and became known as the “Knights of Malta”. Well, the hospitals founded by the order in various European countries were real centers of medicine at that time.
Still from the film “Suvorov” (1940). Emperor Paul is clearly wearing a robe with a Maltese cross. Well, he loved knightly romance, what to do... In the movie we see that during Suvorov’s meeting with Pavel, Paul I was wearing the mantle of the Master of the Order of Malta. It is safe to say that what we see does not correspond to history. Paul I was indeed proclaimed Grand Master of the Order of Malta, but only on December 6, 1798, that is, more than ten months after this audience.
In 1798, Malta fell under Napoleon's rule, causing a massive dispersion of its members around the world. Emperor Paul I invited the “Knights of Malta” to Russia and condoned them in every possible way, but after his death they had to leave Russia for Rome. Today the order has a complex name, which sounds like this: the Sovereign Military Order of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta. Note that in battles with Muslims in Palestine, the Hospitallers constantly competed with the Templars, which is why they were placed further away from each other. For example, the Johannites are in the rearguard, and the Templars are in the vanguard, and between them are all the other troops.
Bellapais Abbey, Northern Cyprus. Founded by the Hospitallers, but now there is an Orthodox Greek Church.
And this is what it looks like inside today.
Well, these are the dungeons of the abbey. When it's hot outside, it's pleasantly cool here.
Of course, the Hospitallers were not only warriors and doctors, but also excellent builders; they built so many different abbeys, churches and cathedrals. In this they also competed with the Templars. Having moved to Cyprus, they built many religious buildings there that have survived to this day.
St. Nicholas Cathedral, converted by Muslims into a mosque.
From the back, St. Nicholas Cathedral looks no less impressive than from the front.
Pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Hospital in Jerusalem.
From the beginning of the 4th century, Palestine and Jerusalem became a place of pilgrimage. Streams of pious Christians from all over Europe flocked to the Holy Land to venerate the holy places - the places where, according to the Gospel, Jesus Christ spent his last days.
For some, such a journey was the result of his pious spiritual impulse, for others it was an act of repentance, cleansing from sins. In any case, the road was long and difficult: in addition to sailing from European ports to Palestinian ones, one had to travel by carts or on foot, often under the scorching sun, along winding rocky roads, sometimes without any opportunity to replenish their supplies of water and food. The distance and difficulty of the journey meant that many pilgrims arrived in Jerusalem seriously ill. Small hospitable houses and monasteries took care of them.
In the middle of the 6th century. Pope Gregory the Great sent Abbot Probus to the Holy Land with the goal of restoring old and building new hospice houses for pilgrims, the flow of whom to Jerusalem had increased significantly.
The pilgrimage did not stop during the Arab conquest of the Middle East. At first, the Arabs were tolerant of the religious manifestations of pilgrims from Europe, which could not be said about the Seljuk Turks.
In the second half of the 11th century. (according to some sources in 1070) a merchant named Mauro, originally from the Italian city-republic of Amalfi, who traded with Asia Minor port cities, received from the Egyptian Caliph Bomensor, ruler of Palestine, not far from the Holy Sepulcher - the temple that was built on the site where Jesus Christ accepted martyrdom on the cross - permission to open a hospital in Jerusalem (Latin gospitalis - guest) - a hospitable home for pilgrims traveling to the Holy Places. Initially, during its early development, the hospice house was dedicated to the Patriarch of Alexandria, St. John Eleimon, who lived in the 7th century. Pilgrims from Europe called this hospital the “Hospital of St. John the Merciful.” Later, St. became the patron saint of the Johannites. John of Jerusalem (Baptist). This is where the name of the brotherhood that cares for the poor and sick pilgrims and shows mercy and compassion for those in need comes from - the Johannites or Hospitallers.
Brotherhood of St. Hospital John. Fra Gerard.
After some time (according to indirect estimates - until 1080), together with the Benedictine monks, a small brotherhood was created in the newly created hospitable house, which helped the needy Poloniki who came from Europe to venerate the Holy Sepulcher, and the hospital itself turned into a small monastery with hospitals, a church St. Mary of Latin and the Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene. And all this is just a stone's throw from the Holy Sepulcher.
Fra Gerard (Gerard) de Thorne was elected the first rector of the hospice. Under his leadership, a church in the name of St. John the Baptist and a new large hospital were built, consisting of two separate buildings: for men and for women. Benedictine monks served in the Church of St. John. The Nativity of John the Baptist becomes a particularly revered holiday among members of the new brotherhood.
The first brother monks began to be called the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem. The example of Gerard and his comrades inspired many of his contemporaries, who joyfully took upon themselves the monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and took the oath of the “poor brothers of the hospital of St. John”: “To serve as slaves and servants of their masters and masters, which are all the weak and sick ".
The influence of the Crusades on the brotherhood of St. Joanna
In October 1096, a proclamation by the Pope took place in the small French town of Clermont. to all believing Christians in Europe to go on a campaign against the Saracens in order to free the Holy Sepulcher from the hands of the infidels. When the Crusades began, the importance of the Brotherhood of St. John's Hospital was difficult to overestimate. The sick and wounded arrived in huge numbers; many required treatment, care, and often Christian burial.
Creation of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.
After the first crusade, the brotherhood naturally needed the protection and patronage of the Christian rulers who conquered Jerusalem from their Saracen enemies. When visiting the St. John's hospice, the first king of Jerusalem (also Duke of Lower Lorraine) Godfried of Bouillon donated the village of Salsola, located near Jerusalem, for the maintenance of the hospital. Four crusader knights from the king's retinue - Raymond de Puy, Dudon de Comps, Conon de Montagu, Gastus - voluntarily stayed with Gerard de Thorne, taking monastic vows of the Benedictines. In 1099, after the first crusade and the founding of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, pilgrims needed not only treatment and care, but also protection, and therefore the Brotherhood of Johannites was transformed into an Order, the first head of which was Gerard de Thorne. At the same time, long black clothing with an eight-pointed white cross sewn on it, symbolizing the eight beatitudes of Christ, came into use for members of the Order. At first, members of the Order cared for the sick and wounded, and from the first half of the 12th century they began to participate in the war with the Saracens and protect pilgrims who arrived in Palestine in two ways - by land through Asia Minor and Byzantium or along the Mediterranean Sea. The brotherhood began to accept knights as members, obliging them to protect pilgrims on the way. Researcher of medieval monasticism L.P. Karsavin noted: " The ascetic ideal influenced not only the spiritual layers. It also influenced the laity, and by merging it with the ideal of chivalry, a unique form was obtained - knightly orders. Not yet being ascetic, and not yet merging with the monastic, the knightly ideal was already a Christian ideal. Knights were, according to ideologists, defenders of the weak and unarmed, widows and orphans, defenders of Christianity against infidels and heretics. The mission of protecting pilgrims to the Holy Land, helping those who, sick or poor, (1119) needed it, protecting the Holy Sepulcher from infidels stemmed from the ideal of Christian chivalry. Thanks to the dominance of the ascetic worldview, it was combined with the taking of monastic vows, and this is how the knightly order arose A".
Almost at the same time, in 1118, nine knights led by Hugh de Payen (vassal of the Count of Champagne) founded order of the Templars or templars, and later (1198) the Teutonic Knightly Order was created.
The first orders of chivalry - the three most famous orders of the Holy Land and the three Spanish orders - arose as the purest embodiment of the medieval spirit in a combination of monastic and chivalric ideals, at a time when the battle with Islam was becoming a reality.
The spirit of the Crusades was mainly military and religious, so it gave birth to monastic knighthood, which is the best expression of the mood and interests of the era when Christianity was forced to repel the armed propaganda of Islam by force of arms.
Almost at the same time, some monks began to wear a sword over their cassock, and some knights put on a monastic cassock over their chain mail. In 1104, King Baldwin I of Jerusalem, heir and brother of Godfrey of Bouillon, once again recognized and confirmed the privileges of the Hospitaller brotherhood as a military-spiritual Order. And in 1107 he allocated a plot of land to the Order (from that time on, the Knights Hospitallers began to acquire land in other European countries). In 1113 Pope Paschal II approved the brotherhood of the Hospital of St. with his Bull. John, took them under his protection and ensured the right to freely elect their superiors, without the interference of any secular or ecclesiastical authorities. The Pope also gave the right to address questions concerning the Order directly to him. Thus, from 1070 a small brotherhood caring for sick and wounded pilgrims who came from Europe to venerate the Holy Sepulcher; by 1113 a real spiritual knightly Order had already been formed.
Grand Master Raymond de Puy.
In 1120, the first rector of the Jerusalem hospital, Gerard de Thorne, died and the hero of the storming of Jerusalem, Raymond de Puy, from the noble family of Dauphinees, was elected in his place. From that time on, the head of the Order began to be called the Grand Master.
While preserving the famous hospital, the Johannites considered the military protection of pilgrims on the roads of the Holy Land leading to Jerusalem to be an equally important task for themselves.
For this purpose, the members of the Order were divided into three classes: knights, who were required to be of noble birth and perform both military and ministerial duties; chaplains (brother priests), who were responsible for the religious activities of the Order, and squires (employees who were supposed to serve representatives of the first two groups).
To fulfill the order's tasks, Grand Master Raymond de Puy drew up the first Charter of the Order - the Rules of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. In 1120, Pope Calistus II approved this Charter.
As already mentioned, members of the Order were divided into 3 groups: knights, chaplains and squires. Only a hereditary nobleman could become a knight. The inclusion of novice sisters in the Order was also encouraged. All members of the Brotherhood of Hospitallers were expected to faithfully serve religious and spiritual ideals. People whose parents were engaged in trade or banking were not accepted into the order.
During the rite of admission into the Order, new members took an oath of allegiance to the Grand Master, vows of chastity, poverty and obedience.
On the banner of the Order, approved in 1130 by Pope Innocent II, a white eight-pointed cross was embroidered on a black background. The Seal of the Order depicted a lying patient with a cross at his head and a candle at his feet. The black cloth clothes of the Johannites were made after the example of the clothes of John the Baptist, made of camel hair, the narrow sleeves of which symbolized the renunciation of secular life, and the white linen eight-pointed cross on the chest - their chastity. The four directions of the cross spoke of the main Christian virtues - prudence, justice, fortitude and abstinence, and the eight ends meant the eight beatitudes that were promised by Christ to all the righteous in paradise in the Sermon on the Mount *.
Having turned into a powerful military alliance, the Order began to be called: “Knights Hospitallers of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.” As the Order's fame and merits grew, more and more aristocrats and knights from all over Europe joined it. During the 30-year management of the Order by Grand Master Raymond de Puy, the tasks of this brotherhood far outgrew the local scale of activity. Selfless and bloody armed defense of the Holy Land from the Saracens, who for several centuries had been trying to expand their borders and enter the European Mediterranean. Let us also note the independence of the Order, from the very beginning separated from all other states, based on papal institutions, as well as the generally recognized right to have an army and conduct military operations. The popes constantly gave privileges to the Johannites, excluding them from subordination to local temporal and spiritual authorities and giving them the right to collect church tithes in their own favor. The priests of the Order reported only to the Chapter and the Grand Master. In 1143, Pope Innocent II issued a special bull, according to which the Order of St. John did not submit to either ecclesiastical or secular authorities - only directly to the Pope himself. In 1153 Pope Anastasius IV, by the bull “Christianae Fidei Religio,” divided the members of the Order into knights, who dressed in red semi-monastic-semi-military clothes with a black cape, and squires. The hierarchy of the Order of St. John - knights, priests and Brothers Hospitallers - was approved by the Pope later, in 1259. Further privileges were granted to the Order by Popes Adrian IV, Alexander III, Innocent III, and Pope Clement IV awarded the head of the Order the title: "Grand Master of the Holy Hospital Jerusalem and Abbot of the Host of Christ."
Hospitaller fortresses
Pilgrims from Europe were provided with security, treatment, housing and food in numerous hospitable homes and hospitals. The second main task of the Knights of St. John - the fight against infidels - also assumed the participation of the Order in all military campaigns and the defense of the crusader states formed in the East. The castles of the Johannites in Palestine and their unparalleled defense became legendary.
In 1136 Count Raymond of Tripoli entrusted the Johannite Knights with the defense of the fortress of Bet Jibelin, which covered the approaches to the port city of Ascalon in southern Palestine. The knights successfully passed the test and the count handed over several more of his fortresses to the Johannites.
Within a few years, the Order of the Johannites had about five thousand members, who successfully defended more than fifty fortresses in the Levant alone. In many coastal cities of the East, Byzantium and Western Europe, the Johannites opened hospice houses and hospitals. Ioannite fortresses were located on almost all pilgrim roads - in Acre, Saida, Tortosa, Antioch - from Edessa to Sinai. The main fortresses of the Order of the Johannites in the north of Palestine were Krak des Chevaliers and Margat, in the south - the castles of Belvoir and Bet Gibelin.
The Johannites built their fortresses on elevated places, and they dominated the entire surrounding area, allowing them to control the entire territory within a radius of several kilometers. An Arab author, describing the Belver fortress, compared it to an eagle's nest. In fortresses and castles, the Johannites, as a rule, always built a second line of fortifications.
The Krak des Chevaliers fortress, located on the slope of the Lebanese mountains, was handed over to the Johannites by Count Raymond of Tripoli in 1144 and had powerful double walls built by knights with high towers and a ditch cut into the rocks. Inside the fortress (with a total area of about three hectares) there were residential buildings: barracks, the Grand Master's chamber, grain barns, a mill, a bakery, an oil mill, and stables. An aqueduct was built into the fortress, through which drinking water was constantly supplied, sufficient for a garrison of two thousand. But no matter how reliable the defense of the fortress and the courage of the Ioannites were, the enemy forces were so significant that sometimes their numbers outnumbered the Ioannites tens of times. But not a single fortress was surrendered without a fight! The castle of Bet Jibelin fell in 1187, the castle of Belver in 1189 after a siege by the troops of Salah ad-Din (who, by the way, shortly before this (10/2/1187) captured Christian Jerusalem, which had previously been captured by the crusaders (1099). Krak des Chevaliers from 1110 to 1271 withstood twelve sieges, and only in 1271 was it captured by the troops of the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, Baybars.
The fortress of Margat was handed over to the Hospitallers by Count Raymond III of Tripoli in 1186. This fortress was located south of Antioch, 35 kilometers from the sea, and was built from basalt rock with double walls and large towers. Inside there was a large underground reservoir. The reserves of the fortress allowed the thousand-strong garrison to withstand a five-year siege. For a long time, the Margat fortress was one of the main residences of the Order. The Margat Charters adopted in it are known (in which for the first time knights began to be divided according to nationality into “Languages” or “Nations”). Margat fell after a brutal Mameluke siege of Baybars' successor, Kelawn, in 1285.
Crusades II to VIII
Already in 1124, with the help of the Johannite knights, the Arab siege was lifted from the main port of the Kingdom of Jerusalem - Jaffa, and Tyre - one of the richest cities in the Eastern Mediterranean - was taken.
In 1137, the troops of the Byzantine emperor John Komnenos briefly captured Antioch, and in December 1144, the troops of the Seljuk emir Imad ad-din defeated the Principality of Edessa - after the appeal of the ambassadors of Christian states in the East to the Pope, Eugene III, in the summer of 1147, the II Crusade, in which the Johannites also took part. An army of seventy thousand crusaders led by the French king Louis VII and the German king Conrad III of Hohenstaufen, after the unsuccessful siege of Damascus, returned home to Europe with nothing - the Second Crusade ended unsuccessfully.
In 1153, the Johannites took part in the capture of Ascalon, an important Egyptian city, and in 1168, in the unsuccessful siege of Cairo. By the end of the 12th century, there were more than 600 knights in the Order of St. John.
In 1171, power in Egypt was seized by the Egyptian vizier Yusuf Salah ad-din, called Saladin in Europe, who for several years united Syria and Mesopotamia under his control. A fierce struggle between the Mamelukes and the Crusaders began. In 1185, the king of Jerusalem and Salah ad-Din signed a peace treaty for four years. But at the beginning of 1187, the owner of two fortresses - Kerak and Krak de Montreal - Baron Rene of Chatillon attacked the caravan of Salah ad-Din, traveling from Cairo to Damascus. Among those captured was the sister of the ruler of Egypt. The Sultan demanded an explanation, but Rene replied that he had not signed the agreement and did not comply with it. Salah ad-Din declared a holy war on the crusaders - Jihad.
The sixty-thousand-strong Mameluke army led by Salah ad-Din invaded the land of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and took Tiberias on July 1, 1187. On July 5, near the same Tiberias, located between Lake Tiberias and Nazareth, the crusaders were completely defeated by the army of Salah ad-Din - the King of Jerusalem Guy de Lusignan, the Grand Master of the Templars and many knights were captured. After the defeat of the crusader army near Hittin, more than 30 knights were executed; Rene of Chatillon was personally beheaded by Salah ad-Din. The defeat of the Crusaders at Tiberias had catastrophic consequences for the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The kingdom lost the most combat-ready part of its army, if not its entire army. At the same time, roads were opened to all castles, fortresses, cities, city ports and Jerusalem itself! The existence of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was under threat.
After Tiberias, Salah ad-Din's troops took the ports of Acre, Toron, Sidon, Beirut, Nazareth, Jaffa and Ascalon - the kingdom of Jerusalem was cut off from Europe. In mid-September 1187, Salah ad-Din's army besieged Jerusalem. It was useless to defend Jerusalem and on October 2, after several negotiations, the city surrendered: Jerusalem opened the gates. Residents of Jerusalem could leave the city only by paying a ransom - 10 gold dinars for a man, 5 for a woman and 1 for a child; anyone who could not do this became a slave. 3,000 poor people were released just like that.
The Crusaders still had Belfort, Tire, Tripoli, Krak des Chevaliers, Margaret and Antioch.
In May 1189, the Third Crusade began, led by the German Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, the French King Philip II Augustus and the English King Richard the Lionheart. Johannite knights also took part in the campaign. On the way, King Richard took the island of Cyprus, separated from Byzantium, whose king was the former head of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Guido de Lusignan. On July 11, 1191, the crusaders stormed Acre, where the main residence of the Order of St. John was located. The residences of the Johannites were also located in Tire and Margat. Richard the Lionheart wanted to take Jerusalem, but could not besiege the city - on September 2, 1192, a peace was concluded with Salah ad-Din, according to which Jerusalem remained with the Mamelukes, and the crusaders retained only a narrow coastal strip from Tire to Jaffa. Plus, Richard had urgent business in his kingdom, in England, and he wanted to sail there as soon as possible. The capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was moved to Acre.
The Johannites also took part in the IV Crusade, which began in 1199. Troops led by the Italian margrave Boniface of Monferatti and Baldwin of Flanders on Venetian ships Enrico Dandolo instead of fighting with Egypt at the request pretender to the imperial throne The Byzantine prince Alexei Angelos, the son of Emperor Isaac Angelos, who had just been dethroned by his brother, were seduced by the huge money that Alexei promised to pay them if with their help his father would be restored to the throne, and approached Constantinople. Isaac was put back on the throne, but he did not have enough money to pay the debt. Protracted negotiations began, in which Isaac asked to defer the payment of the debt. The Crusaders did not want to wait: the Holy Land was waiting for them. Meanwhile, a prince from the Duki family appeared in Constantinople, who began to preach the hatred of the Greeks towards the crusaders, and to top it all off, he also made a sortie against the crusaders, which decided the fate of the empire. The people unanimously supported this prince (his name was Murzufl) and he was proclaimed emperor in the Cathedral of St. Sophia. In addition, he imprisoned the heir to the throne, Alexei Angel, and killed him there. He also wanted to get rid of the leaders of the crusaders: to lure them into a trap by inviting them to a “feast,” but he failed. The next day, the Byzantine army itself took hostile action against the crusaders, attempting to set fire to their ships. The war has begun. Constantinople was besieged from almost all sides. After a short siege, the crusaders took Constantinople by storm on their second attempt. Murzufl fled. The enormous wealth of Constantinople at that time was plundered! According to rough estimates, their value was then estimated at 1,100,000 silver marks. The city's residents were spared. Count Baldwin IX of Flanders was elected emperor of the new Latin Empire on May 9. The Crusaders captured and divided among themselves the lands of Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, Attica, Boeotia, Peloponnese and the islands of the Aegean Sea. At the same time, with the participation of the Johannites, the Principality of Morea was formed on the Peloponnesian Peninsula.
The Order gradually became a major land owner. Firstly, he received possessions both in Palestine (in the conquered lands) and in Europe as a reward for military exploits and services provided to the monks. Secondly, knights of honor (or “knights of justice”), who took all vows (including the vow of poverty), donated their property and real estate to the order. Thirdly, the Order inherited the lands of its dead knights (Raymond de Puy’s Rules prescribed that a knight setting out on a journey should “make a spiritual will or other disposition,” and very often the knights declared the Order as their heir). Each individual possession of the Order was called a commandery, and, as was its custom, in each such possession (both in Palestine and in Europe) the Order established a hospital in honor of St. John of Jerusalem. During the Crusades, there were several Johannite states (the Johannite state in Akkon with its capital in Acre was the last Crusader state in Palestine after the fall of Jerusalem).
During the Fifth Crusade of 1217-21. The Johannites took part in the unsuccessful siege of the Tabor fortress (77 towers), and during the campaign against Mameluke Egypt, they took part in the long siege and capture of the Damista (Damietta) fortress. In 1230, the Johannites established contacts with the Assassins, a secret Muslim organization-state formed at the end of the 11th century in Iran and which had fortresses and castles in Syria and Lebanon.
In August 1244, Jerusalem was taken by the troops of the Egyptian Sultan al-Salih. On October 17, 1244, the united army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was defeated at Harbshah by the troops of the Egyptian Sultan Baybars (Bibars). Of the 7,000 knights, only 33 Templars, 3 Teutons and 27 Johannites remained alive; about 800 knights were captured. In 1247, the Egyptians also captured part of Galilee and the city of Ascalon, which was defended by the Johannite knights.
In 1265, Sultan Baybars (Bibars) took Caesarea and Arsuf, in 1268 - Jaffa, and, worst of all, Antioch, one of the most powerful fortresses in the Middle East, a fortress that the crusaders besieged for 7 months and lost half of their army under it. armies! This is how the chronicles describe the misfortune of Antioch, which Bibars took: “Since the Count of Tripoli, the ruler of Antioch, fled from it, the Sultan notified him in writing of his victory. " Death, he wrote, came from all sides and along all paths; we killed all those whom you chose to guard Antioch; if you saw your knights trampled under the feet of horses, the wives of your subjects sold by auction, overturned crosses and church pulpits, sheets of the Gospel scattered and scattered in the wind, your palaces engulfed in flames, the dead burning in the fire of this world, then, You would probably exclaim: “Lord! May I too turn to dust!»» Baybars also took the powerful fortress of the Teutonic Order of Montfort. In 1271, the Krak des Chevaliers fortress in Syria, which belonged to the Hospitallers, was taken.
In 1270, the last Crusade took place - the eighth. On July 17, crusader troops led by the French king Louis IX landed in Tunisia, where the king died of fever. The campaign ended without results, peace was signed - the crusaders were unable to turn the situation in their favor. In 1285, the troops of Sultan Baybars took Margat, in 1287 - Latakia, in April 1289 - Tripoli.
In 1291, despite all the valor and heroism of the Knights of the Red Cross (Templars) and the Knights of the White Cross (Hospitaliers), who fought side by side, there were 7 Muslims per Christian, the battles continued every day and Acre (Ptolemais) was lost in the face of overwhelming numerical superiority of Muslim troops, holding out for about two weeks. The fall of Acre had enormous political and military significance - it meant the destruction of the last stronghold of Christians and their expulsion from the Holy Land. With the fall of Acre, the Kingdom of Jerusalem ceased to exist. With the fall of Acre the history of the Crusades also ends.
Leaving the Holy Land. Cyprus
At the end of the 13th century. The Johannites moved to Cyprus, captured back in 1191. troops of the English king Richard the Lionheart and sold to the Templars, who then ceded the island to the king of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Guy de Lusignan (this dynasty held the island until 1489). Through the efforts of the Grand Master of the Hospitallers, Jean de Villiers, the Hospitallers in Cyprus already had castles in Nicosia, Kolossi and other places. The retreat to Cyprus was quite combative: “Grand Master Jean de Villiers and his knights cut their way onto the order’s galley, while from the deck the archers covering their valiant retreat rained down hails of arrows on the enemy, who was trying to destroy the last of the surviving heroes of the Great Christian War The armies, defeated and wounded, but not subjugated or broken, the knights landed in Cyprus, where King Guy de Lusignan greeted them in a friendly manner and became a vassal of the King of Cyprus and received from him the fief of Limassol (Limisso) as a fief.
Expelled from Jerusalem, the Order of St. Samson merged with the Order of the Hospitallers, and this union became known as the “Knights of Cyprus.” In 1291 King Henri II of Lusignan of Cyprus gave the knights the city of Limisso (which was approved by Pope Clement V), where the Order's residence was then for eighteen years.
The General Chapter was held at Limiss, so that since the founding of the Order there had not been such a crowded meeting. Some of the cavaliers advised the Grand Master to move to Italy, but he and the other senior cavaliers, having the goal of ever returning the Promised Land, rejected the proposal of the first, and decided to stay in Limiss for a while. Here the Grand Master founded an inn for the poor and strangers, ordered the cavaliers to arm the ships on which they arrived in Cyprus, and use them to protect the pilgrims, who, even after their final loss by Christians
Jerusalem did not stop visiting the Holy Places. Soon after this, the cavaliers set out to sea, where, gathering strangers, escorted them to their fatherland and fighting for them with the corsairs, they received great booty, thereby increasing the armament of the Order so that in a short time many ships left the harbor, and the flag of the Order of St. John on of all seas was in great respect. Due to the inconstancy of the King of Cyprus, his constant disagreements with the cavaliers continued, which is why the Grand Master decided to change his place. He turned his gaze to the island, which was then owned by Leon Gallus, who had fallen away from the Greek emperor. Gall, having gathered the Turks and Saracens, armed himself and resisted the cavaliers in the complete conquest of the island for more than two years. The islands of Nissaro, Episcopia, Colchis, Simia, Tilo, Leros, Kalalu and Kos also swore an oath of allegiance to the Grand Master.
In accordance with medieval feudal law, the Order, although it retained a certain freedom in deciding its own affairs, was forced to be in a certain dependence on its lord, which was expressed, in particular, in the payment of tribute and military service. But Grand Master Guillaume de Villaret’s relationship with the lord de Lusignan did not work out, and the proud knight began to look for another place.
Relocation to Rhodes
Twenty years in Cyprus allowed the Order to regain its strength. The treasury was filled with numerous receipts from Europe, as well as booty from naval victories over corsairs and Turks. The influx of new knights from Europe increased. The Order regained its former power. While the Templar and Teutonic orders, after the loss of the Holy Land, moved to the home countries of their knights and, despite their importance, ended up depending on their lords, the knights of the Order of St. John did not want to have a lord and decided to conquer the island of Rhodes . In 1307-1309, the Hospitallers conquered the island of Rhodes and subsequently founded a powerful fortress and hospital there. And in 1310 The headquarters of the Order was officially moved to Rhodes. The first concern of the knights was the strengthening of the old Byzantine fortifications of the island and the construction of a hospital.
The renovation of defensive fortifications was not an empty precaution. Just two years after the knights settled in Rhodes, the Turks made an attempt to take possession of the island of Amorgos, which lay one hundred miles northwest of Rhodes. Grand Master Fulk de Villaret threw all the available forces of the Order to defeat the Turks. In a naval battle off the coast of Amorgos, the Turks lost their entire fleet.
Military operations against the Turks, which were carried out almost continuously until the last quarter of the 15th century, gave birth to their heroes. One of them was Dieudonné de Gozon, who was elected Grand Master in 1346. Under the leadership of de Gozon, the knights won an impressive victory over the Turkish fleet off the coast of Smyrna. This city remained their outpost in Asia Minor until it fell to the armies of Timur in 1402.
The second half of the 14th century was marked by Europe's last attempts to take revenge for the defeat of the Crusaders. In 1365, Pope Urban V called for a new crusade against the infidels. Preparations for it were led by King Peter I of Cyprus. In the summer of 1365, an armada of sailing ships, galleys and transport ships, on board which were knights and warriors from different European countries, gathered off the coast of Cyprus. There were also galleys of the Order of St. John. The Turks had no doubt that the main blow would be delivered to Syria. However, the crusader ships headed towards Alexandria, which remained one of the most beautiful and richest cities in North Africa. The city was taken by storm, plundered, and put to fire and sword. The Crusaders exterminated civilians with merciless barbarity, making no distinction between Muslims, Christians and Jews. When the crusader ships, overloaded with rich booty, returned to Cyprus, it became clear that any attempt to build on the first success was doomed to failure. Most of the crusader army deserted. However, the Arabs and Turks long remembered the merciless massacre carried out by the crusaders in Alexandria. After 60 years they captured and devastated Cyprus. With the fall of Cyprus, the last Latin kingdom disappeared from the map of the eastern Mediterranean. The Order of St. John was left alone with the growing power of the Ottoman Turks.
Two years after the sack of Alexandria, the Hospitallers undertook a successful naval expedition to the shores of Syria. The landing party, landed from the order's galleys, returned with rich booty. From then on, sea raids on the cities of the Levant, Egypt and Asia Minor began to be carried out regularly. The knights realized that the best way to fight an enemy outnumbered was a surprise attack.
At the end of the 14th century, the Order of St. John took part in the last attempt of medieval Europe to revive the spirit of the Crusades. An army of one hundred thousand, under the command of the eldest son of the Duke of Burgundy, set out on a campaign, intending to oust the Turks from the territories they occupied beyond the Danube. The crusaders cherished the hope of repeating the success of the first crusade, passing through Anatolia to Jerusalem. Together with the Genoese and Venetians, the Hospitallers were supposed to provide support from the sea. The Order's fleet under the command of Grand Master Philibert de Nayac entered the Black Sea through the Dardanelles and the Bosporus and anchored at the mouth of the Danube. However, he did not have to participate in hostilities. The huge, but poorly organized and extremely undisciplined army of the Crusaders was completely defeated by the light cavalry of the Turks near the city of Nicopolis. " The campaign against Nikopolis was the largest and last of the crusades. Its sad outcome repeated with depressing accuracy the history of the previous crusades, which was extremely unfavorable for Europe."- wrote the famous English historian Stephen Runciman.
The capture of Baghdad by Timur's troops in 1392 complicated the situation in the Levant to the limit. In 1403, the Hospitallers, who never hesitated before concluding temporary alliances with their yesterday's enemies against a new powerful enemy, agreed on joint actions with the Egyptian Mamluks. According to the terms of the agreement, the Order receives the right to open its representative offices in Damietta and Ramla and restore its old Hospital in Jerusalem. The agreement with the Mamluks brings the Order almost four decades of peaceful respite. Nevertheless, work on the construction of new fortifications in Rhodes continues, and galleys regularly go to sea from the port of Mandracchio.
By the middle of the 15th century, the balance of power in the eastern Mediterranean had changed not in favor of the Hospitallers. The capture of Constantinople in 1453 by the victorious troops of Sultan Mehmet II sounded a signal of mortal danger for the Order. Mehmet II was a skilled commander, an educated man, knew several languages, and the conquest of Rhodes was only a matter of time for him. Mortal danger looms over the Hospitallers...
Mehmet II sent a 70,000-strong army to conquer the Hospitaller citadel. The Grand Master of the Order was then Pierre D'Aubusson. He could oppose the power of the Turkish army with only 600 knights, including squires, and from 1.5 to 2 thousand people of mercenary foreign troops. The local population also fought on the side of the knights, to whom weapons were distributed. In those days, no one took into account the number of slaves who also participated in hostilities.
In mid-July, the enormous numerical superiority of the Turks and the power of their artillery began to affect the progress of the siege. The southern walls of the city, surrounding the so-called Jewish quarter, were practically destroyed. The defenders of Rhodes were on the verge of defeat. On July 27, when the Bashi-Bazouks - the vanguard of the Turkish army - went on the attack, it seemed that nothing could save the Hospitallers. The few knights remaining in the ranks fought desperately in the openings of the dilapidated walls. D'Aubusson personally led the defenders in the most dangerous direction. In a fierce battle, he was wounded four times, but continued to fight until he fell, pierced by a Janissary spear.
The unparalleled courage of the Hospitallers decided the outcome of the battle. The demoralized bashi-bazouks rolled back in panic, crushing the approaching reinforcements. An unimaginable battle began, in which the Turks lost at least 5 thousand people. Fearing complete defeat, the commander-in-chief of the Turkish troops, Misak Pasha, was forced to give the signal to retreat. The next morning the Turks boarded the waiting ships and departed for their home. On the way, Misak Pasha died of dysentery.
Grand Master d'Aubusson survived. The skilled surgeons of the Order Hospital managed to heal his wounds, including a through wound to the chest that touched the right lung.
When news of the Order's victory reached the royal houses of Europe, a flood of financial and military aid poured into Rhodes. Pierre d'Aubusson immediately launched extensive work to restore the destroyed fortifications of Rhodes. He understood that sooner or later the Order would have to face a decisive battle with the Turks.
After the death of Mehmet II, he had 2 sons - Cem and Bayazid, each of whom claimed power. Bayezid won. Bayezid intended to make many campaigns in various directions against Europe, but due to his lazy and inactive nature, there was no success in the war with Europe. " He was an insignificant man who neglected the worries of war for the pleasures of the seraglio."- This is what Philippe de Comines wrote about him.
The real threat followed the accession of Selim, the son of Bayezid. Having shaken the power of the Mamluks, Selim took possession of Palestine, and the crescent banner was hoisted on the walls of Jerusalem. And Selim, following the example of Omar, desecrated the shrine of the Holy Sepulcher with his presence. Selim, the conqueror of Persia, the ruler of Egypt, was preparing to direct all his forces against the Christians. When Europe learned that Jerusalem was in the power of the Turks, it seemed to it that the holy land had for the first time fallen under the yoke of the infidels, and very little was then left to awaken the spirit of the ancient crusades in Europe.
At the 5th Lateran Council, Pope Leo X began to preach a crusade against the Turks and sent legates to all European countries capable of fighting back. He also proclaimed a truce between all European states for 5 years, because... The situation at that time in Europe was unstable. And the pope threatened to excommunicate those sovereigns who would not observe the truce. European monarchs did not resist such harsh behavior of the pope and gave him consent. A crusade was preached throughout Europe, taxes and donations were intensively collected, and spiritual processions were held. Finally a war plan was drawn up. But all these preparations were in vain - the peace between the Christian monarchs was soon broken and each used the armies that were sent against the Turks for their own purposes. Finally, the rivalry between Charles V and Francis I brought the war to Europe and everyone stopped thinking about the crusade. The “crusade” of Leo X only aroused the militant fanaticism of the Turks against Christians. Selim's successor, Suleiman, captured Belgrade and again sent Ottoman forces to Rhodes.
In June 1522, a Turkish fleet of 700 ships, carrying a 200,000-strong army, headed for the shores of Rhodes. The Sultan personally led a huge army, which was supposed to put an end to the troublemakers of the Ottoman Empire. They alone could not withstand the siege and turned to the West for help. There was no help. All they had to do was confront the enemy with their small army and courage. For 6 months they heroically held the island, besieged by hordes of troops of the Ottoman Empire! The knights showed miracles of heroism, but the army of Suleiman the Magnificent was too numerous. In an effort to avoid the wholesale extermination of the knights, Grand Master Philippe Villiers de Lisle Adam decided to enter into negotiations with the Sultan, who proposed that the Hospitallers make peace on honorable terms. On January 1, 1523, the Hospitallers left Rhodes forever. The Hospitallers held Rhodes for more than 200 years, repelling various attacks and actively fighting pirates and Turks.
And when these remnants of Christian chivalry were driven out of the island, and sought refuge in Italy, tears flowed from the eyes of the pope and bishops when the Hospitallers told them about their disasters suffered at Rhodes. But this compassion of the shepherds of the Christian Church was not enough to deliver to the knights what they asked from the European sovereigns, namely: a corner of the earth, some deserted island in the Mediterranean Sea, where they could continue to fight the Turks.
Tripoli and Malta
The path of the Hospitallers from Rhodes to the shores of Europe was long and difficult. Their fleet consisted of 50 ships of all shapes and sizes, including 17 transports leased from the Rhodians. There were about 5 thousand people on board, including the sick and wounded. A gala reception was given to the Hospitallers on the island of Candia. However, the knights behaved with restraint. They remembered that the Venetians, who owned the island, refused to help them during the siege of Rhodes. Two months passed for ship repairs. Only in March 1523 did the Hospitallers continue their journey. Two months later they were in Messina. However, failure awaited the knights here too. Plague raged on the coast of southern Italy. For six months, the Hospitallers, fleeing the epidemic, moved from Naples to Vitterbo, from Vitterbo to Villa Franca, until they finally settled in Nice, which was at that time in the possession of the Duke of Savoy.
European monarchs paid tribute to the courage shown by the Hospitallers during the defense of Rhodes. However, no one was in a hurry to come to the aid of the errant knights. France and Spain, for example, were at war. The “most Christian” king of France, Francis I, who was captured in Madrid, was looking for ways of reconciliation with the Magnificent Porte. In this environment, the Hospitallers, bearers of the long-extinguished spirit of the Crusades, looked like a medieval anachronism.
It is difficult to say how the future of the Order would have developed if not for the outstanding diplomatic talent of the Grand Master de Lisle Adam. The Viceroy of Sicily made it clear to the Grand Master that the Order could count on his patronage if it agreed to choose Tripoli, the new North African possession of the Spanish crown, as its seat. The Viceroy made it clear that the capture of Tripoli in Madrid was considered as the first step towards the conquest of Egypt.
And the idea of going to North Africa was met by the Hospitallers without enthusiasm. Tripoli, known for its harsh living conditions, of course could not compare with Rhodes. However, in October 1523, another proposal was made. This time it came personally from Charles V. As compensation, the king offered the knights the islands of the Maltese archipelago. At the end of June 1524, eight knights, representing each of the languages of the Order, visited Malta and Tripoli to familiarize themselves with the conditions there. The Hospitallers did not like the harsh rocky island at first sight, but the sight of Tripoli plunged them into even greater disappointment. The report they submitted stated that Tripoli, with its weak fortifications, was unthinkable to defend for a long time by the forces of the Order. The Chapter of the Order rejected the proposal of the Spanish king.
The sequel will be ready soon
notes 1
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and slander you in every way unjustly because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven.
approx. Information taken from various sources
The ancient chronicler of Tire noted that “The Latins changed the Greek name of St. John to John Lemonier (“Merciful”); the name of the Johannites allegedly came from him.
So the Johannites received a more significant heavenly patron without changing their name.
I became interested in the history of the Order of Hospitallers when I was planning to vacation on the island of Rhodes. These knights were based on the island for several centuries and were known as the Knights of Rhodes. But now the Order of Hospitallers is better known as the Order of Malta.
Initially, it united monks, who were also warriors - knights. This order of chivalry, considered the oldest, was founded during the First Crusade in 1113. That year, Pope Paschal II issued a papal bull.
The symbol of the members of the order is a white eight-pointed cross.
Interior decoration of the Maltese Chapel (St. Petersburg)
Initially, the task of the Order of Hospitallers was to welcome pilgrims to the Holy Land. The Order provided pilgrims with overnight accommodation and medical care. The Latin word "hospital" translates as "guest". In 1107, King Baldwin I of Jerusalem allocated land in Jerusalem to the Ionite Order (as the order was also called).
At first, the Order of the Hospitallers was not involved in military operations, but over time the monks began to guard pilgrims. To do this, they built fortified points and hospitals throughout Europe.
However, Christians did not rule the Middle East for long. In 1187, Saladin invades the Kingdom of Jerusalem and captures Jerusalem. When Jerusalem fell, the Hospitallers moved their residence to Acre.
The Knights of the Hospitaller Order left Acre in 1291, first they moved to the island of Cyprus, then in 1307 to , which they recaptured from Byzantium.
In Rhodes, the knightly order reached its peak. Here, in the palace of the Grand Master, the leadership of the Order of the Hospitallers was located: Master, Prior and administration of the Order.
The administration of the Order of St. John consisted of eight Bailiffs: the Commander-in-Chief (managed the general property), the Marshal (chief of the military staff), the General Hospitaller (managed the hospitals), the Drapier (responsible for the supply of the armed forces), the Chief Admiral (managed the fleet), the Turcopolier (managed mercenaries), Chief Chancellor (managed the office), Chief Bailiff (responsible in Rhodes for protecting the defense of St. Peter's castle). Each of the managers managed branches in Europe.
All members of the Order were divided into three main classes: knights, priests and combat sergeants. Later a fourth class appeared - sisters.
Knights, depending on their origin, were divided into: full-fledged knights, obedient, loyal and preferential. Of course, in order to occupy a high position in the order, it was necessary to come from a good family, but with talent and perseverance, a knight could make a career.
Street of Knights Rhodes After the Order of the Hospitallers left the Holy Land and settled in Rhodes, it became not just a military order, but a naval order. It was thanks to the presence of the fleet that the Order of St. John outlived all others. The Hospitallers raided Muslim ports and ships, seizing rich booty, including hostages. Nowadays they would call it piracy.
In 1480, the Turks attempted to capture Rhodes, but the knights fought back. However, in 1522, the Ottoman Empire captured the island.
The terms of surrender were very lenient. The Sultan promised that the Catholic faith would be preserved on the island, the churches would not be desecrated, and the Order would be able to leave the island with all its ships, relics, weapons and wealth.
The knights, left homeless, began to wander, and the Grand Master negotiated with European monarchs about their location.
The Order eventually agreed to the island of Malta, which was granted to them by King Charles V of Sicily on March 24, 1530.
The conditions of ownership were an annual tribute in the form of 1 falcon (paid accurately until 1798), not using the harbor of Malta by ships of the Order in conflict with Sicily and recognition of vassalage from the King of Spain. Although in fact it was assumed that the Order's fleet would fight Algerian pirates.
picture from the site: http://ru-malta.livejournal.com/193546.html The Hospitallers were also involved in the ebony trade, that is, they exported slaves from Africa to America.
Gradually, the Order of Malta became increasingly dependent on the emperor and the Pope. In 1628, the Pope decreed that in the period between the death of one grandmaster and the election of another, the Order was governed directly by the Pope. This gave the Vatican the opportunity to radically influence the election of a new grandmaster.
Through its representatives, the Vatican gradually took away the property of the Order. The Order is in decline.
When the Mediterranean states created their own naval forces in the 17th-18th centuries, the Maltese was no longer needed. Eventually Napoleon conquered Malta and the order lost its sovereignty.
By the end of the eighteenth century, the Russian fleet became the main threat to the fleet of the Ottoman Empire. This led to a rapprochement between the Order of Malta and the Russian Tsar. In 1797, Paul I organized a new main priory on the territory of the Russian Empire and prepared a campaign of ships in defense of the Order of Malta.
However, after his murder in the Mikhailovsky (Engineers) Castle on the night of March 13, 1801, the Order of Malta left Russia.
On February 9, 1803, the Pope appointed Giovanni-Battista Tommasi as grand master of the Order, who temporarily placed the residence of the Order first in Catania, then in Messina on the island of Sicily.
At the end of the Napoleonic wars, the Paris Agreement of the victorious powers on March 30, 1814, Malta was finally recognized as a possession of the British crown.
After Tomassi's death in 1805, the Order eked out a miserable existence. No more than thirty people with the title of knight and a small number of service personnel live in the Order's Residence. After leaving Malta, the Order no longer has any military power and will never have again. The head of the order is approved by the Pope and bears the title of lieutenant master. The Order does not even have the opportunity to invite members of the Order living in the priories to elections. Actually, the Order exists only in name.
In 1831, the seat of the Order moved to Rome to the building of the Grand Priory of the Order in Rome, Palazzo Malta on Aventine Hill, and then to the building of the former residence of the Order's ambassador to the Papal See, Palazzo Malta on Via Condotti. via Condotti) near Piazza di Spagna.
In 1910, the Order organized a field hospital that would save many lives during the Italo-Libyan War of 1912. The Order's hospital ship "Regina Margarita" will transport more than 12 thousand wounded from the combat area.
During the First World War, a whole network of field hospitals of the Order operated in Germany, Austria, and France.
In the post-war period, the Order continued and is still engaged in humanitarian and medical activities, mainly in countries professing Catholicism.
Today the Order has about 10 thousand members and ranks second in number among Catholic organizations after the Jesuit Order (a purely monastic religious non-military organization).
Currently, the Order includes 6 Main Priories (Rome, Venice, Sicily, Austria, Czech Republic, England) and 54 national commanderies, one of which is in Russia.
What place does this papacy-supported “remnant of the Middle Ages” occupy in the modern world? Why and how did the Johannites manage, despite all the vicissitudes of fate, to survive in the age of dying capitalism and triumphant socialism? To answer such questions, you need to look into the annals of the history of the order.
Its early period can barely be reconstructed from the semi-legendary news of medieval chroniclers. Usually historians refer to the meager report of Archbishop Guillaume of Tire about a certain holy man Gerard, who allegedly founded the order around 1070, having built, together with several Amalfi merchants, a hospice, or hospital ( hospitium- “housing for visitors”, “shelter”) on the land of the Benedictine monastery in Jerusalem. Later, they also erected - “at a stone’s throw from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre” - another monastery, at which they established a shelter for pilgrims with a special section for the sick. This monastery was dedicated to Blessed John Eleymon, the Alexandrian patriarch of the 7th century, from whom the name “Ioannites” supposedly came. In any case, one thing is certain: the embryo of the order was a religious and charitable corporation (the seal of the order is known, which depicts a lying sick person - with a lamp at his feet and a cross at the head). According to legend, Duke Godefroy of Bouillon, the first sovereign of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, instructed Gerard to organize the healing of wounded crusaders in his monastery and granted the village of Salsala in the vicinity of Jerusalem for the maintenance of the hospital. Gerard, for his part, allegedly asked the “defender of the Holy Sepulcher” to allocate several knights to help him. Four participants in the crusade of 1096-1099 volunteered to be “assistants”. They took monastic vows (poverty, obedience and chastity) and began to wear the black cloth robe of the Benedictines (later replaced by crimson) with a white eight-pointed linen cross sewn onto the chest. Soon the Greek saint gave way to John the Baptist in the name of the hospital: in his honor, from now on, the association of Johannites, half-knights, half-monks, was named. She took charge of the pilgrims who frequented the “holy places.” Canonically, in compliance with church formalities, the Order of St. John was sanctioned by a bull of Pope Paschal II dated February 15, 1113.
In the history of the order, five main phases are clearly distinguished:
1) the period of the Crusades (until 1291), when the Johannites were an integral part of the feudal elite in the crusader states;
2) a short “interlude” - settlement in Cyprus after the collapse of Frankish rule in Palestine (1291-1310);
3) stay in Rhodes (1310-1522) - a “heroic” stage and at the same time the stage of the final formation of the order as a feudal-aristocratic community;
4) the period of its history as the Order of Malta itself (1530-1798) - the era of its highest rise and subsequent decline, which ended with the expulsion of the knights from their island possessions by Napoleon I;
5) from 1834 to the present - a period of gradual adaptation to capitalist reality and the transformation of the order, protected by the papacy, into an instrument of reactionary clericalism.
Let us dwell briefly on the most important events of each of these periods in the evolution of the Johannite “brotherhood”.
During the Crusades, the association appears in the documents of the Roman Curia under the name "Order of Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem." And that's why. Hospitals similar to the “mother” hospital were built by the Johannites in many other cities of the Crusader states in the East, as well as in Byzantium and in Western European, mainly coastal, cities, from where pilgrims went to the “Holy Land” - to Bari, Otranto, Messina, Marseille, Seville. However, although the order continued to zealously carry out its charitable functions (finding ships for pilgrims, escorting them from Jaffa to Jerusalem, providing housing, providing food, caring for the sick along the way, material assistance to those freed from Muslim captivity, burying the dead, etc.), all after the crusade of 1096-1099. these responsibilities faded into the background. In the first half of the 12th century. The Order turns primarily into a military, knightly association, which nevertheless fully retains its monastic appearance.
This transformation was due to the generally tense situation for the crusaders in the Frankish East. In the face of clashes with neighboring Muslim principalities and “rebellions” among the population of Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, the dukes and counts who established themselves here had to always be on the alert. They needed a permanent, at least minimal, contingent of warriors who could simultaneously serve as “brothers of mercy.” Under such circumstances, the main tasks of the order became: the defense of the Frankish states from the Saracens; expansion of the borders of conquered lands - in wars with Arabs and Seljuks; pacifying the riots of the enslaved local peasantry, protecting pilgrims from attacks by “robbers”. Everywhere and everywhere, tirelessly fight the enemies of the Christian faith - this kind of act was considered by the church to be a primary service to the Almighty: those who fell in battle with the “infidels” were guaranteed salvation after death, and the Hospitaller cross with eight points symbolized the “eight blessings” awaiting the righteous in paradise ( The white color of the cross was a sign of chastity, obligatory for St. John). The Order eventually became the leading fighting force of the Crusader states and the papal theocracy. The Roman "apostles", trying to use the Johannites for their own purposes, provided the order with all sorts of privileges. He was removed from the subordination of the local secular and ecclesiastical administration. The Order was administered by the Holy See itself, which demanded that the authorities strictly observe the privileges granted to the Hospitallers. They even received - to the displeasure of the rest of the clergy - the right to collect tithes in their own favor. The bishops did not have the right to excommunicate the Hospitallers or place an interdict on their possessions. The priests of the order were responsible for their actions only before its chapter, etc.
According to the authors of the mid-12th century, the order then consisted of four hundred people. Gradually this number increased. The most militant elements of the feudal freemen willingly joined the monastic corporation of “Warriors of Christ”. Seeing in the Hospitallers reliable defenders of their newfound possessions, the feudal world of the West readily agreed to bear the material costs necessary to provide the order with military power - generous monetary donations poured into its treasury from sovereigns and princes, as if from a cornucopia. Kings and noble lords did not skimp on land grants. Several decades after its creation, the order owned many hundreds of villages, vineyards, mills, and lands. He forms a vast domain - both in the East and in the West. Tens of thousands of serfs and other feudal-dependent peasants work on the order's estates. Large land complexes arose that brought substantial income to the brother knights - commanderies. The managers of this real estate - the commanders - were required to annually transfer part of the income received to the treasury of the order ( responsio). An administrative-territorial organization is also being formed, and, accordingly, a hierarchical structure of the order: commanderies are united into balyazhi (great commanderies), balyazhi - into priories or great priories. These latter are grouped into “languages”, or provinces (the “language” of France, for example, where the Hospitallers had their first possessions outside Palestine - the priory of Saint-Gilles in Provence, included Champagne and Aquitaine, etc.). The current affairs of the order are in charge of the council under the grand master, above which rises the holy chapter, convened every three years.
The order, entry into which promised tempting prospects - earthly prosperity and heavenly salvation guaranteed by the church - became an attractive force for lords, and most of all - for the knightly petty. From everywhere she rushes into the ranks of the Hospitallers. At first, the simple order hierarchy (three categories of hospitallers: knights, chaplains and squires) little by little becomes more complicated, a gradation of subordinate positions and titles is created: behind the head of the order, the grand master, on the tiers of this feudal pyramid there are eight “pillars” ( pilier) provinces (“languages”) - they occupy the main positions in the order; followed by their deputies - lieutenants, then bailiffs of three ranks, grand priors, priors, etc. The holders of each title also receive external insignia (great priors, priors and bailiffs, for example, wear, in addition to a linen or silk cross, also a large gold cross on a ribbon across the neck). All this spurs the ambition of the younger sons of feudal families. “International” in composition, the order strictly demanded from all those entering it documentary evidence of noble origin, moreover, in several generations.
Providing significant services to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which experienced a shortage of soldiers, the Hospitallers step by step took possession of strong positions in the Frankish East. They settled in fortresses along the pilgrimage roads, and they were often tasked with guarding the towers of city fortifications. In most cities of the kingdom, the brother knights had their own barracks houses, and often land property. They built castles for themselves in Acre, Saida, Tortosa and Antioch. The Hospitallers also took control of powerful fortresses in strategically important places in the crusader states (the system of such fortifications stretched from Edessa to Sinai).
The most powerful strongholds of the Hospitallers were two: Krak des Chevaliers, on the slope of one of the spurs of the Lebanese mountain range, dominating the nearby plain, through which there were routes from Tripoli (in the west) to the valley of the river. Orontes (in the east), and Margat (Markab), 35 km from the sea, south of Antioch. Krak des Chevaliers was essentially a natural fortification, as if created by nature itself (known since 1110). It was handed over to the Hospitallers in 1142 (or 1144) by Count Raymond II of Tripoli and was then completed and rebuilt by them many times. The bulk of its ruins still stands today. The fortress, surrounded by double, cyclopean masonry walls (their stone blocks reached a height of half a meter and a width of a meter), along which stood tall - round and rectangular - towers with embrasures, was protected by a moat punched in the rocks, and occupied an area of two and a half hectares . Krak des Chevaliers could accommodate a garrison of two thousand. From 1110 to 1271, this fortress was besieged by the Saracens 13 times and withstood it 12 times. Only in April 1271, after a month and a half siege and a fierce attack, the Sultan of Mamluk Egypt Baybars ("Panther") managed to take possession of Krak des Chevaliers.
Even more impressive in size was Margat, transferred to the Hospitallers in 1186 by the regent of Baudouin V, Count Raymond III of Tripoli: its area was four hectares. Built of black and white rock basalt, also with double walls, massive round towers, Margat had an underground reservoir and was able to withstand a five-year siege with a garrison of a thousand soldiers. Sultan Kalaun captured this castle - the northern bastion of the Johannites - only in 1285, after his "sappers" made a deep dig under the main tower. These fortresses were not only means of defense and attack, but also, in the words of S. Smail, “weapons of conquest and colonization.”
The Hospitallers became a kind of mobile guard of the Crusader states. Flying detachments of order knights were ready, at the first signal, to rush from their fortresses and barracks to where the need for their weapons arose. The order's wealth and influence increased. His position in the Frankish East became all the stronger because papal Rome was far away and dependence on it in practice turned out to be illusory. The Hospitallers were essentially an autonomous corporation. Contemporaries repeatedly reproached them for “pride,” and not without reason. The Johannites systematically abused their privileges to enrich themselves; it increasingly came to the fore in their daily activities. The Hospitallers emphasized in every possible way their independence from the barons and bishops. Without asking the latter's permission, they started their own churches, thereby incurring the murmur of the clergy. In defiance of him, the order's chaplains performed religious rites even in cities under interdict, and performed funeral ceremonies over those excommunicated; The brother knights also received excommunicated persons into their hospitals. Sometimes the Johannites allowed themselves openly impudent antics towards the local clergy. During the service in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, they rang the bells in their churches with all their might, drowning out the sermon of the Jerusalem patriarch, and in 1155 they even carried out an armed attack on this temple. Unable to bear their insolence and “pride,” Patriarch Fouche of Angoulême complained to the Pope about the defiant behavior of the Hospitallers. The Holy See expressed censure to the order brothers, but still refused to subordinate them to the ecclesiastical authorities of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Hospitallers got away with everything. Although they sometimes caused direct damage to the crown of Jerusalem, the kings had to reckon with the warriors of the apostolic throne: the knights of St. John played a serious role in military enterprises against the Saracens, usually acting in the vanguard or covering the retreat of Christian troops; the number of Hospitallers together with the Templars was almost equal to the number of all military contingents of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
In 1187, after the defeat of the crusaders by Salah ad-Din at Hattin (July 4) and the capture of Jerusalem (October 2), the surviving Hospitallers left the city, where they remained for 88 years. After the loss of Jerusalem, the Hospitallers, along with the Templars, remained the only combat-ready force of the Frankish states remaining in the East. They acquired important positions in matters of their administration, domestic and foreign policy. No politically responsible step was taken without the knowledge and participation of the Grand Master of the order. The formidable Krak des Chevaliers and Margat still remained in the hands of the Johannites. Thanks to their expanded European possessions, the Johannites had significant funds at their disposal. By 1244 the order had up to 19,000 estates.
Meanwhile, the crusades were clearly coming to an end. The Hospitallers, who tied their well-being and ambitions to them, did not seem to notice the changes. Replenishing its ranks with fresh forces, the order continued to increase its own wealth. The Ioannites took up money-lending and banking operations. Unlike the Templars, with whom they constantly competed, the Hospitallers invested their money in real estate. At the same time, the order increasingly transferred its business activities to the sea. He acquired a fleet and took over the transportation of pilgrims: for a decent reward, pilgrims were sent from Italy and Provence to Saint-Jean d'Acre, then delivered back. The Order even entered into competition with Marseille shipowners. In 1233, the constable of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, intervening in another conflict between competitors limited the Hospitallers’ right to build ships with a strict quota - no more than two ships annually, and they (together with the Templars) were prohibited from transporting more than 1,500 pilgrims per year. Nevertheless, the order persistently strengthened its naval forces, pressed by Mamluk Egypt. and the business changed its location: Tire, Margat, Saint-Jean d'Acre. In the battle for this fortress, the Hospitallers fought with extreme ferocity; Grand Master Jean de Villiers was seriously wounded. On May 18, 1291, this city, the last stronghold of the Crusaders in the East, fell.
One of the reasons that the crusaders failed to gain a foothold in the territories that they owned for about two centuries was the ongoing feud between the Hospitallers and the Templars, generated by the greed of both. Back in 1235, Pope Gregory IX directly reproached the order’s knights for not defending the “Holy Land,” which is their duty, but only hindering this by indulging in empty strife over some mill. The hostility of the Hospitallers to the Templars (once the Johannites - this happened in the 40s of the 13th century - killed almost all the Templars in Saint-Jean d'Acre) became the talk of the town. The author of one anonymous treatise, written in 1274, sarcastically condemned the Order knights who put their selfish interests above the interests of the “Holy Land”: they “cannot tolerate each other. The reason for this is greed for earthly goods. What one order gains is the envy of another. Each individual member of the order, according to them, has renounced all property, but they want to have everything for everyone."
Not wanting to come to terms with the loss of their possessions and former power in the “Holy Land”, obsessed not so much with hostility towards the “infidels” as with a thirst for profit, the knights of the order did not abandon the thought of reconquering Palestine. Grand Master Jean de Villiers with the few surviving “brothers” moved in the same year to Cyprus, to the kingdom of the Lusignans, where the Hospitallers had already had their own castles and estates (in Kolossi, Nicosia, etc.). Henri II Lusignan, who also bore the high-profile title of King of Jerusalem, granted them Limisso (Limassol), and Pope Clement V approved this grant. The Hospitallers resumed military operations against the Mamluks, carrying out pirate raids on the Lebanese and Syrian coasts. To remain close to the “Holy Land” and at the first opportunity to try to recapture it from the enemies of Christ - the Hospitallers subordinated their military activity to this goal. They focused their efforts primarily on creating a navy, without which there was nothing to even think about achieving their goal. The position of admiral was introduced into the order (most often it was granted to highly experienced sailors from Italy). Soon the Johannite fleet surpassed the fleet of the Kingdom of Cyprus itself.
The stay in Cyprus turned out to be a passing episode in the history of the order. His privileges and exorbitant claims here, as in former times in Palestine, also irritated local authorities and church hierarchs. In addition, the order became involved in local dynastic feuds, which made its position extremely unstable. The Hospitallers were still obsessed with the dream of a new crusade. However, almost no one was more enthusiastic about such plans. At the top of the Kingdom of Cyprus they began to treat the order with obvious hostility.
Grand Master Guillaume Villaret (1296-1305) makes a decision: the island of Rhodes, fertile, abounding in convenient harbors, located near the coast of Asia Minor, relatively close to Cyprus and Crete, is where the order will settle, so that, without being distracted by anything else, devote oneself to the struggle for the cause of Christianity. Rhodes nominally belonged to the weakened Byzantium. During preparations for war with her, Guillaume Villaret dies; the project he put forward is implemented by his brother and successor Fulk Villaret (1305-1319). In 1306-1308. With the assistance of the Genoese corsair Vignolo Vignoli, the Hospitallers captured Rhodes. Back in the fall of 1307, the Grand Master enlisted the support of Pope Clement V, who approved the Hospitallers in their new possessions. In 1310 the seat of the chapter was moved here. The order now began to be called the “sovereign of Rhodes”.
The Johannites lasted here for more than two centuries. During this time, the organizational structure of the order was finally formed. It turned into a kind of aristocratic republic, in which the sovereignty of the Grand Master elected for life (usually from the French lords) was controlled and limited by the highest council of officials of the order: the “pillars” of the eight “languages” (Provence, Auvergne, France, Aragon, Castile, Italy, England , Germany), some bailiffs, bishop.
It has become a tradition to assign certain functions to the “pillars” of each “language”: the “pillar” of France - the Grand Hospitaller was considered the first in the hierarchy after the Grand Master; "pillar" of Auvergne - the great marshal commanded the foot troops; the “pillar” of Provence usually served as the treasurer of the order - the great preceptor; The "pillar" of Aragon was the intendant in charge of the order's "household" (his titles - dralje, castellan); "pillar" of England (it was called turkopilje) commanded light cavalry; the "pillar" of Germany was responsible for the fortifications (the grand baili, or master); The "pillar" of Castile was the great chancellor - a kind of minister of foreign affairs, custodian of the order's documentation (its charters, etc.). At the same time, the ritual of the Johannites was developed: meetings of the council were preceded by a solemn procession of its participants, speaking with the banner of the Grand Master in front; before the opening of the council, everyone takes turns, according to rank, kissing the hand of the Grand Master, kneeling before him, etc.
Maritime business was widely developed among the Johannites during the Rhodian period. They adopted the best achievements of the Rhodians, skilled in shipbuilding and navigation, and themselves began to build two-row combat dromons (galleys) with 50 oarsmen in each row, and learned to use “Greek fire”. The order's fleet included huge ships for those times. What stood out in particular was the six-deck, lead-plated, cannon-lined "St. Anna" - a warship considered to be the first naval "battleship" in history.
Rhodes knights in the XIV-XV centuries. not only repelled all Muslim attacks, but sometimes went on the offensive themselves (capturing the harbor and fortress of Smyrna in October 1344). In 1365, the Johannites took part in the crusade of the Cypriot king-adventurer Pierre Lusignan against Mamluk Egypt. The Crusader fleet, leaving Rhodes, where it initially concentrated, took Alexandria by storm on October 10, 1365: all the enemy ships were burned in its port. Riches attracted the valiant “knights of God” no less than exploits in the name of faith, and the sources of acquiring these riches did not bother them. At the beginning of the 14th century. the Hospitallers were unusually “lucky”: after the liquidation of the Templar Order in 1312, its property (most of the domain, money, etc.), according to the bull of Pope Clement V Ad provide, was transferred to the Rhodes knights (among other things, they got the tower of the Templars in Paris: the Johannites opened a hospital in it; later, here, in the Temple - irony of fate! - they would place Louis XVI, who was dethroned on August 10, 1792 and arrested, with his family, and The hospital pharmacy will be used as the chambers of Marie Antoinette). By accepting the inheritance of the Templars, the order significantly strengthened its economic power. During the period of their stay in Rhodes, there were 656 commanderies in Europe under the control of the brother knights. The influx of funds allowed the knights to expand their charitable practice. This was required both by prestigious considerations and by the consequences of military affairs: at the end of the 14th and 15th centuries. The Rhodes knights built two large hospitals. In the statutes of the order adopted during this period, charitable functions were placed on a par with military duties. After the defeat of the knightly army, gathered from many European countries, at Nicopolis in 1396, where the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid won, the Grand Master of the Johannites, being generous, issued 30 thousand ducats from the order’s treasury for the ransom of Christian captives.
Since the 14th century The order, like all of Europe, had a new and most dangerous enemy - the Ottomans, who were rushing to the West. On May 29, 1453, Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople. In 1454, he demanded that the Johannites pay a tribute of 2 thousand ducats. The response was a proud refusal, after which the order began building new defensive structures. The first sharp battle with the Ottomans took place in 1480. Since May, Rhodes had been unsuccessfully besieged by the Sultan's huge army under the command of the Greek renegade Manuel Palaiologos (Meshi Pasha). Neither the digging under the fortifications nor the actions of the agents he recruited in Rhodes broke the knights. On July 27, 1480, the besiegers carried out a general attack: 40 thousand people took part in it. The Johannites steadfastly withstood the onslaught both from the sea and from land. The fortifications of the island along its entire perimeter were defended by warriors from all eight “languages.” Grand Master Pierre d'Aubusson (1476-1503) was wounded in battle. Having lost many people and ships, Manuel Palaeologus retreated. The Order won a victory over the Ottomans, but it came at a high price: Rhodes was a pile of ruins. No one dreamed of a crusade campaign: it was necessary to at least retain the island. The second and this time fatal battle with the eastern conquerors took place 40 years later, Sultan Suleiman II Kanuni (“the Lawgiver”) sent 400 ships and a 200,000-strong army against Rhodes. The siege lasted six months. The Order prepared in advance for defense against the Ottomans. On the initiative of the Grand Masters Fabrizio del Coretto and Philippe de Villiers de l'Ile-Adam (1521-1534), new fortifications were erected. The knights provided Rhodes with food supplies and weapons.
This time again the Ioannites showed undoubted courage in battles. The onslaught of the attackers - a general attack was launched by the Ottomans on July 24, 1522 - the Rhodes knights resisted with courage, and then, when the enemy broke into the island, they used scorched earth tactics. Only 219 Johannites fought for Rhodes; the remaining seven and a half thousand defenders of the citadel of the order's rule were Genoese and Venetian sailors, mercenary archers from Crete, and finally, the Rhodians themselves. Suleiman II, having lost almost 90 thousand soldiers, already despaired of victory, but the forces of the defenders were running out. At the end of December, Il-Adam gave the order to blow up all the churches so that they would not be desecrated by the hands of the “infidels,” and through parliamentarians expressed his consent to capitulation: the highest council of the order voted for it. Under the terms of the capitulation (December 20, 1522), the Johannites were allowed to take banners and cannons with them, the surviving knights had to get out of Rhodes - their safety was guaranteed; Rhodians who did not want to stay on the island could follow the knights, others were exempt from taxes for five years. Suleiman II provided those leaving with ships to move to Candia (Crete); the evacuation had to be completed within 12 days.
On January 1, 1523, the Grand Master, the remnants of his knights and 4 thousand Rhodians boarded fifty ships and departed from Rhodes. Western Europe showed indifference to the fate of the “defenders of Christianity”: no one lifted a finger to support them. The heirs of the crusaders seemed to be the embodiment of another era. Europe was absorbed in other concerns - the Italian wars, the turbulent events of the Reformation...
The wanderings of the “homeless” Johannites began again, which lasted seven years. They seek refuge and, to the surprise of the Roman Curia, want to retake Rhodes. To do this, they need to settle somewhere; all requests of the Grand Master - regarding the provision of an island to the order: Minorca, or Cherigo (Citera), or Elba - are rejected. Finally, the Holy Roman Emperor, on whose domains “the sun never set,” Charles V agreed to grant the order the island of Malta: he was concerned about protecting his European possessions from the south. On March 23, 1530, in accordance with the act signed at Castel Franco, the Order of St. John became the sovereign of the island, which was granted to it forever - as a free fief - with all castles, fortifications, revenues, rights and privileges and with the right of supreme jurisdiction. Formally, however, the Grand Master was considered a vassal of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and was obliged, as a sign of this dependence, annually, on the feast of All Saints (November 1), to give to the Viceroy, who represented the overlord - the crown of Spain, a sparrowhawk or a white hunting falcon, but on In practice, these vassal bonds did not matter. A month later, Pope Clement VII approved, and a month later he approved the act of Charles V by bull, and on October 26, 1530, Grand Master Philippe de Villiers de l'Ile-Adam, accompanied by members of the council and other senior officials of the order, took possession of the island. From this day, by decision of the chapter convened at the same time, the order was renamed “Sovereign of Malta.” It became a stronghold in the struggle of feudal-Catholic Europe against the Ottoman danger that threatened it. Having stayed in Malta for 268 years (1530-1798), the order won its greatest victories over Islam. reached the “zenith” in his military achievements and then came to his complete decline and collapse.
35 years after the establishment of the Johannites in Malta, the Ottomans tried to drive them out of there. One of the brightest pages in the history of the Order of Malta was the “Great Siege” (May 18 - September 8, 1565). During it, 8155 knights victoriously repulsed the attacks of 28 (or 48) thousand Ottomans who landed in Marsaklokk, in the southeastern part of the island. The talented military organizer of the Johannites was the Grand Master of the Order of Malta - 70-year-old Jean Parisot de la Valette (1557-1568), who had previously commanded the Order's fleet. The events of the “Great Siege” marked the apogee of the military glory of the order. From that time on, it gained a reputation as a mighty naval force. On Mount Sceberras, in honor of this victory, it was decided to build a new fortified capital, calling it after the one who commanded the Johannites - La Valetta. On March 28, 1566, its foundation took place. In memory of this day, gold and silver medals were minted depicting the city plan with the inscription: Malta renascens(“resurgent Malta”) and indicating the year and day of laying. And three years later, the ships of the Knights of Malta, operating as part of the united Venetian-Spanish fleet, helped him deliver another sensitive blow to the Ottomans: off the coast of Greece, at Lepanto, on October 7, 1571. This triumph, which meant the beginning of the end of Turkish supremacy in the Mediterranean, would have been impossible without the victory won by the Johannites in Malta in 1565.
For a long time, the Order of Malta served as the “police” of the Mediterranean, pursuing ships of Ottoman and North African pirates. At the same time, the Johannites were increasingly drawn into the mainstream of the colonial conquests of the Western powers. In the 17th century The order reoriented its policy towards France, becoming involved, in particular, in the colonization of Canada. While increasing their own wealth “for the glory of Christianity,” the Knights of Malta did not forget about their functions as “brothers of mercy”: for example, in 1573 they opened a large hospital in La Valette; at the beginning of the 18th century. he received up to 4 thousand patients a year. It was the largest hospital in Europe. Back in the 15th century, when the order was in Rhodes, the position of infirmerarium appeared in its hierarchy - something like a “chief orderly” (“chief medical officer”). He was appointed by the chapter (usually French). In Malta, this position became one of the highest in the order. The situation in which the Order brothers lived on a barren, rocky island, exposed to winds all year round and almost devoid of drinking water, especially forced them to constantly care about improving the environment. Grand Master Claude Vignacourt (1601-1622) implements a series of measures to provide the population with drinking water; drainage work was carried out. As a result, previously quite frequent epidemics disappeared in Malta.
The wealth of the "marine police" corporation of Europe grew, but the same wealth increasingly destroyed the order. The international situation in Europe was unfavorable for him - as a factor in political life, he was gradually losing his importance. From the point of view of the state interests of France, whose influence over time prevailed in the internal affairs of this aristocratic-knightly corporation (since its income came mainly from there), the state of undeclared eternal war between the Order of Malta and the Porte generally became undesirable. French absolutism followed the path of rapprochement with the Ottoman power (trade agreement of 1535, etc.). That is why the further, the more they tried in France to calm down the pugnacious Maltese “army of God” in order to avoid, in response to its “police” actions in the Mediterranean, complications in relations with the Ottoman Empire. The services of the order were no longer needed. Meanwhile, enrichment, in fact, has become an end in itself for the Maltese guardians of Catholicism. Carried away by the pursuit of wealth, they more and more openly lead a lifestyle that is far from the knightly Christian “ideal”, which presupposed, at least in theory, moderation, purity of morals, and abstinence. On the contrary, the highest ranks of the order are now immersed in luxury. Many other Johannites try to imitate the example of the nobility. There are frequent cases of skimping on direct responsibilities - “monks of war” prefer idleness to exploits and self-sacrifice; the wealth of the order is squandered at the whim of the ranks of the expanded order bureaucracy (in 1742 - over 260 titled hospitallers). The fleet is withering away: “the last of the crusaders” are bogged down in debt, there is not enough money for ships.
Having lost its practical "usefulness", the order became the object of envy of the Catholic monarchs, who coveted its wealth, and at the same time it increasingly compromised itself in broad public opinion. The reputation of the order was negatively affected by the eternal squabbles at its top, the conflicts of the “pillars”, which in one way or another reflected pan-European conflicts. In conditions that increased in the 18th century. rivalry between the great powers in the Mediterranean, the most insignificant naval battle won by the Knights of Malta against the Ottomans caused irritation in the ruling circles of France and Spain, leading to a further decline in the role of the order in this region - formally, it was considered politically neutral...
To top it all off, in the very organization of the Order of Malta, which from time immemorial served as a support for the papacy and the Catholic Church, centrifugal tendencies that arose during the Reformation on religious and political grounds began to deepen. In 1539, the knights of seven of the thirteen commanderies of the Brandenburg Baljazh converted to Lutheranism. An evangelical, essentially independent, branch of the Johannites was formed. Subsequently, to this baljazh, in which from the second half of the 18th century. The Hohenzollerns took the reins of government, and the Swedish, Dutch, Finnish, and Swiss order nobility joined. Relations with Malta effectively ceased, although according to agreements concluded in 1763-1764, the balyage, centered in Sonnenburg, was recognized as part of the Order of Malta, subject to the payment of appropriate contributions to its treasury. The English “language” also went through complex vicissitudes, until finally, in the second half of the 18th century. the Grand Priory was restored - as an Anglican branch of the order, and in practice also not subject to Malta.
Thus, by the end of the 18th century. The once integral military-monastic community broke up into three independent corporations. All this further aggravated the already precarious position of the Knights of Malta. True, for the time being they could still live happily, but in 1789 a revolution broke out in France. It was she who dealt a crushing blow to the order. After all, he had very significant land holdings here. When the revolutionary storm broke out, hundreds of knights hastened to leave Malta: it was necessary to save the French property of the “sovereign” and at the same time the entire old order, to defend the class interests of the nobility, the interests of Catholicism. The decrees of 1789 (abolition of tithes, confiscation of church property) deprived the Knights of Malta of the main source of their wealth - domain possessions. The top of the order, which in fact was no longer a sovereign, a military force, or a religious corporation and which, in the words of the English historian R. Luke, had become “an institution for maintaining the idleness of the younger scions of several privileged families,” offered furious resistance to the revolution. Grand Master Emmanuel de Rohan (1775-1797) in print and orally extolled the merits of the order to “Christianity”, and proved the incompetence of the actions of the Constituent Assembly (order de sovereign, foreign state). Half-paralyzed, de Rohan sent out energetic protests throughout all countries, in every possible way opposed the implementation of the decree of the Constituent Assembly on the confiscation of the property of the church and church institutions, and protested against the imprisonment of the royal family in the Order of the Temple. The top ranks of the Johannites fought with all their “crusader” fervor for the clearly doomed cause of saving feudal property. Malta became a refuge for the counter-revolutionary aristocracy. Relatives of noble knights come here from France, and the order does not skimp on expenses for them, although it itself is experiencing a financial catastrophe due to the sale of its former possessions in France, which became “national property”: its income fell from 1 million 632 thousand to 1788 to 400 thousand scudi in 1798. The Order was clearly approaching its collapse.
A ray of hope for salvation flashed from a completely unexpected side: the Russian Emperor Paul I, frightened by the French Revolution, turned his eyes to Malta, and from the day of his accession to the throne he called on the sovereigns to resist the “frantic French Republic, threatening the whole of Europe with the complete extermination of law, rights, property and good behavior." In these views, he began to harbor the idea of restoring the strength of the Order of Malta as a weapon against the revolution, but... under the auspices of autocracy. Even in his youth, Paul I was fascinated by the history of the Order of Malta. Growing up at the court of his grandmother Elizaveta Petrovna, he knew, of course, that under her, and even earlier, under Peter I, and then under Catherine II, young noble officers were sent from Russia to Malta to study maritime affairs, that Catherine II During the war with the Ottoman Empire, she even tried to attract Malta to an alliance with Russia. In 1776, as heir to the throne, Paul I established a nursing home in honor of the order on Kamenny Island in St. Petersburg: a Maltese cross flaunted above its entrance. In the mid-90s of the 18th century. The elite of the Order of Malta shows a clear desire for rapprochement with Russia. Bailiff Count Litta, a Milanese who once served as a naval adviser at the court of Catherine II and who knew well all the entrances and exits in the corridors of power of the capital of the Russian Empire, is heading here. Acting through him, Grand Master de Rohan persistently invited Paul I to become the patron of the order. The deft diplomat Litta painted before the Russian autocrat the tempting prospect of transforming the order he patronized into a stronghold in the fight against hated Jacobinism. This was the time when a second coalition was being put together in Europe against republican France, and landowner-serf Russia became the center of preparations for war and the center of attraction for all reactionary forces on the continent. Paul I, this “crowned Don Quixote,” according to the well-known definition of A. I. Herzen, who tried to revive the idealized image of the medieval “soldiers of God,” and with them the conservative idea of chivalry as opposed to the ideas of “freedom, equality, brotherhood,” greeted 7 - a thousand-strong corps of French emigrants, including all members of the House of Bourbon. The Russian autocrat sought to put a limit to the spread of the “revolutionary infection” and pave the way for the triumph of the principle of legitimism. Under such circumstances, Baglia Litta's diplomatic game soon bore fruit.
Paul I announced his agreement to move closer to Catholicism and establish the Great Russian Priory of the Order of Malta.
The order's efforts to enlist the support of the tsar intensified even more when Baron Ferdinand Gompesch, the first German at the head of the order, who also turned out to be its last leader in Malta, was elected grand master. Seeing that the island is increasingly becoming an object of desire for the Western powers, primarily England, and being frightened to death by the successes of the 27-year-old General Bonaparte, who was victoriously completing his Italian campaign, Gompes begs Paul I to accept the order under his high protection. Before Paul I, as it seemed to him, a real opportunity arose, relying on Malta, to erect a barrier to Jacobinism, which had already spread in Italy, and at the same time to create for Russia a base in the Mediterranean Sea, necessary for the war with the Porte and to ensure the interests of the Russian Empire in the South. Europe. It is possible that the eccentric Paul I, the “romantic emperor”, who whimsically combined “tyrant” with “knight”, was also attracted by the purely external side of the matter: the medieval appearance of the Order of Malta, which corresponded to the eccentric autocrat’s passion for “order”, “discipline”, and concepts "knightly honor", his commitment to all kinds of brilliant regalia, his penchant for religious mysticism. Be that as it may, on January 15, 1797, a convention was signed with the Order of Malta. Paul I takes the order under his patronage. The Great Catholic Russian (Volyn) Priory is established in St. Petersburg: the order is allowed to own lands in Russia, transferred to it in the form of a donation. The first Russian knights of the Order of Malta were mostly French emigrant aristocrats - the Prince of Condé, his nephew the Duke of Enghien and other candidates for the guillotine, actively supported by Count Litta, a staunch supporter of legitimism.
The diplomatic move of Gompesh, who rushed into the arms of the king, soon turned into a political miscalculation, because it ultimately resulted in the loss of the Order of Malta. On May 19, 1798, Bonaparte's 35,000-strong expeditionary force (300 ships) sailed from Toulon to Egypt. Understanding the strategic importance of Malta, Bonaparte could not allow a hostile force to remain in his rear, and even patronized by Russia, which was part of the emerging anti-French coalition - the Order of Malta, even if weakened to the extreme (he had only 5 galleys and 3 frigates left !) . Bonaparte was well aware of the difficult situation of the order. The Directory had its “fifth column” in it. The top of the order was torn apart by internal strife: one of the highest ranks of the order, Commander Boredon-Rancija, a supporter of a more flexible policy, had a pathological hatred of the cowardly and short-sighted Gompes. The main difficulties of the order were that its positions in Malta itself were greatly undermined. Back in 1775, during the reign of the Aragonese Grand Master Francisco Jimenez de Texad (1773-1775), a rebellion broke out there against the Johannites, led by local priests. The rebellion was nipped in the bud, so that it did not come to the "Maltese Vespers", but the social atmosphere remained tense, despite some liberal reforms carried out by the Grand Master Emmanuel de Rohan.
The population enthusiastically accepted the ideas and slogans of the French Revolution; to some extent, they penetrated even into the lower elements of the order hierarchy, who did not share the counter-revolutionary course of the aristocratic leadership. In the eyes of the Maltese, the arrogant Johannites, who shamelessly threw money at satisfying the whims of emigrants at a time when the people were starving, embodied an outdated feudal regime. The landing of Bonaparte's corps was identified with the collapse of the feudal system in Malta. In reality, of course, this action was dictated solely by strategic considerations.
On June 6, 1798, Bonaparte's fleet appeared in the roadstead of Malta. Two ships commanded by Admiral Bruey entered Marsaklokk under the pretext of replenishing supplies of drinking water. Permission was given, and three days later the rest of the French fleet approached Malta. The forces were too unequal. In addition, a rebellion against the Johannites arose on the island. After 36 hours, the French captured Malta without a fight. The act of surrender was signed on board the flagship Vostok. From now on, suzerainty over Malta passed to France. The knights were given the opportunity to leave or stay, the French could settle in France, where they would not be considered as emigrants. There were only 260 knights left in Malta. 53 of them considered it good to go over to Bonaparte’s side - in Egypt they even form a special Maltese Legion. The act of surrender guaranteed a pension to all Johannites. During the days of these events, the property of the order was plundered, and the overwhelming majority of the Johannites themselves left the island: only a few elders remained to live out their days there. For the third time in its history, the Order found itself “homeless.”
Gompesh's capitulation infuriated Paul I, who took his role as "patron of the order" seriously. The tsar's anger was all the greater because, having captured Malta, the French expelled the Russian envoy from there. It was announced that any Russian ship that appeared off the coast of Malta would be sunk. Immediately, the Black Sea squadron of Admiral Ushakov received the highest order to move to the Bosporus for action against the French. Fueled by the clever intriguer Litta, from whom projects of transferring power in the order to the tsar had already come before (the Grand Master had “dishonored his name and his rank!”), Paul I convened members of the Great Russian Priory, knights of the Grand Cross, commanders and the rest of the knights of St. . John, allegedly representing various “languages” in St. Petersburg, for an emergency meeting. On August 26, its participants declared Gompesh deposed and turned to Paul I with a request to accept the order under his rule. On September 21, Paul 1, by official decree, took the order under the highest patronage. In the Manifesto issued on this occasion, he solemnly promised to sacredly preserve all the institutions of the order, to protect its privileges and to try with all his might to place it at the highest level on which it once stood. The capital of the empire became the residence of all the “assemblies of the order.”
On October 27, 1798, Paul I, in violation of the statutory norms of the order, was unanimously elected Grand Master. By order of the eccentric Tsar, the red banner of the Order of Malta with a white eight-pointed cross fluttered on the right wing of the Admiralty from January 1 to January 12, 1799. The Maltese cross was included in the state emblem, decorating the chest of a double-headed eagle, and in the badges of the guards regiments. This same cross received the meaning of an order awarded for merit, along with other Russian orders. At the head of the Catholic order, St. John turned out to be the Orthodox Tsar of the Russian Empire! The vacant positions of the “pillars” of the eight “languages” were filled by Russians. On November 29, in addition, the Great Orthodox Priory was established, which included 88 commanderies. Paul I introduced Tsarevich Alexander and representatives of the highest nobility to the council of the Order of Malta. All of them were granted hereditary commanderies. In the absence of heirs, income from the commandery went to the treasury of the order, intended for the reconquest of Malta and the eradication of the “revolutionary infection”. The emperor entrusted the de facto chief of the foreign collegium, his favorite Count F.A. Rastopchin, to conduct the affairs of the order. The Order Chapter was given the former palace of Count Vorontsov on Sadovaya, which henceforth became the “Castle of the Knights of Malta.” The personal guard of the Grand Master was established, consisting of 198 cavaliers, dressed in crimson velvet supervestia with a white cross on the chest. Among other nobles, the commander of the order was the martinet count A. A. Arakcheev, commandant of St. Petersburg, about which the wits quipped: “The only thing missing was for him to be promoted to troubadour.” The command and title of Knight of the Grand Cross was also achieved by Paul’s closest courtier, his former valet, and then favorite, Count I.P. Kutaisov, a Muslim (Turk) by origin (while according to the highest approved rules of the order, a candidate for “knight” was required along with documents certifying 150 years of belonging to a noble family, also a certificate from the Spiritual Consistory about the Christian religion!).
Pope Pius VI was notified of the election of a new Grand Master. Rome recognized this act as illegal: Paul I is a “schismatic”, and also married. The king, however, went ahead. He was overcome by an obsession: to entrust the French Knights of St. John with the reorganization of the Russian army and navy. The emigrant aristocracy fully encouraged the king in his actions. Count Louis XVIII of Provence, who lived in Mitau, received from Paul I the “grand crosses” of the Order of Malta for himself and the crown princes, and another 11 lords were “granted” commander’s crosses. In general, according to the apt observation of the famous Soviet historian N. Eidelman, the knightly order, which brings together a warrior and a priest, was a godsend for Paul I, a supporter of theocracy 68/a>. Meanwhile, international events took a new turn at the beginning of 1799: the fleet of England, an ally of Russia, under the command of Admiral Nelson blockaded Malta, which Paul I so hoped to seize into his hands with the rank of Grand Master in order to consolidate the influence of the autocracy in Southern Europe. There was, however, a secret agreement with England that it would return Malta to the order. However, when on September 5, 1800, the governor of Malta, Vaubois, who ruled on behalf of republican France, capitulated, the British flag was hoisted in La Valette: English rule was established in Malta, and there was no talk of returning it to the order. Paul I was left with only the crown and staff of the Grand Master, presented to him in November 1798, during his election to this post by deputation from the order chapter. The tsar's rage was boundless: the Russian ambassador in London, Count Vorontsov, was immediately recalled, and the English ambassador in St. Petersburg, Lord Wordsworth, was asked to leave Russia. In the changed situation, Paul I is moving towards rapprochement with the “criminal of God’s law” (Bonaparte), who, for his part, taking measures to reach an agreement with Russia, back in July 1800 notified the tsar of his readiness to return Malta to the order and as a sign of recognition of his great the master presented Paul I with a sword, which Pope Leo X had once given to one of the great masters. Paul I, having failed in the war in the name of saving the thrones, abruptly changes course; Yesterday's ally, England, is turning into an enemy. Having crossed out the fundamental principle of his foreign policy - the principle of legitimism, the tsar in December 1800 addressed a letter to the first consul. Litta was put into disgrace, the French emigrants were expelled... On the night of March 11-12, 1801, Paul I was killed by conspirators. Alexander I, seeing the futility of his father’s undertaking, hastened to get rid of the order: while retaining the title of protector, he refused to become grand master, and in 1817. also abolished hereditary commanderies: the Order of Malta ceased to exist in Russia. The farce that played out in St. Petersburg at the end of the 18th century would have ended with the history of the Johannites, full of both heroism and, to an even greater extent, acquisitiveness and squabbles, if not for the support they received in the highest aristocratic and ecclesiastical spheres of Western Europe. After three decades of wandering (Messina, Catania), the Order of Malta in 1834 found its permanent residence - this time in Papal Rome. Throughout most of the 19th century. the order vegetated modestly in its Roman palazzo, although its delegates shone with regalia at various international congresses. The German-Evangelical and Anglican branches, which had previously spun off from the order, eked out an equally inconspicuous existence. Only at the end of the 19th century, in the era of imperialism, when the ruling class, according to V.I. Lenin, out of fear of the growing and strengthening proletariat, clings to everything that is old and dying, enters into an alliance “with all the obsolete and moribund forces in order to preserve wavering wage slavery,” the clerical reaction, turning into the service of capital, breathed new life into the Order of Malta. Having been reborn, the Johannites acted, however, no longer as knights fighting with a sword or arquebus in their hands - times have changed! - but in a different guise, which partly went back to the medieval practice of the order: the area of their activity became charity and the sanitary and medical service of “mercy”. The order in all its branches has turned into a kind of “red cross”, into an international clerical organization of emergency and hospital medical care, as well as all kinds of philanthropy, which nevertheless has a very definite class orientation: both the charitable and medical activities of the order unfold in line with the “crusader” activity" in a modern way.
Having adapted to capitalist reality, the Order of St. John has largely lost its elitist-aristocratic character. If in the old days the “novice” was obliged to provide documented evidence of his nobility (eight generations for the Italians, four for the Aragonese and Castilians, sixteen for the Germans, etc.), now, in any case, the lower levels of the hierarchy are also filled with persons of “ignoble” origin. The "democratized" order also freed them - with the approval of the papacy - from monastic vows. The latter retained their power only for high-ranking knights - “knights of justice” ( chevaliers de justice) and "knights according to merit" ( chevaliers de devotion). This category of Johannites is still recruited from titled families now associated with large capital, so that the modern elite of the order is formed by representatives of the clerical-landlord aristocracy, descendants of the feudal nobility that have lost their privileges, scions of royal and imperial dynasties, etc.
The Johannites themselves describe their activities as a “modern crusade,” but against whom? Who replaced the “infidels” today? These, of course, are the “enemies of Christian civilization,” to which reactionary clericalism primarily includes the world socialist system, the workers’, communist and national liberation movements. The fight against them, whatever its ideological shell and methods, constitutes the real content of the “crusade” of the imperialist reaction of our time. It is in the wake of such a “crusade” that the activities of the Knights of St. take place. John, veiled by philanthropic “unselfishness” and supposedly free from politics, “universal” motives.
The Johannite philanthropists are tirelessly concerned - and this quite expressively characterizes their place in the “crusade” of the current paladins of anti-communism - about the renegades thrown away by the peoples of the countries of victorious socialism. Among the 14 European associations of the Order of Malta are Hungarian, Polish and Romanian, and among the five great priories is ... Bohemia (Czech Republic). All of them appear in the list of these divisions of the order, and each mention of them is accompanied by the note: “The members of [such and such] association [of the grand priory] act in exile and cooperate with their brethren in the countries where they are concentrated.” The Romanian Association aims to provide assistance to emigrants and distribute parcels to “brothers and their families” in Romania itself; the Polish association maintains a hotel in Rome; the Hungarian association ("in exile") is engaged in activities similar to those carried out by the Romanian one. One of the services of the Rhine-Westphalian Association is called "Christmas gifts for families expelled from Silesia."
As for the “crusade” against the labor and democratic movement, perhaps the most active here is the German-evangelical “companion” of the Order of Malta, resurrected by the scions of Junker families and large capital of the Federal Republic of Germany and which found refuge after the Second World War in Bonn. Small in number (the Brockhaus Encyclopedia lists less than 2,500 people), headed since 1958 by Prince Wilhelm-Karl Hohenzollerp (“Herrenmeister”), the order has eight large hospitals in West Germany and, in addition, has branches in a number of other countries, including Switzerland. The activities of the Swiss branch perhaps most clearly characterize the ideological and political orientation of the current Knights of Malta. In the state of Upper Zurich, in the village of Bubikon, since 1936 the “Knight's House” has been functioning - a museum of the order, which is its scientific, propaganda and publishing center. Every year, meetings of the Johannites are held here - members of the Bubikon Society, grouped around the museum, where abstracts are read on topics from the history of the Crusades and, above all, from the history of the order itself (of course, all abstracts are of apologetic content), which are then published in the Yearbook published by the Bubikon Museum. From the materials of the reporting reports, it is clear that the practical activities of the order are allegedly carried out exclusively within the framework of pure charity and abstract love of humanity: its basis, as these documents strongly emphasize, is the principle of love for one’s neighbor. A careful reading of the order’s documentation shows, however, that the seemingly charitable activities of the Johannites are by no means apolitical, as the ranks of this order, supposedly “outside politics,” would like to present it. Providing assistance to the “burdened and needy,” the order is nevertheless guided by the formula of its medieval charter, the meaning of which was one thing: the main duty of the Johannites is to cause all kinds of evil to the enemies of Christ. This formula is interpreted quite unambiguously in our days: to act in the spirit of instilling ideological intransigence towards the enemies of the Christian faith - among the “needy and wandering”, for whose well-being the order so zealously cares. And here’s what’s especially noteworthy: he tries to spread his influence mainly in the working environment. The Johannites have, for example, a large hospital in the Ruhr, serving about 16 thousand miners and chemists annually. And precisely here, where, according to von Arnim’s pathetic definition, “we are talking about health and soul (sic! - M. 3.) miner", there is a close connection between the practice of healing and the propaganda impact of the order’s clericalism. “Nowhere, perhaps,” said this chancellor of the order, “are both tasks of the Johannites in such a direct connection as here: the fight against infidels and the provision of merciful help to one's neighbor." Another circumstance is also striking: preaching "hostility towards the infidels," John healers and philanthropists widely address their exhortations to working youth and working women (there is a special organization of St. John sisters, created after the Franco- Prussian war). Medical and material (medicines, etc.) assistance is closely intertwined with clerical agitation, with concern for the “soul of the miner.” Noteworthy is the fact that many European associations of the “central”, that is, Maltese itself. The orders also concentrate their efforts on the treatment of “proletarian souls.” The Rhine-Westphalian Association maintains hospitals in large centers of heavy industry in Germany: the hospital of St. Joseph - in Bochum (240 beds), St. Francis - in Flensburg (with 460 beds), there is also an orphanage (orphanage); the Dutch association deals with foster care within the National Catholic Association, referring to the “most needy families”; The hospital service of the order in France takes special care of the “dispossessed” so that they can “forget about their suffering.” The French Hospitallers, by the way, were active during the May-June 1968 events in Paris, carrying out the rapid evacuation of the wounded and those affected by tear gas in the Latin Quarter.
Finally, the third most important object to which the Knights of Malta extend their concerns are the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The list of charitable and medical institutions that the order owns there includes dozens of names. The special service of the Johannites is, in particular, the "International Assistance of the Sovereign Magistrate of the Order of Malta to assist missions and fight against hunger, want and darkness", dealing almost exclusively with the countries of the "third world". Having substantial financial resources, the Knights of Malta today either act as direct minions of Catholic missionaries - conductors of the ideas and policies of neocolonialism, or carry out tasks similar in nature to missionary ones at their own peril and risk. They do not skimp on the costs of organizing kindergartens, nurseries, summer camps, hospitals and dispensaries, patronage services, and do not spare money on the preparation of appropriately trained personnel, subsidizing, for example, the education of students from Latin American countries. Thus, in Rome, for this purpose, two Hospitaller foundations have been created: one within the framework of the International University of Social Learning pro Deo ("For God"), the other at the Villa Nazareth Institute (for 10 students annually). There is a pediatric service of the order in Bogota (Colombia), and there it provides “social assistance” to preschool children of “needy families.” In many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, whose population suffers from serious diseases - a legacy of colonial rule, hospitalists try to win the trust of the lower classes by taking measures against the spread of these diseases (leper colonies and dispensaries, institutes in Burma, Senegal, Gabon, Madagascar, Congo (Kinshasa), Uganda, Guatemala, etc.). However, while exterminating leprosy among the “blacks,” the French knights of St. John, who work, in particular, at the Saint Louis Hospital in Paris, strive to capture the souls of “their workers” - after all, they are in contact with African immigrants and are not guaranteed against infection. At the same time, hundreds of “knights” promote... pilgrimages of people who have lost faith in Lourdes and other holy places of Catholicism. At its own expense, the Order of Malta also provides assistance with food and medicine, primarily to the population of former French colonies: in 1973, the French service of the Order of Malta OHFOM (Oeuvres hopitalieres francaises de l "Ordre de Malte) sent 37 tons of powdered milk and other products, to South Vietnam - about 500 kg of medicines, etc. d.
Carrying out such diverse activities, although united by the common goals of the “modern crusade”, all three divisions of the Order of Malta are trying to coordinate it: on April 3, 1970, a congress of the order took place in Malta, where the French knights were also represented (the president of the association is Bailly Prince Guy de Polignac), and the German Evangelical Order of St. John (Prince Wilhelm-Karl von Hohenzollern), and the English “venerable” Order of St. Joanna (Lord Wakehurst).
The Maltese "sovereign", in order to strengthen his position, is diligently looking for territory where he can raise the order's flag: he is ready to buy any island - off the coast of Latin America or in Indonesia. So far these efforts have not been successful.
The Order of the Hospitallers, which once faithfully served the feudal class, is today in the camp of militant clericalism, vainly striving to delay the irresistible course of human history along the path of peace and social progress.
Notes:
See: P. Jardin. Les Chevaliers de Malte. Une perpétuelle croisade. P., 1974, p. 17.
A recently published report by the Order of Malta on its activities in our time is subtitled: "Modern Crusade" (Ordre S.M.H. de Malte. A modern crusade. Publication de l"Ordre de Malte. Rome,). S.M.H. is an abbreviation for the official name of the order "L "Ordre Souverain et Militaire des Hospitalliers".
P. Jardin. Les Chevaliers, c. 311.
. "Espresso", 28.VI.1981.
There is extensive scientific, semi-scientific, popularization literature (several dozen monographs alone in English, Italian, German, French), which highlight the history of the Johannites in general and its most significant episodes. As a rule, this literature is of a confessional and apologetic nature. This applies especially to studies created by leading figures of the order itself, for example, its “chief orderly” Count M. Pierdon (d. 1955), who bore the high title of bailiff; his book is nevertheless valuable for the rich documentary material it contains. Often in the writings of Western European clerical historians, nationalist motives, romanticization of the deeds of the Knights of Malta, exaltation of the order as the “shield of Europe” against the Ottomans, etc., clearly appear (B. Cassar Borg Olivier. The Shield of Europe. L., 1977). More realistic and deeper are the latest studies of some English medievalists (in particular, J. Riley-Smith), as well as a few general works on the history of Malta, in which the fate of the order is considered in the context of the historical development of the island in the late Middle Ages. - E. Gerada Azzopardi. Malta, an Island Republic. , . In Russian historiography there is not a single book about the Order of Malta; the only popularization article known to us touches only on events dating back to the reign of Paul I, when the order found itself in the wake of the policies of the Russian autocracy (see: O. Brushlinskaya, B. Mikheleva. Knightly masquerade at the court of Paul I. - “Science and Religion” . 1973, no. 9).
Willermi Tyrensis Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum. - Rec. des Hist, des Croisades. T. 1. P., 1844, pp. 822-826.
M. Pierredone. Histoire politique de l"Ordre Souverain de Saint-Jean de Jerusalem. T. I. P., 1956, from XXII; D. Le Blevec. Aux origines des hospitalliers de Saint-Jean de Jerusalem. Gerard dit "Tenque" et Fetablissement de l"Ordre dans le Midi. - "Annales du Midi (Toulouse)". T. 89. No. 139. 1977, pp. 137-151.
J. Prawer. Histoire du royaume latin de Jerusalem. T.. I. P., 1969, p. 490.
J. Delaville Le Roulx. Cartulaire general de l "Ordre des Hospitalliers de Jerusalem. T. I. P., 1894, pp. 29-30 (No. 30).
Symbolic meaning was also invested in other accessories of the clothes of the Johannites: a cloth cape - following the example of the clothes of John the Baptist, according to legend, woven from camel hair; the narrow sleeves of this cape - as a sign that the Johannites renounced the free worldly life, took the path of religious asceticism, etc.
J. Riley-Smith. The Knight of St. John of Jerusalem, ca 1050-1310. L, 1967, pp. 376-377.
The Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela. Transl. and ed. by A. Asher. Vol. 1. L.-V., 1840, p. 63.
Quote from: Documents. - P. Jardin. Les Chevaliers de Malte, p. 418.
There, p. 424-425.
There, p. 423.
We managed to get acquainted with some examples of this kind of apologetics: M. Beck. Die geschichtliche Bedeutung der Kreuzzuge. - "Jahrhefte der Ritterhausgesellschaft". Bubikon, 16. H., 1953, pp. 10-28; P. G. Thielen. Der Deutsche Orden. - Ibid., 21. H., 1957, p. 15-27.
See: "Jahrhefte der Ritterhausgesellschaft". Bubikon, 14 H., 1950, p. 10.
There, p. 16.
There, p. 17.
P. Jardin. Les Chevaliers, p. 423.
There, p. 422.
There, p. 319.
There, p. 318.
The Order of the Hospitallers is the most famous and illustrious of the spiritual knightly orders. Its full name is the Sovereign Military Order of Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and Malta. The seat of the Order, since 1834, has been located in Rome on Via Condotti. The Order also owns the Palace of the Grand Masters on the Aventine Hill.
The history of the Jerusalem, Rhodes and Maltese sovereign military Order of the Hospitallers of St. John, also called the Order of the Johannites, or Hospitallers, has its roots in ancient times.
The famous historian G. Scicluna, who worked for a long time as the director of the National Library of Valletta, writes that the first mention of the monastic brotherhood of the Hospitallers dates back to the 4th century AD. e., when Christian pilgrims rushed to the Holy Places.
The brotherhood got its name from the hospital, or hospice, that he founded in Jerusalem. The hospital in Jerusalem continued to exist after the Muslims captured the Holy Places of Christianity. The monks provided shelter to pilgrims and treated the sick.
Between 1023 and 1040, several merchants from Amalfi, a city on the southern coast of Italy that was one of the centers of Levantine trade until the end of the 16th century, founded a new hospital or, more likely, restored the old one, destroyed by order of the Egyptian Caliph Hakim. The hospital was located in Jerusalem, not far from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and consisted of two separate buildings - for men and women. Under him, the Church of Mary the Latin was built, in which services were conducted by Benedictine monks. The day of remembrance of John the Baptist in the church calendar became the most solemn holiday of the Johannites.
Brotherhood and Crusades
The importance of the Brotherhood of Hospitallers especially increased during the era of the Crusades (1096-1291). When the crusaders led by Godfrey of Bouillon entered Jerusalem on July 15, 1099, during the First Crusade, they found the hospital in operation. As a sign of gratitude for their help in taking the city, Godfrey of Bouillon generously rewarded the Hospitallers. However, what exactly this assistance consisted of is not known for certain.
Only the legend has survived to this day that Gerard, the head of the monastic brotherhood, selflessly tried to help his co-religionists during the siege. Knowing that famine had begun in the camp of the besiegers, he threw not stones, but freshly baked bread from the city wall onto the heads of the soldiers of Godfrey of Bouillon. Gerard was captured and was threatened with death, from which he was miraculously spared: before the eyes of the judges before whom he appeared, the bread turned into stones. Many knights joined the brotherhood; it soon took upon itself the protection of pilgrims on their journeys to the Holy Places. The Hospitallers not only built hospitals, but also fortified fortresses along the pilgrim roads.
Brotherhood becomes an order
The head of the Brotherhood of Hospitallers (during the days of the first crusade he was called rector), Brother Gerard, came from Provence or Amalfi. Apparently, Gerard not only possessed remarkable piety, which allowed the Hospitallers to canonize him as a saint, but was, as often happened with saints, an efficient organizer. Through his efforts, the brotherhood was transformed into a monastic order. When its members came to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and, in the presence of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, pronounced three monastic vows - obedience, piety and non-covetousness, they could hardly imagine that the new Order was destined to outlive all other medieval knightly orders and exist until the end of the 20th century.
Order Of Malta
Posted by - Melfice K.
Posted by - Melfice K.
