The Knights of Rhodes

The members of the order were divided into three classes:

• knights, wearing a red coat with a white cross, among the knights were the Knights of Justice (title acquired by the presentation of at least 16 quarters of nobility) and the knights of grace (as obtained by merit alone). By necessity, the hospital order also became a military and armed knights were noble birth from noble Catholic families.
• brothers in arms servants, caretakers of the Knights Hospitaller, a commoner, the servants were loaded weapons at once the work of war and care for the sick.
• brothers of obedience (chaplains), who were the priests of the Order.

Members of the Order were a community subject to the Rule of St. Augustine. The brothers swore an oath of poverty, obedience and chastity, and swore to assist in the defense of Jerusalem.

Fra ’Pierre Gerard, their first leader, was named president and later, the leaders of the order took the title of Grand Master, elected for life.

From Montpelier Chapter, held in 1327 by the great master Helion de Villeneuve , and installation Rhodes , the knights were divided into seven nations or "languages": Provence, Auvergne, France, Aragon-Navarre, Italy, the UK (including Scotland and Ireland) and Germany, the latter encompassing all the states of Central Europe. From 1492, an eighth language born of separation between Aragon, Navarre and Castile-Leon and Portugal.

Each language included Priories and Grand Priories, Commanderies and Bailliages. The set is divided into twenty-two grand priories and nineteen bailiwicks, all comprising some six hundred commanderies.

These commanderies consisted of land donated or bequeathed to the College by generous donors and assigned to command of the Commanders who had the obligation to welcome and care for pilgrims and needy patients in outbuildings in hostels and clinics. The revenue generated by the farms they maintained areas, the benefits are collected for the General Treasury of the Order.

Provence, the oldest languages, has two large priories, Saint-Gilles and Toulouse, which include more than sixty commanderies in the late eighteenth century. The Auvergne has the great priory Bourganeuf which has sixty commanderies. Language of France includes grand priories of France, Aquitaine and Champagne, which brings together a hundred commanderies. Outside France, there are the language of Italy, with the grand priories of Rome, Lombardy, Veneto, Pisa, Messina, Milan and Capua; Language of Aragon, with the grand priories of Catalonia and Navarre Language of England, with the grand priories in Scotland and Ireland, Germany Language with large priories of Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, Denmark and Sweden, the Castilian language with the grand priories of Castile, Leon, Portugal, Galicia and Andalusia.

This organization of the implementation of the College Languages ​​leads to a new hierarchy of loads and functions:

• the great commander, also called great tutor, just after the great master, which it replaces in case of absence or illness. This title is awarded after the creation of Languages, the pillar of the Language of Provence.
• the grand marshal is in charge of military affairs. This function returns the pillar of the Language of Auvergne.
• the general hospital is the Superintendent of caring for the sick. This charge is assigned to the post of Language in France.
• draper, responsible for clothing, sees her as the pillar to the language of Spain.
• the title of Admiral Superintendent of Naval War College is the pillar of the Italian Language.
• title turcoplier, commander of the auxiliary troops of light cavalry, is attributed to the pillar of the Language of England.
• charge of grand bailiff, which has jurisdiction over the fortifications, returns to the language of Germany.
• the title of Lord Chancellor, who signed the acts of the Council, is attributed to the pillar of the language of Castile.

The Order also other civil and military officers, as Equerry, responsible to maintain law in the hospital. The butler collects taxes. Then the commander of the knights and squires. This complex hierarchy, there are still major loads that administer the Order (Grand Commander, Grand Chancellor, large hospital and recipient of the ordinary Treasury) and Council form the sovereign "

The conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the crusade barons led by Godfrey of Bouillon led to the foundation of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, which guarantees access to the tomb of Christ.

The order of the Hospitallers, or Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, strictly speaking, born in 1113, approved by Pope Pascal II.

The influx of pilgrims is such as to ensure their safety part of the Brothers Hospitallers become monks soldiers charged with weapons to defend against attacks by Muslims. In 1121, at the suggestion of Raymond du Puy, the second Grand Master, the Order became an order both hospital and military.

Between 1142 and 1144, the College acquired five fortresses in county of Tripoli, including the famous Krak des Chevaliers, which became a symbol of his power.

In 1291, Jean de Villiers, who was then Grand Master of the Order was injured during the fall of Saint-Jean d’Acre he retired with the Hospitallers in Limassol (Cyprus) and installs the Order, he died in 1293.

Knights ransomed Island Genoa and settled there.

The Order established his sovereignty and organizes the administration of his estate in Europe, the grouping of priories and commanderies in seven, then eight, regions or nations called "languages".

At Rhodes even from the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Knights are grouped into "languages". Members of the College who joined Rhodes from all parts of Europe and the institutions of the Order regrouped until the early fourteenth century as their native languages. Each "language" met in a home or "Hostel" reserved for the group.

Each "nation" consisted of Knights, brothers and servants of clerics attached to churches and hospitals of the Order.

The Order was governed by the Grand Master (the Prince of Rhodes) and by the Council, he coined money and maintained diplomatic relations with other states. Other expenses of the Order were given to representatives of different languages: the headquarters of the Order, the Convent, was composed of religious of various nationalities.

The order has a power never reached the religious order have their own territory and remain sovereign.

The first time the presence of the Order in Rhodes, the French being the most numerous, the written language was French, to the first half of the fifteenth century, there was a shift to Latin, and, after 1454, also into Italian. The language spoken in the fifteenth century was probably a "lingua franca" with contributions of Italian-Venetian.

If Rhodes is definitely the place to admire the remains left by the Order of St. John, other constructions are still the majority of the Dodecanese islands. Fortresses and citadels were indeed built or restored more often simply in order to oppose the Ottomans first dam on the islands of Nisyros, Tilos, Kalymnos, Kastelorizo ​​or Kos . At Naxos also the largest island of the Cyclades, is the Church of St. Anthony Hermit-built in the fifteenth century by the Knights.

Knights Rhodes abandoned on 1 January 1523, after a memorable siege of six months led by Suleiman the Magnificent in person, leader of the Ottoman Turks. Almost unique in the history of the Ottoman Empire, the sultan, astonished by the courage and austere lifestyle of the Hospitallers, they left the widow and allowed to leave the island, taking what they want ...

The Knights will therefore known as the Knights of Malta usual.

Made themselves masters of the island, the Knights of Malta headed a fantastic defense of the island against the Ottoman invasion fleet in 1565, they drove after months of struggle, Valletta including illustrations.

The Order was now celebrated throughout Europe as the savior of Christianity. However, expecting an imminent return of the Turks, the Knights built the fortified city of Valletta, named in honor of Grand Master at the time, Jean Parisot de la Valette. Later, the Knights of Malta became famous again in the victory of Lepanto in 1571.

The College will attempt to keep Malta until the French Revolution.

Russian Tsar Paul I, who was declared the patron was elected Grand Master, though not Catholic.

The order was featured in European history until the nineteenth century. The seat was transferred to Trieste in 1798 in Catania in 1801 in Ferrara in 1826, and in Rome in 1834.

In 1850 there was an attempt to restore the Order under the protection of the pope: he was to reside in the Holy Land, and vowing, as originally hospitality, but these projects have remained without realizing, until ’In 1878, when he found his initial humanitarian.

Today, the Order is returned to his first vocation hospital, and his humanitarian works reflect his intense activity among the poor and the sick. It has hospitals, first-aid centers and facilities for the care of wounded and refugees. It provides emergency assistance during conflicts or natural disasters (eg during the 2004 tsunami in southeast Asia) and has hospitals in the world who are also involved in research.

The Order of Malta is now an NGO recognized by the United Nations, with which he has a permanent observer.