txwad said:
One, I have a paperback book called "The Monks of War: the Military Religious Orders" by Desmond Seward. It is fairly straightforward and not that long.
I also have a copy. The book is excellent: well-researched, vastly informative, and eminently readable. I put it up there with Gies & Gies
Life in a Medieval Village as a "must-read" popular history. It is published by Penguin, and its ISBN 0-14-019501-7.
I once ran a (
Chivalry & Sorcery) campaign set in the Order of the Hospital in 1291, and for the purpose I abstracted the following material from Seward's book.
Swords of St John
Prospectus for a Chivalry & Sorcery campaign
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Order of the Hospital of St John the Baptist
History
Membership
Brother knights
Brother sergeants
Serving brothers
Chaplains
Nursing sisters
Postulants
Confrere knights
Hired servants and mercenaries
Organisation
Commanderies
Hospitals
Priories
Grand priories
Chapters
The habit of the Hospitallers
Other military religious orders
Templars
Lazarites
Teutonic Knights
Knights of St Thomas
Orders of the Reconquista
The Order of Alcantara
The Knights of Aviz
The Order of Calatrava
Mercedarians
The Order of Santiago
The Order of Sao Thiago
Further reading
The author
Copyright © 2000, Brett Evill. All rights reserved. This document may not be copied, except in the normal caching operations of World Wide Web servers and clients, without permission in writing from the author.
Chivalry & Sorcery and C&S are trademarks of Brittannia Games. Their use in this document does not constitute a challenge to those trademarks, neither does it imply that the terms are generic.
Warning: the contents of this page, although based on reasonably-careful research, are not a scholarly treatise but background material for a roleplaying game. I have made minor simplifications and taken small liberties. Do not rely on this document as an historical source. Instead see the bibliography.
Introduction
Swords of Saint John will be a Chivalry & Sorcery campaign centred on a group of characters attached to the Order of the Hospital of St John the Baptist. Action will commence on St John the Baptist's Day (23 June) 1291. This is a time of turmoil for the Order, a mere month after the catastrophic fall of Acre, last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land. Losses in the fall of Acre were ruinous: the Marshal of the Hospital was killed along with most of the brethren of fighting age, and the Master was severely wounded. The Templars, the Knights of St Lazarus, and the Knights of St Thomas were thoroughly devastated, and the Teutonic knights' Mediterranean strength was annihilated but for the Hochmeister. The orders are reeling, confused and disorganised: refugees from Acre and belated reinforcements from the West meet at Limmasol in the Kingdom of Cyprus.
The Order of the Hospital of St John the Baptist
The Order of Hospitallers is a great Church corporation. It remains wealthy despite the loss of its estates in Syria. This wealth is devoted to supporting a military effort against the forces of Islam, and also to the provision of food and shelter to pilgrims and care to the sick at local commanderies and in a chain of hospitals along the major pilgrim routes.
The Hospitallers are an order of canons regular (not, technically, monks) following a modified Augustinian rule. Established by a Papal bull, the Order is immune from episcopal control and interdict. And as clergymen, hospitallers like all members of religious orders are immune from lay jurisdiction. The combination makes for sweeping immunities.
History of the Order to 1291
The Hospital of St John the Almoner was founded in 1070 as an infirmary and guesthouse for Chistian pilgrims visiting Jerusalem. Endowed by a group of rich merchants from Amalfi (a major embarkation point on the route from the West), the Hospital was staffed by a group of hospitaller monks living under the Rule of St Benedict. Founded while Jerusalem was under muslim rule, the Hospital of St John the Almoner continued its medical work without interruption during the First Crusade and the siege of Jerusalem.
After the foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem the number of pilgrims vising Jerusalem increase a great deal. Fra' Gerard, elected master of the Hospital in 1100, set about reforms. He replaced the Benedictine Rule (which specified a strictly cloistered life) with the older Augustinian (which provided for community work), and also sought a more prestigious patron in St John the Baptist. The Hospital flourished, becoming deeply respected for its nursing work (the Order had access to the superior medical science of the Byzantine and Arab doctors), and soon began to receive endowments of land in European countries. It used these to construct a chain of 'hospitals' along the main pilgrim routes, which gave welcome food, shelter, and medical care for pilgrims, and organised pilgrim caravans and ships
In 1113 Pope Pascal II issued a bull which established the Order of the Hospital of Saint John the Baptist as an order of Canons Regular, immune from episcopal authority, and responsible through its master directly to the Pope. This makes the Hospitallers unique in two ways. First, they are the only military religious order whose inspiration is not related to the writings of the Cistercian abbot St Bernard of Clairvaux. Second, while the other military orders are technically monks, the Hospitallers are technically secular clergy. In 1123 at the First Lateran Council Pope Calixtus II forbade monks to perform sacraments for the laity except in emergencies. The chaplains of the Order of St John were not affected.
Fra' Gerard died in 1120, and was Raymond du Puy was elected to succeed him. An organisational genius, Fra' Raymond set up a system by which the Order ran houses in the West which forwarded food, wine, oil, blankets, and clothes through the chain of hospitals at pilgrimmage ports, to the Hospital in Jerusalem. They also recruited and trained brethren in the West for service in Outremer and along the pilgrim routes. Another of Fra' Raymond's innovations was that the Order began to provide a military escort to protect pilgrim caravans. At first these were probably mercenaries or members of the Poor Knights (proto-Templars), but by 1126 the Order of the Hospital had its own troops, including a Constable and the first brother-knights.
The Hospitallers grew rapidly in fame, wealth, and privileges. Innocent II forbade bishops to interdict Hospitaller chapels. Anastasius gave the Order its own priests. Adrian IV allowed it to run churches. In 1136 the Order received its first fortress: King Fulk of Jerusalem gave Gibelin to the knights of the Hospital, a key position on the road from Gaza to Hebron. And in 1142 Raymond II, count of Tripoli gave them the castle of Qala el-Hosen, which the Order rebuilt on an enormous scale as Krak-des-Chevaliers. By 1187 the Order controlled more than twenty fortresses throughout Outremer, and several on at the forefront of the Reconquista in Spain and Portugal. But throughout the Twelfth Century the military role of the Hospitallers remained secondary to the charitable and medical: it was not confirmed by Papal bull until 1178, nor mentioned in the Order's statutes until 1182.
In 1187 the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Templars, and the Hospitallers suffered a military disaster at the battle of Hattin. Jerusalem and Acre fell to Saladin with not a man left to defend them. Europe responded with a Third Crusade, which recovered a strip of coastal Palestine, but left Jerusalem in Saracen hands. The Hospital had been lost to the Hospitallers (and the Temple to the Templars). The two orders removed their headquarters to Acre and never returned, though Jerusalem was recovered peacefully by the remarkable Sixth Crusade in 1228.
For a century the military orders were the bulwark of kingdom which was called 'Jerusalem', but whose nobles and kings increasingly preferred to live in Nicosia on peaceful Cyprus. It was during this period that the Order of the Hospital became fully militarised, or rather as fully militarised as it was ever going to be. The Hospitallers never lost sight of their medical and charitable calling: every knight from the youngest postulant to the Master himself and the grand bailliffs of the Conventual Chapter spent some hours of every day performing menial nursing duties in the hospital at the beck and call of their 'lords the Sick'.
Despite the increasing efforts of the Hospitallers and the Templars, Christian Outremer was doomed. The Sultanate survived the Mongol onslaught, and grew ever more exasperated by the destructive crusades which were launched from time to time, most of them aimed at Cairo. Outremer, on the other hand, was wracked by strife between the Lusignan dynasty, the Orders, the barons, Genoese merchants, and Venetian merchants. And it was quite unable to negotiate a peaceful co-existence with its neighbours because crusaders and other fanatics repeatedly broke any truces. Subject to frequent retaliations and sackings, the countryside became unprofitable and deserted. The inland strongholds fell one by one, and Outremer was reduced to a coastal strip from Tortosa to Acre, which consisted largely of a string of fortified trading cities.
In 1290 a drunken rabble of unemployed Italian workmen arrived at Acre on 'crusade'. Slaughtering whatever muslims they could find in the city (and whomever looked like a muslim to them), they provoked Sultan Qalawun to abate the nuisance for good. Within a year all the Christian cities had fallen to the Mamelukes, and the Christian rule of the Holy Land was at an end. The fighting orders suffered enormous casualties in the fall of Acre, where again the Hospital and the Temple fell to the muslims. As things stand at 23 June 1291, they have fallen back on Limmasol on the southern coast of Cyprus.
Membership of the Order of St John
The Order of the Hospital is perhaps best known for its brother-knights. But these are only one category of members, and there are moreover several types of people attached to the Order who are not members but who might be suitable characters for the 'Swords of St John' campaign.
Like members of many other Orders, Hospitallers swear themselves to poverty, chastity, and obedience. Their vow of obedience bears an unusual form: Hospitallers vow to obey not only their appointed superiors in the Order, but also the sick in the hospital. As a token of this, members of the Order refer to the patients in their hospitals as 'our lords the Sick'. The patients eat off silver plates and drink from silver goblets: and they usually get far better food than is eaten off wooden trenchers by the knights in their refectory.
Brother knights
Admission to the Order of St John as a brother-knight is available to knights and the sons of knights and other nobles, who are at least twenty years old, unmarried, and who bring a knight's equipment with them to the Order. Brother-knights take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but concubinage and the wearing of rich clothes have not been unknown at times when the discipline of the Order became slack. When facilities are available, the brother-knights sleep in dormitories and eat plain meals together in refectories. They say the Little Office in chapter daily (or 150 pater nosters in lieu of it when in the field). And every knight spends some hours every day in nursing work in the hospital, obeying the orders of 'our lords the Sick'. (At least they do so, or do other charitable work in lieu, when the opportunity is available: knights setting forth on military expeditions do not take sick with them! After battle the knights serve as a field ambulance and as medical orderlies nursing the wounded.)
A knight of St John is permitted to own four horses as well as his arms and armour. He should bring so many with him when he joins the Order: they will be replaced by the Order as circumstances dictate. On campaign he is allowed two esquires: one to carry his lance and one to look after the spare horses. These esquires might be serving brothers or postulants, but most are hired servants.
The knights hospitallers are the leaders and commanders of the Order of St John. Other members are never elected to senior positions. Field commands, commanderies, and command of hospitals are usually given to knights (then called knights-commander), but occasionally a brother-sergeant is given command of a small force that has no knights in it, and sometimes a small commandery is given to a brother-sergeant or even a chaplain.
When his military service in Outremer or on the Spanish frontier is done, a brother-knight will retire to a hospital or commandery in his homeland, where he will live in conditions of some comfort. Knights-commanders in the homelands are responsible for the administration of the Order's estates, forwarding revenues and supplies to the frontier, recruitment and training, and the running of the Order's many hospitals.
The knights hospitallers are drawn chiefly from the petit noblesse (in England the gentry). Hospitallers bearing the names of great families are sometimes encountered, but they are rare. Scions of royalty and the aristocracy tend to prefer to join the Templars or, where such exist, national orders such as the Teutonic Knights or the Iberian orders of the Reconquista.
Brother sergeants
Admission to the Order of St John as a brother-sergeant is available to free men who are unmarried, at least twenty years old, and who bring with them to the Order the equipment of a petit sergeant. Apart from their lighter equipment and lower status, brother-sergeants are very similar to brother-knights. When facilities are available they sleep and eat together in dormitories and refectories, but their dormitories are separate, and their meals at a separate time, from those of the brother-knights.
A brother-sergeant is permitted to own two horses as well as his arms and armour. He should bring so many with him when he joins the Order: these will be replaced by the Order as circumstances require.
When his service in Outremer is finished, a brother-knight will be retired to a commandery in his homeland, where he will live in conditions of some comfort. Brother-sergeants in the homelands assist similarly-retired knights with collecting revenues, recruitment, and training. The least-desirable such postings are at the large hospitals with many knights, the better at small commanderies manned by one knight-commander, one brother-sergeant, and one chaplain. There are even a few small commanderies without knights, at which a lucky brother-sergeant will be commander.
Serving brothers
Admission to the Order as a serving brother is available to any free man. Even if a man is not free, the Order will probably not return him to his lord once he has taken his vows. Similarly, the Order was on occasions known to admit men who had been excommunicated (by their bishops, not by the Pope), thus restoring them to the communion. For that matter they admitted knights and sergeants thus, not just serving brothers. Serving brother take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, they live in dormitories and eat in the refectory (separately from both the sergeants and the knights), and say Office daily with their brethren.
The serving brethren are the successors of the original, pre-military, hospitallers. Although they may take up arms to defend their hospital, or even their city, theirs is not a military vocation. Serving brothers share the nursing work among 'our lords the Sick' with the knights and sergeants. They do the bulk of the work involved in providing for poor pilgrims in the hospitals. They do much menial work. And in such commanderies as have lands which are not let to tenants, some serving brothers may herd cattle, till fields, make wine, and refine sugar. But such peasant-brethren are nowhere near as common in the Order of the Hospital as they are, for instance, in Cistercian abbeys.
Technically speaking the surgeons and physicians of the Order are serving brethren, but they usually sleep in private cells and mess with the knights. The Order trains its own physicians and surgeons: as it has long had access to Greek and Arab medical science these are among the best there are.
Service in Outremer or on the frontier in Spain or Portugal is not compulsory for serving brethren. But on the other hand retirement to a comfortable rural commandery is not to be hoped for. Serving brothers may be posted here and there, but until they are superannuated to one to the Order's nursing homes for elderly brethren they will almost always be stationed at a hospital that is large and busy enough to require several staff.
Chaplains
All male members of the Hospitallers Order are canons, which is to say that technically they are clergymen. This was confirmed (after the time in which the campaign is set) when some masters of the order were made cardinals and Papal legates, or celebrated thanksgiving masses. But that is not to say that they were trained or ordained as priests, or that all knew how to conduct the sacraments. Therefore the Order has specialist chaplains, who usually administered the sacraments to the members of the Order. Being canons regular and not monks, these chaplains are also free to perform services for the laity, which is a valuable privilege of the Order, much resented by most bishops, and occasionally the subject of litigation at Rome.
Chaplains of the Order must legally be twenty to be ordained a deacon and 24 to be ordained a priest (though these requirements can be dispensed or waived). Bastards and the sons of priests are not technically eligible for ordination, but this consideration can be dispensed, and the Order often does not inquire closely into a potential chaplain's parentage and legitimacy. Like all members of the Order, chaplains take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. They sleep in private cells (when available), but eat in refectory with the knights, the surgeons, and the physicians. Like all other hospitallers, they work daily in the hospital, but mostly they see to the spiritual needs of the sick rather than the menial necessities of nursing.
Posts for chaplains with the Order of St John are quite various. A younger chaplain might be posted to a garrisoned commandery on the frontier, and ride with the brethren on campaign. With a little experience, he might be posted to one of the hospitals, ministering to pilgrims and the sick as well as to the brethren. And then he might hope for the rectory at one of the Order's public churches, or a position as secretary to one of the senior officers of the Order. And finally he might hope to retire to a rural commandery with only a knight-commander and one sergeant to see to, or even to the commandership itself of a small commandery. But the ambitions of a chaplain need not be confined to the Order. It was possible for chaplains of St John to withdraw to quiet abbeys and hermitages, or to advance to rich livings in the diocesan system. A bishopric or even a cardinal's hat or the Papacy itself is not out of the question.
Nursing sisters and other canonesses
The Order of the Hospital of St John has included nursing sisters since before its reform in 1100. These are technically canonesses, not nuns, and their (Augustinian) rule does not require that they live in cloister. But many brother-knights have prudish aristocratic attitudes to women, and since they effectively took over the Order there has been some pressure to cloister the female members. Therefore there are convents of canonesses of the Hospital of St John the Baptist, whose lady canonesses pray for the brethren of the Order and forward revenues to the Master, but do not serve among the sick. Nevertheless there remain convents of nursing sister attached to most of the hospitals, except in Spain and Portugal where the cult of machismo is overwhelming.
Membership of the Hospitallers as a nursing sister is available to a widow or to a single woman with the consent of her father or his heir. The convents of canonesses, on the other hand, tend only to accept women of gentle birth and who bring suitable dowries. Heiresses are seldom allowed to enter the Order because the men who hold their wardship are generally disinclined to let their lands pass to the Order, though this has happened.
Nursing sisters and cloistered canonesses take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. They both live a communal life, eating meals in a refectory and saying Office daily in chapter. But the nursing sisters sleep in dormitories and work daily with the sick and pilgrims, while the canonesses sleep in private cells, but are segregated from contact with the laity and with men other than their chaplain-confessors.
Postulants
Candidates may not be admitted to the Order of St John, nor allowed to take permanent vows, until they are at least twenty years old. But the Order does allow youths and maids as young as sixteen to take temporary vows as postulants. Postulants are trained at secure commanderies and hospitals in safe territory until they are twenty, at which time they may take permanent vows and join the Order as brethren or sisters, or else return to lay life and recover the property (if any) that they brought with them. Postulants for the knighthood are knighted before they take their vows, so that a young man who declines to take his vows or is refused membership of the Order is at least knighted before he goes forth.
The training that the Order gives to postulants depends on the status which they are expected to take up when they come of age. Future canonesses in cloistered convents are taught little more than the novices in nunneries. Postulants expected to become nursing sisters, on the other hand, are trained in the Orders' hospitals and receive the best medical training available to women anywhere. Postulants for the knighthood and sergeantry are trained one-on-one by veterans in rural commanderies, and may pick up a fair knowledge of medicine and nursing in addition to a sound training as a mounted fighter. Future serving brothers are trained at the larger hospitals, and sometimes on commanderies with substantial demesnes. The Order even trains its own priests: these may not be noted for their scholarship or theology, but they are better equipped than most to keep up with an army on the march and earn the respect of its soldiers.
Confrere knights
The rules of the Order of St John allow knights, even married knights, to share the life of the knight-brethren for a fixed term on temporary vows. These require the confrater or confrere to be chaste, to live under the same spartan conditions as the brethren, and to obey superiors in the Order and 'our lords the Sick', but only during his term with the Order. They do not require him to hand over all his or her property to the Order, to abjure his wife, to to live celibate for life.
Quite apart from the penitential value of military and nursing service with the Order, confraternity brings considerable benefits. For one thing, a former confrere is allowed to wear the mantle of the Order on special occasions, which lends prestige to a knight or banneret whose importance might otherwise be small. And a former confrere can be buried in his mantle, and thus benefit from the merit won by the prayers and martyrdoms of the permanent members of the Order. Also, a former confrere, as an associate of the Order, is allowed to take part in the ceremonies of the Order, and even to hire one of the Order's priests as a private chaplain. This makes the confrere practically immune to the interdict of and excommunication by his local bishop, and also immune to pressure from a confessor who would be subject to episcopal discipline: no mean privilege for a man of affairs.
Confraternities might not contribute much to the military or nursing power of the Order. But they do establish a network of valuable alliances among the nobility. It is a very useful thing for the Hospitallers to have former comrades-in-arms at almost every court. Count Raymond II of Tripoli was an Hospitaller confrere, and it was he who gave the Order Krak-des-Chevaliers. His son Raymond III was also a confrater.
It may turn out that a player character in the Swords of St John campaign is the heir-apparent of a wealthy or important family. In this case the character will have dynastic obligations, and might not feel free to take a vow of chastity or to hand over all his wealth to the Hospital. In such cases it might be most appropriate to make the character a confrere knight.
Mercenaries and hired servants
The Order of St John is rich, but has by no means too many brethren. It therefore hires mercenaries and servants to make best use of its revenues. Commanderies often hire cooks, cleaners, laundresses, farriers, armourers, and other craftsmen. Hospitals often hire servants to wait on pilgrims in the guesthouse: but rarely do they hire nurses or servants to wait on 'our lords the Sick'.
In cases where a commandery cultivates demesne lands, most of the work is done by hired labourers, although serving brothers also do agricultural work in some commanderies.
When the knights hospitallers set forth on a military expedition, each is permitted two esquires to care for his horses and so forth. Most of these esquires are hired servants. They take no part in the fighting.
The Order also hires mercenary soldiers. Mercenary knights are sometimes hired for a campaign (during which they will ride as confreres of the Order. Mercenary engineers, crossbowmen, and other infantry might be rushed in to a city that was expected to stand siege. But these cases are temporary and of comparatively small scale. The Order has a permanent force of mercenary 'turcopoles'. Turcopoles are for the most part natives of Outremer, raised and trained locally. They serve as light cavalry: skirmishers, scouts, and mounted archers, and sometimes ride as a second line in a charge, to back up the knights and sergeants. Turcopoles have lighter, faster horses than knights or even sergeants, and they wear much lighter armour (usually only a quilted aketon and a conical steel helmet.
The Mamelukes considered turcopoles (who were usually Syrian-born) to be traitors and apostates: their policy was to kill all those whom they captured. This did not completely deter Syrians from serving the Orders (Templars and the Teutonic knights also employed turcopoles). But it does mean that turcopoles who survived the fall of Acre have as strong an incentive to flee to Cyprus as brother of the Order. A turcopole might therefore be a suitable player character for Swords of St John
Organisation of the Order
Commanderies
The basic unit of organisation for the Hospitallers is the commandery. This consists of a more-or-less fortified house or castle together with a collection of nearby estates. Near the frontier a commandery will be garrisoned with knights brethren, brother sergeants, and perhaps mercenaries. The commander, a knight, will be both abbot and castellan, and often effectively the military governor of a stretch of country. In safer territory (as in France, Italy, or England) such a commandery will be occupied by one knight, one sergeant, and one chaplain, or even fewer (some commanderies, but never rich ones, are given to a sergeant or even a chaplain). These will be older brothers who have served their turn in Outremer or against the Moors, and are now responsible for managing a group of the Order's manors, recruiting and training postulants, and for forwarding money and designated supplies ('responsions') to the hospitals and the front. These semi-retired brothers also do charitable and nursing work, though necessarily on a small scale. Every Hospitaller establishment has a hospital for the sick and guest quarters for pilgrims.
Commanderies usually let their properties for rents. It is unusual for the Order to farm them itself, though it does happen, for instance at Kolossi on Cyprus.
Hospitals
The other main Hospitaller institution is the hospital. These have larger staffs, including serving brothers and nursing sisters, because they tend to be busy. As well as treating the sick, hospitals give food and shelter to pilgrims, organise and sometimes escort pilgrim caravans, enforce regulations to ensure the safety of pilgrim ships, and collect responsions from the rural commanderies to defray their expenses and to be forwarded to the front.
Hospitals tend to be built at the larger cities and at strategic locations along the main pilgrimage routes to Jerusalem, Rome, and Compostella. Each of the usual ports at which pilgrims embark for the East has a large hospital. The knights at these ports enforce regulations on pilgrim ships: ensuring that they are not overloaded, that they have sufficient provisions and water, and requiring the captains to issue numbered tickets when they accept payment for passage (a measure to control overloading and fraud). The Order's ships and knights often sail to protect pilgrim convoys, and the order itself runs ships for pilgrims to and from the Holy Land.
Priories
In the Holy land each commander was responsible directly to the Master. But in Europe the commanderies are grouped on a territorial basis into priories. Each priory was under the command and supervison of a prior, who was also the commander of designated commandery or hospital. Priors are significant figures in their areas, effectively ranking as barons.
Grand priories
Priories are in turn grouped into provinces, each commanded and supervised by a grand prior. The provinces are 'France' (actually only the northern part of the Kingdom of France), Auvergne, Provence, England (with Wales, Scotland, and Ireland), Aragon (with Catalonia and Navarre), Crato (Castile and Portugal), Italy, and Germany (with Bohemia, Poland, and Scandinavia). A grand prior of the Order of St John is a significant political figure in most kingdoms. "My lord of St John's" (the prior of Clerkenwell and grand prior of 'England') took precedence before all untitled barons in the English realm.
Grand bailiffs
At the head of the order stands the Master, elected for life by the Grand Chapter. The Master is assisted by the Grand Commander of Jerusalem (his administrative lieutenant), the Marshall (chief military officer of the Order), the Draper (a sort of quartermaster-general), the Hospitaller (surgeon-general), the Treasurer, and the Turcopolier (in charge of the Order's mercenary employees, particularly of the turcopoles: light horse raised in Outremer and employed as scouts and missile cavalry.) All of these 'grand bailiffs' are elected by the Grand Chapter.
Chapters
The Grand Chapter is an assembly which all brothers of the Order (knights, sergeants, serving brethren, and chaplains) are entitled to attend. But as it is invariably held in the East, many brothers are in practice disenfranchised. The Grand Chapter is the supreme power within the Order. It elects, and may depose, grand bailliffs, and it alone is entitled to make rules and regulations for the Order.
The Conventual Chapter, is a much smaller assembly of senior officers, including the Master and the grand bailiffs. It acts as a privy council, a confidential cabinet for the Master, and also as a supreme court, hearing appeals from administrative decisions of the bailiffs and priors and trying other important cases.
The habit and costume of the Order of St John
The chief article of habit of the Order of St John is a black hooded mantle marked on the left breast with a white cross formee. When the mantle is thrown back to give free use to the arms the cross appears on the left shoulder. This mantle is essentially an Augustinian habit distinguished by the white cross of the Order. It may be worn over a cassock, over a surcoat and armour, or indeed over any other clothes.
When in the cloister brothers wear a black tunic or cassock with a large white cross formee on the front. When going to war the military brethren wear a red surcoat with a white cross (the shield and banner of the Order are gules a cross argent). Brethren wear various headgear, including padded arming caps, white turbans, and Arab-style keffiyehs.
Chaplains of the Order often wear their hair in a tonsure. Other members customarily shave their crowns only on "Shere Thursday" (Maundy Thursday).
Nursing sisters and cloistered canonesses of the Order of St John wear a red gown, and over it the mantle of the Order.
Other military religious orders
Knights Templars
Oldest and most prominent of the monastic fighting orders, the "Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon" are the Hospitallers' main rivals, and also their most important colleagues, the best and bravest soldiers in Christendom. Like the Hospitallers, the Templars have suffered a crushing blow in the fall of Acre: except for their forces in Spain all the brethren of military age were killed, along with the Master of the Temple.
The Poor Knights were founded in about 1115 as a voluntary brotherhood of knight devoted to escorting pilgrims safely through the dangers of the Holy Land. The King of Jerusalem gave them quarters in a wing of the Royal palace, formerly a mosque, thought to be the Temple of Solomon. They were reorganised as a religious fighting order in 1128, when St Bernard of Clairvaux gave them a Rule based on the ascetic Cistercian model. This Rule was endorsed at the Council of Troyes, and has been imitated by the other military orders.
The Templars share most of the privileges of the Hospitallers: benefit of clergy, immunity from episcopal visitation, immunity from the interdict, and responsibility through their Master directly to the Pope, their own priests, etc. But since the Templars are technically monks, they are not permitted to perform religious services for the laity, except in an emergency. Neither do the Templars engage in any charitable or nursing work. Indeed, by their rule the Templars are required to live secluded in their preceptories except when called out for military activity. Somehow this does not manage to stop them from conducting a lucrative banking business.
Aloofness, wealth, and aristocratic hauteur make the Templars unpopular with the lower classes. None of which has been helped by a number of instances of scandalous avarice on the part of the Order. And the Templars' unruliness as subjects, reaching its pinnacle in their deposing a king of Jerusalem and replacing him with their own puppet, has alienated the rulers of Christendom. But for all that the Templars are as brave as lions and fanatical in their loyalty to the Cross. Twenty thousand have given their lives on Crusade and in defence of the Holy Land.
The Templars have a most efficient network of spies in the Islamic world. As seems common in spymasters, they have developed a mania for secrecy.
Knights Templar and their chaplains wear a white gown and mantle like those of Cistercian choir monks, both emblazoned with a red cross. Lesser brethren wear brown, like Cistercian lay brothers.
Knights of St Lazarus
The knights of St Lazarus are an offshoot of the Hospitallers, founded in 1130 to run a leper hospital. The rules of both the Hospitallers and the Templars require a brother who catches leprosy (any chronic skin disease) to resign their habit and join the Order of St Lazarus. This is a small order, and lacks any explicit ecclesiastical immunities. But on the other hand few dare to cross the eerie leper knights.
The Order of St Lazarus runs leper hospitals across Europe, and some elderly or infirm knights perhaps survive there. But the able-bodied knights of this order were killed to a man in the fall of Acre.
The Lazar knights wear a black habit and mantle like those of the Hospitallers, but the cross is green instead of white.
Teutonic Knights
The 'Teutonic Knights of St Mary's Hospital of Jerusalem', or Deutschritters, were founded in 1198 during an abortive German Crusade. Taking over a 'Hospital of St Mary of the Germans' in Jerusalem and a field hospital founded by merchants from Bremen and Lubeck, they adopted a rule based on the Templars' but with allowance made for hospital work. The order was very successful in Germany (where it flourished at the expense of the Templars and Hospitallers). In 1199 it was officially chartered by the Pope. The Teutonic knights have long been involved in a bloody conquest of the pagan Prussians and Livonians, which since 1227 has counted as a crusade. The Order of the Brothers of the Sword (founded for this purpose) merged with the Teutonic knights in 1232. The Teutonic knights have a substantial sovereign territory on the Baltic, the Ordernsland, and the Hochmeister of the order ranks as a prince of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Deutschritters also had lands in Outremer, and their headquarters was at Starkenberg near Acre. But these are now all lost, and every member south of the Alps was killed in the fall of Acre, except for the Master who alone escaped. The Deutschmeister has retired to Venice, and it seems unlikely that the Teutonic knights will return to the Mediterranean.
The Teutonic knights wear a white mantle with a black cross, much resented by the Templars. Their sergeants wear a grey mantle with a black three-armed cross. In some of their hospitals the Teutonic Order has convents of nursing women: half-sisters.
Order of St Thomas Acon
This order got its start during the Third Crusade, when the dean of St Paul's (London) started nursing the wounded in the besieger's camp outside Acre. After the capture of the city he built a small chapel to the English saint Thomas a Beckett, and King Richard Coeur de Lion endowed a small hospital for Englishmen with nursing brethren. This received endowments of land in England, and a regular subscription of alms from the Mercers' Company of London. Later it received a large bequest from a bishop of Winchester, who exhorted it to follow the Templars' example. The order of St Thomas of Canterbury in Acre thus acquired knights, and although these did not adopt the ways of the Hospitallers the order did not give up the running of hospitals.
The knights of St Thomas Acon were never very numerous: Englishmen preferred to join one of the great international orders. And it never obtained any ecclesiatical immunities, remaining subject to episcopal visitation. At the siege of Acre their strength was nine knights plus the master, all of whom were killed.
The habit of the knights of Thomas Acon is like that of the Hospitallers, except that the crosses are split down the middle, half red and half white (cross formy per pale argent and gules).
Orders of the Spanish and Portuguese Reconquista.
There are several orders of knights involved in the reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from the Moors. They provide in effect most of the troops for the reconquista, and an indispensible service in garrisoning frontier forts, which no other organisations would have teh financial resources and permanent troops to do. The Templars and Hospitallers are included, but there are also national orders not seen elsewhere, of which the significant ones, but not all, are listed below.
The Order of Alcantara
This order was formed in 1166 as the Knights of San Julian de Pereiro, and recognised as a religious order by the Pope in 1183. It placed itself under the jurisdiction of the Knights of Calatrava in 1187, but in 1218 the Knights of Calatrava restored its autonomy and ceded to it all their lands in the kingdom of Leon. The order takes its name from its new headquarters.
The habit of the order of Alcantara is plain black.
The Knights of Aviz
This order was founded in 1162 as the Knights of Santa Maria, and adopted the Benedictine rule in 1170. It was placed under the authority of the Order of Calatrava. In 1211 the King of Portugal gave the order the town of Aviz, to which it relocated. In 1218 the Order of Calatrava restored the autonomy of the Knights of Aviz and ceded to them all its property in Portugal.
The habit of the knights of Aviz is plain black.
The Order of Calatrava
In 1157 the Templars abandoned the fortress of Calatrava on the border between Castile and the Almohad empire as indefensible, and the king of Castile offered it to anyone who would defend it. The offer was taken up by a Cistercian abbey, who recruited knights and other troops for the purpose. In 1164 the monks handed the fortress over to the knights and returned to their monastery. The knights adopted the Cistercian Rule and were recognised as a religious order by the Pope in the same year. In 1218, after a setback on the Castilian frontier the order divested itself of lands outside Castile, bestowing them on a number of subordinate orders, to which it restored their autonomy. The Order of Calatrava is now the chief military order and indeed practically the national army of the kingdom of Castile. Since 1254 the king has taken part in the election of the order's officers.
The habit and cloak of the Order of Calatrava are plain white, but the knights' armour is always black.
Mercedarians
The Mercedarians are a small order devoted to recovering and liberating Christians who have been taken slave by the Moors. They will ransom or buy them if necessary, but perfer the economy of liberating them in raids.
The habit of the Mercedarians is plain white: they wear an escutcheon of the royal arms of Aragon on a chain about their necks.
The Order of Santiago
Some time after 1158 a band of volunteer knights began escorting pilgrims to the shrine of St James of Compostella, under the auspices of the canons of St Eloi. By 1171 they were living in convent under the Augustinian Rule, and in 1175 the order was recognised by the Pope. The Order of Santiago is unusual in that the knights are lay brothers, not members, and do not take vows of poverty or of celibacy. Knights of Santiago may marry and keep personal property, but on their deaths the order inherits their property, and undertakes to look after their families.
Since 1254 the king of Castile has expected to have a say in the appointment of officers for this order.
The habit of the Order of Santiago is white, marked on the left breast of the tunic and the left shoulder of the mantle with a red cross of which the lower arm is shaped like a sword-blade.
The Order of Sao Thiago
In 1287 the Portuguese members of the Order of Santiago declared themselves a separate and autonomous order. This secession has not been recognised by the Pope.
Further reading
The most accessible sources, and the ones on which this material is in most part based, are:
Seward, D. 1975 The Monks of War (Penguin Books ISBN 0-14-019501-7).
Wise, T. & Scollins, R. 1984 (illustrator) The Knights of Christ (Men at Arms series; 155) (Osprey, an imprint of Reed Consumer Books, ISBN 0-85045-604-5).
The entry on Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem in the Catholic Encyclopaedia is only brief, and is not particularly detailed.
