It is impossible to capture the enormous breadth and depth of the Order’s 965 year history in a few short paragraphs. The best that can be done is to highlight its major accomplishments, triumphs, setbacks and transitions. What follows is a very brief history of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Knights Hospitaller (Malta) following its historical pathway from Jerusalem (1113-1187) – Acre (1187-1291) – Cyprus (1292-1311) – Rhodes (1311-1523) – Malta (1530-1798) – Russia (1798-1917) – France ( 1917-1962) – America (1962-1990) – Malta (1990-to today. Readers who have the interest might explore the rich tapestry of the Order of St. John contained in a treasury of larger, more detailed, works presented in the notes that follow this section.
“Piae Postulatio Voluntatis”. Bull issued by Pope Paschal II in 1113 in favour of the Order of St. John Hospitalier, which was to transform what was a community of pious men into an institution within the Church. By virtue of this document, the pope officially recognized the existence of the new organisation as an operative and militant part of the Roman Catholic Church, granting it papal protection and confirming its properties in Europe and Asia.
The Order traces its roots back to the 11th century. Around 1099, some merchants from Amalfi came to Jerusalem on business . When they saw the wretched conditions in which the vast majority of pilgrims found themselves ,they took pity on the latter and decided ir h with precious gifts, and subsequently gained his permission to purchase some land and build a Church on it . The Church was given the name Santa Maria quarters ) for pilgrims of every religious creed (one was for men, the other was for women).
Each had its own chapel, one was dedicated to the Greek Saint John Eleymon (His Latin name being St John The Almoner ) the female chapel was dedicated to Mary Magdalene.
Once the city was in possession of the Franks, the good Benedictine brothers went about treating and feeding the “Soldiers of Christ “ Once the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem had been founded, a Hospitale in the true sense of the word was set up . It was named after John the Baptist, since the Greek Saint , John the Almoner was practically unknown to Western European Christians . . Brother Gerardo de’ Sasso was appointed Rector (1108-1120), and managed to obtain other donations of land from a grateful Gottfried of Buglione .
These good works were recognized by the then Pope – Paschal II – who issued, on February 15, 1113, a Papal Bull “Piae postulatio voluntatis” confirming them as a Hospital for the faithful and placing it under the direct protection of the Holy See. The Order had its rights further extended by a Bull of Pope Calixtus II of 19 June 1120 “Ad hoc nos disponente domino”.
The Hospitaller Order continued to expand its work in The Holy Land until 1291. After the disastrous Fourth Crusade, any hopes of reconciling Eastern Powers and Western Christendom were shattered and the Order was forced to relocate to Acre for about three to four years. Following the total conquest of the Holy Land by Islamic forces, the Order abandoned Jerusalem and the knights relocated to the nearby island of Cyprus.
After the fall of Saint John of Acre and the loss of the Holy Land in 1291, the Hospitaller Order of St John transferred its headquarters and hospital to Limassol on the island of Cyprus, where it had an outpost since 1210. Thanks to financial concessions the Order received from important properties, privileges and commercial rights, it remained faithful to its Hospitaller mission and continued to build new hospitals and to benefit from the strategic position of the island. It was in Cyprus that the Order built its early naval fleet to protect pilgrims enroute to the Holy Land by sea. This travel also increased the number of new members in the Order who came from all over Europe.
This steady growth contributed to the strengthening of the Order’s structure as it acquired new possessions on the Mediterranean shore. Amongst these were the important port of Famagusta, the city of Nicosia, and the establishment of numerous Commanderies in these areas. Growth had its limits, however. The increasing political and military instability on Cyprus resulted in restricting the Order’s expansion on the island and the Hospitallers were forced to choose a more suitable base for the seat of the Order of St. John on the Island of Rhodes. With its relocation of its central administration to Rhodes, the Order did not entirely abandon Cyprus.
Lieutenants remained there to govern its more than 60 Priories and Commanderies and the knights remained in place for another century until the middle of the fifteen century, when they were recalled to the Order’s Conventual Seat in Rhodes beginning in 1309.
The Order completed its acquisition of the island by 1310 and took advantage of its strategic location and natural seaports. Under Grand Master Fra. Foulques de Villaret’s leadership the Order developed one of the finest naval fleets in the world and virtually ruled the Mediterranean. It can be said that it was during this period that the Order’s sovereignty was universally recognized as, by Pontifical deed, it had gained the right to maintain and deploy armies, appoint ambassadors and was granted other forms of international recognition. As a result of the tremendous influx of new knights who traveled to Rhodes from Europe, members of the Order were now housed and organized according to the native languages that they spoke.
In the beginning, there were seven “Langues” or tongues: Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon or Navarre, England (that included Scotland and Ireland) and Germany. Later on, Spain (Castile and Portugal) comprised the eighth Langue. The traditional structure of the Order’s hierarchy of units (Grand Priories, Priories, Bailiwicks and Commanderies) was imposed on the Langues and added administrative order to their increased numbers. The Order was governed by its Grand Master and senior members of each Langue were represented on the Order’s Council. Religious members of various nationalities formed the Seat of the Order, called the Convent. The Order began to mint its own currency and maintained diplomatic relations with other states. For the next 213 years on Rhodes, the Knights Hospitaller leveraged the stability of the region, its massive growth and simultaneously increased its renown for their hospitals and advanced medical treatment. However, the knights were soon forced to become a more militarized entity because the Islamic Empire was expanding. The Order was increasingly defending itself against the Ottomans on many fronts.
The knights heroically withstood two invasions in the 15th Century—one by the Sultan of Egypt in 1444 and, again in 1480, by the pitiless ruler of the Ottoman Empire, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of Turkey, whom the knights successfully repulsed after an 89-day bloody siege. After capturing Constantinople in 1463, Suleiman had made the knights a priority target for conquest. After his defeat in 1480, he unleashed his armies on the knights again in mid-July, 1522. After a six-month siege, on January 1, 1523, the Sultan’s force of 200,000 men finally drove the knights from their base on Rhodes. The surviving defeated knights were allowed an honorable departure, but between 1523 and 1530 the Order did not have a permanent home. After several years in various encampments around the Eastern Mediterranean in Candia, Messina, and Civitavecchia (then Viterbo), the knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Knights Hospitaller, eventually settled on Malta on October 26, 1530 and became commonly known as the Knights of Malta.
historical pathway from Jerusalem (1113-1187) – Acre (1187-1291) – Cyprus (1292-1311) – Rhodes (1311-1523) – Malta (1530-1798) – Russia (1798-1917) – France ( 1917-1962) – America (1962-1990) – Malta (1990-to today. Readers who have the interest might explore the rich tapestry of the Order of St. John contained in a treasury of larger, more detailed, works presented in the notes that follow this section.
The new base for the knights was created by a land-lease fief granted to the Order by Emperor Charles V, dated March 23, 1530, and included the islands of Gozo, Comino, Cominotto and Filfla together with the City of Tripoli in Northern Africa. Two curious conditions of the knights’ lease was that the Order should remain neutral in any war between Christian nations and their annual lease payment was the payment of one falcon each year to Charles V—hence the origin of the term: Maltese Falcon. The knights, under the leadership of Grand Master Fra. Phillippe de Villiers de l’Isle Adam, took possession and over the next 268 years, grew in strength and wealth, transforming Malta into a flourishing island. The Order’s defences survived many Ottoman attacks, including the three-month battle in 1565 known as the “Great Siege of Malta”.
The Order became one of the great powers of Europe as it’s formidable navy cruised and protected the Mediterranean Sea from a new scourge—the Barbary Pirates. While hospitals were among the first projects built on Malta, the knights also constructed fortresses, watch towers and churches, many of which are still standing today, nearly 500 years later. The main hospital could accommodate 500 patients and was considered one of the finest in the world. Its medical faculty included anatomy, surgery and pharmacy. A particular specialty was ophthalmology. It was at the Malta hospital that medical practice specialization and certification was formally established. Valletta, the capital city, achieved high praise as a centre of art and culture. Architecture and construction flourished. Fortifications, public works, gardens and churches (including The Church of St. John the Baptist, completed in 1577 and where many of the knights are now buried) contain works by Caravaggio, Mattia Preti and others.
The Great Siege of Malta
The Great Siege of Malta in 1565 was a remarkable victory with the knights and their soldiery overcoming massive enemy forces both on land and sea. The siege was a clash of unimaginable brutality and one of the bloodiest battles ever fought. It was also an event that determined the course of history with the very survival of Christianity at stake. If vitally strategic Malta fell, the Muslim Ottoman Empire would soon dominate the entire Mediterranean. Even Rome was in peril. Sultan Suleiman controlled the greatest fighting force in the world and had an armada of 200 ships and an army of 40,000 troops when he launched his battle against the knights. He planned to wipe the Knights of St. John and Malta from the map. On May 18, Turkish artillery was unleashed followed by wave after wave of screaming scimitar wielding cavalry. Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Vallette vowed that the fort would not be taken as long as one Christian lived on Malta. Six hundred knights, a few thousand local peasants and mercenaries, and a few thousand Maltese irregulars—6,000 and 9,000 men in total—withstood and eventually defeated a much larger, overwhelming enemy force. After more than 30,000 Turks were killed, the Ottomans withdrew and the knights celebrated victory on September 8. The feat has become an integral part of world military history as it is part of the heroic story of the courage and military supremacy of the Knights of St. John. In the three years following, Grand Master La Vallette planned and built the great port and fortress city of Valletta. He died in 1568 and never saw his great project completed. He is buried in the city that bears his name.
In 1775, the Order absorbed the ancient Hospitaller Order of St. Anthony of Vienne whose possessions lay mainly in France. Because of its increased wealth, the Order was becoming more visible—and desirable—to others, amongst them Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1798 after ruling the Maltese islands for more than 250 years, the knights were attacked by the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte on his way to the Egyptian campaign. Through treachery and deceit, Napoleon captured the fort, plundered Malta and displaced the knights as the sovereigns of the island.
The then Grand Master – Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim – left, with only a few knights [1], for Trieste, in Austria (now Italy) on June 18, 1798 thus ending that era’s involvement of the Order with the Island of Malta.
The members less courageous returned to their countries of origin, joining the existing independent institutions or forming new groups, seven Professed Knights of the Langue of Italy went to Sicily, under the Pope’s protection. The Council and the most enterprising found protection in Russia, where they joined their brothers who had fled from France after the Revolution and others from the former Grand Priory of Poland, in the Grand Priory of Russia.
The Great Siege of Malta in 1565 was a remarkable victory with the knights and their soldiery overcoming massive enemy forces both on land and sea. The siege was a clash of unimaginable brutality and one of the bloodiest battles ever fought. It was also an event that determined the course of history with the very survival of Christianity at stake. If vitally strategic Malta fell, the Muslim Ottoman Empire would soon dominate the entire Mediterranean. Even Rome was in peril. Sultan Suleiman controlled the greatest fighting force in the world and had an armada of 200 ships and an army of 40,000 troops when he launched his battle against the knights. He planned to wipe the Knights of St. John and Malta from the map. On May 18, Turkish artillery was unleashed followed by wave after wave of screaming scimitar wielding cavalry. Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Vallette vowed that the fort would not be taken as long as one Christian lived on Malta. Six hundred knights, a few thousand local peasants and mercenaries, and a few thousand Maltese irregulars—6,000 and 9,000 men in total—withstood and eventually defeated a much larger, overwhelming enemy force. After more than 30,000 Turks were killed, the Ottomans withdrew and the knights celebrated victory on September 8. The feat has become an integral part of world military history as it is part of the heroic story of the courage and military supremacy of the Knights of St. John. In the three years following, Grand Master La Vallette planned and built the great port and fortress city of Valletta. He died in 1568 and never saw his great project completed. He is buried in the city that bears his name.
In April 1962 at a meeting of The Order’s Sovereign Council in Grandson Castle, Vaud, Switzerland King Peter was installed as Grand Protector of The Order. On October 1, 1963 King Peter issued what was termed a “Charter” and, therein, stated that The Order “is none the less sovereign in its dealings with other States and independent in its internal organisation, in its election of its leader and in the promulgation of its Constitution.” This document ended with an invitation to The Venerable Order, the Johanniter Order and the Roman Order of Malta to “unite with us in our cause”.
The Order had maintained its “fons honorum“ over the centuries and this was confirmed in the actions of King Peter through his Membership in The Order; issuing the Charter and in the presentation of a new Constitution.
King Peter became very involved in the future of the Order and presented on March 19, 1964 a revised Constitution for the Order [10]. This soon came into full force and effect with formal approval by the Sovereign Council at a meeting in Zurich, Switzerland in March 1965. Also on January 30, 1965 King Peter had issued a Royal Proclamation [11] re-stating his position as Grand Protector of the Order and indicating that after due process he would be willing to accept the position of Grand Master. This he later did but then Grand Master Paul Granier de Cassagnac refused to be moved to emeritus status and thus another schism in the history of the Order came about. King Peter formally accepted the position of Grand Master, after required processes, as of St. John’s Day, 1965 by a Proclamation dated June 21 of that year.
King Peter died on November 3, 1970 and was succeeded by Prince Serge Troubetzkoy as Lieutenant Grand Master [12]. Prince Andrej of Yugoslavia [ youngest brother of King Peter] was appointed Grand Master on October 1, 1977. He died some twelve years later on May 7, 1990.
He was succeeded by Prince Serge Troubetzkoy who became Lieutenant Grand Master of the Order. Prince Andrej of Yugoslavia, the youngest brother of King Peter, was subsequently elected 74th Grand Master on October 1, 1977. He died 12 years later on May 7, 1990.
