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Bible Encyclopedias
Joseph Xavier Saintine
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or JOSEPH XAVIER SAINTINE (1798-1865), French novelist and dramatist, whose real surname was Boniface, was born in Paris on the 10th of July 17 9 8. In 1823 he produced a volume of poetry in the manner of the Romanticists, entitled Poemes, odes, dpitres. In 1836 appeared Picciola, the story of the comte de Charney, a political prisoner in Piedmont, whose reason was saved by his cult of a tiny flower growing between the paving stones of his prison yard. This story is a masterpiece of the sentimental kind, and has been translated into many European languages. He produced many other novels, none of striking individuality with the exception of Seul (1857), which purported to be the authentic record of Alexander Selkirk on his desert island. Saintine was a prolific dramatist, and collaborated in some hundred pieces with Scribe and others, usually under the name of Xavier. He died on the 21st of January 1865.
A town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria on the Rohrbach, 14 m. by rail W. of Zweibrucken. Pop. (1905) 15,521. It has coal-mines and manufactures of glass and machinery. There are also large iron and steel works in the town, and other industries are the making of powder, leather, cigars, soap and cotton. St Ingbert is named after the Irish saint, St Ingobert, and belonged for 300 years to the electorate of Trier.
A market town, municipal borough and seaport in the St Ives parliamentary division of Cornwall, England, io m. N.N.E. of Penzance, on a branch of the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901) 6699. It lies near the W. horn of St Ives Bay on the N. coast. The older streets near the harbour are narrow and irregular, but on the upper slopes there are modern terraces with good houses. The small harbour, protected by a breakwater, originally built by John Smeaton in 1767, has suffered from the accumulation of sand, and at the lowest tides is dry. The fisheries for pilchard, herring and mackerel are important. Boat-building and sail-making are carried on. An eminence south of the town is marked by a granite monument erected in 1782 by John Knill, a native of the town, who intended to be buried here; to maintain a quinquennial celebration on the spot he bequeathed property to the town authorities. The borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 1890 acres.
The town takes name from St Hya, or Ia, an Irish virgin and martyr, who is said to have accompanied St Piran on his missionary journey to Cornwall in the 5th century, and to have landed near this place. The Patent Rolls disclose an almost continuous series of trials for piracy and plunder by St Ives sailors from the beginning of the 14th to the end of the 16th century. A mere chapelry of Lelant and the less important member of the distant manor of Ludgvan Leaze, which in Domesday Book appears as Luduam, it had no fostering hand to minister to its growth. In order to augment the influence of the Tudors in the House of Commons, Philip and Mary in 15 58 invested it with the privilege of returning 2 members. Its affairs were at that time administered by a headwarden, who after 1598 appears under the name of portreeve, 12 chief burgesses and 24 ordinary burgesses. The portreeve was elected by the 24; the 12 by the chief inhabitants. This body had control over the fishing, the harbour and harbour dues, the fabric of the church, sanitation and the poor. In 1639 a charter of incorporation was granted under which the portreeve became mayor, the 12 became aldermen, and the 24 were styled burgesses. Provision was made for four fairs and for markets on Wednesdays and Saturdays, also for a grammar school. This charter was surrendered to Charles II. and a new one granted in 1685, the latter reducing the number of aldermen to 10 and of burgesses also to io. It ratified the parliamentary franchise and the fairs and markets, and provided a court of pie-powder; it also contained a clause safeguarding the rights of the marquess of Winchester, lord of the manor of Ludgvan Leaze and Porthia. In 1835 a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors were invested with the administration of the borough. In 1832 St Ives lost one of its members, and in 1885 the other. Both markets are now held, but only one of the fairs. This takes place on the Saturday nearest St Andrew's day.
A market town and municipal borough in the northern parliamentary division of Huntingdonshire, England, mainly on the left (north) bank of the Ouse, 5 m. E. of Huntingdon by the Great Eastern railway. Pop. (1901) 2910. The river is crossed by an old bridge said to have been built by the abbots of Ramsey early in the 15th century. A building over the centre pier of the bridge was once used as a chapel. The causeway (1827) on the south side of the river is built on arches so as to assist the flow of the river in time of flood. The church of All Saints is Perpendicular, with earlier portions. A curious custom is practised annually in this church in connexion with a bequest made by a certain Dr Robert Wilde in 1678: it is the distribution of Bibles to six boys and six girls of the town. The original provision was that the Bibles should be cast for by dice on the Communion table. Oliver Cromwell was a resident in St Ives in 1634-1635, but the house which he inhabited - Slepe Hall - was demolished in the middle of the 19th century. St Ives has a considerable agricultural trade. It is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area 2326 acres.
The manor of " Slepe" is said to have been given by Æthelstan " Mannessune " to the abbot of Ramsey and confirmed to him by King Edgar. It owed its change of name to the supposed discovery of the grave of St Ive, a Persian bishop, in xoox, and a priory was founded in the same year by Abbot Ednoth as a cell to Ramsey. St Ives was chiefly noted for its fair, which was first granted to the abbot of Ramsey by Henry I. to be held on Monday in Easter week and eight days following. In the reign of Henry III. merchants from Flanders came to the fair, which had become so important that the king granted it to be continued beyond the eight days if the abbot agreed to pay a farm of 50 yearly for the extra days. The fair, with a market on Monday granted to the abbot in 1286, survives, and was purchased in 1874 by the corporation from the duke of Manchester. The town was incorporated in 1874.
A town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Charente-Inferieure, 33 m. E. of Rochefort by rail. Pop. (1906) 6242. St Jean lies on the right bank of the Boutonne, which is navigable for small vessels. The parish church of St Jean stands on the site of an abbey church of the 13th century, of which some remains are left. In 1568 the monastery was destroyed by the Huguenots, but much of it was rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries, to which period belong two towers and the façade of an unfinished church. St Jean owes the suffix of its name to the neighbouring forest of Angery (Angeriacum). Pippin I. of Aquitaine in the 9th century established there a Benedictine monastery which was afterwards reputed to possess the head. of John the Baptist. This relic attracted hosts of pilgrims; a town grew up, took the name of St Jean d'Angeri, afterwards d'Angely, was fortified in 1131, and in 1204 received a charter from Philip Augustus. The possession of the place was disputed between French and English in the Hundred Years' War, and between Catholics and Protestants at a later date. In 1569 it capitulated to the duke of Anjou (afterwards Henry III.). Louis XIII. again took it from the Protestants in 1621 and deprived it of its privileges and its very name, which he changed to Bourg-Louis.
A coast town of south-western France, in the department of Basses-Pyrenees, at the mouth of the Nivelle, 14 m. S.W. of Bayonne on a branch of the Southern railway. Pop. (1906) 3424. St Jean-de-Luz is situated in the Basque country on the bay of St Jean-de-Luz, the entrance to which is protected by breakwaters and moles. It has a 13thcentury church, the chief features of which are the galleries in the nave, which, according to the Basque custom, are reserved for men. The Maison Lohobiague, the Maison de l'Infante (both 17th cent.), and the hotel de ville (1657) are picturesque old buildings. St Jean is well known for its bathing and as a winter resort. Fishing is a considerable industry.
From the 14th to the 17th century St Jean-de-Luz enjoyed a prosperity due to its mariners and fishermen. Its vessels were the first to set out for Newfoundland in 1520. In 1558, owing to the depredations of its privateers, the Spaniards attacked and burned the town. In 1627, however, it was able to equip 80 vessels, which succeeded in saving the island of Re from the duke of Buckingham. In 1660 the treaty of the Pyrenees was signed at St Jean-de-Luz, and was followed by the marriage there of the Infanta Maria Theresa and Louis XIV. At that time the population numbered 15,000. The cession of Newfoundland to England in 1713, the loss of Canada, and the silting-up of the harbour were the three causes which contributed to the decline of the town.
ST John, Charles William George (1809-1856), English naturalist and sportsman, son of General the Hon. Frederick St John, second son of Frederick, second Viscount Bolingbroke, was born on the 3rd of December 1809. He was educated at Midhurst, Sussex, and about 1828 obtained a clerkship in the treasury, but resigned in 1834, in which year he married a lady with some fortune. He ultimately settled in the " Laigh " of Moray, " within easy distance of mountain sport." In 1853 a paralytic seizure deprived him of the use of his limbs, and for the benefit of his health he removed to the south of England. He died at Woolston, near Southampton, on the 22nd of July 1856. His works are Wild Sports and Natural History of the Highlands (1846, 2nd ed. 1848, 3rd ed. 186x); Tour in Sutherland (1849, 2nd ed., with recollections by Captain H. St John, 1884); Notes of Natural History and Sport in Morayshire, with Memoir by C. Innes (1863, 2nd ed. 1884). They are written in a graphic style, and illustrated with engravings, many of them from clever pen-and-ink sketches of his own.
ST John, James Augustus (1801-1875), British author and traveller, was born in Carmarthenshire, Wales, on the 24th of September 1801. He received private instruction in the classics, and also acquired proficiency in French, Italian, Spanish, Arabic and Persian. He obtained a connexion with a Plymouth newspaper, and when, in 1824, James Silk Buckingham started the Oriental Herald, St John became assistant editor. In 1827, together with D. L. Richardson, he founded the London Weekly Review, subsequently purchased by Colburn and transformed into the Court Journal. He lived for some years on the Continent and went in 1832 to Egypt and Nubia, travelling mostly on foot. The results of his journey were published under the titles Egypt and Mohammed Ali, or Travels in the Valley of the Nile (2 vols., 1834), Egypt and Nubia (1844), and Isis, an Egyptian Pilgrimage (2 vols., 1853). On his return he settled in London, and for many years wrote political " leaders " for the Daily Telegraph. In 1868 he published a Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, based on researches in the archives at Madrid and elsewhere. He died in London on the 22nd of September 1875.
Besides the works mentioned St John was also the author of Journal of a Residence in Normandy (1830); Lives of Celebrated Travellers (1830); Anatomy of Society (1831); History, Manners and Customs of the Hindus (1831); Margaret Ravenscroft, or Second Love (3 vols., 1835); The Hellenes, or Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece (1842); Sir Cosmo Digby, a novel (1844); There and Back' Again in Search of Beauty (1853); The Nemesis of Power (1854) Philosophy at the Foot of the Cross (1854); The Preaching of Christ (1855); The Ring and the Veil, a novel (1856); Life of Louis Napoleon (1857); History of the Four Conquests of England (1862); and Weighed in the Balance, a novel (1864). He also edited, with notes, various English classics.
Of his four sons, all journalists and authors of some literary distinction - Percy Bolingbroke (1821-1889), Bayle, Spenser and Horace Roscoe (1832-1888) - the second, Bayle St John (1822-1869), began contributing to the periodicals when only thirteen. When twenty he wrote a series of papers for Fraser under the title " De re vehiculari, or a Comic History of Chariots." To the same magazine he contributed a series of essays on Montaigne, and published in 1857 Montaigne the Essayist, a Biography, in 4 volumes. During a residence of two years in Egypt he wrote The Libyan Desert (1849). While in Egypt he learnt Arabic and visited the oasis of Siwa. On his return he settled for some time in Paris and published Two Years in a Levantine Family (1850) and Views in the Oasis of Siwah (1850). After a second visit to the East he published Village Life in Egypt (1852); Purple Tints of Paris; Characters and Manners in the New Empire (1854); The Louvre, or Biography of a Museum (1855); the Subalpine Kingdom, or Experiences and Studies in Savoy (1856); Travels of an Arab Merchant in the Soudan (1854); Maretimo, a Story of Adventure (1856); and Memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon in the Reign of Louis XIV. (4 vols., 1857).
ST John, Oliver ( c. 1598-16731, English statesman and judge, was the son of Oliver St John. There were two branches of the ancient family to which he belonged, namely, the St Johns of Bletso in Bedfordshire, and the St Johns of Lydiard Tregoze in Wiltshire, both descendants of the St Johns of Staunton St John in Oxfordshire. Oliver St John was a member of the senior branch, being great-grandson of Oliver St John, who was created Baron St John of Bletso" in 1559, and a distant cousin of the 4 th baron who was created earl of Bolingbroke in 1624, and who took an active part on the parliamentary side of the Civil War, being killed at the battle of Edgehill. Oliver was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar in 1626. He appears to have got into trouble with the court in connexion with a seditious publication, and to have associated himself with the future popular leaders John Pym and Lord Saye. In 1638 he defended Hampden on his refusal to pay Ship Money, on which occasion he made a notable speech. In the same year he married, as his second wife, Elizabeth Cromwell, a cousin of Oliver Cromwell, to whom his first wife also had been distantly related. The marriage led to an intimate friendship with Cromwell. St John was member for Totnes in both the Short and the Long Parliament, where he acted in close alliance with Hampden and Pym, especially in opposition to the impost of Ship Money (q.v.). In 1641, with a view of securing his support, the king appointed St John solicitor-general. None the less he 1 This title is still held by the family lineally descended from the 1st baron, said by J. H. Round to be the only peerage family descended in the male line from an ancestor living in the time of Domesday Book.
took an active part in promoting the impeachment of Strafford and in preparing the bills brought forward by the popular party in the Commons, and was dismissed from office in 1643. On the outbreak of the Civil War, he became recognized as one of the parliamentary leaders. In the quarrel between the parliament and the army in 1647 he sided with the latter, and throughout this period he enjoyed Cromwell's entire confidence.
In 1648 St John was appointed chief justice of the common pleas; and from this time he devoted himself mainly to his judicial duties. He refused to act as one of the commissioners for the trial of Charles. He had no hand in Pride's Purge, nor in the constitution of the Commonwealth. In 1651 he went to the Hague as one of the envoys to negotiate a union between England and Holland, a mission in which he entirely failed; but in the same year he successfully conducted a similar negotiation with Scotland. After the Restoration he published an account of his past conduct (The Case of Oliver St John, 1660), and this apologia enabled him to escape any more severe vengeance than exclusion from public office. He retired to his country house in Northamptonshire till 1662 ., when he went to live abroad. He died on the 31st of December 1673.
By his first wife St John had two sons and two daughters. His daughter Johanna married Sir Walter St John of Lydiard Tregoze and was the grandmother of Viscount Bolingbroke. By his second wife he had two children, and after her death he married, in 1645, Elizabeth, daughter of Daniel Oxenbridge.
See the above-mentioned Case of Oliver St John (London, 1660), and St John's Speech to the Lords, Jan. 7th, 1640, concerning Shipmoney (London, 1640). See also Mark Noble, Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell, vol. ii. (2 vols., London, 1787); Anthony a Wood, Fasti Oxoniensis, edited by P. Bliss (4 vols., London, 1813); Edward Foss, The Judges of England, vol. vi. (9 vols., London, 1848); S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War (3 vols., London, 1886-1891), and History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate (3 vols., London, 1894-1901); Lord Clarendon, History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England (7 vols., Oxford, 1839); Thurloe State Papers (7 vols., London, 1742); Edmund Ludlow, Memoirs, edited by C. H. Firth (2 vols., Oxford, 1894); Thomas Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches; C. H. Firth's art. in. Diet. of Nat. Biog., vol. 1. (London, 1897). (R. J. M.) ST John, the capital of St John county, New Brunswick, Canada, in 45° 14' N., and 66° 3' W., 481 m. from Montreal by the Canadian Pacific railway. Pop. (1901) 40,711. It is situated at the mouth of the St John river on a rocky peninsula. With it are incorporated the neighbouring towns of Carleton and (since 1889) Portland. The river, which is spanned by two bridges, enters the harbour through a rocky gorge, which is passable by ships for forty-five minutes during each ebb and flow of the tide. The harbour level at high tide (see Fundy, Bay Of ) is 6 to 12 ft. higher than that of the river, but at low tide about as much below it, hence the phenomenon of a fall outwards and inwards at every tide. St John is an important station of the Intercolonial, Canadian Pacific, and New Brunswick Southern railways, and shares with Halifax the honour of being the chief winter port of the Dominion, the harbour being deep, sheltered and free from ice. It is the distributing centre for a large district, rich in agricultural produce and lumber, and has larger exports than Halifax, though less imports. It is also the centre of fisheries which employ nearly 1000 men, and has important industries, such as saw, grist, cotton and woollen mills, carriage, box and furniture factories, boiler and engine shops. The beauty of the scenery makes it a pleasant residential city.
St John was visited in 1604 by the Sieur de Monts (1560 - c. 1630) and his lieutenant Champlain, but it was not until 1635 that Charles de la Tour (d. 1666) established a trading post, called Fort St Jean (see Parkman, The Old Regime in Canada), which existed under French rule until 1758, when it passed into the hands of Britain. In 1783 a body of United Empire Loyalists landed at St John and established a city, called Parr Town until 1785, when it was incorporated with Conway (Carleton), under royal charter, as the city of St John. It soon became and has remained the largest town in the province, but for military reasons was not chosen as the capital ( see Fredericton). Its growth has been checked by several destructive fires, especially that of June 1877, when half of it was swept away, but it has since been rebuilt in great part of more solid materials. (W. L. G.) ST John, an island in the Danish West Indies. It lies 4 m. E. of St Thomas, is 10 m. long and 22 m. wide; area 21 sq. m. It is a mass of rugged mountains, the highest of which is Camel Mountain (1270 ft.). Although one of the best watered and most fertile of the Virgin Group, it has little commerce. It is a free port, and possesses in Coral Bay the best harbour of refuge in the Antilles. The village of Cruxbay lies on the northern coast. Pop. (1901) 925.
A river of New Brunswick, Canada, rising in two branches, in the state of Maine, U.S.A., and in the province of Quebec. The American branch, known as the Walloostook, flows N.E. to the New Brunswick frontier, where it turns S.E. and for 80 m. forms the international boundary. A little above Grand Falls the St John enters Canada and flows through New Brunswick into the Bay of Fundy at St John. Its total length is about 450 m. It is navigable for large steamers as far as Fredericton (86 m.), and in spring and early summer for smaller vessels to Grand Falls (220 m.), where a series of falls and rapids form a descent of 70 or 80 ft. Above the falls it is navigable for 65 m. It drains an area of 26,000 sq. m., of which half is in New Brunswick, and receives numerous tributaries. of which the chief are the Aroostook, Allagash, Madawaska (draining Lake Temiscouata in Quebec), Tobique and Nashwaak.
ST John Of Jerusalem, Knights Of The Order Of The Hospital Of ( Ordo fratrum hospitalariorum Hierosolymitanorurn, Ordo militiae Sancti Johannis Baptistae hospitalis Hierosolymitani ), known also later as the Knights Of Rhodes and the Sovereign Order Of The Knights Of Malta. The history of this order divides itself naturally into four periods: (I) From its foundation in Jerusalem during the First Crusade to its expulsion from the Holy Land after the fall of the Latin kingdom in 1291; (2) from 1309-1310, when the order was established in Rhodes, to its expulsion from the island in 1522; (3) from 1529 to 1798, during which its headquarters were in Malta; (4) its development, as reconstituted after its virtual destruction in 1798, to the present day.
Early Developments
Medieval legend set back the beginnings to the days of the Maccabees, with King Antiochus as the founder and Zacharias, father of the Baptist, as one of the first masters; later historians of the order maintained that it was established as a military order contemporaneously with the Latin conquest of Jerusalem, and that it had no connexion with any earlier foundation (so P. A. Paoli, De origine). This view would now seem to be disproved, and it is clear that the order was connected with an earlier Hospitale Hierosolymitanum.' Such a hospital had existed in the Holy City, with rare interruptions, ever since it had become a centre of Christian pilgrimage. About 5023 certain merchants of Amalfi had purchased the site of the Latin hospice established by Charlemagne, destroyed in 1010 with the other Christian establishments by order of the fanatical caliph Hakim Biamrillah, 2 and had there founded a hospital for pilgrims, served by Benedictines and later dedicated to St John the Baptist.' When, in 1087, the crusaders surrounded the Holy City, the head of this hospital was a certain Gerard or 1 Cf. the bull of Pope Celestine II. to Raymond du Puy, in the matter of the Teutonic order, which describes the Hospital as " Hospitalem domum sancte civitatis Jerusalem, que a longis retro temporibus Christi pauperum usibus dedicata, tam christianorum quam etiarn Sarracenorum tempore. ... " (Le Roulx, Cartulaire, i. No. 154).
2 This solution of the much debated question of the connexion of the Hospital with the Benedictine foundation of Sancta Maria Latina is worked out in much detail by M. Delaville Le Roulx in his Les Hospitaliers en Terre Sainte, chap. i.
3 William of Tyre says that they erected in that place an altar to St John Eleemon, patriarch of Alexandria, renowned for his charities. This mistake led to the widespread belief that this saint, and not St John the Baptist, was the original patron of the order. A passage in the bull addressed by Pope Paschal to Gerard (Cartulaire, No. 30) would seem to leave the dedication in doubt: " Xenodochium, quod. .. juxta beati Johannis Baptistae ecclesiam instituisti." The patronage of St John may thus have merely been the result of this juxtaposition, as the Templars took their name from the site of the mother-house.
Gerald,4 who earned their gratitude by assisting them in some way during the siege. 5 After the capture of the city he used his popularity to enlarge and reconstitute the hospital. If, as M. Le Roulx surmises, he had previously been affiliated to the Benedictines, he now left them and adopted for his order the Augustinian rule. Donations and privileges were showered upon the new establishment. Godfrey de Bouillon led the way by granting to it in Jerusalem itself the casal Hessilia (Es Silsileh) and two bakehouses. 6 Kings, nobles and prelates followed suit, not in the Holy Land only, but in Provence, France, Spain, Portugal, England and Italy: in Portugal a whole province was in 1114 made over to Gerard and'his brethren ( Cartul. i. No. 34). In 1113 Pope Paschal II. took the order and its possessions under his immediate protection (bull of Feb. i 5th to Gerard, Cartul. i. No. 30), his act being confirmed in 1119 by Calixtus II. and subsequently by other popes. Gerard was indeed, as Pope Paschal called him, the "institutor" of the order, if not its founder. It retained, however, during his lifetime its purely eleemosynary character. The armed defence of pilgrims may have been part of its functions, but its organization as an aggressive military force was the outcome of special circumstances - the renewed activity of the Saracens - and was the work of Raymond du Puy, who succeeded as grand master_on the death of Gerard (3rd of September r 120).7 Not that Raymond can be proved to have given to his order anything of its later aristocratic constitution. There is no mention in his Rule' of the division into knights, chaplains and sergeants; indeed, there is no mention of any military duties whatever. It merely lays down certain rules cf conduct and discipline for the brethren. They are to be bound by the threefold vow of chastity, poverty and obedience. They are to claim nothing for themselves save bread, water and raiment; and this latter is to be of poor quality, " since our Lord's poor, whose servants we say we are, go naked and sordid, and it is a disgrace for the servant to be proud when his master is humble." Finally, the brethren are to wear crosses on the breast of their capes and mantles, " ut Deus per ipsum vexillum et fidem et operationem et obedientiam nos custodiat." 9 Yet that Raymond laid down military regulations for the brethren is certain. Their underlying principle is revealed by a bull of Pope Alexander III. addressed (1178-1180) to the grand master Roger des Moulins, in which he bids him, " according to the custom of Raymond," abstain from bearing arms save when the standard of the Cross is displayed either for the defence of the kingdom or in an attack on a " pagan " city." The statesmanlike qualities of Raymond du Puy rendered his long mastership epoch-making for the order. When it was decided to fortify Ibelin (Beit-Jibrin) as an outpost against attacks from the side of Ascalon, it was to the Hospitallers that the building and defence of the new castle were assigned; and from 1137 onwards they took a regular part in the wars of the Cross. It was owing to Raymond's diplomatic skill, too, that the order was enabled to profit by the bequest made to it by Alphonso I. of Aragon, who had died childless, of a third of his kingdom. To have claimed the literal fulfilment of this bequest would have been to risk losing it all, and Raymond acted wisely in transferring the bequest, with certain important reservations, to Raymond Berenger IV., count of Barcelona and regent of 4 In spite of his fame, nothing is known of his origin. The surname " Tune " or " Tongue " often given to him is, as Le Roulx points out, merely the result of a copyist's error for " Gerardus tunc.. ." 6 According to the legend, he joined the defenders on the walls and, instead of hurling stones, hurled bread at the Christians, who were short of supplies. Haled before the Mussulman governor, his accusers were confounded when the incriminating loaves they produced were discovered to be turned into stones.
6 " Fours." So the charter of Baldwin I. (Cartul. No. 20; cf. No. 225). In his Hospitaliers Le Roulx has " tours," i.e. two towers, probably a misprint.
The existence of a certain Roger as grand master between Gerard and Raymond, maintained by some historians, is finally disproved by Raymond's own testimony: " Reginmundus, per gratiam Dei post obitum domini Giraldi factus servus pauperum Christi " (Cartul. i. No. 46).
s The date of this can only be approximately assigned, in so far as it was confirmed by Pope Eugenius III., who died in 1153.9 For text see Cartulaire, i. No. 70.
to Cartul. i. No. 527.
Aragon (16th of September 1140). 1 It was probably also during his sojourn in the West for the above purpose that Raymond secured from Pope Celestine II. the bull dated December 7th, 1143, subordinating to his jurisdiction the Teutonic hospice, founded in 1128 by a German pilgrim and his wife in honour of the Blessed Virgin, which was the nucleus of the Teutonic Order (q.v.). This order was to remain subordinate to the Hospitallers actually for some fifty years, and nominally for some thirty years longer. 2 Raymond took part in the Second Crusade and was present at the council of the leaders held at Acre, in 1148, which resulted in the ill-fated expedition against Damascus. The failure before Damascus was repaired five years later by the capture of Ascalon (19th of August 11J3), in which Raymond du Puy and his knights had a conspicuous share.
Meanwhile, in addition to its ever-growing wealth, the order had received from successive popes privileges which rendered it, like the companion order of the Temple, increasingly independent of and obnoxious to the secular clergy. In 1135 Innocent II. had confirmed to Raymond the privileges accorded by Paschal II., Calixtus II. and Honorious II., and in addition forbade the diocesan bishops to interdict the churches of the Hospitallers, whom he also authorized, in case of a general interdict, to celebrate mass for themselves alone. 3 In 1137 he gave them the privilege of Christian burial during such interdicts and the right to open interdicted churches once a year in order to say mass and collect money. 4 These bulls were confirmed by Eugenius III. in 1153 5 and Anastasius IV. in 1154, the latter adding the permission for the order to have its own priest, independent of the diocesan bishops. 6 In vain the patriarch of Jerusalem, attended by other bishops, journeyed to Rome in 1155 to complain to Adrian IV. of the Hospitallers' abuse of their privileges and to beg him to withdraw his renewal of his predecessor's bull.' Far different was the effect produced by Raymond du Puy's triumphant progress through southern Europe from the spring of 1157 onward. From the popes, the emperor Frederick I., kings and nobles, he received fresh gifts, or the confirmation of old ones. After the 25th of October 1158, when his presence is attested at Verona, this master builder of the order disappears from history; he died some time between this date and 1160, when the name of another grand master appears.
During the thirty years of his rule the Hospital, which Gerard had instituted to meet a local need, had become universal. In the East its growth was beyond calculation: kings, prelates and laity had overwhelmed it with wealth. In the West, all Europe combined to enrich it; from Ireland to Bohemia and Hungary, from Italy and Provence to Scandinavia, men vied with each other to attract it and establish it in their midst. It was clear that for this vast institution an elaborate organization was needed, and this need was probably the occasion of Raymond's presence in Europe. The priory of St Gilles already existed as the nucleus of the later system; the development of this system took place after Raymond's death.
Constitution and Organization
The rule of the Hospital, as formulated by Raymond du Puy, was based on that of the Augustinian Canons. Its further developments, of which only the salient characteristics can be mentioned here, were closely analogous to those of the Templars (q.v.), whose statutes regulating the life of the brethren, the terms of admission to the order, the maintenance of discipline, and the scale of punishments, culminating in expulsion (pert de la maison ), are, mutatis mutandis, closely paralleled by those of the Hospitallers. These, too, were early (probably in Raymond's time) divided into three classes: knights ( fratres milites ), chaplains (fratres capellani ), and serjeants (fratres servientes armigeri), with affiliated brethren ( confratres ) and " donats " (donati, i.e. regular subscribers, as it were, to the order in return for its privileges and the ultimate right to enter the ranks of its knights). Similar, too, was the aristocratic rule which confined admission to the first 1 Cartul. i. No. 136. The arrangement was confirmed by the pope in 1158 (Le Roulx, Hospitaliers, p. 59).
The foundation of the Teutonic Order as a separate organization was solemnly proclaimed in the palace of the Templars at Tyre on the 5th of March 1198. Its rule was confirmed by Pope Innocent III. on Feb. 15th, 1198 (Cartul. i. No. 1072).
3 Cartul. i. No. 113.4 Ib. i. No. 122.
5 lb. i. No. 217.6 Ib. i. No. 226.
This renewal was dated 19th of December 1154 (Ib. i. No. 229).
class to sons born in lawful wedlock of knights 8 or members of knightly families, a rule which applied also to the donats. 9 For the serjeant men-at-arms it sufficed that they should not be serfs. Below these a host of servientes did the menial work of the houses of the order, or worked as artisans or as labourers on the farms.
All the higher offices in the order were filled by the knights, except the ecclesiastical - which fell to the chaplains - and those of master of the squires and turcopolier (commander of the auxiliary light cavalry), which were reserved for the serjeants-at-arms. Each r knight was allowed three horses, each serjeant two. The fratres capellani ranked with the knights as eligible for certain temporal posts; at their head was the " conventual prior " ( clericorum magister et ecclesie custos, prior clericorum Hospitalis). In two important respects the Knights of St John differed from the Templars. The latter were a purely military organization; the Hospitallers, on the other hand, were at the outset preponderatingly a nursing brotherhood, and, though this character was subordinated during their later period of military importance, it never disappeared. It continued to be a rule of the order that in its establishments it was for the sick to give orders, for the brethren to obey. The chapters were largely occupied with the building, furnishing, and improvement of hospitals, to which were attached learned physicians and surgeons, who had the privilege of messing with the knights. The revenues of particular properties were charged with providing luxuries (e.g. white bread) for the patients, and the various provinces of the order with the duty of forwarding blankets, clothes, wine and food for their use. The Hospitallers, moreover, encouraged the affiliation of women to their order, which the monastic and purely military rule of the Templars sternly forbade. So early as the First Crusade a Roman lady named Alix or Agnes had founded at Jerusalem a hospice for women in connexion with the order of St John. Until 1187, when they fled to Europe, the sisters had devoted themselves to prayer and sick-nursing. In Europe, however, they developed into a purely contemplative order.'° The habit of the order, both in peace and war, was originally a black cappa clausa (i.e. the long monastic bell-like cloak with a slit on each side for the arms) with a white, eight-pointed " Maltese " cross on the breast. As this was highly inconvenient for fighting, Innocent IV. in 1248 authorized the brethren to wear in locis - pectis a large super-tunic with a cross on the breast ( Cartul. ii. No. 2479), and in 1259 Alexander IV. fixed the habit as, in peace time, a black mantle, and in war a red surcoat with a white cross ( Cartul. ii. No. 2928).
The unit of the or.ganization of the order was the commandery (preceptory), a small group of knights and serjeants living in community under the rule of a commander, or preceptor,' charged with the supervision of several contiguous properties. The commanderies were grouped into priories, each under the rule of a prior (styled unofficially " grand prior," magnus prior ), and these again into provinces corresponding to certain countries, under the authority of grand commanders. These largest groups crystallized in the 14th century as national divisions under the name of "langues " (languages). 12 At the head of the whole organization was the grand master. The grand master was elected, from the ranks of the knights of justice, by the same process as the grand master of the Templars (q.v.). Alone of the bailiffs (bailivi ), as the officials of the order were generically termed, he held office for life. His authority 8 The knights were ultimately distinguished as " Knights of Justice " (chevaliers de justice ) and " Knights of Grace " (chevaliers de grace). The former were those who satisfied the conditions as to birth, and were therefore knights " justly "; the latter were those who were admitted " of grace " for superlative merits.
9 An exception was made in favour of the natural sons of counts and greater personages (Statute 7 of 1270; Cartul. ii. 3396). to Their premier house in Europe was at Sigena in Aragon, which they still occupy. It was granted to them by Sancia of Navarre, queen of Aragon, in 1184, the order being definitively established there in 1188. Their rule, which is that of Augustinian Canonesses, and dates from October 1188, is printed by Le Roulx, Cartulaire, No. 859. There is no word about nursing in it. In England the most important house was Buckland. The chief Danish house survives in the Lutheran convent of St John the Baptist at Schleswig, a Stift for noble ladies, whose superior has the title of prioress. On solemn occasions a realistic wax head of St John the Baptist on a charger is still produced.
11 Commander (comandeor, commandeur ), with its Latin translation preceptor, came into use as the title of these officials somewhat late. In earlier documents they are styled ospitalarius, bajulus (bailiff), magister (master).
12 Omitting the Anglo-Bavarian langue, created in 1782, the langues (in the 15th century) were eight in number. They were (1) Provence (grand priories of St Gilles and Toulouse), (2) Auvergne (grand priory of Auvergne), (3) France (grand priories of France, Aquitaine, Champagne), (4) Italy (grand priories of Lombardy, Rome, Venice, Pisa, Capua, Barletta, Messina), (5) Aragon (castellany of Amposta, grand priories of Catalonia and Navarre), (6) England (grand priories of England - including Scotland - and Ireland), '(7) Germany (grand priories of Germany or Heitersheim, Bohemia, Hungary, Dacia - i.e. Scandinavia - and the Bailiwick ( Ballei ) of was very great, but not absolute. The supreme legislative and controlling power was vested in the general chapter of the knights, at the periodical meetings of which the great officers of the order had to give an account of their stewardship, and which alone had the right to pass statutes binding on the order. The executive power of the grand master, like that of the great dignitaries immediately subordinate to him, was in the nature of a delegation from the chapter. He was assisted in its exercise by four councils: (1) the " convent " or ordinary chapter, a committee of the general chapter,' for administrative business; (2) a secret council, for criminal cases and affairs of state; (3) a full council, to hear appeals from the two former; 2 and (4) the " venerable chamber of the treasury " for financial matters. To the general chapter at headquarters corresponded the chapters of the priories and the commanderies, which controlled the action of the priors and commanders.
Immediately subordinate to the grand master were the seven great dignitaries of the order, known as the conventual bailiffs: the grand preceptor,' marshal, draper (Fr. drapier ) or grand conservator, hospitaller, treasurer, admiral, turcopolier. 4 The grand preceptor, elected by the chapter at the same time as the grand master and subject to his approval, was the lieutenant of the latter in his absence, empowered to seal for him and, in the event of his capture by the enemy, to act as vice-master. The functions of the marshal, draper, treasurer and turcopolier were practically identical with those of the officials of the same titles in the order of Knights Templars. That of hospitailer, on the other hand, was naturally a charge of exceptional importance in the order of St John; he had a seal of his own, and was responsible for everything concerning the hospitals of the order, the dispensing of hospitality, and of alms. The admiral, as the name implies, was at sea what the marshal was on land. The office first appears in 1299 when the knights, after their expulsion from the Holy Land, had begun to organize their new sea-power in Cyprus. As to the equipage and suites of the grand master and the great dignitaries, these were practically on the same scale and of the same nature as those described in the article Templars for the sister order. The grand master had the right himself to nominate his companions and the members of his household (seneschal, squires, secretaries, chaplains, &c.), which, as Le Roulx points out, was such as to enable him to figure as the equal of the kings and princes with whom he consorted.
The grand-mastership of Gilbert d'Assailly was signalized by the participation of the Hospitallers in the abortive expeditions of Amalric of Jerusalem into Egypt in 1162, 1168 and 1169. On the 10th of August 1164 also they shared in the disastrous defeat inflicted by Nur-ed-din at Harran on the count of Tripoli. The important position occupied by them in the councils of the kingdom is shown by the fact that the grand preceptor Guy de Mauny was one of the ambassadors sent in 1169 to ask aid of the princes of the West. Another important development was the bestowal on the order by Bohemund III., prince of Antioch, in 1168, and King Amalric, as regent of Tripoli, in 1170, of considerable territories on the north-eastern frontier, to be held with almost sovereign power as a march against the Saracens (Cartulaire, i. Nos. 391, 411). The failure of the expedition to Egypt, however, brought considerable odium on Gilbert d'Assailly, who Brandenburg), (8) Castile (grand priories of Castile and Leon, and Portugal). Of the grand priories the most ancient and by far the most important was that of St Gilles, founded early in the 12th century, the authority of which extended originally over the whole of what is now France and a great part of Spain. In the 16th century its seat was transferred to Arles. Out of this developed the langues of Auvergne, France, Aragon and Castile, with their subsidiary priories. The date of the creation of the various grand commanderies differs greatly: that of Italy was established in the 13th century, the langue of Germany in 1422, that of Castile was split off from Aragon in 1462. The castellany of Amposta (founded 1157) ranked as a priory. The bailiwick of Brandenburg, which had long been practically independent of the grand prior of Germany, obtained the right to elect its own bailiff ( Herrenmeister ) in 1382, subject to the approval of the grand prior. In the Holy Land there were no priors; the commanderies were directly under the grand master, and the commanders (who retained the style of bailli, bailivus ) ranked with the grand priors elsewhere.
' This seems to have consisted in practice of the great dignitaries of the order. See Le Roulx, Hospitaliers, p. 314.
2 A peculiarity of the order of St John was the esgart des freres (esgart, Lat. sguardium = court) which could be demanded by any knight who thought himself wronged by a decision of his superiors, even of the grand master.
To be carefully distinguished from the regional grand preceptors or grand commanders, and also from the grand commander d'outremer, who represented the grand master in the West generally.
To these the grand bailiff (German, langue ) and grand chancellor (Castile) were added later.
resigned the grand-mastership, probably in, the autumn of 1170.5 Under the short rule of the grand master Jobert (d. 1177) the question of a renewed attack on Egypt was mooted; but the confusion reigning in the Latin kingdom and, not least, the scandalous quarrels between the Templars and Hospitallers,. rendered all aggressive action impossible. In 1179 the growing power of the two military orders received its first set back when,, at the instance of the bishops, the Lateran Council forbade them to receive gifts of churches and tithes at the hands of laymen without the consent of the bishops, ordered them to restore all " recent " 6 gifts of this nature, and passed a number of decrees in restraint of the abuse of their privileges.
A more potent discipline was to befall them, however, at the, hands of Saladin, sultan of Egypt, who in 1186 began his systematic conquest of the kingdom. It was the Hospitallers who,, with the other religious orders, alone offered an organized resistance to his victorious advance. On the ist of May 1187 occurred the defeat of Tiberias, in which the grand master Gilbert des Moulins fell riddled with arrows, and this was followed on the 4th of July by the still more disastrous battle of Hittin. The flower of the Christian chivalry was slain or captured;. the Hospitallers and Templars who fell into his hands Saladin massacred in cold blood. On the 2nd of October Jerusalem fell. Ten brethren of the Hospital were allowed to remain for a year to look after the sick; the rest took refuge at Tyre. In these straits Armengaud d'Asp was elected grand master (1188) and the headquarters of the order were established at Margat. (Markab), near the coast some distance northwards of Tripoli. In the interior the knights still held some scattered fortresses;: but their great stronghold of Krak 7 was reduced by famine in September 1188 and Beauvoir in the following January.
The news of these disasters once more roused the crusading spirit in Europe; the offensive against Saladin was resumed, the Christians concentrating their forces against Acre in the autumn of 1189. In the campaigns that followed, of which Richard I. of England was the most conspicuous hero, and which ended in the recovery of Acre and the sea-coast generally for the Latin kingdom, the Hospitallers, under their grand master Gamier de Naplouse s (Neapoli), played a prominent part. The grand-mastership of Geoffroy de Donjon, who succeeded Gamier in 1192 and ruled the order till 1202, 9 was. signalized, not by feats of arms, since the Holy Land enjoyed a. precarious peace, but by a steady restoration and development of the property and privileges of the order, by renewed quarrels with the Templars, and in 1198 by the establishment - in face of the protests of the Hospitallers - of the Teutonic knights as. a separate order. Under the grand-mastership of the pious. Alphonso of Portugal, and of Geoffrey le Rat, who was elected on Alphonso's resignation in 1206, the knights took a vigorous. part in the quarrel as to the succession in Antioch; under that of Garin de Montaigu (elected 1207) they shared in the expedition to Egypt (1218-1221), of which he had been a vigorous advocate (see Crusades: The Fifth Crusade). In 1222, at the instance of the emperor Frederick II., the grand master accompanied the king of Jerusalem and others to Europe to discuss the preparation of a new crusade, visiting Rome, proceeding thence to Paris and London, and returning to the Holy Land in 1225. The expedition failed of its object so far as the organization of See Le Roulx, Hospitaliers, p. 76 sqq. The resignation led to bitter divisions in the order. It was urged that the resignation was. invalid without the consent of the general chapter and the pope; and a temporary schism was the result. Gilbert was drowned in 1183 crossing from Dieppe to England, whither he had gone at the invitation of Henry II.
The words " tempore moderno " were interpreted by Pope Alexander III. in a bull of the 1st of June 1179 as within ten years.. of the opening of the council (Cartul. i. No. 566).
The stupendous ruins of Krak-des-Chevaliers (at Kerak, S.E. of the Dead Sea) attest the wealth and power of the knights (for a restoration see Castle, fig. 5). The castle had been given to the Hospitallers by Guillaume du Crac in 1142. In 1193 it was again in their hands, and was subsequently greatly enlarged and strengthened. It was finally captured by the Egyptians under Bibars in 1271.
8 Gamier had been prior of England and later of France. 'So Le Roulx, p. 119.
a general crusade was concerned; but the Hospital received everywhere enormous accessions of property.' Garin de Montaigu died in 1228, after consolidating by his statesmanlike attitude the position and power of his order, on the eve of Frederick II.'s crusade. In this crusade, conducted in spite of a papal excommunication, the Hospitallers took no part, being rewarded with the approval of Pope Gregory IX., who, in August 1229, issued a bull to the patriarch of Jerusalem ordering him to maintain the jurisdiction of the Hospital over the Teutonic knights, who had dared to assist the German emperor. 2 In 1233, under the grand master Guerin, the Hospitallers took a leading part in the successful attack on the principality of Hamah. The motive of this, however - which was no more than the refusal of the emir to pay them the tribute due - seems to point to an increasing secularization of their spirit. In 1236 Pope Gregory IX. thought it necessary to threaten both them and the Templars with excommunication, to prevent their forming an alliance with the Assassins, 3 and in 1238 issued a bull in which he inveighed against the scandalous lives and relaxed discipline of the Hospitallers.4 Events were soon to expose the order to fresh tests. Under the grand-mastership of Pierre de Vieille Bride s occurred the brief " crusade " of Richard of Cornwall (11th of October 1240 to 3rd of May 1241). The truce concluded by Richard with the sultan of Egypt was accepted by the Hospitallers, rejected by the Templars, and after his departure something like a war broke out between the two bodies. In the midst of the strife of parties, in which Richard of Cornwall had recognized the fatal weakness of the Christian cause to lie, came the news of the invasion of the Chorasmians. On the 23rd of August the Tatar horde took and sacked Jerusalem. On the 17th of October, in alliance with the Egyptians under Bibars, it overwhelmed the Christian host at Gaza. Of the Hospitallers only sixteen escaped; 325 of the knights were slain; and among the prisoners was the grand master, Guillaume de Chateauneuf. 6 Amid the general ruin that followed this defeat, the Hospitallers held out in the fortress of Ascalon, until forced to capitulate on the 15th of October 1247. Under the vice-master, the grand preceptor Jean de Ronay, they took part in 1249 in the Egyptian expedition of St Louis of France, only to share in the crushing defeat of Mansurah (filth of February 1250). Of the knights present all were slain, except five who were taken prisoners, the vice-master and one other.' At the instance of St Louis, after the conclusion of peace, 25 Hospitallers, together with the grand master Guillaume de Chateauneuf, were released.8 On the withdrawal of St Louis from the Holy Land (April 1254), a war of aggression and reprisals broke out between Christians and Mussulmans; and no sooner was this ended by a precarious truce than the Christians fell to quarrelling among themselves. In the war between the Genoese and Venetians and their respective partisans, the Hospitallers and Templars fought on opposite sides. In spite of so great a scandal and of the hopeless case of the Christian cause, the possessions of the order were largely increased during Guillaume de Chateauneuf's mastership, both in the Holy Land and in Europe.
Under the grand-mastership of Hugues de Revel, elected probably in 1255, the menace of a new Tatar invasion led to serious efforts to secure harmony in the kingdom. In 1258 the Templars, Hospitallers, and Teutonic knights decided to 1 Detailed by Le Roulx, Hospitaliers, pp. 149-156.
2 Cartul. ii. No. 5944. The Teutonic knights refused to obey. In January 1240 Gregory called on them to explain their insubordination (No. 2247) and in March 1241 again ordered them to submit (No. 2270).
Cartul. ii. Cartul. ii. No. 2186.
' Not Villebride. The name is a corruption of Vieille Brioude (Le Roulx, Hosp. p. 183).
s It has been generally supposed, on the authority of the chronica majora of Matthew of Paris (iv. 307-311), that the grand-master was killed at Gaza.
7 See the contemporary letter, Cartulaire, ii. No. 2521.
Cartul. ii. Nos. 2540-2541.
submit their disputes in Syria, Cyprus and Armenia to arbitration, a decision which bore fruit in 1260 in the settlement of their differences in Tripoli and Margat. The satisfactory arrangement was possibly affected by the result of a combined attack made in 1259 on the Hospitallers by the Templars and the brethren of St Lazarus and St Thomas, which had resulted in the practical extermination of the aggressors, possibly also by the crushing defeat of the Templars and the Syrian barons by the Turcomans at Tiberias in 1260. However achieved, the concord was badly needed; for Bibars, having in 1260 driven back the Tatars and established himself in the sultanate of Egypt, began the series of campaigns which ended in the destruction of the Latin kingdom. In 1268 Bibars conquered Antioch, and the Christian power was confined to Acre, Chateau Merin, Tyre, Sidon, and the castles of Margat, Krak and Belda (Baldeh), in which the Hospitallers still held out. The respite afforded by the second crusade of St Louis was ended by his death at Tunis in 1270. On the 30th of March 1271 the great fortress of Krak, the key to the county of Tripoli, surrendered after a short siege. The crusade of Prince Edward of England did little to avert the ultimate fate of the kingdom, and with it that of the Hospitallers in the Holy Land. This was merely delayed by the preoccupations of Bibars elsewhere, and by his death in 1277. In 1280 the Mongols overran northern Syria; and the Hospitallers distinguished themselves by two victories against enormous odds, one over the Turcomans and one over the emir of Krak (February 1281). The situation, however, was desperate, and the grand master Nicolas Lorgne, who had succeeded Hugues de Revel in 1277, wrote despairing letters of appeal to Edward I. of England. On the 25th of May 1285, Margat surrendered to the sultan Kalaun (Mansur Saifaldin). Not even the strong character and high courage of Jean de Villiers, who succeeded Nicolas Lorgne as grand master in 1285, could do more than stave off the ultimate disaster. The Hospitallers assisted in the vain defence of Tripoli, which fell on the 26th of April 1289. On the 18th of May 1291 the Mussulmans stormed Acre, the last hope of the Christians in the Holy Land. Jean de Villiers, wounded, was carried on board a ship, and sailed to Limisso in Cyprus, which became the headquarters of the order. For the remaining two years of his life Jean de Villiers was occupied in attempting the reorganization of the shattered order. The demoralization in the East was, however, too profound to admit a ready cure. The knights, represented by the grand dignitaries, addressed a petition to Pope Boniface VIII. in 1295 asking for the appointment of a permanent council of seven difinitores to control the grand master, who had become more and more autocratic. The pope did not consent; but in a severe letter to the new grand master, Eudes de Pin, he sternly reproved him for the irregularities of which he had been guilty. 9 In 1296 Eudes was succeeded by Guillaume de Villaret, grand prior of St Gilles, who for three years after his election remained in Europe, regulating the affairs of the order. In 1300, in response to the urgent remonstrances of the knights, he appeared in Cyprus. In 1299 an unnatural alliance of the Christians and Mongols gave a momentary prospect of regaining the Holy Land; in 1300 the Hospitallers took part in the raid of King Henry II. (de Lusignan) of Cyprus in Egypt, and gained some temporary successes on the coast of Syria. Of more advantage for the prestige of the order, however, were the immense additions of property and privileges which Guillaume de Villaret had secured in Europe from the pope and many kings and princes, 10 and the reform of the rule and drastic reorganization of the order promulgated in a series of statutes between 1300 and 1304, the year of Guillaume's death." Of these changes the most significant was the definition of the powers and status of the admiral, a new great dignitary created in 1299.
The grand-mastership of Foulques de Villaret, Guillaume's 9 Cartulaire, iii. Nos. 4267, 4293; cf. the letter of the chaptergeneral to Guillaume de Villaret, iii. No. 4350.
"0 Le Roulx, Hospitaliers, p. 259 sqq.
" These statutes are printed in the Cartulaire, iii. Nos. 4555, iv. Nos. 4549, 4574, 4612.
nephew and successor,' was destined to be eventful for the order. On the 5th of June 1305 Bertrand de Got became pope as Clement V. The new pope consulted the grand master of the Templars and Hospitallers as to the organization of a new crusade, and at the same time raised the question of the fusion of the military orders, a plan which had already been suggested by St Louis, discussed at the council of Lyons in 1274, and approved by the pope's patron Philip IV. of France. The proposal broke down on the opposition of Jacques de Molay, grand master of the Temple; but the desired result was obtained by other and more questionable means. In October 1307 Philip IV. caused all the Templars in France, including the grand master, to be arrested on charges of heresy and gross immorality; Pope Clement V., a creature of the French king, reluctantly endorsed this action, and at his instance the other sovereigns of Europe followed the example of Philip. The famous long-drawn-out trial of the Templars followed, ending at the council of Vienne in 1314, when Pope Clement decreed the dissolution of the order of the Temple and at the same time assigned the bulk of its property to the Hospital.2 (See Templars, Knights.) Meanwhile an event had occurred which marks an epoch in the history of the order of the Hospital. In 1306 Foulques de Villaret, anxious to find a centre where the order would be untrammelled by obligations to another power as in Cyprus, came to an agreement with a Genoese pirate named Vignolo de' Vignoli for a concerted attack on Rhodes and other islands belonging to the Greek emperor. The exact date of their completed conquest of the island is uncertain; 3 nor is it clear that the grand master took a personal part in it. By command of the pope he had left Cyprus for Europe at the end of 1306 or the beginning of 1307, and he did not return to the East till late in 1309. He returned, however, not to Cyprus but to Rhodes, and it is with 1310, therefore, when its headquarters were established in the latter island, that the second period of the history of the order of the Hospital opens.4 The Knights in Rhodes. - The history of the order for the next fifty years is very obscure. Certain changes, however, took place which profoundly modified its character. The most important of these was its definitive division into " langues." The beginnings of this had been made long before; but the system was only legalized by the general chapter at Montpellier in 1330. Hitherto the order had been a cosmopolitan society, in which the French element had tended to predominate; henceforth it became a federation of national societies united only for purposes of commerce and war. To the headship of each " langue " was attached one of the great dignitaries of the order, which thus came to represent, not the order as a whole but the interests of a section.5 The motive of this change was probably, as Prutz suggests,s 1 M. Le Roulx dates his election between the 23rd of November 1304 and the 3rd of November 1305 ( Hosp. p. 268).
2 The Templars' property in the Spanish peninsula and Majorca was specially excepted, being subsequently assigned to the sovereigns, who transferred some of it to the native military orders. Nor did the Hospitallers receive by any means all of the rest. Philip IV. charged against the Hospital an enormous bill for expenses incurred in the trial of the Templars, including, as one item, those for torturing the knights. In France at least the Hospitallers complained that they were actually out of pocket. See Finke, Papsttum and Untergang des Tempelherrenordens, i. ad fin. None the less, the great accession of territorial property necessitated the subdivision of the great regional jurisdictions, notably that of the priory of St Gilles, into new grand priories.
3 The question is discussed in detail by M. Le Roulx, Hospitaliers, pp. 278 sqq. He himself dates the surrender of the castle of Rhodes in 1308. Cf. Hans Prutz, " Anfdnge der Hospitaliter auf Rhodos " in Sitzungsber. der K. Bay. Akad. d. Wissenschaften (1908), i. Abhandlung.
4 Foulques de Villaret's head seems to have been turned by his success. His early vigour and statesmanlike qualities gave place to luxury, debauchery and a tyrannical temper. He was ultimately deposed, and died at the castle of Teyran in Languedoc in 1327.
5 The great dignitaries were distributed as follows: Grand commander of Provence, the grand preceptor; Auvergne, the grand marshal; France, the grand hospitaller; Italy, the grand admiral; Aragon, the grand conservator or draper; England, the turcopolier; Germany, the grand bailiff; Castile, the grand chancellor.
6 " Die Anfdnge der Hospitaliter auf Rhodos." fear of the designs of Philip IV. of France and his successors to which point had been given by the fate of the Templars, and the consequent desire to destroy the preponderance of the French element.' The character and aims of the order were also profoundly affected by their newly acquired sovereignty - for the shadowy overlordship of the Eastern emperor was soon forgotten - and above all by its seat. The Teutonic order had established its sovereignty in Prussia, in wide and ill-defined spheres beyond the north-eastern marches of Germany. The Hospitallers ruled an island too narrow to monopolize their energies, but occupying a position of vas
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Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Joseph Xavier Saintine'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/j/joseph-xavier-saintine.html. 1910.
