The Hospital of St John in Jerusalem existed well before the First Crusade was launched in 1095, having been founded or revived by a group of Italian merchants from Amalfi in the mid-11th century as part of a widespread charitable movement to help pilgrims. By the 1080s it was a flourishing organisation under the patronage of the Latin Church of Santa Maria Latina south of the great Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Here, secular people lived a quasi-religious life and tended the sick. Two hospices, were established, one for female pilgrims and another for men.
Following the capture of Jerusalem by the First Crusade, most crusaders returned home, leaving the newly established Crusader States of Jerusalem, Tripoli, Antioch and Edessa seriously short of troops. Fortunately for the new states it also took many years for the neighbouring Islamic countries to overcome their chronic fragmentation and begin to fight back effectively. During these the early years the Hospital of St John remained a medical organisation. It developed under the leadership of the Blessed Gerard who had probably been the guardian of the original hospital before the arrival of the crusader invaders, and had remained in the city during their siege. French influence replaced that of the Italians and the Hospital won wider support. The buildings were extended and by the time of Gerard’s death in 1120 the Hospitallers had been freed from supervision by the Benedictines monks of Santa Maria Latina and even by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They became, in effect, an autonomous religious institution unlike any other religious hospital in Latin Christendom and eventually the Order took control of most other hospitals within the Crusader States. Quite when the Hospitallers started to establish hospitals in Europe is unclear, though the first to appear north of the Alps was probably at Utrecht which dated from 1122. The Hospitallers also created a support service across Western Europe based upon a network of commanderies and baillies whose primary function was to provide funds, materials and recruits for the Order in the Holy Land.
The Citadel of Antioch looking down the near vertical line of the northern walls to the city below. The Order of the Hospitallers owned some properties in Antioch, but transferred them to other owners. (Author’s photograph)
The fortified Greek Orthodox Monastery of St George stands in the shadow of the huge Hospitaller castle of Krak des Chevaliers. The Mamluk sultan permitted it to remain when the castle was conquered.
The Templars were founded as a military organisation to defend pilgrims, but the Hospitallers only gradually became involved in such activities some time before 1160. To many in the modern Western world the idea of ‘warrior monks’ seems a contradiction in terms. Most medieval people thought differently and many Christian scholars believed that violence was necessary to maintain justice or to impose peace. Some wars came to be seen as a remedy for sin rather than as a consequence of it, and the slaughter of wrongdoers and non-Christians became regarded as an ‘act of love’. The ethos of the early Crusades also declared Muslims to be summa culpabilis, the ‘most blameworthy’ of people.
Though some clergymen questioned the validity of officially recognised Military Orders, the Papacy recognised their usefulness. All agreed, however, that brethren of the Military Orders earned less ‘spiritual merit’ than did the traditional and contemplative monastic orders. Once their effectiveness had been demonstrated, the Military Orders came to be seen by the rulers of the Crusader States as more reliable contingents than the uncertain and often insubordinate feudal troops or paid mercenaries. On the other hand, the presence of Hospitaller brethren on a battlefield does not prove they were there to
fight. Documents record the donation of military equipment to the Order before 1143, but these could have been for armed servants of the Order. Nevertheless, Hospitallers were soon involved in the division of spoils after a campaign and in the mid-1130s King Fulk of Jerusalem gave the Hospitallers Bayt Jibrin where they built a castle known as Bethgibelin. Other strategic locations soon followed, and military men attached themselves to an Order which was becoming a potent military force. Then came the catastrophe of 1187 when Saladin defeated the main field army of the Crusader States and recaptured not only Jerusalem but most crusader territory as well. Not surprisingly, the Papacy now supported the dedicated Military Orders to an even greater extent while encouraging further Crusades from the West.