During the 12th century those who went on Crusade normally had to be free men. If they were serfs they had to obtain manumission from their lords and be able to cover their own expenses. The only real exception were the ministeriales of Germany who technically remained serfs while gradually evolving into a knightly class. The Military Orders recruited from the same classes. Casualties meant that men were constantly needed and many, particularly in France, wanted to join the Hospitallers. Yet their numbers were constantly limited by the Order’s shortage of money. Men sent to the Middle East tended to be the fit and relatively young, while older members of the Order generally remained in Europe, running a fast expanding support network.
France remained the powerhouse of the crusading movement and provided the bulk of Hospitaller personnel. England was in many ways a cultural colony of France, yet it played a significant role in the Order during the 12th century. Very large numbers of troops were available in the German Empire, but here and in German-dominated regions of Central Europe, recruitment for the Hospitallers and Templars faced stiff competition from a locally based Order - the Teutonic Knights. In fact, there was reluctance to join the Templars who were considered too French and too close to the Papacy at a time when the German emperors and the popes were often at loggerheads. The Hospitallers faced less of a problem and recruited widely in Bohemia where most of the senior Hospitallers were German. The Order also flourished in the sprawling kingdom of Hungary, but here again most of the leading men were French or Italian, while ordinary brethren were Hungarian, Croats or German settlers. Hospitallers of Croatian and Bosnian origin served in Italy which was itself something of a special case. Like Germany, Italy had abundant well-trained professional soldiers but they tended to have local loyalties rather than joining the Military Orders. The Iberian peninsula was again different. Enthusiasm for holy war was strong, but it focused on the local frontier with Moorish-Islamic Andalusia. Most senior Hospitallers in Spain or Portugal were also of local origin.
The Hospitallers held the now abandoned village of Bugaea (Khirbat Bakha) near Jisr al-Majami on the River Jordan as well as many others in this area. (Author’s photograph)
The Hospitaller castle at Marqab on the Syrian coast. A: section through entrance-tower (e) showing overhanging machicolation, groove for portcullis and a guard-room above. B: plan of the castle; c - chapel; d - donjon, keep; e - entrance tower; h - hall. C: chapel in Marqab castle. D: plan of the castle and fortified town; m - dry moat.
During the 12th and 13th centuries brethren of the Hospitaller Order of St John were not recruited solely from the nobility. After the 1260s, however, preference was given to those of knightly rank who brought with them larger financial donations, and thereafter the restrictions on recruitment gradually became more rigorous. During the 12th century systems of child oblation and attachment to the Order as novitiates were more important than in later years. Novitiates also included abandoned children who were not, however, obliged to join once they came of age. In some other orders a novitiate became a full brother at 14 or 15 after three years training, but in later years high casualties and the demand for men who were already trained soldiers probably accounted for a decline in the novitiate system. On the other hand, the absence of a proper novitiate system led to widespread illiteracy among recruits and frequent breaches in regulations which were not fully understood.
The Bull or official papal document in which Pope Paschal II confirmed the foundation of the Order of the Hospitallers. (Palace Armoury, Valetta, Malta)
Very little is known about the motivation of individual recruits. The life of a Hospitaller brother may have looked relatively easy to someone on the outside: there were career prospects and joining a Military Order meant less ‘abandonment of the world’ than joining a regular monastic order. Some recruits may actually have been looking for martyrdom in war at a time of genuine religious conviction, but in the late 13th century a few were trying to escape debts or legal punishment although criminals or debtors were barred by the Order’s rules.
Mount Tabor was believed to be the site of Christ’s Transfiguration and the Crusaders built a castle here to protect pilgrims. This was handed to the Hospitallers in 1255. (Author’s photograph)
A carved capital in the church at Mozac in central France provides a simple but remarkably accurate illustration of a fully armed knight from around 1160. (In situ Abbey Church of St Calmin, Mozac, France; author’s photograph)
The qualifications required of a recruit to the Hospitallers were clear. There was no lower age limit, although there were rules about when a man could become a knight or be ordained a priest. All recruits had to be free, of legitimate birth, healthy, spiritually clean and not in debt. During the 13th century a brother-knight had to be of knightly descent and most came from the lower aristocracy. Married men were only accepted if their living spouses agreed, and sometimes man and wife joined together. Men were expected to be fit enough to fight, though standards dropped in times of crisis. Ex-members of other Orders were not accepted, and Hospitallers were similarly not permitted to leave once they joined. When individuals managed to buy their way past these regulations, such simony caused considerable scandal.
The entry procedure was simple and solemn, the recruit being warned that, ‘although it may be that you see us well-clothed and with fine horses, and think that we have every comfort, you would be mistaken, for when you would like to eat it will be necessary to fast. And when you want to sleep it will be necessary to keep watch.’ During the Sunday chapter (meeting) of a convent a prospective recruit asked the Master of the order or the presiding brother for membership. If the majority of the chapter agreed, the candidate was asked if he fulfilled the basic entry requirements; if he was later found to have lied he would be expelled. The candidate then placed his hands on a missal or mass book and took an oath to God, Our Lady and St John the Baptist, stating that he would live and die in obedience to the sovereign given him by God - in effect the Master of the order - in chastity, without property, a serf and slave of ‘his lords the sick’. At the end of the ceremony the president held up the basic costume of the Order and said, ‘Behind this, the sign of the Cross which you will wear on this mantle in remembrance of Him who suffered death and passion on the Cross for you and for us other sinners. May God, by the Cross and by the vow of obedience that you have made in faith and in deed, keep you and defend you now and for ever, from the power of the Devil.’ After the mantle was placed upon the new brother’s shoulder he was given the Kiss of Peace which he then exchanged with all brethren present.
Numbers of recruits varied over the years and, despite its proverbial wealth, the Order of the Hospital could not afford to maintain as many fighting men or as many castles as it might have wished. In the early days any Hospitaller commander could accept a knight as a recruit, though only the Master or a specially designated brother could accept a sergeant. In 1270 it was decided that the authority of the Master was needed before the commanders of Cyprus, Tripoli and Armenia could create new brethren, although the commanders and chapters of larger establishments at Acre, Krak des Chevaliers and Marqab could still accept recruits. In 1292, after the fall of Acre, the Hospitallers’ finances were even more strained and so no new brothers could be created anywhere except in Spain without a specific licence from the Master or Grand Commander.
The case of brother-sergeants was different. In the earliest years there were no brother-knights or brother-sergeants - all were merely brothers. After the brother-sergeants emerged as a distinct group in the early 13th century their numbers remained lower than the knights, despite the division between brother-sergeants-at-arms or caravaniers, who were soldiers, and brother-sergeants-at-service who undertook menial or administrative tasks. They still led the same conventual or communal way of life, but were often given considerable responsibility. The brother-sergeants must not be confused with a much larger number of ordinary sergeants, who were merely servants of the Order. Details about the backgrounds of the brother-sergeants remain very obscure, but most seem to have been of peasant or artisan origin; there were cases of men from knightly families joining as brother-sergeants, perhaps because they had not yet been knighted. As a religious order, the Hospitallers needed their own priests, although the first reference to such a clerical brother only dates from 1154. In fact, the Hospitallers continued to face difficulty recruiting priests and many convents relied on outsiders to serve their religious needs.
Several villages in northern Jordan were listed as belonging to the Hospitallers. One was Bayt Ras, known to the Crusaders as Beteras, where the ruins of early medieval shops have been discovered by archaeologists. (Author’s photograph)
Another village claimed by the Order of the Hospitallers was Qadmus in the Syrian mountains. It was retaken by the Muslims in 1131 but the Hospitallers still forced Qadmus and two neighbouring castles to pay tribute in the 13th century. (Author's photograph)
On the margins of the Order of the Hospitallers were a variety of other groups, including the donats, noblemen who wanted to join as full brethren but had to wait in a sort of queue after going to the Holy Land at their own expense. Confraters were laymen, often of high noble rank, who were associated with the Hospitallers but did not normally become brethren. They had agreed to defend a Hospitaller convent or house and were given a status in a simple religious ceremony. During the 13th century a separate Confraternity of St George and St Belian was established for Christians of the Melkite Syrian Church which was in communion with Rome.
The backbone of Hospitaller power was financial rather than numerical and by the late 12th century the Order held large territories in the Crusader States and Europe. Their feudal fiefs in the Middle East supposedly contributed knights and other troops to the Hospitaller muster, but the reliability of their vassals seems to have been questionable, especially as many of the peasants were Muslims. Other indigenous troops played a more significant role in Hospitaller forces, including the famous Turcopoles, but they were not, of course, brethren of the Order. The Hospitallers similarly enlisted Western European mercenaries and servants in the early 13th century, but again, they were not members of the Order.
ABOVE The Hospitallers attracted men from everywhere in Catholic Christendom, including Croatia. This 12th century Croatian manuscript shows the military costume of what was then a frontier region of Latin Christendom. (Missal, Metropolitan Library, Ms. MR.138, Zagreb, Croatia)