§ 60. THE MILITARY ORDERS. 297
the vigilant guardians of Latin institutions in Palestine for nearly two centuries. The Templars and the Knights of St. John did valiant service on many a battle-field in Palestine and Asia Minor.1 In 1187 they shared in the disastrous defeat of the Christian forces at Tiberias. From that time their strength was concentrated at Acre.2 After the fall of Acre, 1291, the three orders retired to Europe, holding the Turks in check for two centuries longer in the South and extending civilization to the provinces on the Baltic in the North. They combined the element of romance, corresponding to the chivalric spirit of the age, with the element of philanthropy corresponding to its religious spirit.
These orders speedily attained to great popularity, wealth, and power. Kings did them honor. Pope after pope extended their authority and privileges. Their grand mas ters were recognized as among the chief personages of Chris tendom. But with wealth and popularity came pride and decay. The strength of the Knights of St. John and the Templars was also reduced by their rivalry which became the scandal of Europe, and broke out into open feuds and pitched battles as before Acre, 1241 to 1243 and in 1259.3 After the fall of Acre, which was ascribed in large part to their jealousy, Nicholas IV. sought to combine them.4 The Knights of St. John were predominantly a French order, the Teutonic Knights exclusively a German order. The Templars were oecumenical in their constituency.
1 At the battle of Gaza with the Chorasmians, 1244, of two hundred and six teen Knights of St. John who entered the battle, two hundred remained dead on the field.
2 After the battle of Tiberias, the Knights of St. John, for a few years, made their strong fortress, Margat, the base of their operations.
3 See M. Paris, an. 1259. The famous antithesis of Gibbon (chap. LVIII.) pleases the ear and contains some truth, but makes a wrong impression. " The Knights of the Temple and St. John neglected to live, but they pre pared to die in the service of Christ."
4 The synod of Salzburg, 1292, decided in favor of the union.
298 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
I. The order of the Knights of St. John, or the Hospitallers,1 derived its name from the church of St. John the Baptist in Jerusalem.2 It seems to have grown out of a hospital in the city erected for the care of sick and destitute pilgrims. As early as the time of Charlemagne a hospital existed there. Before the year 1000 a cloister seems to have been founded by the Normans close by the church of the Holy Sepulchre known as St. Maria de Latina, with accommodations for the sick.3 About 1065 or 1070 a hospital was built by a mer chant from Amalfi, Maurus.4 At the time of the capture of Jerusalem, Gerard stood at the head of one of these insti tutions. Gerard seems to have come from Southern France.5 He prescribed for his brotherhood a mantle of black with a white cross. Godfrey of Bouillon liberally endowed it and Baldwin further enriched it with one-tenth of the booty taken at the siege of Joppa. Gerard died in 1120 and was succeeded by Raymund du Puy, who gave the order great fame and presided over it for forty years.6
The order increased with astonishing rapidity in numbers, influence, and wealth. Gifts were received from all parts of Europe, the givers being remembered in prayers offered
1 Fratres hospitalis >S'. Johannis, Hospital arii, Johannitw, milites hospitalis S. Johannis. From the fourteenth century they were also known as the Knights of Rhodes and from the sixteenth as the Knights of Malta. For a list of the houses of the female members of this order, Le Roulx, Les Hospitallers, 300 sq.
2 The bull of Pascal, II. 1113, speaks of the hospital in Jerusalem adjoining the church of the Baptist, xenodochium . . . juxta Beati Johannis Baptistaz ecclesiam.
3 William of Tyre, XVIII. 5 ; de Vitry, Hist. Jems., G4. The Mary, whose name the convent bore, was Mary Magdalene.
4 Le Roulx, Les Hospitallers, 33, connects the order with the hospital founded by Maurus, nous croyons pouvoir persister a penser que les Amalfltans furent les precurseurs des Hospitallers.
c William of Tyre, VII. 23, states that he was held in chains during the siege of Jerusalem.
6 See Le Roulx, pp. 44 sqq. Gerard is called in an old chronicle " Guardian of the hospital of the poor in Jerusalem," yuardianus hospitalis pauperum, etc., Hurter, IV. 315, note.