The Crusades produced two new forms of monasticism—the military orders and the convents of women established on the basis of useful activity and not idle contemplation. The military orders were a peculiar union of monk and knight whose purpose was, through charity and war, to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land, to care for the sick and to feed and house the tired and hungry.
1. The order of St. John had its origin in a hospital founded in 1065 at Jerusalem for sick pilgrims of both sexes by Maurus, a rich man of Amalfi. A master and lay brethren conducted it. In 1099, after the victory of
the First Crusade, many knights joined it, hence to the hospital duties was now added armed protection for pilgrims. Soon a new and larger hospital was built near the church of St. John the Baptist from which the order was named. In 1121 Raymond de Puy gave the brotherhood a fixed rule which required the vows of monasticism, ascetic practices, and the duty of armed protection.[513:1] The order had two thousand members by 1160 and had received great wealth from Popes, princes, and private persons. Soon many affiliated branches were planted on land and on islands of the sea. In the thirteenth century the total income of the order was eighteen times as great as that of the King of France. After 1187 the order withdrew to Ptolemais and kept up the contest with the Saracens for a century when in 1291 it again withdrew first to the Isle of Cyprus, then in 1309 to the Isle of Rhodes, and, finally, in 1350 to the Isle of Malta where it remained until disbanded in 1797 by Napoleon.
2. Two companions of Godfrey of Bouillon in 1118 united with seven other knights to protect and guide pilgrims to the Holy Land. To the three monastic vows which they took was added a fourth, namely, to fight the "infidels." King Baldwin II. gave them a residence in the Temple of Solomon, hence the order came to be called the Templars.[513:2] The membership soon increased and a rule was drawn up. St. Bernard championed the order and Pope Honorius II. favoured it. Burghers soon joined the knights, but the hospital duties were obscured by the feats of arms. They withdrew in 1291 to Cypress and then to France where
through royal and papal favours they soon numbered twenty thousand knights and possessed vast wealth. Under Philip IV. of France they were disbanded and robbed in 1307.
3. The Teutonic Knights date from the Third Crusade and derived their name from a German hospital founded in 1128 at Jerusalem, which fell in 1187. The intense sufferings at the siege of Acre in 1190 led some of the German merchants to revive the work of the hospital by making tents out of the sails of their ships and caring for the sick. In 1200 these hospital attendants organised themselves as a military order, adopted monastic vows, promised to help the sick and wounded, bound themselves to fight the Mohammedans and pagans, and were soon favoured by the Pope and Emperor. At first the members were all Germans of honourable birth but later priests and burghers were admitted. The order became powerful and wealthy and in 1237 absorbed the order of Brothers of the Sword. The order removed first to Venice in 1291, and then to Marienburg in 1309 to wage a crusade against the pagan Prussians. Napoleon in 1809 suppressed the order. In Spain to fight the Moors were organised the order of Calatrava, the order of Aleontera, and the order of Montesta. In Portugal appeared the order of Christ and the order of Avis.
The hospital orders without military service arose in the West and were brotherhoods of common people patterned after the order of St. John and patronised by Popes:
1. The order of Cross Bearers arose in 1160 at Bologna and in 1238 in Bohemia.
2. The order of Anthony was endowed by a French noble and authorised by Urban II. in 1095 at Clermont.
3. The order of the Holy Ghost was founded at Montpellier in 1170 and regularly organised by Innocent III. in 1198.