The Knights of St. John

by Augusta Theodosia Drane

Fulk therefore hastened to France early in the spring of 1307, to lay the plan before the Pope and the French king; Molay had already preceded him, and was at Poitiers (then the residence of the papal court) at the very time of his visit. The storm had not yet broken over the head of the Templars, and the designs against them were kept a close secret; yet it is probable that there were even then sufficient tokens of ill-will and approaching disgrace to impress the grand master of the Hospitallers with the belief, that France was just then no safe quarters for the representative of either of the military orders. Nevertheless, it would seem that Clement at least entered favourably into his views; and though the real object of the enterprise was kept a secret, yet the proposal for a fresh expedition against the infidels, when publicly proclaimed, was received with such enthusiasm, that Villaret soon found himself furnished with men and money sufficient for his purpose. The money was principally contributed by the women of Genoa, who sold their jewels to supply the means of this new crusade, as it was termed; the troops were chiefly from Germany; and thus provided, he hastened to return to Cyprus, where he arrived in the August of the same year. Two months later Molay was arrested, and that terrible tragedy was enacted which ranks the suppression of the Templars among the great crimes of history. Its relation forms no part of our subject; for whilst every fresh investigation serves only to add new evidence of the innocence of the accused, and to increase the infamy of their enemies, there has never been an attempt to involve the Hospitallers in the charges brought against them. Yet it can scarcely be doubted that they too were included in the original design of the French king; and that, had Villaret withdrawn his knights to Europe, and, like Molay, put himself within the power of his enemies, the fate of both orders would have been alike. But Providence ordered it otherwise; and at the very time when the Templars were being tortured and massacred in France, the brilliant fame acquired by the Hospitallers in Rhodes placed them in a position of safety beyond the grasp of Philip.

Villaret’s movements were conducted with the greatest secrecy; he remained at Cyprus only long enough to take on board his vessels those of the knights who still remained in the island, and then directed his course towards the coast of Asia Minor. Even they, as well as the rest of the troops, were persuaded that the expedition was about to be directed against Syria, and the real object was suspected by none. Anchoring in the port of Myra, the grand master despatched a secret embassy to the Greek emperor Andronicus to solicit the formal investiture of Rhodes, under condition of rendering him military service against the infidels. A compliance with this request would have been every way advantageous to the emperor’s interest; but the old jealousy of the Latins was too strong, and he rejected the proposal with disdain. His reply, however, made little difference in the course of events; without waiting for the return of his ambassador, Villaret publicly announced his real design; and taking the Rhodians by surprise, he disembarked his troops and military stores with scarcely a show of resistance. In spite of this first success, however, he found himself encompassed by many difficulties: the corsairs assembled in great numbers from the neighbouring islands at the first intelligence of the Christians landing; and a desultory war began, which lasted for four years with various success. The inhabitants, assisted by a body of troops despatched by the Greek emperor, threw themselves into the city of Rhodes, whose strength of position enabled them to hold out against repeated assaults. On the other hand, the German and French volunteers gradually dropped away, and left the knights unsupported; so that their numbers were considerably reduced, and they, in their turn, were obliged to stand on the defensive. But for the capacity and unwearied exertions of their grand master, they might have found themselves in a critical position; but whilst he succeeded in raising fresh levies in Europe, he found means also to inspire his followers with an enthusiasm which never failed them, in spite of every reverse.

No details have been left by contemporary historians of the final struggle; we know only that it was most bloody; and that before the banner of the order was planted on the walls of Rhodes, many of the bravest among the knights were cut to pieces. Villaret, however, found himself in the end master of the city and of the whole island; and such of the Saracens as escaped alive, took to their vessels, and were the first to spread the news of their defeat along the coasts and among the islands of the Archipelago. The universal joy and admiration excited throughout Europe by the intelligence of the event, was a testimony of the benefit which all felt would accrue to the Christian cause by the establishment of an independent sovereignty in those seas, which had hitherto been entirely at the command of the infidels; and the title of “Knights of Rhodes” was not so much assumed by the order as accorded to them by the unanimous voice of all nations.

The first act of the grand master, after the surrender of the capital, and the submission of the Christian inhabitants to their new sovereigns, was to order the restoration of the city fortifications, that they might be put in a thorough state of defence; after which he proceeded to visit the surrounding group of islets, which readily acknowledged his authority. The territories now subject to the order included, besides the larger island of Rhodes, nine others, some scarcely more than fortified rocks, yet serving as outposts of defence, and all of them inhabited. Others were richly wooded and productive, and were granted on a kind of feudal tenure to certain of the knights who had most distinguished themselves in the late war; of these the most considerable was Cos, or Lango, which afterwards, under the rule of its new masters, rose to an important position among the islands of the Archipelago.

In the midst of these surrounding islets, not twenty miles distant from the Asiatic coast, lay Rhodes—a fairy island on a fairy ocean; and the soft southern breeze, as it swept over her fields, carried far over the waters the scent of those roses which bloomed through all the year, and from which she derived her name. The very rocks were garlanded with them; beds of flowering myrrh perfumed the air; and tufts of laurel-roses adorned the margins of the rivulets with their gaudy blossoms. It is scarcely strange that Rhodes should in old times have been the school of art; for men caught, as it were naturally, the painter’s inspiration amidst scenes of such enchanting loveliness. She was made, indeed, to be a home of peace; her skies were ever cloudless and untroubled; her woods stood thick with fruit-trees, and the velvet of her sloping lawns sparkled with a thousand flowers. Her beauty was neither stern nor grand,—it was entirely pastoral; and if you wandered inland round her entire circuit, which was scarcely thirty miles, one verdant landscape every where met your eye, woods and gardens breaking the sameness of those lovely pastures; while all round, between the hills and through the foliage of the trees, you caught the blue line of the sea, whose music, as it murmured on the shore, was never absent from your ears. In old times, as we have said, Rhodes had had her celebrity; she had taught eloquence to Rome, and had claimed the empire of the seas; but all her greatness had vanished under Greek misrule and the barbarism of her Saracen masters; and when the knights took possession of their new territory, they found nothing left of ancient Rhodes but her beauty and her name. There were, however, great resources, and these, under their hands, were not long in developing. The forests furnished wood, and the island of Syma skilful carpenters for ship-building; and these latter had the art of constructing galleys so light and swift that no vessel on the eastern seas could match them with either sail or oar. So on the summit of a high mountain in Syma a watch-tower was built, and the inhabitants bound themselves to keep a look-out over the ocean, and send the first news to Rhodes by their swiftest galley of the approach of hostile fleets; and by their skill the navy of the order rapidly increased in magnitude and excellence. Then there was Lero, with her quarries of rich marble, which supplied a commerce of herself; and Nisara, whose ships were known in every city on the southern coasts, and whose inhabitants had retained something of their old fame as artists, and encouraged by a free and generous government, soon filled their towns with palaces that vied with those of Genoa;—with rich columns, and statues, and marble fountains, all brought together in a lavish profusion, and bespeaking the noble tastes of her merchant lords. There were plenty of ports and harbours on these island coasts, and a population of maritime habits, accustomed to live on the sea, or well-nigh in it; in short, every thing contributed to point out naval and commercial enterprise as the road to the future greatness of Rhodes.

The first enemy who threatened the safety of the knights in their new home was one of whom they were hereafter to hear more. The Tartar Othman was beginning to lay the foundation of the Turkish empire, and had established himself in Bithynia and other Asiatic provinces, which he had conquered from the Greeks. It was to him that the Saracens of Rhodes fled for refuge after being finally driven out of the island; and he very willingly undertook their cause, and despatched a considerable force, which besieged the knights in their city before they had time to restore the walls or raise fresh fortifications in place of those they had destroyed. Nevertheless, in spite of their defenceless position, Othman received his first defeat; and, obliged to retire with considerable loss, he contented himself with plundering the neighbouring islands, from whence he kept up a desultory warfare which lasted for some time longer. In 1315, however, the knights were enabled, with the assistance, as it is said, of Amadeus of Savoy, to expel their Turkish neighbours, and commence the work of rebuilding and fortifying. So soon as this was completed, Villaret bent all his endeavours to the restoration of commerce: the port of Rhodes was thrown open to all nations, and many of the Latin Christians who had been driven from the Holy Land, and were scattered about in various parts of Greece, hastened to enrol themselves under the banner of St. John, which protected all alike—Greek and Latin, mercantile or military; and out of these various elements the new state rapidly rose to opulence and renown.

Its opulence was perhaps a doubtful good, to some at least among the knights, who after their long hardships and sufferings were tempted to make their restoration to better fortunes the excuse for a life of ease and indulgence. The relaxation was far from universal; and from the description left us of the general state of their dominions, it is evident that a wise and enlightened policy directed their government, and that the abuses, such as they were, were confined to a minority. But unhappily the grand master himself was of the number; hero and man of genius as he had proved himself to be, after winning the applause of all Europe and a name among the great men of the time, he was not strong enough to withstand his own success, and his luxury and neglect of duty soon raised the voice of the order against him. His irregularities must have been great, for rarely is a successful chief unpopular among his followers; yet the discontent even spread into revolt, and the majority of the knights, after solemnly deposing Villaret from his authority, chose Maurice de Pagnac in his room,—a man of stern and austere character, and a zealous advocate of discipline. The matter ended in the interference of the Pope, John XXII., who summoned the rival grand masters to Avignon, where Villaret was obliged to retire on a rich commandery of the order; and Pagnac soon after dying, Helion de Villeneuve was elected on the recommendation, or nomination, of the Pontiff. On his return to Rhodes from Montpellier, where he had convened a general chapter for the reform of abuses, matters began to mend; laws were passed obliging the residence of all the principal officers of the order at the seat of government; all the islands were strongly fortified, and such a spirit infused into the little commonwealth, that many built and maintained war-galleys for defence against the infidels at their own expense, in addition to those kept up by the government; and, in spite of the vast expenses rendered necessary by the circumstances of the time, the chief glory of Rhodes and her knightly sovereigns lay in the happiness of those who lived beneath their rule. They were still worthy of their ancient title, “Servants of the poor of Christ;” “for,” says Vertot, “there was not a poor man in all the territories of the order:” there were employment and support for all; and for the sick there was the large and magnificent hospital, where soul as well as body was cared for, and where the grand master’s example of charity animated and kept alive the fervour of primitive discipline in the hearts of his knights.

Yet the Hospitallers had their enemies; those who had plundered and destroyed one order, and given it up to centuries of defamation, would willingly have done the same by its survivor. It was said of them that they never gave alms;—scarcely an accusation, had it even been true, if indeed they kept their subjects from the need of alms-giving; but false, unless we leave out of sight the hospital and its vast system of charity daily dispensed in grand and lavish profusion. And that they did not spare themselves in their exertions to meet the expenses of that system, is evident from the law made about that time limiting the table of the knights to a single dish. The Hospitallers had been nominally declared heirs to the unfortunate Templars; yet, save the odium attaching to the suspicion of possessing enormous wealth, they gained little by the decree; for in almost every country, with the exception of England, the property of the suppressed order found its way into the royal coffers.

Villeneuve, and the grand masters who succeeded him, were unsparing in their efforts to maintain the primitive and religious character of the order; and though, doubtless, there were abuses to reform, yet if we read the repeated remonstrances addressed to them from the Pontiffs, the accusations do not come to much. “There is a general feeling,” writes Clement V., “that you do not make a very good use of your money; it is said you keep fine horses, are superbly dressed, keen dogs and birds of prey, and neglect the defence of Christendom.” It must be allowed that these charges are somewhat vague. The real crime of the Hospitallers in the eyes of those who incessantly endeavoured to poison the minds of the Pontiffs against them, was their supposed wealth, which their accusers longed to sequestrate, and which, though greatly exaggerated, was made the pretence for throwing on them the chief burden of the Turkish war. During its long continuance they bore a part which should at least have acquitted them from the charge of slothfulness in the cause of Christendom. A new league having been formed against the infidels between the Pope, the king of Cyprus, the republic of Venice, and the Order of St. John, it was Biandra prior of Lombardy who led their forces in the attack on Smyrna, which he carried, sword in hand, at the head of his knights. Later, when the league was falling to pieces, it was revived by the grand master Deodato de Gozon. This Deodato was a very hero of romance—a second St. George, were we to credit the popular story of his combat with the dragon.[4] In his own day he deserved to receive the title of the “Magnanimous.” Immediately on his election he sailed in quest of the Turkish fleet, which he found at the little isle of Embro, near the mouth of the Dardanelles. Falling on it by surprise, he gained a brilliant victory, and captured 118 of the enemy’s vessels; and on returning from this exploit, he found the ambassadors of the king of Armenia awaiting him at Rhodes, to implore his assistance against the Egyptian Saracens. The king was a Greek schismatic; and at a time when the jealousies between Greek and Latin were at their height, many might have hesitated to risk the success of such an enterprise. Not so, however, with Deodato the Magnanimous: “frill of zeal,” says Vertot, “and animated with the true spirit of his institute, he would not abandon the Christians to the fury of the barbarians.” So a powerful force was despatched to Armenia; nor did it return till the last of the Saracen invaders was driven from the country.