PLATE 57.
(Fig. 1): A Franciscan Friar. (Fig. 2): A Carmelite Friar. (Fig. 3): An Augustinian Canon.
[MILITARY MONASTIC ORDERS.]
The military Orders, consisting of men who combined the religious duties of monks and the military exercises of knights, were the Knights Hospitallers and the Knights Templars.
The Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem (Pl. [58], Fig. 1) were originally not a military Order.
This Order took its name and was founded at an hospital in Jerusalem by the merchants of Amalfi, in Italy, for the purpose of affording hospitality to the Pilgrims coming to the Holy Land. It was dedicated to St. John the Baptist, and the first business of its members was to provide for such pilgrims at that hospital, and to protect them from insults and injuries on the road. The open country was perpetually exposed to the incursions of irregular bands of Saracen and Turkish horsemen, and any of the hapless pilgrims who were captured were put to death or sold into slavery.
PLATE 58.