(Fig. 1): A Knight Hospitaller. (Fig. 2): A Knight Templar. (Fig. 3): A Dominican Friar.
The Order was instituted about 1092 A.D., and was very much favoured by Godfrey of Bouillon and his successor, Baldwin, King of Jerusalem.
The kindness of the Hospitallers to the sick and wounded soldiers of the First Crusade made them popular, and several of the Crusading princes endowed them with estates; while many of the Crusaders, instead of returning home, laid down their arms and joined the brotherhood.
After a time, when their endowments became very great, they reconstituted the Order on the model of the Templars. From this time the two military Orders formed a powerful standing army for the defence of the kingdom of Jerusalem.
As monks, they followed a rule of life founded upon that of St. Augustine, and wore a black mantle with a white cross on the left shoulder.
They soon came to England, and had a house built for them in London about 1140 A.D., and from poor and mean beginnings obtained so great wealth, honours, and exemptions, that their Superior here in England was the first lay baron and had a seat among the Lords in Parliament; some of their privileges being extended even to their tenants. When on military duty, the knights wore the ordinary armour of the period, a red surcoat with a white cross on the breast, and a red mantle with a white cross on the shoulder.
The smaller establishments upon their manors and estates were called commanderies, and the head of the house was known as the Commander.
Sometimes their houses were called preceptories, but this term was more generally applied to the establishments of the Knights Templars.
They had their headquarters at the Hospital of St. John, near Clerkenwell, where the gate (rebuilt in 1540) may still be seen. There were about 53 cells or commanderies attached to this hospital in different parts of the country, where the novices might be trained in piety and in military exercises.
When the Christians were driven out of Jerusalem, the Knights of St. John passed to the Isle of Cyprus, afterwards to the Isle of Rhodes, and finally to Malta, where they maintained a constant warfare against the Mahommedans, acting as the police of the Mediterranean and doing their best to oppose the piracies of the Corsairs.