SAINT JOHN OF JERUSALEM, KNIGHTS OF, otherwise called KNIGHTS OF RHODES; and afterward OF MALTA, the most celebrated of all the military and religious orders of the middle ages. It originated in 1048 in an hospital dedicated to St John the Baptist, which some merchants of Amalfi were permitted by the calif of Egypt to build for the reception of the pilgrims from Europe who visited the holy sepulcher. The nurses were at first known as the hospitaler brothers of St. John the Baptist of Jerusalem. The Seljuk Turks, who succeeded the Egyptian and Arabian Saracens in Palestine, plundered the hospice, and on the conquest of Jerusalem by the crusaders under Geoffroy de Bouillon in 1099, the first superior, Gerard, was found in prison. Released from dur resumed his duties in time hospice, gave material aid to the sick and woun016d, and was joined‘by several of the crusaders, who devoted themselves to the service of poor pilgrims. By advice of Gerard, the brethren took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience before the patriarch of Jerusalem. Pope Pascal IL gave his sanction to institution in 1113. Raymond du Puy, the successor of Gerard in the office of superior, drew up a body of statutes for the order, which was confirmed by pope Calixtus II. To the former obligations was afterward added those of fighting against the infidels and defending the holy sepulcher. Various hospices, called commanderies, were estab lished, in 'different maritime towns of Europe as for pilgrims, who were there provided with the means of setting out for Palestine. The order having become military as well as religious, was recruited by persons of high rank and influence, and wealth flowed in on it from all quarters. On the conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187, the hospitalers retired to Margat in Phenicia, whence the progress of infidel arms drove them first in 1285, to Acre, and afterward, in 1291, to Limisso, where Henry IL, king of Cyprus, assigned them a residence. By the statutes of Raymond, the brethren consisted of three classes, knights, chaplains, and serving brothers; these last being fighting squires, who followed the knights in their expeditions. The order was subse quently divided into eight languages—Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon, Eng land, Germany, and Castile. Each nation possessed several grand priories, under which
ware a 'number of commanderies. The chief establishment in England was the priory at Clerkenwell. whose head had a seat in the upper house of parliament, and was styled first baron of England.
In 1310, the knights, under their grand-master, Foulkes de Villaret, in conjunction with a party of crusaders from Italy, captured Rhodes and seven adjacent islands from the Greek and Saracen pirates, by whom it was then occupied, and carried on front' thence a successful war against the Saracens. Iu 1523, they were compelled to surren der Rhodes to sultan Soloman, and retired first to Candia and afterward to Viterbo. In 1530, Charles V. assigned them the island of Malta, with Tripoli and Gozo. The knights continued for some time to be a powerful bulwark against the Turks; but after the Reformation a moral degeneracy overspread the order, and it rapidly declined in politi cal importance; and in 1798, through the treachery of sonic French knights and the cowardice of the grand-master, D'Hompesch, Malta was surrendered to the French. The lands still remaining to the order were also about this time confiscated in almost all the European states; but though extinct as a sovereign body, the order has continued during the present. century to drag on a lingering existence .in somo parts of Italy, as well as in Russia and Spain. Since 1801 the office of grand-master has not been filled up: a deputy grand-master has instead been appointed, who has his residence in Spain. The,order at first wore a long black habit, with a pointed hood, adorned with a cross of white silk of the form called Maltese on the left breast, as also a golden cross in the mid dle ,of the breast. In their military capacity, they wore red surcoats with the silver cross before and behind. The badge worn by all the knights is a Maltese cross, enaw eled white, and edged with gold; it, is suspended by a'black ribbon, and the embellish ments attached to it differ in the different countries where the order still exists.