HOSPITALLERS. Hospitallers is the designation of a number of charitable brotherhoods in the Roman Catholic Church, " associations of laymen, monks, canons, and knights, which devoted themselves to nursing the sick and the poor in the hospitals, while at the same time observing certain monastic practices, generally according to the rule of Augustine " (Schaff-Herzog). In 1190 Count Guido of Montpellier founded there the Hospital Brethren of the Holy Spirit. The order was confirmed by Pope Innocent III. in 119S. and the " Hospitale S. Spiritus in Saxia " at Rome became its mother-house. In 1212 the Hospitallers of Burgos were founded. In 1280 arose the Brethren of Charity of Blessed Mary, and established its mother-house in the hospital " Les Billets " in Paris. Hospital Sisters were instituted also. who devoted themselves to the work of educating and protecting girls, as well as to the care of the sick. The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem and the Teutonic Knights (q.v.) started as Hospitallers. The former grew out of the Brothers of the Hospital of St. John the Baptist. About the middle of the eleventh century a convent and hospital dedicated to St. John the Baptist had been built at Jerusalem by merchants of Amalfi, with the object of caring for pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre. Later, after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders. the hospital was separated from the convent, and received the gift of a manor from Duke Godfrey of Bouillon. Raymond du Puy, who succeeded Abbot Gerard in 111S. became Master of the Order of the Brothers of the Hos pital of St. John the Baptist. He drew up a rule for the order, which was confirmed by Pope Calixtus II. in 1120. The Brothers had to take the three vows of poverty. chastity, and obedience. Knights now began to join the order, and it became more and more military. From the task of protecting pilgrims ou their way to the Holy City, they proceeded to that of defending the Holy Sepulchre, and then to that of making war upon infidels.
In course of time. too. there grew up a rivalry between them and the Knights Templars which led to a pitched battle between them (1259). In 11S7 the Hos pitallers removed to Markab in Phoenicia, in 1193 to Acre, in 1291 to Cyprus. In 1310 they took forcible possession of the Island of Rhodes. Driven from here by Sultan Solyman the Magnificent in 1523, they removed to Candia (Crete). In 1530 the Emperor Charles V.
granted them possession of the Island of Malta. Here they remained until 1798, when, through treachery, the Island was surrendered to the French. In BOO the island was captured by the English. Afterwards the head quarters of the order were first at Catana and then at Ferra. Since 1799 most of the branches of the order have been suppressed. There is a revived order or Society in the Church of England, called "The Grand Priory of the Order of the Hospital of S. John of Jeru salem in England," with its headquarters at St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell, London. What is now the Anglican Church of St. John the Baptist, was before the dissolution of the monasteries the Priory of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem (consecrated in 1185). The revived order has a new character. " Its efforts are purely philanthropic : it distributes charity to con valescents who have just left hospital, maintains cottage hospitals and convalescent homes In the country, and an ophthalmic hospital at Jerusalem. It has founded the street ambulance system, and was chiefly concerned in the origination of the Red Cross Society " (Chambers). See Schaff-Herzog; Cath. Dist.; Chambers's Encyci.; Brock haus.