Part II

THE SOVEREIGN MILITARY ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM

This order, also called the Order of Rhodes and more widely known as the Order of Malta, from the locations of its headquarters after it was forced to leave the Holy Land, is the oldest order of knighthood in existence, antedating even that of the Order of the Garter by more than two hundred years. It is also the most illustrious and meritorious of the religious military orders. Its origin goes back to the hospital for Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem, established in the first half of the 11th century by a group of merchantmen from Amalfi, Italy. When the crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099 the hospital was headed by a layman named Gerard whose birthplace is variously given as Martiques in Provence, Amalfi in southern Italy and Tonco in Piedmont, all in line with the respective nationality of the historians who wrote his life.[4] This saintly man organized the hospital staff into a community of lay brothers for whom he drew up appropriate constitutions which were approved in 1113 by Pope Paschal II. The fraternity became known as the Hospitallers of St. John, after the patron saint of the church which was attached to the hospital. This patron was St. John the Almoner, Patriarch of Alexandria, who had provided the means for rebuilding the churches of the Resurrection and of Calvary in Jerusalem. Later the Hospitallers adopted the better known St. John the Baptist as their patron saint.

Whereas Gerard was the founder of the Order of St. John, his successor Raymond du Puy, a knight from Provence, became its organizer. While he was Master of the Hospital (1120-60), the community, although continuing its hospital work, began also to engage in services of a military character. The military duties consisted at first in providing armed protection for the sick and the poor and military escorts for the pilgrims. Soon the brotherhood took part in the defense of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and in the battles against the Moslems and thus became a full-fledged military order. But the order never forsook its humble beginnings; its militarization only added a new objective to its activities, as expressed in the age-old motto: _Obsequium pauperum et tuitio fidei_—service of the poor and protection of the faith.

During the process of militarization three classes of brothers developed: the knights who led in the fighting and held most of the higher administrative functions at headquarters and in the other houses of the order; the chaplains who took care of the spiritual needs of the other members of the order and of the patients in the hospitals; the sergeants-at-arms, who were the serving brothers. In the beginning, persons not belonging to the military aristocracy or nobility could enter the class of knights, but as from Master Hugh Revel (1258-77) the rule was laid down that such as desired to be admitted as knights should prove nobility on both father’s and mother’s side. When occasionally a few knights were received into the order who were not fully qualified with regard to their armorial bearings, they were called Knights-of-Grace (admitted by favor) in contrast to the duly qualified members who were called Knights-of-Justice, a distinction which has prevailed until recently.

The number of professed knights was always quite limited, scarcely in excess of 500 or 600 knights. Since the order was essentially a lay organization, the number of professed priests always remained very small. The professed chaplains served mainly in the Convent, that is, the general headquarters of the order, and were therefore called Conventual Chaplains. The _cura animarum_ in the houses outside the Convent was for the most part exercised by priests who did not belong to the order, but were engaged by the order according to its needs; since they were throughout the time of office under the jurisdiction of the grand master they were called Chaplains of Magistral Obedience.

The professed sergeants-at-arms assisted the knights; they were at first quite important and numerous but eventually almost completely faded out of the picture, being replaced by hired help. In fact, the knights employed a considerable number of men for all their enterprises, both charitable and military: physicians and other personnel in the hospital were engaged on a paid basis, the soldiers who formed the body of the order’s army were mercenary troops as were the sailors on their fleet in the days of Rhodes and Malta.

At the top of this hierarchical pyramid stood the Master. His official title, ever since the days of Blessed Gerard, was Master of the Hospital. Although often referred to, even in earlier days, as the Grand Master, he did not formally assume the latter title until 1489. After the order had settled on Malta, the Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt (1601-1622) was given the title of prince of the Holy Roman Empire by the Emperor and the Pope bestowed on him and his successors a rank equal to a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church with the title of Eminence. Besides these sonorous titles, the grand master, like all other professed members of the order, also uses the religious title Frà (Brother) which is put before his baptismal name. To date there have been seventy-six grand masters.

The monastic habit of the order was a wide black cassock with a slit on each side for the arms. In the days of Blessed Gerard a plain white cross was sewn on the breast; Master Raymond introduced the eight-pointed white cross which has become the emblem of the order down to the present day. Since these bell-like cloaks were rather cumbersome in battle, Pope Innocent IV in 1248 granted the knights permission to wear a black surcoat over armour when on active service. Pope Alexander IV in 1259 changed the color of this tunic to red, with a plain white cross. The choir dress of the professed knights is even at present a black mantle with the Maltese cross and a very elaborate maniple.

The headquarters of the order, wherever they might be, in Jerusalem, Acre, Rhodes or Malta, were called the Convent. In its developed form this Convent consisted of the palace of the grand master, the living quarters of the knights and their assistants, the stables for the horses, the church and the hospital.

Even by modern standards the hospital in Jerusalem was quite large; Master Roger des Moulins in a letter of 1178 puts the number of patients at 950. According to the statutes of 1182, the medical staff consisted of four physicians and a number of male nurses. Special regulations were laid down concerning hygiene. A wise rule was that each patient, after admittance, should hand over his valuables to the hospital authorities so as to prevent protests and reclamations in case of loss or theft. A religious in charge registered all the belongings of a patient and gave them back after he was dismissed. The statutes of the hospital in Jerusalem served as a model for, and sometimes were literally copied by, other hospital organizations in the Middle Ages.[5]

In view of the fact that before the crusades hospitals in the more modern sense of the word hardly existed, the charity work of the Knights of St. John—and to a lesser extent that of the other orders founded in the Holy Land—has been hailed as a kind of innovation. Historians agree that the Hospitallers must be credited with having created the hospital in the organized sense.

Whenever the knights of St. John had to transfer their Convent, they considered it one of their first duties to attach to it a well-equipped hospital for “our lords the sick.” The hospital in Rhodes, restored by the Italian government under Mussolini to its original condition, was a large and beautiful building. On Malta the hospital or “Sacra Infirmeria” developed into a center for medical sciences, particularly surgery and ophthalmology.

The militarization of the order had a double effect. Knights from every country in Europe enrolled under the red banner with the white cross. At the same time the military reputation of the order greatly increased the number of donations and legacies which had been given already at the time the order was devoted to charity work. These possessions scattered throughout the Near East and Europe called for administration and management. Although the supervisory system was very complicated and only gradually developed, it may be said in general that the order was divided in bailiwicks and priories which were roughly equivalent to provinces in other orders and each priory comprised a number of commanderies. The house of a commander might be a manor, a castle, a walled-in-portion or a fortified church with an annex. Each house contained, besides the chapel and the living quarters for the household, a number of rooms, to be used as a ward for travellers and as a hospital for sick pilgrims.[6]

The functions of the priors and commanders were manifold: they collected the revenues of the estates of the order, they gave protection to the pilgrims, occasionally they built or maintained roads and bridges and their “mansiones” were recruiting stations for the order. When the days of the great pilgrimages were over, several hospices of St. John grew into regular hospitals.

The territorial organization of the order achieved its final completion, when it was divided into _langues_ or tongues. When the headquarters of the order were in Rhodes and Malta, the knights of each _langue_ lived together in their own residence, called _auberge_ or inn, so that the Convent consisted of a number of national “monasteries.”

Although the training of the Knights of St. John was mainly aimed at making them good fighters—a life not particularly conducive to sanctity—yet the chronicles of the order boast a number of men and women noted for their holiness. To mention a few: Gerard, the Founder, and Raymond du Puy, who have been always revered as Blessed; St. Hugh, Commander of Geneva; the sergeant-at-arms Blessed Gerard Mercati who, however, died as a Franciscan; and the most renowned among the women saints, St. Ubaldescha, St. Toscana and St. Fiora of Beaulieu.[7]

The military and political history of the Order of St. John is an eight-hundred-years-long Odyssey which can be best characterized as the road from Jerusalem to Rome by way of Acre, Rhodes, Malta, and a number of other places, including a curious detour by Russia. The Hospitallers stayed in the Holy Land for almost two centuries, until 1291; they then had their headquarters on the island of Rhodes for another two hundred years (1309-1522), and afterwards transferred to the island of Malta for two centuries and a half (1530-1798), finally moving to Rome in 1834.[8]

In the Palestinian period the Hospitallers fought for the defense of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem; together with the Templars they supplied the best-trained and disciplined troops and, especially in the times of disaster, their forces were the most stable and reliable. During the last forty years of the kingdom the defense of the country rested almost completely upon these two military orders.[9]

In the armies of the Christians in the Holy Land the knights formed a sort of division, composed of between 300 and 500 knights and a number of hired soldiers. This division was sometimes used as a flank, but more often as a vanguard or rear guard. Besides, the knights built and garrisoned an impressive number of fortresses of which the most powerful were Margat and Crac.

Only seven knights of St. John, including the master, survived the fall of Acre in 1291. They found asylum on the island of Cyprus. During their years there, the knights began to build up a naval force. With this they conquered the island of Rhodes, where they were firmly established in 1308. Thus they became known as Knights of Rhodes.[10]

At Rhodes the knights reached the peak of power and influence, never quite attained in the same measure before or after. And this is all the more remarkable because the number of knights on the island never exceeded three hundred. By building enormous fortifications they made the island an almost impregnable bastion against the attacks of the Mamelukes of Egypt and Syria and the Turks of Constantinople. With their naval power they started a new type of warfare against the old enemies. In Rhodes the knights became a sovereign power like the sea republics of Italy or the Hanseatic cities in Germany.[11] Their navy flew its own flag, a white cross on a red field, they minted their own money, they concluded treaties with other sovereign states on the basis of equality and they had their diplomatic representatives at many courts. After repulsing numerous attacks, the knights finally were overwhelmed by a strong expeditionary force under Sultan Soliman I and capitulated Dec. 21, 1522.

Once again the remaining knights drifted around in search of a dwelling place; they established their capital successively in Crete, Messina, Baia, Viterbo, and Nizza. Finally, on March 24, 1530, they obtained from Emperor Charles V, in his capacity as king of Sicily, the island of Malta and adjacent islands as a “perpetual and free feud.” The only obligation attached to this transfer was that the knights should annually, on the feast of All Saints, offer a falcon or a hawk to the King of Sicily, whoever he might be. Thus the Order of Saint John became a feudatory of the kingdom of Sicily territorially, but as a religious order it continued dependent on the authority of the Holy See. From their key position in the Mediterranean, the knights watched the movements of the Turkish fleet and engaged in battle the corsairs from Tripoli and the other Barbary States. Twice a year the order equipped a “caravan,” namely a naval expedition, to ferret out pirates along the coastline of the Mediterranean. As in Rhodes, in Malta the knights sustained several attacks from the Turks, the most memorable of which was the “Great Siege” (1565). The knights were victorious on all occasions. However, in the eighteenth century a decline in spirit and in discipline set in. What the Turks failed to achieve, Napoleon did; on his way to Egypt, without striking a blow he captured the fortress of Malta, believed to be impregnable (June 12, 1798). The weak Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch soon resigned and the order established a provisional headquarters at Trieste which at the time was under Austria.

A peculiar situation then arose: an orthodox emperor made himself Grand Master of this thoroughly Catholic Order of St. John. Paul I of Russia, who for some time had in mind using the Hospitallers and their island bastion for political purposes, had managed to establish a grand priory in Russia. The Russian knights in 1798 elected Paul as Grand Master, but he died in 1801 without being able to do anything on behalf of the order. With England taking Malta from the French in 1800, the old capital was lost for good.

Upon the loss of Malta the order reached the lowest point in all its glorious history. The order’s headquarters shifted from Messina to Catania to Ferrara and finally in 1834 they were established in Rome. The knights had one more grand master after Paul I, but when he died in 1805, the Pope allowed them only to elect lieutenant grand masters who were to be ratified by him. This state of affairs continued for seventy-four years until Leo XIII by a Bull of March 29, 1879, re-established the office of grand master with headquarters in Rome.[12]

From then on the order regained part of its old vitality. It had lost its territorial sovereignty, military activities had ceased, but it now reverted to its original objective: _obsequium pauperum_. The order became again a welfare and charity organization. Looking back over its long history one might say that at first its master was the superintendent of a hospital, then he became a commanding army general (to which office he subsequently added that of an admiral), and in this age the grand master has become the president of an international Catholic White Cross which at times collaborates with the international Red Cross.

The order has built and maintains an impressive number of hospitals—in Italy alone there are 19 with a total of 5,290 beds; it takes care of a number of children’s homes, child centers and trade schools for abandoned children. During the two world wars, the order established military hospitals and had a number of ambulance trains and airplanes for the transport of wounded soldiers; in catastrophes such as earthquakes or other disasters it provides food and medical help. It also extends financial and medical assistance to the Catholic foreign missions.[13]

Expenses involved in these activities are paid out of the revenues from the remaining properties of the order and the contributions of its members throughout the world.

The present organization of the Order of Malta consists of three large categories, each subdivided into a number of ranks.[14] They are the Knights of Justice, who take the three monastic vows and form the strictly religious nucleus of the order; the Knights of Honour and Devotion who are required to furnish proof of ancient nobility; the Knights of Magistral Grace who are affiliated to the order and are somewhat reminiscent of the old class of sergeants-at-arms. Besides, there are three other groups: the Chaplains, Dames of Honour and Devotion, and the Donates. The grand master may bestow on persons outside the order the Cross of Merit of the Order of Malta, an honour which may be conferred also on non-Catholics and consists of five classes.

The Order of Malta is divided into five grand priories and fourteen national associations, including the “Association of Master Knights of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in the United States of America.” Those knights who do not belong to any of the priories or associations depend directly on the grand master and are called _Knights in Gremio Religionis_.[15]

The Order of St. John, although deprived of its territory, retains its sovereign character. The palace of the grand master and the other houses in Rome are extra-territorial, that is to say enjoy the same privilege as that accorded to the other foreign embassies and legations; the order issues its own diplomatic passports and entertains diplomatic missions and legations in several countries.[16]

Recently the legal status of the Order of Malta in the Church has been defined with greater precision. Pope Pius XII, on Dec. 10, 1951, appointed a special tribunal of five cardinals, presided over by the Dean of the Sacred College, Cardinal Eugene Tisserant, in order to determine the nature of the order and the extent of its competence both as a sovereign and as a religious institution, as well as its relationship to the Holy See. After long discussions the commission of cardinals on Jan. 24, 1953, gave the following unanimous verdict:[17]

The Order of Malta is a sovereign order, inasmuch as it enjoys certain prerogatives which, according to the principles of international law, are proper to sovereignty. These rights have been recognized by the Holy See and a number of states. However, these rights do not comprise all the powers and prerogatives that belong to sovereign states in the full sense of the word.

Insofar as the Order of Malta is composed of knights and chaplains, it is a “religio” and more precisely a religious order, approved by the Holy See, according to the _Codex juris canonici_, Can. 487 and 488, nn. 1 and 2. The purpose of this order is, besides the sanctification of its members, also the pursuit of religious objectives, charity, and welfare work.

The sovereign and the religious character of the order are intimately related, inasmuch as the former serves to attain the objectives of the order as a religious institution and its development in the world.

The Order of Malta depends on the Holy See and, as a religious order, on the Sacred Congregation of Religious.

Those persons who have obtained marks of distinction from the order and the associations of these persons depend on the order, and, through it, on the Holy See.

Questions concerning the institution’s character as a sovereign order are treated by the Secretariat of State of His Holiness. Those of a mixed nature are received by the Sacred Congregation of Religious in accord with the Secretariat of State.

The present decisions do not interfere with the order’s acquired rights, customs and privileges which the Popes have granted or recognized, inasfar as they are still in force according to the norms of canon law[18] and the order’s own constitutions.[19]

THE ORDER OF THE TEUTONIC KNIGHTS

The origin of the Order of the Teutonic Knights was practically the same as that of the Order of Saint John: the Teutonic Order sprang from a fraternity of lay men engaged in charitable work. A number of crusaders from Bremen and Lübeck in Germany, under the leadership of a certain Meister Sigebrand, operated a field hospital during the dreadful winter of the Siege of Acre (1190 A.D.), when the Christian army through famine and sickness was almost decimated. Pope Clement III, recognizing the remarkable services of the confraternity, gave it his approbation in 1191; the first Superior of this religious congregation was Conrad, chaplain of Fredrick of Swabia. During the next eight years a number of German knights joined, and the community gradually assumed the character of a military order of knighthood, becoming known as the Teutonic Knights of the Hospital of Saint Mary of Jerusalem. The Pope approved the Order in 1199 with Henry Walpott of Bossenheim as first master. The new order was organized along the same lines as the Hospitallers; it comprised professed knights, priests and lay brothers and its purpose was to care for the poor and the sick as well as to wage war against the foes of Christendom. Like the Hospitallers, the knights followed the Augustinian rule, but whereas the former wore a black mantle with a white cross, the Teutonic Knights adopted a white mantle with a black cross. Only German candidates were eligible for the new order, which rapidly grew in numbers and influence. This may have been due to the fact that the German knights, always resentful of the predominantly Latin influence in the existing military orders, were only too happy to have an organization of their own and thus gave it strong support. The fourth Master, Hermann of Salza (1210-1239), shifted the military activities of his order from Palestine, first to Hungary, and then to the northeastern frontier of Germany, where the order engaged in fighting the heathen Prussians. But although the Knights operated mainly in Prussia, their general headquarters still continued at Acre, until the latter fell in 1291, after which they transferred to Venice. Finally, in 1309, the seat of the order was established in the famous fortress of Marienburg in Prussia.[20]

In 1236 the Teutonic Order absorbed the remnants of the Brothers of the Sword, an order of knighthood which had been founded some thirty-four years earlier for the purpose of subjugating and christianizing the peoples of the Baltic countries of Livonia, Lettonia and Esthonia (now known as Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia).

Thus the Teutonic Knights prevailed in these countries. By donations and conquest the knights gradually increased their holdings, until they included large parts of Prussia, Kurland and Lithuania. Although these followers of Christ used the unorthodox methods of fire and sword for the propagation of the faith, it cannot be denied that they greatly contributed to the pacification and civilization of the peoples under their jurisdiction. They encouraged cultivation of the land and built a great number of towns and villages, providing each with a church. In some places they erected schools and, faithful to the original purpose of their order, they established hundreds of hospitals and hospices. In this respect it is worthy of note that the Teutonic Knights were the first to establish a mental hospital (Dollhaus) in Germany, namely at Elbig in 1316. The knights also proved to be clever businessmen inasmuch as they sponsored profitable markets in foreign countries for the produce of their land.

For more than a century after the final subjugation of the Prussians in 1283, the Teutonic Knights were the undisputed rulers of a vast and well-organized domain that stretched along the coast of the Baltic Sea, from the river Oder to Leningrad. The grand master, residing in his fortified convent of Marienburg and then from 1457 on at Königsburg, was _de jure et de facto_ a sovereign, equal to the other princes of the Empire, and only nominally subordinate to the Emperor. But in the fifteenth century decline set in. The first blow was struck in 1410, when in the battle of Tannenberg the Knights were overthrown by the Polish troops. In 1525 the Order received the _coup de grâce_; its grand master Albrecht of Brandenburg embraced the Protestant religion, secularized the possessions of the Order in East Prussia which once he had vowed to protect, and styled himself Duke of Prussia.[21] When later this duchy was united with Brandenburg, the foundations were laid for the kingdom of Prussia and eventually for the German Reich of the Hohenzollerns. In 1561, when Gotthard Kettler, “Landmeister” of Livonia, followed Albrecht’s apostasy, the Teutonic Order ceased to be a sovereign power. However, the loss of sovereignty did not mean the end of the Teutonic Order, for—although a skeleton of its former glory—it still possessed large estates and strongholds in Western Germany. (During the Reformation the Teutonic Knights in the Netherlands separated themselves from their Catholic brethren. This Protestant branch was suppressed by Napoleon but was re-established at the time of the Restoration and is known as the bailiwick of Utrecht.) After the loss of Prussia the general head of the order became known as “Hoch-und Deutsch Meister” (Grand-and Teutonic Master). From 1590 on, these grand masters were almost without exception members of the imperial house of Hapsburg, which meant that the former independent Teutonic Order became more and more an appendix of the Austrian crown. Nevertheless, the order was not completely secularized. True, community life soon ceased to exist, but the knights still took religious vows. The next blow was dealt by Napoleon, who suppressed the Teutonic Order in Germany and confiscated its possessions. The order was now restricted to the confines of the Austrian empire. Around 1839, attempts were made to revive the languishing order by dedicating its members—priests and professed knights—to its original objective, namely ambulance service and works of charity. Besides, the professed knights, instead of fighting the infidels, took upon themselves the obligation of serving as officers in the Austrian army.

The question of profession was settled by a papal indult in 1886 (_Neminem profecto latet_, March 16, 1886), according to which the knights of the Teutonic Order were to take simple perpetual vows which, however, included the same rights and obligations as solemn vows.

When the Hapsburg dynasty fell after the first World War, only a handful of knights were left. On April 30, 1923, the grand master Eugene, Archduke of Hapsburg-Lothringen, commander in chief of the Austrian forces on the Italian front in World War I, resigned and was succeeded by Bishop Norbert Klein.

In 1929 a radical change took place in the entire structure of the order. The erstwhile military order of the Teutonic Knights was transformed into a religious community of priests and lay-brothers with solemn vows similar to any other religious congregation in the Catholic Church. It assumed the title of _Ordo_ _Teutonicus Sanctae Mariae in Jerusalem_ (officially designated by the initials O.T.) and is listed in the _Annuario pontificio_ as a mendicant order. This new community—with a very old past—devotes itself to parish work and works of charity; it is divided into five provinces (Austria, Bavaria, Italy, Yugoslavia and the practically extinct province of Czechoslovakia) with a total membership of 93, of whom 70 are priests. (See the _Catalogus ordinis teutonici_, Jan. 1, 1950). A congregation of sisters is affiliated to the Order, also divided into five provinces with a total membership of 572, mostly dedicated to hospital work.

The superior general has the old title of Grand Master (Hochmeister, Supremus Magister); he has abbatial rank and enjoys the privilege of the _pileolus violaceus_. So far his residence is in Vienna, Austria. The professed knights of the old guard who were still alive when the transformation was effected became members of the new outfit with the title of Ordensritter (Knights of the Order). Since the last grand master, Eugene of Hapsburg, died in January, 1955, only one of the old knights is left. It is all that remained of an order which at one time counted its knights by the hundreds. However, as a remnant of the old prerogatives, the new Teutonic Order has the right to bestow knighthood on eminent Catholic men, either lay or clerical, and on great benefactors of the order. These honorary knights are called _familiares_. Before 1952 the order had made use of this privilege in only three cases.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD