Sovereign territorial entity of the Knights Hospitaller from 1310 to 1522
The
history of Rhodes under the Order of Saint John
lasted from 1310 until 1522. The island of
Rhodes
was a sovereign territorial entity of the
Knights Hospitaller
who settled on the island from
Palestine
and from
Cyprus
, where they did not exercise temporal power. The first
Grand Master
was the French
Foulques de Villaret
(1305?1319).
History
[
edit
]
After the extinction of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem
with the fall of
Acre
in 1291, the order sought refuge in the
Kingdom of Cyprus
. Finding themselves becoming enmeshed in Cypriot politics, their Master,
Guillaume de Villaret
, created a plan of acquiring their own temporal domain, selecting
Rhodes
to be their new home, part of the
Byzantine Empire
.
Due to repeated disagreements with the
king of Cyprus
Henry II
, which left the privileges of the Knights Hospitaller unaltered,
Foulques de Villaret
made the decision to transfer the Order to the nearby island of Rhodes which was under the formal authority of the
Byzantine emperor
Andronikos II Palaiologos
. He then went to
Avignon
and
Paris
to ask for help and consent from
Pope Clement V
and King
Philip IV of France
. The pontiff approved the project and, without revealing the end of the mission, ordered the sending of new crusaders and in September 1308 a fleet of
Genoese
and
Neapolitan
ships set sail from
Brindisi
. The emperor had rejected the homage proposal made by Villaret and sent reinforcements to defend the island. The Knights repulsed them. On 15 August 1310, after over
four years of campaigning
, the
city of Rhodes
surrendered to the knights. They also gained control of a number of neighbouring islands and the
Anatolian
port of
Halicarnassus
and the island of
Kastellorizo
.
At Rhodes, the resident knights of each langue were headed by a
baili
. The English Grand Prior at the time was
Philip De Thame
, who acquired the estates allocated to the English langue from 1330 to 1358. In 1334, the Knights of Rhodes defeated
Andronikos III Palaiologos
and his Turkish auxiliaries. In the 14th century, there were several other battles in which they fought.
[1]
In 1374, the Knights took over the defence of
Smyrna
, conquered by
a crusade in 1344
.
[2]
They held it until it was
besieged and taken by Timur
in 1402.
[2]
On Rhodes the Hospitallers
[3]
were forced to become a more militarised force, fighting especially with the
Barbary pirates
. They withstood two invasions in the 15th century, one by the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt
Sayf ad-Din Jaqmaq
in 1444 and another by the
Ottoman
Sultan
Mehmed the Conqueror
in 1480 who, after
capturing Constantinople and defeating the Byzantine Empire in 1453
, made the Knights a priority target.
In 1402, they created a stronghold on the peninsula of Halicarnassus (present
Bodrum
). They used pieces of the partially destroyed
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
, one of the
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
, to strengthen their rampart, the
Petronium
.
[4]
In 1522, an entirely new sort of force arrived: 400 ships under the command of Sultan
Suleiman the Magnificent
delivered 100,000 men to the island
[5]
(200,000 in other sources
[6]
). Against this force the Knights, under Grand Master
Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam
, had about 7,000 men-at-arms and their fortifications. The
siege
lasted six months, at the end of which the surviving defeated Hospitallers were allowed to withdraw to
Sicily
. Despite the defeat, both Christians and Muslims seem to have regarded the conduct of
Phillipe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam
as extremely valiant, and the Grand Master was proclaimed a Defender of the Faith by
Pope Adrian VI
.
Gallery
[
edit
]
-
Inn of Auvergne
-
Inn of England
-
Inn of France on the
Street of the Knights
-
Inn of Italy
-
Inn of Provence
-
Inn of Spain
See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Alessio Varisco
Fides et Caritas. Il Beato Gherardo de' Saxo e i 900 anni dell'Ordine di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme di Rodi e di Malta (con catalogo delle decorazioni e gradi del Sovrano Militare Ordine di Malta e dell'Ordine pro Merito Melitensi civile e militare)
, Arcidosso, Effigi, 2013
- Franco Baglioni,
I cavalieri di Rodi
, SEI, Torino 1954.
- Eric Brockman,
The Two Sieges of Rhodes: The Knights of St John at War 1480-1522
, Barnes & Noble 1995.
- Giulio Jacopi,
Lo Spedale dei Cavalieri e il Museo Archeologico di Rodi
, La Libreria dello Stato, Roma 1932.
- Elias Kollias,
I Cavalieri di Rodi. Il palazzo e la citta
, Ekdotike Athenon S.A., Atene 1991.
- Luttrell, Anthony (1975).
"The Hospitallers at Rhodes, 1306?1421"
. In
Setton, Kenneth M.
; Hazard, Harry W. (eds.).
A History of the Crusades, Volume III: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
. Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 278?313.
ISBN
0-299-06670-3
.
- Luttrell, Anthony (1988). "The Hospitallers of Rhodes Confront the Turks, 1306?1421". In Gallagher, P. F. (ed.).
Christians, Jews, and Other Worlds: Patterns of Conflict and Accommodation
. New York and London: University Press of America. pp. 80?116.
- Anthony Lutrell,
The town of Rhodes 1306-1356
, Rodi 2003.
- Vassilia Petzsa-Tzounakou,
Rodi la citta dei Cavalieri
, Bonechi, Firenze 1996.
- Jean-Christian Poutiers,
Rhodes et ses chevaliers
, ESTC, Araya 1989.
- Stephen C Spiteri,
Fortresses of the Knights
, Book Distributors Ltd, 2001
- Carlo Trionfi,
Il segno degli eroi. Storia dell'assedio di Rodi
, Ceschina, Milano 1933.
- Paulette Tsimbouki,
Rodi l'isola dei fiori
, Leonti, Pireo 1963.