KNIGHTS OF JERUSALEM: THE CRUSADING ORDER OF HOSPITALLERS, 1100-1565
DAVID NICOLLE
OSPREY PUBLISHERS, 2008
HARDCOVER, 224 PAGES, $25.95, APPENDICES, GLOSSARY, ILLUSTRATIONS
To some they were the "Chosen Knights of Christ"; to others, they were simply "pirates bearing crosses," the Knights Hospitaller (also known as the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and Malta, Order of St. John, Knights of Malta, and Chevaliers of Malta; French: Ordre des Hospitaliers) was a Christian organization that began as an Amalfitan hospital founded in Jerusalem in 1018 to provide care for poor, sick, or injured pilgrims to the Holy Land. After the Western Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade, it became a religious/military order under its own charter, and was charged with the care and defense of the Holy Land. The Hospitallers evolved into one of the great military forces of the Crusades, fighting the Islamic enemy alongside their brothers and rivals, the Templers. After the fall of the Holy Land, the Order moved to Rhodes and pursued a naval crusade, regarded by the Ottomans and Venetians as simple high-seas pirates. Eventually they wound up on Malta, where they remained for more than 250 years, surviving the famous great siege of 1565, until finally ousted by Napoleon in 1798. When the Knights ceased to be associated with any one place, it gave rise to successors in existence until the present including the Sovereign Order of Malta. The KNIGHTS OF JERUSALEM: THE CRUSADING ORDER OF HOSPITALLERS, 1100-1565 immerses the reader in the lives of these holy warriors, not only giving a history of the order, but delving into their techniques for recruitment and training, and even their battlefield tactics. This book is intended as an introduction to the Order for academics working in other fields, as well as the interested general reader. It also considers the Order's activities away from the frontiers of Christendom: its economic activities and its relations with patrons and rulers throughout Europe, as well as its hospital work and its religious life. It's a fascinating story, and KNIGHTS OF JERUSALEM: THE CRUSADING ORDER OF HOSPITALLERS 1100-1565 wraps it up with a satisfying epilogue: the Hospitallers have survived to this day as a charitable order, having returned to their original mission: caring for the sick.
Lt. Colonel Robert A. Lynn, Florida Guard
Orlando, Florida
