The history of the Knights Hospitaller in the Levant is concerned with the early years of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, the Knights Hospitaller, through 1309. The Order was formed in the later part of the eleventh century and played a major role in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, in particular, the Crusades. This lasted until the West was expelled from the Holy Land, with the Order conquering Rhodes in the early fourteenth century. Among the most important internal events of the early years of the kingdom were the foundation of the Military Orders, which included the Hospitallers, the Knights Templar and the Teutonic Order. Unlike the Hospitallers' beginnings as a benevolent organization, the Templars and Teutonic knights began with a military mission. These three major Orders would play a major role in the military activities of the kingdom, sometimes cooperatively, sometimes not. On the battlefield they frequently shared among them the most important tactical roles, the vanguard and rear-guard.
At the time of the Crusaders' capture of Jerusalem in 1099, the master or regent of the Hospitallers was a certain Gerard who had helped found an Amalfitan hospital around 1070. The Hospitallers were formally recognized by the pope in 1113. Ruling the Hospitallers after 1120, Gerard's successor Raymond du Puy decided that it was not enough for his Order to guide and entertain pilgrims, that it must also be ready to fight to keep the pilgrims' routes open. The distinctive badge of the Knights Hospitaller was the white cross that they wore on their tunics over their armour, and they were a major force in the Holy Land throughout the West's entire enterprise there. The Order continues to this day in various guises, including the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
The histories of the Order began with the original Latin sources of the First Crusade and related charters and papal bulls concerning the early Kingdom of Jerusalem. In the later twelfth century, William of Tyre offered an account of the Hospitallers, some of which has been verified, some of which was the fantastical story known as the Miracula. By the end of the thirteenth century, an Italian nobleman published the first real Hospitaller history, although the legends of the Miracula continued to be promulgated. The definitive history of the Order was first written by French historian Joseph Delaville Le Roulx in the late nineteenth century. The history of the Hospitallers in the Holy Land through the early fourteenth century is closely intertwined with that of the Crusades in the Levant.
Early history The first to write officially of the history of the Knights Hospitaller was William of Santo Stefano, a Hospitaller and historian who preserved much of the early records of the Order between 1278 and 1303. William knew of two foundational narratives of the Hospitallers. The first was the popular story of beginnings of the Hospital before the time of Christ known as the Miracula. The second account was one recorded by the twelfth-century archbishop and historian William of Tyre and, while recognizing earlier hospices in Jerusalem, set the date of the founding of the Hospital in the eleventh century by a group of merchants from Amalfi.
The Miracula legend The legendary Miracula attempted to link the origin of the Order to the events of the Roman occupation of the Holy Land and the life of Christ.Levy, B. J. (1987). The Hospitallers' "Riwle" (Miracula et regula hospitalis sancti Johannis Jerosolimitani). Speculum, 62(3), 723–724. This was officially promulgated by the Order's second Grand Master Raymond du Puy in his Riwle, a tale lasting into the later thirteenth century. This legendary account begins before the time of Christ with a King Antiochus, the Greek occupier of Jerusalem in the second century BC. Antiochus wanted to punish Menelaus, a high priest of the Jews who had violated the Tomb of David, but divine intervention prevented this and he built a hospital instead. This hospital was supported by alms from Judas Maccabeus and later entrusted to Zacharias, father of John the Baptist, one of its first masters. His successor, known only as Julian the Roman, was guardian when Christ himself visited the hospital, which later sheltered the Virgin Mary and the apostles during the Passion. Christ reappeared here after the Resurrection, doubted by Saint Thomas here, the false converts Ananais and Sapphira were struck down, and the Seven Deacons were elected. Mary lived there for three years, and from there ascended into Heaven.
Conceived prior to the conquest of Jerusalem in 1187 by Saladin, the Miracula was promulgated as gospel for many years afterwards by popes and kings. Through the late 13th century, this legend continued to be promoted to raise funds. Some even claiming that Saint Stephen Protomartyr had been the first Master and attributed fantastical feats to actual early Grand Masters. The legend was repeatedly rewritten between the 13th and 15th centuries, but was debunked thanks to the efforts of William of Santo Stefano.
The medieval accounts of the Hospital The medieval legend of the Hospital beginning in the days of the Maccabees contains some elements of truth. There is some evidence of an early hospice destroyed when the Roman emperor Titus conquered Jerusalem in AD 70. In the historical record, there is also an earlier Hospitale Hierosolymitanum, a hospital that had existed in Jerusalem ever since the early days of Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In 603, pope Gregory I commissioned the abbot Probus, originally from Ravenna and previously Gregory's emissary at the Lombard court, to build a hospital in Jerusalem. The resulting bimaristan––Persian for hospital––was built at Muristan in the Christian Quarter of the Old City to treat and care for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land.
In 800, Charlemagne enlarged Probus' hospital and added a library to it, lasting for two centuries. The monks responsible for the service of the church and the hospice belonged to the Order of Saint Benedict. These monks requested a solution to a dogmatic controversy from pope Leo lll, which was given by the Council of Aix la Chapelle in 809. Charlemagne then obtained protections from Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid with a tax collected from pilgrims. This arrangement was continued by successive emperors and caliphs. As late as the rule of Louis II of Italy, diplomatic relations continued with the sons of al-Rashid, and the situation of the Christians remained stable in Palestine. This is verified from a letter read at the Eighth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 869 from Theodosius of Jerusalem to Ignatios of Constantinople that states: "The Muslims show much kindness toward us, giving us permission to build our churches and prohibiting our behavior, by acting justly and inflicting injury or violence on us in no way." About that same time, the Frankish pilgrim Bernard the Monk visited Jerusalem and reported the existence of the hospice and the church near the Holy Sepulchre, at the foot of the hill, reporting no incidents with the Muslims. Bernard reported that the hospice was associated with a church devoted to St. Mary, although not necessarily the eleventh century church described below.
The tenth century was a turbulent one in the Holy Land, but Christians, both local and those at pilgrimage, were relatively safe. The Byzantine campaigns led by Nikephoros II Phokas and John I Tzimiskes of 968–975 subjugated Syria to the Greek empire. Jerusalem was occupied in 970 by the Egyptian Fatimid Caliphate. However, these disturbances did not adversely affect the Latin establishments in the Holy Land, reflected in the important donation in 993 by Hugh the Great, margrave of Tuscany, to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and to the monastery of the Church of Jerusalem.
Destruction and restoration of the Holy Sepulchre By the beginning of the eleventh century, the Christians of the Holy Land were under the dominion of the Fatimids, enjoying considerable autonomy. Their persecution began under the reign of al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, the son of a Christian mother and brought up largely by Christians. In 1004, he began his rebellion against his early influences, passing ordinances against the Christians, confiscating Church property, having mosques built atop of churches, and ultimately burning the churches themselves. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was a primary target of the sultan's rage. On 18 October 1009, al-Hakim ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and its associated buildings. Processions were prohibited, and a few years later nearly all of the convents and churches in Palestine were said to have been destroyed or confiscated. The Basilica of Bethlehem was the only one spared.Gibb, Hamilton A. R. (1969). "The Caliphate and the Arab States ". In Setton, A History of the Crusades: Volume I. pp. 81–98.
Beginning in 1012, al-Hakim began allowing Christians and Jews to return to their faith and rebuild their ruined houses of worship. From the middle of the twelfth century, the weakness of Charlemagne's successors had resulted in the care of protecting the Christians in the Holy Land passing to the Byzantine emperors. After the death of al-Hakim in 1021, his son and successor Ali az-Zahir allowed the reconstruction of the Holy Sepulchre to commence and the role of protectorate was officially transferred to the Byzantines. Christian pilgrimage began again in earnest, reaching a fever pitch in 1033, believed to be the thousandth anniversary of the crucifixion. It wasn't until 1042 that the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos undertook to reconstruct the church, and pilgrim protections were exercised by the emperor's forces. In the year 1065, Easter fell on the same date as it had in AD 33, and pilgrimage was at its height. The situation of the Christians were not significantly threatened during this period, as pilgrimages and donations continued, especially from England. Interactions between the churches of Jerusalem and the Constantinople remained active. This continued unabated until the capture of Jerusalem in 1073 by the Seljuk Turks under Atsiz ibn Uwaq. The resulting treatment of pilgrims was a major impetus to the call to crusade by pope Urban II in 1095.
The Amalfitans The account of William of Tyre begins in the eleventh century and has been confirmed in its general structure by other contemporaneous sources. It is clear that merchants from Amalfi, struck by the precarious situation of the Christians in the Holy Land, were the catalyst behind the hospital. These merchants obtained from the Fatimids, with whom they were in frequent commercial relations, permission for the Latins to establish a church and a hospice in Jerusalem. The time at which this concession was granted has been difficult to specify, with early chroniclers of the First Crusade giving different dates. Ekkehard of Aura stated that the Hospital never ceased to exist in Jerusalem. William of Tyre placed the date at 1023 with the patron saint John the Almoner, the charitable seventh-century patriarch of Alexandria. Tyre's account was supported by the anonymous Historia belli sacri, and represents a belief that lasted into the early 20th century. Sicard of Cremona reported the date as 1086.