Order of Hospitallers

With the need to recover the Holy Land and protect the pilgrims who went there, some organizations known as orders, whose task was both to protect the pilgrimage routes and their passers-by, as well as the territories of the Christian kingdoms in the Holy Land, as well as to expand them as far as possible, and to fight against the infidels.

The Order of the Hospital is one of those organizations, half chivalrous, half religious.

It was a military order, but like their equals of the Templars, their members, in addition to fighting, also performed monastic tasks among others.

It is founded in 1048, and recognized by the papacy through the corresponding bull in 1113.

It adopts the rule of St. Augustine, and its members wear black with an eight-pointed star embroidered in white.

In 1142 they established in their headquarters in the castle of the Crac de los Caballeros, in present-day Syria, a very powerful fortification considered invulnerable at the time, and which still surprises today with its Excellent

conservation and the imposing of its building (it seems that the war civil in Syria it has not come to cause harm).

A peculiarity of the Order of the Hospital is that, in keeping with its name, it is primarily due to the care of the sick.

After the Muslim reconquest of Jerusalem in 1187, the order moved its headquarters to San Juan de Acre, a city in which - how could it be less - a hospital is being built.

In 1291, and before the Muslim advance, he evacuated San Juan de Acre to move to settle on the island of Cyprus.

In the middle of impact and the catharsis that for the Christian world was the recovery of the Holy Land by the Muslims, the Hospitallers act cerebrally, locating their headquarters as close as possible possible of the lands they have just lost, perhaps thinking both of a possible future recovery as a result of a new crusade, and of being able to put pressure on the powers Muslim.

But it is the Muslim powers, including the emerging Ottoman Empire, that exert pressure, and force to a new change of location, this time to the island of Rhodes, which they will fortify to resist attacks and sieges.

Like the Order of the Temple, the Hospitallers also accumulate land and assets, which they organize in a similar way.

The organization works in a similar way and, in fact, competes with the Temple, reference indispensable of the Christian military orders. Until 1312, the year in which he inherited the assets of the rival order.

In 1312, Pope Clement V abolished the Order of the Temple, naming the Order of the Hospital as heir to its assets.

In 1522 they again had to face a change of headquarters, as the Turkish Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to Rhodes with a formidable army and achieved the surrender of the island.

It is from this fact that the order will land in what will be its definitive location: the island of Malta (1530), which will end up giving the organization its modern name.

And this, despite the fact that it does not exercise direct control over the island.

However, the new headquarters would not be without problems, since in 1565 it was besieged and is about to have to capitulate or be taken, being saved in extremis by a Spanish army coming from Sicily.

The final loss of control of Malta occurred during the Napoleonic wars.

Occupied by French troops, the order was forced out of the island, but upon being liberated by the British, and although the rights of Hospitallers were formally recognized, they were never enforced. practice.

From here, and at the beginning of the 19th century, the order begins with its rapid dissolution.

Despite the fact that in each country, the organization reinvents itself locally, today it is considered the successor of the Order of Hospitallers to the Order of Malta.

Despite its name, it does not claim rights to the island of Malta, and is based in Rome, since it was the papacy (and now the Vatican) who took it under its protection and who exercises its power over it.

The current Order of Malta is subject to international right recognized, with the capacity to issue passports. It even has citizens (a small number, who are its leaders), but not territory.

Therefore, since it does not have territory, it cannot be considered a state clearly.

Photo: Fotolia - jorisvo / alder

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