Coat of arms of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem on a tower of Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes. The personal coat of arms of the Grand Master would be shown alongside the order's coat of arms in 14th to 15th centuries. Beginning in the mid-15th century, the Grand Master would quarter the order's coat of arms with his own.
"The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (Latin: Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller or the Order of Saint John, was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headquartered in the Kingdom of Jerusalem until 1291, on the island of Rhodes from 1310 until 1522, in Malta from 1530 until 1798 and at Saint Petersburg from 1799 until 1801. Today several organizations continue the Hospitaller tradition, most importantly the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
The Hospitallers arose in the early 11th century, at the time of the great monastic reformation, as a group of individuals associated with an Amalfitan hospital in the Muristan district of Jerusalem, dedicated to John the Baptist and founded around 1023 by Gerard Thom to provide care for sick, poor or injured pilgrims coming to the Holy Land. Some scholars, however, consider that the Amalfitan order and hospital were different from Gerard Thom's order and its hospital.
After the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade, the organisation became a military religious order under its own papal charter, charged with the care and defence of the Holy Land. Following the conquest of the Holy Land by Islamic forces, the knights operated from Rhodes, over which they were sovereign, and later from Malta, where they administered a vassal state under the Spanish viceroy of Sicily. The Hospitallers were one of the smallest groups to briefly colonise parts of the Americas: they acquired four Caribbean islands in the mid-17th century, which they turned over to France in the 1660s.
The knights became divided during the Protestant Reformation, when rich commanderies of the order in northern Germany and the Netherlands became Protestant and largely separated from the Roman Catholic main stem, remaining separate to this day, although ecumenical relations between the descendant chivalric orders are amicable. The order was suppressed in England, Denmark, as well as in some other parts of northern Europe, and it was further damaged by Napoleon's capture of Malta in 1798, following which it became dispersed throughout Europe."
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"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).
After the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1291 (the city of Jerusalem had fallen in 1187), the Knights were confined to the County of Tripoli and, when Acre was captured 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 Andronicus and his Turkish auxiliaries. In the 14th century, there were several other battles in which they fought.
In 1374, the Knights took over the defence of Smyrna, conquered by a crusade in 1344. They held it until it was besieged and taken by Timur in 1402.
On Rhodes the Hospitallers 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 Sultan of Egypt 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.
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 (200,000 in other sources). 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."
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Oikósimo tou Tágmatos tou Agíou Ioánnou tis Ierousalím se énan pýrgo tou Megálou Didaskálou ton Ippotón tis Ródou. To prosopikó émvlima tou Megálou Didaskálou tha emfanízetai parállila me to émvlima tis táxis tou 14ou éos 15o aióna. Archízontas sta mésa tou 15ou aióna, o Megálos Didáskalos tha termátise to émvlimá tou me ti dikí tou.
"Ioannítes Ippótes eínai i synekdochikí onomasía tou Ordo Hospitalis Sancti Johannis Hierosolymitani (latin., katá léxin : «Tágma tou Xenóna tou Agíou Ioánni tou Ierosolymíti), enós romaiokatholikoú monachikoú-ippotikoú tágmatos, pou idrýthike ton 12o aióna sta plaísia tis A? Stavroforías.
Oi katavolés tou Tágmatos anágontai ston 11o aióna me tin enkatástasi Amalfitanón empóron stin Ierousalím kai stin metépeita ídrysi xenodocheíon-nosokomeíon stous Agíous Tópous. Ópos kai oi Na?tes, anélave metá tin A? Stavroforía kai stratiotikó péran tou iatrikoú tou rólou, me próti efthýni tin períthalpsi ton arróston proskynitón sta nosokomeía tou Tágmatos ki épeita ton pólemo katá ton Sarakinón.
To Tágma idrýthike me papikí voúla to 1113. Édrase stous Agíous Tópous méchri tin katálysi ton stavroforikón kratón kai sti synécheia enkatastáthike stin Ródo (1309). I ptósi ton Naïtón (1314) ítan énas apó tous parágontes pou eníschysan tous Ioannítes, oi opoíoi exelíchthikan se naftikí dýnami kai proaspistés tis Christianosýnis apénanti stous Moamethanoús. Stin Ródo to Tágma antistáthike epitychós stin poliorkía tou Moámeth V? kai parémeine ekeí méchri to 1523 opóte ekdióchthike apó tous Othomanoús. To 1530 enkatastáthike stin Málta. Apó tis koryfaíes stigmés tou Tágmatos ítan i apókrousi tis Othomanikís epíthesis to 1565 kai i symmetochí tou stin navmachía tis Nafpáktou to 1571.
To 1798 o stratigós Napoléon A? Vonapártis katélave tin Málta kai i edafikí kyriarchía tou Tágmatos katalýthike. Oi ippótes diaskorpístikan kai o tsáros tis Rosías Pávlos A? anélave tin prostasía enós tmímatos tou Tágmatos, to opoío enkatastáthike oristiká stin Rómi to 1834 ascholoúmeno me filanthropiká érga. To Tágma metexelíchthike kai yfístatai pléon os Supremus Ordo Militaris Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani Rhodius et Melitensis (Kyríarcho Stratiotikó Tágma tou Nosokomeíou tou Agíou Ioánni tis Ierousalím, tis Ródou kai tis Máltas).".
PIGI - (sýndesmos epískepsis)
"To Monastikó Krátos ton Ippotón tis Ródou ypírxe edafikí ontótita i opoía vriskótan ypó ton élencho ton Ioannitón Ippotón, oi opoíoi enkatastáthikan sto nisí tis Ródou, ópou kai parémeinan gia diástima 217 etón (1305-1522). Proérchontan apó tin Palaistíni kai tin Kýpro, enó exartióntan apó ton Pápa. O prótos Mégas Mágistros ítan o Gállos Foulk nte Vilaré (1305-1319)"
PIGI - (sýndesmos epískepsis)