Negotiation and warfare: The Hospitallers of Rhodes around and after the Fall of Constantinople (1426–1480)
By Pierre Bonneaud
Ordines Militares: Yearbook for the Study of the Military Orders, Vol. 17 (2012)
Introduction: At the beginning of the 14th century, the Order of the Hospital, unlike the Temple, had managed to safeguard its image as a religious military order still able to pursue its mission to fight against the enemies of the Christian faith. After its departure from Acre in 1291 and its conquest of Rhodes and several Dodecanese islands in 1310, it had received the full backing of Pope Clement V and been given the patrimony of the abolished Temple. The Pope had been convinced by Master Foulques de Vilaret that Rhodes would provide the Christian faith with a military base able to face the Turks of Anatolia and the Mamluks of Egypt and to ultimately recover Jerusalem. As both Templars and Hospitallers had been severely and rather unfairly criticised for their failure to defeat the Moslems in Palestine the Order was bound to prove that it had still the will and the capacity to do the job.
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During the fourteenth century, the Hospitaller fleet, which generally amounted to fewer than ten vessels (including ships hired by the Order or privately owned by Hospitaller brethren), took part in several attacks against the Turkish emirates of Anatolia, and in various leagues and campaigns with the Papacy and Venice in 1334 and 1344. In 1365 four Hospitaller galleys joined the crusading fleet of King Pierre I of Cyprus who sailed from Rhodes, raided the Delta coasts of Egypt and sacked Alexandria. On land, they had been entrusted by the Pope with garrisoning the harbour castle of Smyrna which was captured in 1344, but lost in 1402 when Timur invaded Anatolia and Syria. Seven years later, around 1402, the Hospital built the castle of St Peter, an impressive fortress on the former site of Halicarnassus on Turkish soil, facing the Hospitallers’ island of Cos. The Order also tried rather unsuccessfully to settle in continental Greece, that is in Achaea and in the Peloponnese where they fought to defend Corinth against the Ottomans. Overall, while the Hospital conducted its military and mostly naval activities against the Moslems it was not seriously threatened in return by its enemies.
Negotiation and warfare: The Hospitallers of Rhodes around and after the Fall of Constantinople (1426–1480)
By Pierre Bonneaud
Ordines Militares: Yearbook for the Study of the Military Orders, Vol. 17 (2012)
Introduction: At the beginning of the 14th century, the Order of the Hospital, unlike the Temple, had managed to safeguard its image as a religious military order still able to pursue its mission to fight against the enemies of the Christian faith. After its departure from Acre in 1291 and its conquest of Rhodes and several Dodecanese islands in 1310, it had received the full backing of Pope Clement V and been given the patrimony of the abolished Temple. The Pope had been convinced by Master Foulques de Vilaret that Rhodes would provide the Christian faith with a military base able to face the Turks of Anatolia and the Mamluks of Egypt and to ultimately recover Jerusalem. As both Templars and Hospitallers had been severely and rather unfairly criticised for their failure to defeat the Moslems in Palestine the Order was bound to prove that it had still the will and the capacity to do the job.
During the fourteenth century, the Hospitaller fleet, which generally amounted to fewer than ten vessels (including ships hired by the Order or privately owned by Hospitaller brethren), took part in several attacks against the Turkish emirates of Anatolia, and in various leagues and campaigns with the Papacy and Venice in 1334 and 1344. In 1365 four Hospitaller galleys joined the crusading fleet of King Pierre I of Cyprus who sailed from Rhodes, raided the Delta coasts of Egypt and sacked Alexandria. On land, they had been entrusted by the Pope with garrisoning the harbour castle of Smyrna which was captured in 1344, but lost in 1402 when Timur invaded Anatolia and Syria. Seven years later, around 1402, the Hospital built the castle of St Peter, an impressive fortress on the former site of Halicarnassus on Turkish soil, facing the Hospitallers’ island of Cos. The Order also tried rather unsuccessfully to settle in continental Greece, that is in Achaea and in the Peloponnese where they fought to defend Corinth against the Ottomans. Overall, while the Hospital conducted its military and mostly naval activities against the Moslems it was not seriously threatened in return by its enemies.
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