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Updated: October 4, 2025
I would still serve the Cross; but my vow has been, when my young lord and lady should need me no more, to take the Cross of St. John with the Hospitaliers." "As a lay brother? Bethink thee," said Fulk of Anjou. "Noble blood is needed for a Knight of the Order."
These' knights were first called Knights Hospitaliers of St. John of Jerusalem, then Knights of Rhodes; and in the year 1530, Knights of Malta, the Emperor Charles V. having granted them that island, upon condition of their defending his island of Sicily against the Turks, which they effectually did.
In a court opposite the college is a very curious square tower of the 12th century, called la Tour Bichat, or la Tour de St. Jean-de-Latran; it is all that is remaining of the Hall of Knights Hospitaliers, established in 1171, afterwards called Chevaliers de Malte.
Here were black Benedictines, there white Augustinians clustered round the sleek mules of their abbots; there scornful dark Templars, in their black and white, sowed the seeds of hatred against their order, and scarlet Hospitaliers looked bright and friendly even while repelling the jostling of the crowd.
The Sultan Malek Seraf was concentrating his forces on it; all the unwarlike inhabitants had been sent away; and the Knights of the two Orders, with the King of Cyprus and his troops, had shut themselves up for their last resistance when among the mercenaries, who enrolled themselves in the pay of the Hospitaliers, came a sunburnt warrior, who had evidently had long experience of Eastern warfare, though his speech was English, French, or Provencal, according to the person who addressed him.
John, or Hospitaliers, an order of sworn brethren who had arisen at the time of the Crusades. At first they had been merely monks, who kept open house for the reception of the poor penniless pilgrims who arrived at Jerusalem in need of shelter, and often of nursing and healing.
The Hospital lay beyond the walls, but the Marshes of Moorfields that protected them were not passable without a long circuit; and the fortified gates stood open at Temple Bar, where the Hospitaliers, looking towards the Round Church and stately buildings of the Preceptory, saluted the white-cloaked figures moving about it, with courtesy grim and distant in all but Sir Robert Darcy, who could not even hate a Templar, a creature to the ordinary Hospitalier far more detestable than a Saracen.
Acclamations of delight greeted the appearance of the scarlet-mantled Hospitaliers, such as Richard had often heard in his boyhood, when riding in his father's train, but far less frequently since he had been a part of the Prince's retinue.
A soothing word or gentle excuse from the kind-hearted Princess were the only gleams of comfort that rendered the present state of things endurable. Just after Christmas arrived a vessel with reinforcements from home. Among them came a small body of Hospitaliers, with the novice Raynal at their head, now a full-blown knight, in dazzling scarlet and white, as Sir Reginald Ferrers.
Good service in all their three capacities had been done by the Order as long as the Crusaders were able to keep a footing in the Holy Land; but they were driven back step by step, and at last, in 1291, their last stronghold at Acre was taken, after much desperate fighting, and the remnant of the Hospitaliers sailed away to the isle of Cyprus, where, after a few years, they recruited their forces, and, in 1307, captured the island of Rhodes, which had been a nest of Greek and Mahometan pirates.
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