The
end of Latin Syria came in 1291 with the fall of Acre, for which
the military orders received much, rather unfair, blame. The
Teutonic Order retreated to Venice and then in 1309 to Prussia.
The Templars were attacked in 1307 and in 1312 were abolished
by the pope. The Hospital, uncomfortable and inactive on Cyprus,
invaded the Greek island of Rhodes in 1306; the inhabitants
surrendered on terms, probably in 1309. The Hospital thus acquired
a secure base, and after 1312 it was greatly enriched by the
lands of the Temple. In practice, Rhodes had been surrendered
by the Greeks; in theory, the island was given to the Order
by the pope, who had the power to suppress the Hospital at any
moment if he so wished. Technically Rhodes was held from the
pope but the Order, safe on an island it could defend, was virtually
independent. The Master granted lands, raised taxes, sent ambassadors,
coined money, governed the Greek church and generally acted
like a prince on his own island. If on Rhodes he ruled as Master
of an Order with a central metropolis in the East, his powers
were much more limited in the Order's many priories, in effect
its colonies, in the West, that is in outremer or overseas in
Hospitaller parlance. The Hospital was an oligarchy; the Master
was bound by the Rule and statutes, and he had to govern the
Order with the counsel and consent of its leading officers who
had elected him. The Master who acquired Rhodes, Fr. Foulques
de Villaret, ignored these restrictions and in 1317 he was deposed
and almost assassinated.
The Hospital's policies on Rhodes were most
effective. The order-state or Ordensstaat par excellence was
that in Prussia where a military-religious order created and
governed an extensive, efficient and wealthy state with a large
population, but Teutonic Prussia was doomed to failure, for
if it succeeded in Christianizing its neighbours it could no
longer attack them; it lost its purpose and during the fifteenth
century it gradually declined. The Hospital's unique form of
"island order state" employed a subtler formula which
endured for many centuries. An island could be defended relatively
cheaply; it had no Christian frontiers but the Turks were close
by and provided the Hospital with a raison d'être to justify
the receipt of its Western revenues.
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An element of warfare against the
infidel was necessary as a type of propaganda exercise, but
as long as sieges could be resisted, as they were at Rhodes
in 1444 and 1480 and at Malta in 1565 though not at Rhodes in
1522 or at Tripoli in 1551, the Order survived. The organization
of the "island order state" was conducted effectively:
one or two guard galleys were maintained; Greek slaves from
the mainland were imported to settle the island and expand its
agriculture; trade was encouraged in the safe harbour at Rhodes
in order to create wealth which could be taxed; military and
naval services were imposed on the population; massive stone
walls defended the Convent; the piratical corso secured profitable
booty; and good relations with the Greek population ensured
its collaboration (20).
The Order, always dependent on Western support, had an effective
sideline in the lucrative pilgrim traffic which called at Rhodes,
where the size and magnificence of its Conventual hospital created
effective propaganda for the Hospitallers. Medical service and
the care of the "poor of Christ" remained at the core
of the Hospitallers' spiritual ideology which required that
there should always be a hospital in the Convent or headquarters.
In 1314 the chapter-general allotted the considerable sum of
6750 florins a year to the hospital. An incomplete budget of
1478 apportioned 7000 florins, or 7.5 percent of a total of
92,000 florins, for the hospital, the doctors and the pharmacy,
together with other sums for foodstuffs, for nurses, for leprosy
cases and for foundlings and orphans. At first the hospital
on Rhodes was in an existing house by the sea; then it was in
a relatively modest building; and finally, late in the fifteenth
century, came the great hospital with its licensed doctors,
its medical certificates and its tradition of care. In the West
the story was different. Money and manpower were short while
in many cases secular local government was taking over welfare
and medical activities. Apart from a few centres such as the
great commandery at Genoa, hospitals and hospices together with
the giving of alms, went into sharp decline in much of Western
Europe ( 21).
Rhodes increasingly came under attack in the fifteenth century
as the Ottomans advanced into Anatolia and the Balkans. After
the 1480 |