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Hospitaller
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic Church, Catholic Military order (religious society), military order. It was headquartered in the Kingdom of Jerusalem until 1291, on the island of Hospitaller Rhodes, Rhodes from 1310 until 1522, in Hospitaller Malta, Malta from 1530 until 1798 and at Saint Petersburg from 1799 until 1801. Today several organizations continue the Hospitaller tradition, specifically the mutually recognized orders of St. John, which are the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the Order of Saint John (chartered 1888), Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John, the Order of Saint John (Bailiwick of Brandenburg), Bailiwick of Brandenburg of the Chivalric Order of Saint John, the Order of Saint John in the Netherlands, and the Order of Saint John in Sweden. The Hospitallers arose ...
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Sovereign Military Order Of Malta
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), officially the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta ( it, Sovrano Militare Ordine Ospedaliero di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme, di Rodi e di Malta; la, Supremus Militaris Ordo Hospitalarius Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani Rhodiensis et Melitensis), commonly known as the Order of Malta or Knights of Malta, is a Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of a military, chivalric, and noble nature. Though it possesses no territory, the order is often considered a sovereign entity of international law, as it maintains diplomatic relations with many countries. The Order claims continuity with the Knights Hospitaller, a chivalric order that was founded about 1099 by the Blessed Gerard in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The order is led by an elected prince and grand master. Its motto is (''defence of the faith and assistance to the poor''). The Order venerates the Virgin Mary as its patrone ...
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Military Order (monastic Society)
A military order ( la, militaris ordo) is a Christian religious society of knights. The original military orders were the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitaller, the Order of Saint James, the Order of Calatrava, and the Teutonic Knights. They arose in the Middle Ages in association with the Crusades, both in the Holy Land, the Baltics, and the Iberian peninsula; their members being dedicated to the protection of pilgrims and the defence of the Crusader states. They are the predecessors of chivalric orders. Most members of military orders were laymen who took religious vows, such as of poverty, chastity, and obedience, according to monastic ideals. The orders owned houses called commanderies all across Europe and had a hierarchical structure of leadership with the grand master at the top. The Knights Templar, the largest and most influential of the military orders, was suppressed in the early fourteenth century; only a handful of orders were established and recognized aft ...
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Battle Of Arsuf
The Battle of Arsuf took place on 7 September 1191, as part of the Third Crusade. It saw a multi-national force of Crusaders, led by Richard I of England, defeat a significantly larger army of the Ayyubid Sultanate, led by Saladin. Following the Crusaders' capture of Acre, Saladin moved to intercept Richard's advancing army just outside of the city of Arsuf ( in Latin) as it moved along the coast from Acre towards Jaffa. In an attempt to disrupt the cohesion of the Crusader army as they mobilized, the Ayyubid force launched a series of harassing attacks that were ultimately unsuccessful at breaking their formation. As the Crusaders crossed the plain to the north of Arsuf, Saladin committed the whole of his army to a pitched battle. The Crusader army maintained a defensive formation as it marched, with Richard awaiting the ideal moment to mount a counterattack. However, after the Knights Hospitaller launched a charge at the Ayyubids, Richard was forced to commit his entire ...
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Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were intended to recover Holy Land, Jerusalem and its surrounding area from Muslim conquests, Islamic rule. Beginning with the First Crusade, which resulted in the recovery of Jerusalem in 1099, dozens of Crusades were fought, providing a focal point of European history for centuries. In 1095, Pope Pope Urban II, Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont. He encouraged military support for List of Byzantine emperors, Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos, AlexiosI against the Seljuk Empire, Seljuk Turks and called for an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Across all social strata in western Europe, there was an enthusiastic response. The first Crusaders had a variety of motivations, including religious salvation, satisfying feud ...
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Siege Of Rhodes (1522)
The siege of Rhodes of 1522 was the second and ultimately successful attempt by the Ottoman Empire to expel the Knights of Rhodes from their island stronghold and thereby secure Ottoman control of the Eastern Mediterranean. The first siege in 1480 had been unsuccessful. Despite very strong defenses, the walls were demolished over the course of six months by Turkish artillery and mines. Setting The Knights of St. John, or Knights Hospitallers, had captured Rhodes in the early 14th century after the loss in 1291 of Acre, the last Crusader stronghold in Palestine. From Rhodes, they became an active part of the trade in the Aegean sea, and at times harassed Turkish shipping in the Levant to secure control over the eastern Mediterranean. A first effort by the Ottomans to capture the island was repulsed by the Order in 1480, but the continuing presence of the knights just off the southern coast of Anatolia was a major obstacle to Ottoman expansion. An earthquake shook the island ...
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Flag Of The Knights Hospitaller
The flag and coat of arms of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, or the Jerusalem flag, display a white cross on a red field (blazon ''gules a cross argent''), ultimately derived from the design worn by the Knights Hospitaller during the Crusades. The flag represents the Sovereign Military Order of Malta as a sovereign institution. The state flag bears a Latin cross that extends to the edges of the flag. The Flag of the Order's Works represents its humanitarian and medical activities, and it bears a white Maltese cross on a red field. Both flags together represent the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Its constitution states: "The flag of the Order bears either the white latin cross on a red field or the white eight-pointed cross (cross of Malta) on a red field." History The banner of the Knights Hospitaller was introduced in 1130, on the order of Pope Innocent III, for disambiguation from the Templars who used the reversed colours. The "eight-pointed cross" is also said t ...
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Siege Of Rhodes (1480)
In 1480 the small Knights Hospitaller garrison of Rhodes withstood an attack of the Ottoman Empire. Attack On 23 May 1480 an Ottoman fleet of 160 ships appeared before Rhodes, at the gulf of Trianda, along with an army of 70,000 men under the command of Mesih Pasha.L. Kinross, ''The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire'', 137 The Knights Hospitaller garrison was led by Grand Master Pierre d'Aubusson. The Ottomans' first goal was to capture the Tower of St Nicholas, a strategic point for the knights' defence of the two harbours: Mandraki, and the one to the east bay of Akandia. The Turkish artillery kept up an unbroken bombardment and, from 9 June on, the infantry made a series of attacks. Grand Master d'Aubusson himself sped to the aid of the garrison and the enemy was repelled after a fierce struggle. A second attack on the town occurred on the eastern sector of the wall near the Jewish quarter, towards the bay of Akandia, which was the battle station of ...
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Battle Of Nicopolis
The Battle of Nicopolis took place on 25 September 1396 and resulted in the rout of an allied crusader army of Hungarian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, French, Burgundian, German, and assorted troops (assisted by the Venetian navy) at the hands of an Ottoman force, raising the siege of the Danubian fortress of Nicopolis and leading to the end of the Second Bulgarian Empire. It is often referred to as the Crusade of Nicopolis as it was one of the last large-scale Crusades of the Middle Ages, together with the Crusade of Varna in 1443–1444. Background There were many minor crusades in the 14th century, undertaken by individual kings or knights. Most recently there had been a failed crusade against Tunisia in 1390, and there was ongoing warfare in northern Europe along the Baltic coast. After the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, the Ottomans had conquered most of the Balkans and had reduced the Byzantine Empire to the area immediately surrounding Constantinople, which they b ...
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Valletta
Valletta (, mt, il-Belt Valletta, ) is an Local councils of Malta, administrative unit and capital city, capital of Malta. Located on the Malta (island), main island, between Marsamxett Harbour to the west and the Grand Harbour to the east, its population within administrative limits in 2014 was 6,444. According to the data from 2020 by Eurostat, the Functional Urban Area and metropolitan region covered the whole island and has a population of 480,134. Valletta is the southernmost capital of Europe, and at just , it is the European Union's smallest capital city. Valletta's 16th-century buildings were constructed by the Hospitaller Malta, Knights Hospitaller. The city was named after Jean Parisot de Valette, who succeeded in defending the island from an Ottoman invasion during the Great Siege of Malta. The city is Baroque architecture, Baroque in character, with elements of Mannerist architecture#Mannerist architecture, Mannerist, Neoclassical architecture, Neo-Classical and Mo ...
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French Invasion Of Malta
The French invasion of Malta ( mt, Invażjoni Franċiża ta' Malta) was the successful invasion of the islands of Malta and Gozo, then ruled by the Order of St. John, by the French First Republic led by Napoleon Bonaparte in June 1798 as part of the Mediterranean campaign of the French Revolutionary Wars. The initial landings were met with some resistance from both the Order and the Maltese militia, but in less than a day the French had taken control of the entire Maltese archipelago except for the well-fortified harbour area that included the capital Valletta. The Order had the means to withstand a siege, but a series of circumstances including discontent among its own French members as well as the native Maltese population led to a truce which ended with the capitulation of the Order. The invasion therefore ended the 268-year-long Hospitaller rule in Malta, and it resulted in the French occupation of Malta. A few months after the invasion, discontent due to reforms that we ...
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Siege Of Acre (1291)
The siege of Acre (also called the fall of Acre) took place in 1291 and resulted in the Crusaders losing control of Acre to the Mamluks. It is considered one of the most important battles of the period. Although the crusading movement continued for several more centuries, the capture of the city marked the end of further crusades to the Levant. When Acre fell, the Crusaders lost their last major stronghold of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. They still maintained a fortress at the northern city of Tartus (today in north-western Syria), engaged in some coastal raids, and attempted an incursion from the tiny island of Ruad, but when they lost that as well in 1302 in the siege of Ruad, the Crusaders no longer controlled any part of the Holy Land. Background In 1187, Saladin conquered much of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (also called the Latin Kingdom), including Acre and Jerusalem, after winning the Battle of Hattin and inflicting heavy losses on the Crusaders. The Third Crusad ...
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Birgu
Birgu ( mt, Il-Birgu , it, Vittoriosa), also known by its title Città Vittoriosa ("''Victorious City''"), is an old fortified city on the south side of the Grand Harbour in the South Eastern Region of Malta. The city occupies a promontory of land with Fort Saint Angelo at its head and the city of Cospicua at its base. Birgu is ideally situated for safe anchorage, and over time it has developed a very long history with maritime, mercantile and military activities. Birgu is a very old locality with its origins reaching back to medieval times. Prior to the establishment of Valletta as capital and main city of Malta, military powers that wanted to rule the Maltese islands would need to obtain control of Birgu due to its significant position in the Grand Harbour. In fact, it served as the base of the Order of Saint John and ''de facto'' capital city of Malta from 1530 to 1571. Birgu is well known for its vital role in the Great Siege of Malta of 1565. In the early 20th century, Bi ...
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