Knights with Day Jobs

   Welcome to the Wannaskan Almanac for Friday.

   On this day in 1113 Pope Paschal II issued a papal bull recognizing the Order of Hospitallers. This was in the days when Jerusalem was considered the center of the world. Back in 1070, a group of merchants from the Italian port of Amalfi had founded a hospital in Jerusalem to care for pilgrims who came to Jerusalem and then got sick or ran out of money. 

   The Arabs had controlled Jerusalem since the seventh century, but allowed Christian pilgrimages to continue off and on. In 1099 the First Crusade captured Jerusalem and massacred all the Moslems and Jews in the city. The city soon repopulated with a diverse group of non-Moslems and non-Jews.       The monks running the hospital realized the Moslems would be on the lookout to retake the city, so they formed a military branch to protect their hospital. The knights who joined this military unit were like members of a religious order. They took the same vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience as the monks.

   Saladin was the Moslem who eventually retook Jerusalem, and by 1304 the Knights had relocated to Cyprus. They didn't fit in there, so conquered the smaller Byzantine island of Rhodes in 1310. They were barely settled on Rhodes when Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent arrived in 1522 with 100,000 men and conducted a six month siege against 7,000 Knights. The Sultan won, and the surviving Knights moved over to Sicily.

   The knights moved around Europe for the next eight years until Charles I of Spain took pity on them and gave them the island of Malta. The annual fee for the island was one Maltese falcon, to be delivered on All Souls' Day. The knights began attacking Ottoman shipping and Sulieman sent a force in 1565 to expel them from Malta. Thanks to blunders by the Ottomans and to the leadership of the knights' Grand Master, Jean de Valette, the Ottomans were forced to withdraw. The people of Europe believed that if Malta fell, they would be next, so de Vallette became a great hero, and was given funds to build a new capital which was named in his honor.

   For the next two centuries, the knights made their living providing protection for European shipping against the Barbary pirates. This led to abuses and many knights broke their vows of poverty and chastity. Obedience had never been taken seriously. Things went on like this till 1798 when Napoleon arrived on his way to Egypt. Napoleon wanted water for his fleet, but the Grand Master said only two ships at a time could enter the harbor. Napoleon was in a hurry so he conquered the island.
   Once again the knights were without a home. The largest group of knights ended up in St. Petersburg, but by 1834 the group had established itself in Rome. The order decided to give up its military role and go back to its original mission of caring for the sick and the poor. 

   The order's headquarters occupy two buildings in Rome which have extraterritorial status. It is a sovereign entity: its three highest officers being its only citizens. The order employs 42,000 doctors, nurses, and paramedics who are helped by 80,000 volunteers. It works with refugees, the sick and victims of natural disasters with an annual budget of almost two billion dollars.

   You can still apply to be a Knight or a Dame. There are currently 13,500 of them. Only a handful have opted to take the vows. To rise in the ranks you used to have to be able to prove noble blood, but since the 1990s anyone can become Grand Master. 

You and I can rent this swell island together.