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Hospitaller
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there until 1291, thereafter being based in Kolossi Castle in Cyprus (1302–1310), the island of Rhodes (1310–1522), Malta (1530–1798), and Saint Petersburg (1799–1801). The Hospitallers arose in the early 12th century at the height of the Cluniac movement, a reformist movement within the Benedictine monastic order that sought to strengthen religious devotion and charity for the poor. Earlier in the 11th century, merchants from Amalfi founded a hospital in Jerusalem dedicated to John the Baptist where Benedictine monks cared for sick, poor, or injured Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. Blessed Gerard, a lay brother of the Benedictine order, became its head when it was established. After the Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 dur ...
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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, and commonly known as the Order of Malta or the 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 under international law. The Order traces its institutional 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 government of the Sovereign Order of Malta has a similar structure to state governments. However, it also includes specific features associated with its nature as a lay religious order, as well as particular terminology evolved from nine centuries of history. The ...
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Siege Of Belvoir Castle
In late 1187, the Ayyubids, led by Saladin, besieged the Hospitallers fortress of Belvoir Castle for an entire year before the Ayyubid forces were successful. Background Weakened and demoralized by the Battle of Hattin, the Knights Hospitaller seemed not to offer any resistance to the Ayyubids; their castle at Bethigibelin surrendered on the same terms as Jerusalem; however, they managed to recover. The grand masters of Hospitallers and Templars were in Tyre with Conrad of Montferrat, who had taken command of the Crusader forces by the end of July 1187. After their defeat at Hattin, surviving hospitallers determined to resist the Ayyubids fled to Belvoir Castle. Siege The siege began in December 1187; the place was defended by well-supplied, tough survivors from earlier sieges. Saladin, who was preoccupied with the Siege of Tyre, sent his general, Saif al-Din Mahmud, to occupy a position near the castle, but the garrison intercepted two Muslim caravans, one laden with boot ...
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Valletta
Valletta ( ; , ) is the capital city of Malta and one of its 68 Local councils of Malta, council areas. Located between the Grand Harbour to the east and Marsamxett Harbour to the west, its population as of 2021 was 5,157. As Malta’s capital city, it is a commercial centre for shopping, bars, dining, and café life. It is also 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 the Frenchman Jean Parisot de Valette, who succeeded in defending the island against 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 Modern architecture, though the Second World War left major scars on the city, particularly the destruction of the Royal Oper ...
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Military Order (religious Society)
A military order () is a Christianity, Christian religious society of Knight, knights. The original military orders were the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitaller, the Order of the Holy Sepulchre (Catholic), Order of the Holy Sepulchre, the Order of Santiago, Order of Saint James, the Order of Calatrava, and the Teutonic Order, Teutonic Knights. They arose in the Middle Ages in association with the Crusades - in the Holy Land, the Baltic states, Baltics, and the Iberian Peninsula, Iberian peninsula; their members being initially dedicated to the protection of Christians , Christian pilgrims, and eventually to the defence of the Crusader states and the conquest of non-Christian or even non-Western Christianity , Catholic lands. They are the predecessors of Order of chivalry, chivalric orders. Most members of military orders were Laity, laymen who took religious vows, such as of Evangelical counsels, poverty, chastity, and obedience, according to Monasticism, monastic ideals. T ...
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Battle Of Hattin
The Battle of Hattin took place on 4 July 1187, between the Crusader states of the Levant and the forces of the Ayyubid sultan Saladin. It is also known as the Battle of the Horns of Hattin, due to the shape of the nearby extinct volcano of that name. The Muslim armies under Saladin captured or killed the vast majority of the Crusader forces, removing their capability to wage war. As a direct result of the battle, Muslims once again became the eminent military power in the Holy Land, re-capturing Jerusalem and most of the other Crusader-held cities and castles. These Christian defeats prompted the Third Crusade, which began two years after the Battle of Hattin. Location The battle took place near Tiberias in present-day Israel. The battlefield, near the village of Hittin, had as its chief geographic feature a double hill (the " Horns of Hattin") beside a pass through the northern mountains between Tiberias and the road from Acre to the east. The Roman road, known to ...
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Siege Of Ascalon
The siege of Ascalon took place from 25 January to 22 August 1153, in the time period between the Second Crusade, Second and Third Crusades, and resulted in the capture of the Fatimid Egyptian fortress by the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Ascalon was an important castle that was used by the Fatimids to launch raids into the Crusader kingdom's territory, and by 1153 it was the last coastal city in Palestine (region), Palestine that was not controlled by the Crusaders. The siege lasted for several months without much progress, despite the usage of siege engines and catapults by the Crusader army. On 16 August, the Fatimids set fire to the siege tower, but the wind blew the flames back at the castle wall and caused part of it to collapse. A group of Knights Templar entered the breach, led by their grand master, Bernard de Tremelay. The other Crusaders did not follow them into the city and all forty Templars were killed. Three days later, a larger attack was launched by the Crusaders and the c ...
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Crusader Invasions Of Egypt
Egypt was repeatedly invaded from 1163 to 1169 by King Amalric of Jerusalem, who wished to strengthen its position in the Levant by taking advantage of the weakness of the Fatimid Caliphate. The invasions began as part of a succession crisis in the caliphate, which began to crumble under the pressure of Muslim Syria ruled by the Zengids and the Christian Crusader states. While one side called for help from the emir of Syria, Nur ad-Din Zengi, the other called for Crusader assistance. As the war progressed, however, it became a war of conquest. A number of Syrian campaigns into Egypt were stopped short of total victory by the aggressive campaigning of King Amalric. Even so, the Crusaders generally speaking did not have things go their way, despite several sackings. A combined Byzantine–Crusader siege of Damietta failed in 1169, the same year that Saladin took power in Egypt as vizier. In 1171, Saladin became sultan of Egypt and the crusaders thereafter turned their attention to ...
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Battle Of Cresson
The Battle of Cresson was a small battle between Frankish and Ayyubid forces on 1 May 1187 at the "Spring of the Cresson." While the exact location of the spring is unknown, it is located in the environs of Nazareth. The conflict was a prelude to the decisive defeat of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hattin two months later. Location The exact location of the spring is still disputed. Primary sources place the spring near Nazareth. Israeli archaeologist Rafi (Rafael Y.) Lewis believes the springs of Cresson may be near the springs of Sepphoris, due to a 2021 discovery of Frankish arrowheads near the site. British archaeologist Denys Pringle suggests that the spring may refer to 'Ain ad-Daya: a spring that is closer to the Nazareth-Tiberias road, approximately four kilometres west of Kafr Sabt. Background Dynastic instability and internal divisions permeated the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the years leading up to and after the death of Baldwin IV. Baldwin, who suffered ...
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Coat Of Arms 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 (heraldry), field (blazon ''gules a cross argent''), ultimately derived from the design worn by the Knights Hospitaller during the Crusades. The Heraldic flag, 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 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 Coat of arms, arms of the Knights Hospitaller were Grant of arms, granted in 1130 by Pope Innocent II, for differentiation from the Templars who displayed the reversed colo ...
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Siege Of Jerusalem (1187)
The siege of Jerusalem lasted from 20 September to 2 October 1187, when Balian of Ibelin surrendered the city to Saladin. Earlier that summer, Saladin had defeated the kingdom's army and conquered several cities. Balian was charged with organizing a defense. The city was full of refugees but had few soldiers. Despite this fact the defenders managed to repulse several attempts by Saladin's army to take the city by storm. Balian bargained with Saladin to buy safe passage for many, and the city was peacefully surrendered with limited bloodshed. Though Jerusalem fell, it was not the end of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as the capital shifted first to Tyre and later to Acre after the Third Crusade. Latin Christians responded in 1189 by launching the Third Crusade led by Richard the Lionheart, Philip Augustus, and Frederick Barbarossa separately. In Jerusalem, Saladin restored Muslim holy sites and generally showed tolerance towards Christians; he allowed Orthodox and Eastern Christia ...
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John The Baptist
John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist Christianity, Christian traditions, and as the prophet Yahya ibn Zakariya in Islam. He is sometimes referred to as John the Baptiser. John is mentioned by the History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman Jewish historian Josephus, and he is revered as a major religious figure in Christianity, Islam, the Baháʼí Faith, the Druze faith, and Mandaeism; in the last of these he is considered to be the final and most vital prophet. He is considered to be a prophet of God in Abrahamic religions, God by all of the aforementioned faiths, and is honoured as a saint in many Christian denominations. According to the New Testament, John anticipated a messianic figure greater than himself; in the Gospels, he is portrayed as the precursor or forerunn ...
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Siege Of Sahyun Castle
The siege of Sahyun Castle took place in July 1188 between the Ayyubid Sultanate led by Saladin and the Knights Hospitaller, who held Sahyun Castle. After a few days of siege, the castle was captured. Siege Saladin departed from Latakia after its capture, he marched towards Sahyun Castle on the 29th Jumada al-Awwal (26 July 1188), the castle was held by Knights Hospitallers, Saladin surrounded the place with his army and set up six mangonels to bombard the walls. The castle is an inaccessible fortress built on a steep slope of a mountain protected by wide ravines of fearful depth, but on one side it was only defended by a 60-inch trench. The fort had three ramparts, and on the summit of the castle, there was a long flag on a turret that fell when the Ayyubid troops were getting near, which was considered a good omen. The castle was attacked from all sides, and Az-Zahir Ghazi Al-Malik az-Zahir Ghiyath ud-din Ghazi ibn Yusuf ibn Ayyub (commonly known as az-Zahir Ghazi; 1 ...
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