For a general military historian expecting descriptions
of the orchestration of battle and discussion of military institutions,
this collection of essays offered in honor of the great historian of
medieval military orders, Anthony Luttrell, will seem somewhat like the
report of a secret society. Despite the structural complexities
of the field these essays represent, both medieval and military historians
will be rewarded by a close reading of this eclectic collection that
throws light on various aspects of crusading as well as the religious
and secular influences of the military orders on the Mediterranean and
across regions as diverse as England, Hungary, and Spain.
Since the golden age of military orders coincided with
the period of active crusading between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries,
it is not unusual that the largest section of this collection focuses
on this epoch. Though not divided by topic, the three sections
of the work contain articles that can be arranged by subject. In
the first of these that deals with the medical and military aspects of
the Hospital in its initial phase, Benjamin Kedar deals
with the original Hospital established in Jerusalem from the mid-eleventh
century and its origins in Amalfi and connections
with similar Muslim institutions. By a thorough examination of
crusade indulgences from Western Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
Judith Bronstein contends that the Hospitallers had a hybrid medical/combat role from their
very beginnings. The second division of the book’s first
section focuses on the complex institutional development of the various
military orders. Jochen Burgtorf reviews
the career of Boniface of Calamandrana, Grand
Master of the Hospital in the East and West between 1266 and 1299 who
maintained the order’s position in the eastern Mediterranean while
accommodating to the advance of Aragon as a regional power in the western
Mediterranean. Peter Herde focuses on a bitter legal dispute of 1276 over the
control of the church of Down Ampney between
the Hospitallers and the bishop of Worcester which displays clear
ecclesiastical and royal fissures. Alan Forey writes
on the use of various forms of incarceration as a way of punishment in
the later medieval Hospital for offenses that would also cause the loss
of habit. The third section of the first part centers on the
relationship of the crusading orders to its Muslim and Christian neighbors
in the Middle East. Bernard Hamilton discusses the emergence of
the fanatical Shiite group of the eleventh and twelfth century, the Assassins,
and its leader, the Old Man of the Mountain and their ties with the Knights Templars that
set the stage for the Third Crusade. Peter Edbury deals
with the same events through an assessment of the literary lens of the
Old-French version of William of Tyre’s chronicle. David
Jacoby focuses his research on the varied roles of Hospitaller ships
in the Mediterranean by tracing the technical aspects of such vessels
and in assessing their importance in the order’s long-distance
trade and transport of pilgrims.
The second section of this work is divisible into articles
that deal with the architectural and institutional history of Hospitaller
establishments in the island of Rhodes and elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean.
Elizabeth Zachariadou traces the precarious
existence of the monastery of St. John situated on the island of Patmos,
an institution on the critical dividing line between Christian and Ottoman
control that maintained this history of centuries-long rivalry in its
very walls. Anna-Maria Kasdagli follow
this “from the ground up” approach by assessing the Latin
and Greek inscriptions on the buildings, graveyards, and other sites
scattered across Hospitaller Rhodes to get at the special dynamics of
the island community from a different angle. To gain a fuller understanding
of how Hospitaller institutions functioned on Rhodes and throughout the
eastern Mediterranean, Jurgen Sarnowsky and Gregory O’Malley discuss the visitation
system of the order’s priories that from the early fifteenth century
was set at a three-year period. The former focuses on how this
inspection mechanism functioned in all the European priories; the latter
takes as his subject the long line of English and Irish visitors to and
residents on Rhodes down to the island’s capture by the Turks in
the sixteenth century. Rhodes as a goal for Mediterranean migration
as well as a symbol for a slowly dying crusading movement stand as the
subject for two other articles. In the first, Nicholas Coureas focuses on the steady stream of Cypriot and Syrian
emigrants into Rhodes during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In
the second, Norman Houseley builds on several of his earlier works to evaluate
the fourteenth-century treatise of Emmanuele Piloti who hoped that his work would serve as a handbook
of sorts for how the Holy Land could be freed and the eastern Mediterranean,
including Rhodes, rid of the looming Ottoman threat.
The third section of this work can be divided according
to the individual European countries in which various military orders
had been established and operated. Michael Gerven and
Nicole Hamonic deal with the identity and location
of English notaries responsible for the production of Hospitaller charters
during the high Middle Ages. Zsolt Hunyade moves
the European focus to Hungary with his discussion of the Hospitallers’
role in carrying out the continuing crusades against the Ottoman Turks. Johannes
Mol centers on Germany in an article that describes a plan concocted by
a grand master of the Teutonic Order in very year Martin Luther posted
his Ninety-Five Theses which contained a set of interesting but completely
unrealistic instructions for the conquest of the primitive region of Friesland
on the North Sea. The majority of the articles in this section
center on the role of the Hospitallers in the
various regions of the Iberian Peninsula. Luis García-Guijarro Ramos
traces the confusing history of the Valencian bailiwick
of Cervera which consisted of eight villages
along the Mediterranean and passed through the hands of the Templars and of the new Iberian order of Montesa, and , finally, under the control of the Hospitallers during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Pierre Bonneaud focuses on the role of ancianitas “seniority,”
a medieval custom which determined the sequencing of service by members
of the priory of Catalonia who rendered service in eastern Mediterranean
posts. Carlos Barquero Goñi discusses
the role of individual Hospitallers in the critical
period of Navarrese history (1488-1512) during which Aragon’s
great ruler, Fernando II “the Catholic” (1479-1516)conquered
the Iberian half of the kingdom.
The last two articles of this work which deserve a
section of their own deal in general terms with the survival of the Hospital
and other military orders into modern times. David Allen discusses
the work of Sabba de Castilglione, a cousin
of the author of The Courtier, who attempted to update the appeal
of the military orders by delineating the various qualities that would
make their members an amalgam of both literary, religious, and military
attainments. Castiglione’s Recordi,
ostensibly written for his great nephew in 1546, stood as a guidebook
for those wishing to enter the life of the Hospital during the height
of the Renaissance and insisted that these neophytes be both military,
religious, and physical athletes. The final article of this collection,
which may easily have gone first, was written by one of the deans of
the study of military orders, Jonathan Riley-Smith. As an expansion
of an earlier lecture, his chapter in this collection is a general treatment
of how the various military orders entered the modern world, gradually
changing their primary roles as they did so. Dropping their crusading
activities against the Infidel, they turned more to the service of the
poor. Their appeal to a conservative strain in modern Catholicism
has led to the emergence of various secular confraternities popular in
both Europe and America.
At first sight, this set of essays seems extremely
specialized with very little of interest for the general military historian. With
a little effort, however, scholars of all stripes will find these well-researched
and well-organized articles full of invaluable information about medieval
institutions that straddled ecclesiastical and secular life while forming
and maintaining a framework for the continuing Christian war on Islam.