Order of the Hospital
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| Active | c. 1099–present |
| Allegiance | Papacy |
| Type | Catholic military order |
| Headquarters |
Jerusalem Rhodes Birgu Valletta Rome |
| Nickname(s) | The "Religion" |
| Patron |
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| Colors | Black and white Red and white |
| Engagements |
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| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders |
Jean Parisot de Valette, Garnier de Nablus |
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (Latin: Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), also known as the Order of Saint John, Order of Hospitallers, Knights Hospitaller, or Hospitallers, is the medieval Catholic military order that continued into the contemporary Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which remains a sovereign subject of international law. It was headquartered variously in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta, until it became known by its current name.
The Hospitallers arose, in the early 12th century, at the time of the great monastic reformation, as a group of individuals associated with an Amalfitan hospital in the Muristan district of Jerusalem, dedicated to John the Baptist and founded around 1023 by Gerard Thom to provide care for sick, poor or injured pilgrims coming to the Holy Land. Some scholars, however, consider that the Amalfitan order and hospital were different from Gerard Thom's order and its hospital. After the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade, the organisation became a religious and military order under its own Papal charter, charged with the care and defence of the Holy Land. Following the conquest of the Holy Land by Islamic forces, the knights operated from Rhodes, over which they were sovereign, and later from Malta, where they administered a vassal state under the Spanish viceroy of Sicily. The Hospitallers were the smallest group ever to colonise parts of the Americas; at one point in the mid-17th century, they acquired four Caribbean islands, which they turned over to the French in the 1660s.
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Wikipedia