Philippe de Mézières

Philippe de Mézières (c. 1327 – May 29, 1405), a French soldier and author, was born at the chateau of Mézières in Picardy.

Philippe belonged to the poorer nobility. At first, he served under Lucchino Visconti in Lombardy but within a year he entered the service of the husband of Joan I of Naples, Andrew, Duke of Calabria, who was the son of the King Charles I of Hungary. Andrew was assassinated very soon in September 1345. In the autumn of that year, Philippe set out for the East in the French army. After the Battle of Smyrna in 1346 he was made a knight, and when the French army was disbanded, he made his way to Jerusalem. He realized the advantage which the discipline of the Saracens gave them over the disorderly armies of the West, and conceived the idea of a new order of knighthood, but his efforts proved fruitless. The first sketch of the order was drawn up by him in his Nova religio passionis (1367–1368; revised and enlarged in 1386 and 1396). From Jerusalem he found his way in 1347 to Cyprus to the court of Hugh IV, where he found a kindred enthusiast in the king's son, Peter of Lusignan, then count of Tripoli; but he soon left Cyprus, and had resumed his career as a soldier of fortune when the accession of Peter to the throne of Cyprus (Nov. 1358) and his recognition as king of Jerusalem induced Philippe to return to the island, probably in 1360, when he became chancellor.

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