SOVEREIGN MEDICAL ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS HOSPITALLER

The Order evolved in the eleventh century as a local charitable institution, a hospital, in Jerusalem. (2) Some scholars trace its roots back much further beginning around the time of Christ, fostered by earilier religious and monastic orders. Founded by a group of pious men, led by Brother Gerard the Blessed, it rapidly gained world fame for its spiritual and temporal care of pilgrims travelling to and in the Holy Land. In time, the Order also protected them. This is the reason it developed its military arm, which soon transformed this devout group into a great military-religious brotherhood and would shape much of European history. Many of the finest families of the period sent their sons to serve the Order, which prospered and became organized into eight tongues or national groups. The Order would develop hospitals and hospices all across Europe and the middle East, they continued to serve the sick and the weak, for all knights and brothers were required to administer to them. Many famous hospitals were founded for this purpose and remain historical monuments.

 

When the Muslims destroyed the Christian Kingdoms in the Holy Land, the knights and brothers of Saint John moved briefly to Cyprus, then to Rhodes. On Rhodes, they created a splendid, fortified city, complete with an outstanding hospital. Since Rhodes is an island, the Order built a great navy which served as the principal power against the Ottoman Turks for the next three hundred years. The Order remained on Rhodes for two centuries, from 1310 to 1522.

Eventually, the Ottoman Turkish power, directed against Rhodes, proved too great. The Order, after a heroic defense of Rhodes, departed honoured by their enemies. They turned once more to the seas during a period of exile. In order to secure the western Mediterranean Sea, the Emperor Charles V gave the knights the islands of Malta., Comino and Gozo, where they created an even more splendid and brilliant base than on Rhodes. Shortly after their arrival on Malta, they successfully defended the island in the famous siege of 1565. In the Mediterranean Sea, they remained the main bulwark of Christendom. On Malta, the Order constructed a new city, Valletta, which became an international center for medicine, education, architecture, and the arts. Today, one may still see the great monuments created for and by the Order on both Rhodes and Malta.

The invaders, Arab, Syrian and Berber, crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in 711 and within five years conquered the Iberian peninsula. By the 11^th century, five Christian Kingdoms appeared: Galicia, Leon, Castile, Navarre, and Aragon. The Christian territories were constantly menaced if not ravaged by the subjects of the barbarous princes. The Reconquista was a holy war that would last for more than 700 years, ending in 1492. Armed brotherhoods had long existed in Christian Spain. At first the hermangildas were small bands of local farmers but increasingly acquired religious character, contributing to the rise of purely Spanish Orders. In 1164 Calatrava monks elected a new abbot, Master Don Garcia and that same year a bull of Pope Alexander III gave them canonical status as a religious order – the Knights of Calatrava. The new Master was raised and given a seal, sword and banner, swearing on loyalty to the King of Castile.

Similarly, hermangilda near Caderes offered services to the Canons of St. Eloi in Leon for protection of the pilgrims traveling to Compostella. In 1171, Cardinal Jacinto presented them with a rule and Alexander III recognized them as an Order of St. James of the Sword in 1175. Emerging about this same time, hermangildas on the Leonese frontier established the brotherhood called the Knights of San Julian de Pereiro, which would become the Order of Alcantara.

By the end of the eighteenth century, a new and more serious threat descended upon the knights- the rise of Napoleon. He coveted the Order's wealth and seized Malta in 1798. The enormous treasury accumulated by the Order for their charitable and educational endeavours was confiscated. The Order would have been doomed if not for the intervention of Emperor Paul I of Russia. In 1797, the previous year, the Emperor Paul had accepted the role of the Order's Imperial Protector. In assuming this office the Emperor created the Grand Priory of Russia. This new, protector and patron immediately supported the knights and the Order against the designs of Napoleon.

After the dissolution of the Order of the Hospitallers on Malta by Napoleon, the election of the Emperor of All the Russias, Paul I, a non-professor, was viewed with distaste in Spain. The King of Spain did not recognize the Tsar as either de jure or de facto Grand Master. Spain continued to recognize von Hompesch as head of the order until his forced abdication July 6, 1799. When Paul I was assassinated in 1801 and the Grand Mastership thus vacant, Spain declined to participate in the election of a successor. Instead, from late 1801 the Spanish Court began acting as if the Order's units in the Spanish Realm were separate institutions.

The special position of the Crown of Spain placed on the rolls of the Order the only female Grand Master in the lists of any chivalric body calling itself Hospitaller or Knights of St. John, Queen Isabella II. The Grand Mastership followed the sovereigns of Spain in the Houses of Bourbon and House of Savoy (Casa Savoia). The Bonaparte King Joseph was irregularly on the Throne of Spain, and for too short a time to create a problem in this regard and the actual possession of the Throne by Isabella and her son prevented an effective claim by the Carlists from being made.

On April 17, 1802, Royal Decrees were issued in which the King of Spain declared that the Langues of Aragon and of Castile and Leon were united as “La Sargada y Muy Inclita Orden Militar de San Juan Bautista de Jerusalem” (“The Sacred and Most Distinguished Military Order of Saint John of Jerusalem”) were united and joined with the Crown of Spain in perpetuity. He further declared that, while recognizing the spiritual and religious authority of the Church and the Holy Pontiff in his dominions, the King of Spain was vested with the sovereignty and government of that Order and declared to be its Grand Master.

The Order of Saint John was in 1847 placed in the same category as other Spanish Orders, and rules for Admission, the wearing of the insignia, etc., were promulgated. The Association of Spanish Knights (Langue of Castile and Aragon) was created in 1885 and the Order in Spain again was joined to the parent body. Suffice it to say that, as noted by General Hume, an organization of St. John Knights in descent from, or in succession to, the Order of which the Sovereigns of Spain were Grand Masters did exist right down to 1931. That there have been groups calling themselves “Order of St. John” active at least in Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Chile during the 19th and 20th Centuries is known. The determination of the exact status of each is subject to an analysis of each body separately and not part of a general history. Unfortunately, records of the Spanish Order and its various successor or imitator bodies and of their good works, other than in Chile and in California, have not been found to be available until recently in the work entitled - Para la Historia de la Orden Hospitalaria de San Juan de Dios en Hispanoamerica y Filipinas, Luis Ortega Lazaro; Secretariado Permanente Interprovincial; Hermaos de San Juan de Dio; Madrid.

On April 19th, 2007, the legislature of Ecuador voted in favor to reinstate La Orden Soberana de Caballeros Medicos Hospitalarios de San Juan de Jerusalen. This is effectively a continued lineage of the Spanish Knights.

The Order flourished in Russia until the Revolution of 1917. After World War I and the destructive rise of Bolshevism, all Imperial institutions, including the Order of Saint John, were temporarily dismantled. The Order's buildings, possessions and other properties were seized and used for state purposes. In 1928, the surviving Hereditary Family Commanders met in Paris where they re-established the Orthodox Russian Grand Priory.

In 1834, other members of the Order settled in Rome. The original hospitaller mission became once again the main activity of the Order, growing ever stronger during the last century, most especially because of the contribution of the activities carried out by the Grand Priories and National Associations of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in so many countries around the world.

Today, although the Order, like the Christian Church, is split up into many Chapters, members are all bearers of the centuries old tradition, and observe the Code, which was written centuries ago.

The SOVEREIGN MEDICAL ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS HOSPITALLER OF SAINT JOHN OF JERUSALEM was founded on Sept. 20, 2006, Quito Ecuador, wherein the Knights, His Excellency Professor Charles McWilliams and Grand Dame Susan McWilliams, and legal Counsel His Excellency Dr. Benjamin Anguiera, with 23 Knights, Dames and Friends of the Sovereign Medical Order of the Knights Hospitaller were invested into this Grand Order of Human Kindness at the Basilico of Old Quito. Their pledge to Medical Service under the Cross of Beatitude is now registered with the Government of Ecuador. The investiture was followed by a trip to the new land of the Knights in the territory Pinchincha. Following, an official, diplomatic meeting was conducted with the Governor of the Tsachila Nations of Santo Domnigo to foster exchange, and a pledge for medical services was made to the indigenous people of Santo Domingo, and to negotiate a Treaty among peaceful nations. The proceedings were announced publicly in both the press and telemedia. The MEDICAL ORDER's first international relations were established.

Today, the Sovereign Medical Order is a legislated and established fundacion in the country of Ecuador.

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Battle of Solferino

The Battle of Solferino was fought on June 24, 1859 and resulted in the victory of the allied French Army under Napoleon III and Kingdom of Sardinia Army under Victor Emmanuel II (together known as the Franco-Sardinian Alliance) against the Austrian Army under Emperor Francis-Joseph (also known as Franz Joseph). Over 200,000 soldiers fought in this important battle, the largest since the Battle of Leipzig in 1813. There were about 100,000 Austrian troops and a combined total of 118,600 French and allied Sardinian troops. After this battle, Jean-Henri Dunant, who witnessed the battle in person, was motivated by the horrific suffering of wounded soldiers left on the battlefield to begin a campaign that would eventually result in the Geneva Conventions and the establishment of the International Red Cross. The Hospitallers were summoned to the first Geneva Convention and participated in the conventions to follow.

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Sovereign Status

The Knights Hospitaller owes it peculiar status to having been possessor of territory of the Island of Malta for two hundred years, and of Rhodes and Cyprus even earlier. But after it ceased to rule Malta with Napoleon's invasion in 1798, it retained certain attributes of sovereignty, at a time when international law was slowly developing new concepts of statehood. This was due in part to the circumstances of war at the time, but also because the Order was the oldest and most prestigious of the Hospitaller religious orders of both the old world, the new world (the America's - North, South, Central), Canada, and even the Philippines. In these countries it continued its Hospitaller works, establishing buildings to care for the sick and poor. (3)

On June 24, 1859, the French and Sardinian Armies of Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel II defeated the Austro-Hungarian forces of Francis-Joseph at the terrible battle of Solferino at the cost to the individual soldiers of the three armies which was frightful. A young Swiss, Henri Dunant, was a witness of the battle and of the scenes of suffering laid down his graphic Souvenir de Solférino into his narrative managed to crowd more horror than any war picture that pen had drawn. (4) He showed that men lay on the field for days begging for water, for help, and finally for blessed death. He showed that while the surgeons did all that they could, there was no facility whatsoever for the rescue of the wounded and their transportation to hospitals for medical care. Out of his report grew the Red Cross movement based on the Geneva Convention, and finally in 1901 Dunant, then seventy-three, was chosen as the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

To it is traced the growth of the Red Cross movement, the Hospitallers have played their part in all this. (1) The Geneva Convention, signed in that city in 1864, rendered neutral in war, not only the wounded themselves but the staff and equipment of ambulances. The term ambulances here are applied, not as in America and Britain to the vehicles in which patients are transported, but rather to hospital establishments moving with an army. Under the Geneva Convention, the wounded and personnel having the right to wear the Red Cross emblem are protected from attack. The very Red Cross emblem itself is indirectly derived from the Flag of the Hospitallers. The Knights of Saint John still fly their Crimson flag with its white cross. It is the oldest flag still in use. It has given origin to the flags wholly or in part of three great nations Italy, Denmark and Switzerland. The Order’s flag is of red, bearing a rectangular cross. In 1757 regulations were laid down whereby Danish ships in order to be distinguished from ships of the Order of Saint John, should bear the royal cipher in the center of the white cross of their flags. When it is remembered that the flags of the other Scandinavian countries, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Finland, have followed the form of the Danish flag, adopting only different colors, it will be seen how far the pattern of the flag of the Hospitallers has traveled.

The ancient dress of the Knights is still used on formal occasions, as well as a more modern uniform and dress. Under the Geneva Convention the Cross of the Hospitallers is entitled to the same recognition by belligerents in war as is the Red Cross. There is no emblem more familiar than the Maltase Cross. In 1875 the Grand Priory of Bohemia and Austria decided to establish hospital trains which played an important part of Knight's works. The Order also established a school for the training of Knight personnel for these trains and for general first-aid duties during War. The personnel of the Order wore the Order’s uniform with certain modifications adapting it to field service, a white brassard with the Geneva red cross and likewise wore a second brassard of red bearing the Knight's Maltese cross in white. The Knight's trains also saw service in the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885 in the Austro Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzégovina.

In 1911 there was held an important International Exposition of Hygiene at Dresden. The Order, accepting the invitation to participate, sent for exhibition a striking collection of documents, models, and other objects of interest. These reflected the Hospitallers’ experience in the care of the poor and sick since the days of their foundation. The first of what are now called International Red Cross Conferences was held in Paris in 1867. The title of the meeting was the International Conference of the Governments Signatory to the Geneva Convention and First Aid Societies and Associations. The second International Conference of the Governments Signatory to the Geneva Convention and First Aid Societies and Associations was held in Berlin in 1869. The term Red Cross Conference had not yet been adopted. The delegate of the Sovereign Military Order of Saint John was Commander Count Othenio de Lichnowsky Werclenberg. In his opening address the Count explained the nature of the Order’s measures for relief in case of war, and stated that the Hospitallers are ready to cooperate at all times with other bodies and committees devoted to welfare and relief. The Conference in 1929, upon the request of the Sovereign Military Order of the Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem, holds that the regulations established by the Geneva Convention regarding the status of the aid societies with armies in the field, are applicable to the international organizations of this Order.

Never since the days of the Crusades was there a greater need for the work of mercy of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem than during the first World War, with its terrible toll of suffering. There were several groups of Knights at work, and men on both sides were succored. A brief summary of what each group did shows that the Order was capable of carrying on under conditions of modern warfare. Count de Pierredon estimates that not less than 800,000 sick and wounded men were cared for during the World War by the several branches of the Hospitallers. (5)

A part of the ancient ceremony of investiture consisted in the Grand Master’s explaining its significance to the novice. The four arms stand for the four Christian virtues: temperance, prudence, justice and fortitude, while the eight points represent the beatitudes. The crown from which the Cross is suspended signifies the sovereignty of the Order internationally. So, after all, the world returned to the idea of an international body, which would, in times of war or disaster, or in days of peace, minister to the needs of the unfortunate, foe as well as friend, and withal seek to increase the sum of medical knowledge.

These factors, which quickly became intermingled, preserved for the Order a marked degree of independence, and placed it amongst the first of the international organizations to be recognized by international law as an Ecclesiastical Order. Not, necessarily, yet as a sovereign state, but as a subject of international law with some powers and duties akin to those enjoyed by states. To have sovereignty, as stated in the Treaty of Montevideo - 1933, a state must have a permanent population, it must have a defined territory, it must have a government, and it must have the capacity to enter into diplomatic relations. (6) No other entity at that time could be regarded as a sovereign state, whatever its de facto power. Yet, this definition has increasingly subject to interpretation and considered by some legal scholars as meaningless. While the Order was ruling on Rhodes and Malta it was a sovereign Order because it possessed territory over which it exercised at least de facto sovereignty. After 1798 it became the first of the organizations recognized by international law as having a separate legal personality.

What is undeniable is the fact that after 1798 the Order still had an international legal personality, independent of specific territorial sovereignty. (7) It would seem that the Order continued to be recognized as sovereign after 1798 for two major reasons:

There was the distinct possibility due to their previous, military pursuits, that the Order could have recovered territory, and so its sovereignty, as it had done in 1530 and even earlier. In this aspect it could be recognized as being equivalent to an exiled Government. Some of these, such as those of Poland and the Baltic States, were recognized by some countries for many years after they lost control of their territory. (8)

Due to its unique history and humanitarian function, the Order acquired the status of an international legal personality after 1798. This did not equal the sovereignty which they possessed as Sovereign of Malta. This international personality was based on the role of the Order as one of the few international humanitarian organizations of its time, preceding that of the Red Cross. (9)

Since the twelfth century the Order of Saint John had been an international religious order or brotherhood. (10) It only gradually became an order of chivalry, (10) and the possession of sovereign powers over island territories came comparatively late in its history. Most of the other ancient, religious military orders are now extinct or have become purely secular orders of knighthood. Although it once possessed land in its own right, the Knights Hospitaller was, and remains, essentially an ecclesiastical order. While the Templars were suppressed, due largely to jealousy of their wealth and privileges, the Hospitallers, always preserving an essential charitable function, survived.

NOTES & REFERENCES

(1) Medical Work of the Knights Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem; Edgar Erskine Hume, John Hopkins Press, 1940.

(2) The Knights of Malta; H. J. A. Sire; Yale University Press, 1994.

(3) Para la Historia de la Orden Hospitalaria de San Juan de Dio en Hispanoamerica y Filipinas, 1492 - 1992; Luis Ortega Lazaro; Ediciones Graficas Ortega, Madrid

(4) Jean Henri Dunant - Founder of the International Red Cross, Josphine Rich, Julian Messner, Inc., 1956

(5) Pierredon, L’Ord. Soy. et Mil. des Hospitaliers, son Histoire, etc., p. 127; cf. Rapport du Delegate de l’Ordre Suzerain et Militaries de Malte a la Ex. Conference International de la Croix-Rouge, Geneva Mars-Aril, 1921, Rome, pp. 8

(6) The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, signed 26 December 1933; M. O. Hudson (ed.), International Legislation (Carnegie Endowment: Washington, 1931-50) vol 6, 620. Although the application of the Convention is confined to Latin America, it is regarded as declaratory of customary international law.

(7) A C von Breycha-Vauthier and M Potulicki, ‘The Order of St John in International Law: A forerunner of the Red Cross’ (1954) 48 American Journal of International Law 554, 555.

(8) (September/October 1991) vol 2, No 2 Foreign Policy Bulletin 33.

(9) The Order’s surviving military potential was not entirely forgotten. In the Reichsdeputations-Hauptschluss of 25 February 1803 (G. F. Martens, Recueil de traits, 2nd edn (Gottingue, 1817-35) vol 7, 435 et seq., at 443) it was agreed that the Order should be exempted from secularisation ‘en considération des services militaires de ses membres’ (§ 26 at 485)

(10) A brotherhood is dedicated to some religious object and subject to a rule of conduct and (usually) a communal life. The Knights of Justice of the Order were originally bound, like ordinary monks, by solemn vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

(11) An order of chivalry is a group of individuals, grouped for a primarily secular rather than a religious purpose, usually honorific. Usually a residual religious object survives, but the great majority of Orders are purely secular. Most are today what are usually called orders of merit.

HISTORICAL LINKS

• Final Act of the Diplomatic Conference. Geneva, 27 July 1929. In view of a request by the Sovereign and Military Order of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, called the Order of Malta, the Conference considers that the provisions laid down by the Geneva Convention governing the position of Aid Societies with armies in the field are applicable to the national organizations of this Order. The same applies as regards the Grand Priory of St. John of Jerusalem in England, the Orders of St. John (Johanniter) and of St. George in Germany, and similar nursing Orders in all countries.

• Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field. Geneva, 27 July 1929. The provisions laid down by the Geneva Convention governing the position of Aid Societies with armies in the field are applicable to the national organizations of this Order. The personnel engaged exclusively in the collection, transport and treatment of the wounded and sick, and in the administration of medical formations and establishments, and chaplains attached to armies, shall be respected and protected under all circumstances.

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HISTORICAL SUMMARY (From MEDICAL WORK OF THE KNIGHTS HOSPITALLER, by Edgar Erskine Hume, 1940, John Hopkins Press, Baltimorem, pp 256,7)

Though the Order has lost its sovereignty of the Island of Malta, its diplomatic sovereignty remains. In international relationships both dejure and de facto, the Order continues invested with sovereign quality, being independent and international. It is listed in the Almanach de gotha among the states of the world. The Order had accredited representatives at the imperial and Royal Court of Vienna until 1918. Thereafter it had a legation to the Republic of Austria until that country was absorbed by Germany. It still has its ambassadors to Italy, Spain, and Hungary. Ministers plenipotentiary represent the Order at the Court of the Vatican, and with the French Government. On November 28, 1929, the King of Italy, by Royal Decree, upon the proposal of the Prime Minister, confirmed the sovereignty of the Order. More recently the Order accredited a Minister to the Court of Rumania, choosing for the head of this new legation the Order’s Minister in Paris, the Count Michel de Pierredon, an assiduous worker for the Hospitallers’ ideals. The Order was formerly represented at the Court of France, and the correspondence between the Maltese Legation in Paris and James Monroe, the Minister of the United States, has been mentioned. There was a Legation of the Order in Saint Petersburg during the time that Tsar Paul I was Grand Master. The Order was represented diplomatically at the Congresses of Vienna (1815), Aix la-Chapelle (1818), and Verona (1822).

Obviously the recognition of the Order’s sovereignty is highly important so that it may do its work as a neutral and international body. The Order’s part in putting into practice the work of the Red Cross was clearly brought out in the debates of the Geneva Convention of 1906. (Cf. Baron Henry de Fischer—The Sovereign Order of Malta, translated by Edgar Erskine Hume, The Military Surgeon, Washington, June 1930, LXVI, 823-830.

It is fitting, therefore, that the Hospitallers be represented at Geneva, not only for the sessions of the League of Nations, but also for contact with the International Committee of the Red Cross. Thus it is represented by a Delegate Plenipotentiary, the Baron Henry de Fischer. The Acta final of the Diplomatic Conference of July, 1929, of the Geneva Convention of July 6, 1906, is interesting in this connection, and reads:

The Conference, upon the request of the Sovereign Military Order of the Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem, known as the Order of Malta, holds that the regulations established by the Geneva Convention regarding the status of the aid societies with armies in the field, are applicable to the national organizations of this Order.

The same is true of the Grand Priory of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem in England, the Orders of Saint John (Johanniter) and of Saint George in Germany, and similar Orders of Hospitallers in all countries.

The Hospitallers are regularly represented at the Geneva Conventions. In 1929, for example, Baron Henry de Fischer attended as Minister Plenipotentiary, the other members of the Delegation being Count Giulio della Torre di Lavagna, Ambassador of Italy, and Count John de Salis, representative of the British Association of the Sovereign Order.