The Hospitallers Change

Founded originally to care for the sick and poor in Jerusalem, there were new statutes for the Hospitallers in March 1182 under the leadership of their grandmaster, Roger de Moulins. These new statutes tried to formalize certain practices:

1. To welcome 30 poor people each day at meals

2. To give alms to anyone who came to the door of the hospital three days each week.

3. To wash the feet of 13 poor people on the Saturday of aLent and provide them with clothes and shoes.

This was when they officially became a charitable Order. This is also when members began to be listed as doctors and surgeons, brought on because the ordinary members did not have sufficient medical knowledge.. 

Also, this is when they officially declared themselves a religious-military Order. At the death of a member, a Mass was to be said and the coffin would be covered with a red sheet with white cross.

Roger did not get along with the new head of the Templars, Gerard de Ridefort. Besides the general rivalry felt between the Hospitallers and the Templars, the two men had opposing political views. Roger was part of the group that felt Queen Sibylla of Jerusalem needed a new husband to replace Guy of Lusignan. Gerard supported Sibylla and Guy.

Both groups, however, cared about the survival of the Christian kingdoms established by the Crusades, so Templars and Hospitallers worked together. Roger's recent trip to England had motivated King Henry II to send money for the defense of the Holy Land (in lieu of going on Crusade himself, which he had vowed to do after the death of Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket). Gerard used the money received by the Templars to hire extra troops to mount an offensive against Saladin.

Roger and some Hospitallers joined Gerard and 100 Templars in an attack against Saladin's son in May 1187. Saladin's son, al-Afdal, had 5000 men. Gerard was one of the few to escape the Battle of Cresson, though wounded. Roger was killed by a spear.

Gerard has come down to us in literature (and video games) as arrogant, headstrong, uncompromising. Let's see what other problems he might have had tomorrow.

Roger de Moulins

Roger de Moulins was not known to history until 1177 when he became Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitaller. His chief concern seemed to be urging King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem to be aggressive in the war with Saladin.

Roger was part of the Battle of Montgisard (pictured) against the Ayyubid Sultanate (the dynasty founded by Saladin when he came to power). The fighting was fierce: Roger's own report was that 1100 men had been killed and a further 750 wounded. It was one of Saladin's few defeats, but completely redeemed by him at the Battle of Hattin ten years later.

The full name of the Hospitallers was Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem. They had founded a hospital for the care of the sick and wounded in Jerusalem in 1113. The Order's increasing involvement in military affairs made them well-known and powerful, but distracted them from their original purpose. Their second Grandmaster, Raymond de Puy, had started them on a more military bearing.

Pope Alexander III issued a papal bull, declaring that they were not allowed to fight anyone unless attacked and urging the Order to focus on caring for the sick and the poor. Alexander also urged the Order to forget their rivalry with the Templars for the sake of unity in the Holy Land. The two Orders soon got together to negotiate a truce. The Orders, however, retained their rivalry.

Roger traveled Europe along with his Templar counterpart, Arnold of Torroja, and the Patriarch of Jerusalem Heraclius, to persuade Pope Lucius III and European nobles to form a new Crusade for the support of the Holy Land and to find a husband for Queen Sibylla to replace Guy of Lusignan. Roger also intended to establish the Hospitallers in England, France, and Germany.

Arnold died along the way. Roger clashed with Arnold's successor, Gerard de Ridefort, Templar and Marshall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem who supported Guy of Lusignan as husband for Queen Sibylla of Jerusalem. Roger had been given the privilege of holding the key to the royal treasury, and at first refused to turn it over to Guy when Guy was crowned King of Jerusalem.

In 1182, Roger made a significant and interesting change in the Order's statutes that changed the atmosphere surrounding it. I'll explain more tomorrow.

The Power of Gold

Yes, it's the witch-weighing scene
from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"

There is a medieval anecdote in the so-called "Chronicle of Ernoul" that, though fanciful, is based on a true story. The author, "Ernoul," names himself in his Chronicle and says he was a squire of Balian of Ibelin, one of the Crusader nobles who helped take and maintain (for a short time) Jerusalem. He tells a story of a bride (Lucie) who was put on a large scale by a suitor, who offered her guardian (Raymond III of Tripoli) the lady's weight in gold for the privilege of marrying her.

The true story is just as demonstrative of the power of gold, however, and doesn't need a set of scales.

The lady was Cécile Dorel, who inherited lands in Tripoli upon the death of her father. Raymond III (1140-1187), Count of Tripoli, was her uncle. Raymond was approached by two men for Cécile's hand in marriage (and the coastal lands in Tripoli that she now possessed).

One of the men was Gerard de Ridefort. His origin is uncertain, but by the time of this story he was in the service of Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and held the title Marshal of the kingdom, putting him in charge of all mercenaries and disbursement of spoils of war. This would have been a noble match between Gerard and Cécile, but Raymond III acted differently. He married Cécile to the nephew of a Pisan merchant. Why? The bride price was too handsome to ignore. The bride price was money or valuables offered to the family of the bride by the groom or his family in order to ensure the marriage (feel free to read "buy the woman"). The Pisan nephew, whose name was Plivano, offered 10,000 bezants for Cécile. Bezants varied in weight and value, so it is difficult now to determine exactly how much that bride price was worth in today's money. It was clearly, however, an amount not to be ignored—and not easily matched—and so Plivano had his bride.

Gerard took the loss poorly and fell ill. He swore off women, apparently, and became a Templar, going on to a great career in that order. That, however, is a another story.