Knights Hospitaller facts for kids

Hospitaller knights: seated is their Grand Maistre (Grand master) Pierre d’Aubusson

Knights of Malta had their own coins: this one depicts the head of John the Baptist on a serving platter (1792)

The Knights Hospitaller were a group of military knights fighting in Jerusalem. They are the group that became the Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem and, eventually, St. John Ambulance.

The Hospitallers are a Catholic military order founded at Jerusalem in the 11th century. They later became the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Today their headquarters are in Rome. The order continues its humanitarian tasks in most parts of the modern world under several slightly different names.

Knights of Malta

Malta was ruled by the Order of Saint John as a vassal state of the Kingdom of Sicily from 1530 to 1798. The islands of Malta and Gozo, as well as the city of Tripoli in modern Libya, were given to the Order by Spanish Emperor Charles V in 1530. following the loss of Rhodes. The Ottoman Empire managed to capture Tripoli from the Order in 1551, but an attempt to take Malta in 1565 failed.

In 1565 Suleiman sent an invasion force of about 40,000 men to besiege the 700 knights and 8,000 soldiers. He wanted to get the island as a base. From there he might launch another assault on Europe. A long struggle ended with the Knights undefeated. This is known as the Great Siege of Malta. Resisting the Ottoman Empire was their great achievement.

Images for kids

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  Pie postulatio voluntatis. Bull issued by Pope Paschal II in 1113 in favor of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, which was to transform what was a community of pious men into an institution within the Church. By virtue of this document, the pope officially recognized the existence of the new organisation as an operative and militant part of the Roman Catholic Church, granting it papal protection and confirming its properties in Europe and Asia.

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  The Knights Hospitaller in the 13th century

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  Street of Knights in Rhodes

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  The Knights' castle at Rhodes

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  Deed of Donation of the islands of Malta, Gozo and Tripoli to the Order of St John by Emperor Charles V in 1530.

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  Grand culverin of the Knights Hospitallers, 1500–1510, Rhodes

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  Arms of the Knights Hospitallers, quartered with those of Pierre d'Aubusson, on a bombard

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  Re-enactment of 16th-century military drills conducted by the Knights. Fort Saint Elmo, Valletta, Malta, 8 May 2005.

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  Ottoman attack on the post of the Castilian knights on 21 August 1565

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  Hospitaller galleys capturing an Ottoman vessel in the Malta Channel in 1652

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  Hospitaller galley c. 1680

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  Auberge de Castille in Valletta, an example of 18th-century Baroque architecture built by the Order.

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  View of the fortifications of Valletta

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  Emperor Paul wearing the Crown of the Grand Master of the Order of Malta (1799).

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  View from Valletta, Malta, showing Fort Saint Angelo, belonging to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

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  Prince Oskar of Prussia, Bailiwick of Brandenburg of the Chivalric Order of Saint John of the hospital at Jerusalem Herrenmeister since 1999

See also

In Spanish: Orden de San Juan de Jerusalén para niños