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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2017
Most of the Hospitallers of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, who seized Rhodes between 1306 and 1310 and thereafter defended it against the infidels, came from knightly or petty noble families which gave them little formal education; probably many were illiterate. They were well fitted to garrison castles and serve on crusading expeditions in the Levant, and to administer the extensive European estates on which the Order relied for the men and money necessary to maintain its position at Rhodes. The more outstanding brethren were often employed as royal or papal councillors and captains, but they were not normally intellectuals. Faced with the complex legal problems arising from their relationships and disputes with popes, bishops and secular powers, the Hospitallers had to rely on hired professional lawyers. It appeared during the trial of the French Templars, whose background was similar to that of the Hospitallers, that the Master of the Temple was illiterate, that only a few Templars knew Latin, and that their lack of expert legal knowledge prevented them from defending themselves properly in the various inquests and trials which culminated in the dissolution of their Order in 1312. For their part, the Hospitallers' own disadvantages at law must have become especially clear to them during the protracted legal quarrels which ensued in the decades after 1312, when they tried to secure possession of the lands of the Templars which had been transferred to them by the pope. The Hospitallers must also have felt the burden of the heavy fees they had to pay their lawyers.
1 The standard work is J. Delaville le Roulx, Les Hospitaliers à Rhodes jusqu’à la mort de Philibert de Naillac, 1310–1421 (Paris 1913).Google Scholar
2 For an interesting example, J. Brundage, ‘A Twelfth Century Oxford Disputation Concerning the Privileges of the Knights Hospitallers,’ Mediaeval Studies 24 (1962) 153-160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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7 Luttrell, A., ‘Jean and Simon de Hesdin: Hospitallers, Theologians, Classicists,’ Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médiévale 31 (1964) 137–140.Google Scholar
8 Luttrell, A., ‘Greek Histories translated and compiled for Juan Fernández de Heredia, Master of Rhodes, 1377–1396,’ Speculum 35 (1960) 401–407.Google Scholar
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10 Luttrell, A., ‘The Aragonese Crown and the Knights Hospitallers of Rhodes: 1291–1350,’ English Historical Review 76 (1960) 8; Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid: cods. 599B-605B passim. Google Scholar
11 Madrid, cod. 600B, fols. 10v-11r.Google Scholar
12 Madrid, cod. 600B, fols. 12v-13r. In 1353 a Fr. Francisco de Miedes was Prior of the Hospitallers’ church at Almunia de Doña Godina (cod. 601B, fol. 212r).Google Scholar
13 Madrid, cod. 602B, fols. 29r, 154v. One of these students, Diego Rodriguez de Heredia, became a licentiatus in law: C. Eubel, Hierarchia Catholica Medii Aevi I (Münster 1913) 443. The Noble don P. de Luna studeant en Montpesler, for whom Juan Fernández de Heredia ordered cient cistiers de forment on 29 September 1368 (cod. 603B, fol. 13r), was presumably Pope Benedict XIII, who did study Canon Law at Montpellier.Google Scholar
14 Madrid, cod. 599B, fols. 29r, 39r, 116r; cod. 601B, fols. 72r, 196r.Google Scholar
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19 Malta, cod. 316, fol. 14v.Google Scholar
20 Outline and bibliography in G. le Bras, ‘La faculté de droit au moyen âge,’ in L. Halphen et al., Aspects de l’ Université de Paris (Paris 1949).Google Scholar
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35 Boysson was Prior by 1379 at the latest; Fr. Nicholas de Soulier, Prior by 1359, became Archbishop of Rhodes on 28 November 1373 (Delaville, Hospitaliers 142 n. 3, 151 n.2; Eubel I 198).Google Scholar
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40 Madrid, cod. 604B, fol. 138r: ‘Como sea de grant provecho que en nuestra Religion aya frayres que sean en grado de sciencia e fundados en derecho por que los negocios e bienes dela dita nuestra Religion por aquellos mas diligentment procurados e defendidos sean, …’Google Scholar
41 Madrid, cod. 604B, fol. 217r.Google Scholar
42 Malta, cod. 328, fols. 5r-5v; cf. Delaville, Hospitaliers 237-239.Google Scholar
43 Malta, cod. 326, fol. 29r (1392); cod. 329, fols. 21r-21v (1395).Google Scholar
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47 Malta, cod. 322, fols. 49v-51v; Berty-Tisserand VI 96-97. The documents studied give no support to the claims in J. De la Barre Les Antiquitez de la Ville, Comté, et Chatelenie de Corbeil (Paris 1647) 212, that Fr. Gilbert Pouchet came from Corbeil and that he studied at the Hôpital Ancien and became a Doctor of Canon Law.Google Scholar
48 Denifle-Chatelain III 321, 328, 443; Fournier, Faculté I 126, 128-130, 255, 276-277, 292, 351, 380-381 et passim; for some Hospitaller lawyers at Paris between 1416 and 1427, ibid. I 163, 177, 260, 298, 321. The documents studied provide clear examples of Hospitaller lawyers studying at Paris, and further research would probably reveal more at other French universities, in Italy, and elsewhere. However, the detailed indices of the Chartularium Studii Bononiensis 13 vols. (Bologna 1909–1940) apparently provide no reference to any Hospitaller lawyers in this period.Google Scholar