De origine Hospitalariorum Hierosolymitanorum—Vom klösterlichen Pilgerhospital zur internationalen Organisation

Abstract

We are still not quite sure about the beginnings of the Order of the Knights of St John. There are thirteen years in which the possessions of the Hospice of Jerusalem increased enormously that we do not know much about. Up to now research on the origin of the Hospitallers of St John has been concerned primarily with two points of discussion. Firstly, the question as to whether the hospice of the Amalfitan abbey St Mary Latina is identical with the great Hospice of St John in Jerusalem. Secondly, the institutional development of the Hospice since its first papal privilege (1113). This paper raises the question of when and why this great and internationally organized Hospice of Jerusalem was founded, or rather when and why the dependent hospice of the abbey St Mary Latina was transformed into the independent Hospice of Jerusalem. By analysing early charters of western donations to the Hospice, we find that the creation of such a hospice was already planned during the great journey of Pope Urban II through France in the years 1095/1096. This means that is was planned at the same time as the conception of the First Crusade. The distribution of the first dependencies of the Hospice in the West, for example, proves this. It was intended to support the crusade, which was defined as an armed pilgrimage to liberate the Holy Sepulchre. In addition it was to facilitate, in this way, the Jerusalem pilgrimage generally. After the conquest of the Holy City in 1100, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Daimbert of Pisa, carried out the papal plan.