The Order of Saint John of Jerusalem

Abstract

It might seem incongruous for women to be members of a medieval military order, even a religious military order. But the Order of Saint John did not start out as a military order. It began as a small congregation serving the hospital of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, which enjoyed an increasing amount of support from men and women in the East and the West. The hospital was mostly an affair of men, but there is evidence of female members as early as 1111 as half-sisters, and by 1146 as sisters—something that would not have surprised contemporaries: many hospitaller organizations, usually small hospitals, had male and female staff and support. From about 1136, the Hospitallers were increasingly drawn into the protection of Christian lands against the Muslims. By the 1160s, they had committed to the cause. In this way, the congregation of the hospital in Jerusalem developed into an international religious military order over the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. By the end of the thirteenth century, the order’s military endeavors and its female membership were both well established. In order to understand the women’s place within this religious military order, we shall discuss here how the Order of Saint John came into being, namely how it evolved from the staff of a hospital into a complex religious order and how adopting a military ethos affected its image as a charitable organization.