The Order of St. John was founded before the taking of Jerusalem in 1099 by the armies of the First Crusade. It began as a monastic community, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, which administered a hospice-infirmary for pilgrims to the Holy Land. Originally connected with the Benedictines, it became, under Blessed Gerard (+1120) an independent organisation.
By the Bull of 15 February 1113, addressed to Gerard, Pope Paschal II approved the confraternity of the Hospital of St. John, placed it under the protection on the Holy See, and ensured its right of freely electing its heads, Gerard's successors, without any interference from any other ecclesiastical or any law authority. In virtue of this Bull and of subsequent Papal acts, the Hospitaller became an exempt Order of the Church.
Owing to the political situation, the Order, now under its second head (and the first to be styled Master), Fra' Raymond du Puy, was obliged to assume military functions for the protection of the sick, the pilgrims, and the Christian territory which the Crusaders had won back from the Muslims. Accordingly, the Order of the Hospital of St. John acquired the additional character of an Order of Knighthood. The Knights where thus also Religious, bound by the three monastic vows of Obedience, Chastity, and Poverty. It thus became a persona mixta, a religious military Order. Fra' Raymond du Puy introduced the first rule of the Order known to us and also the white octagonal cross which has to this day remained the Order's emblem (the Maltese Cross).
While continuing on a vast scale its hospitaller activity, one of its two aims, the Order pursued valiantly its other aim, the defence of Christian Faith. However, in 1291, Acre, the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land was lost and the Order settled temporarily in Cyprus. From the beginning, the Order's independence of all other States, in virtue of Papal acts, and its universally recognised right to maintain armed forces and wage war constituted its international sovereignty. With the occupation of the island of Rhodes, completed in 1310, the Order acquired territorial sovereignty as well. The island faced Muslim territorial and naval might and became a bastion of Christendom in the East Mediterranean sea.
The military defence of Christendom now of necessity required naval action. Accordingly, the Order came to possess a powerful fleet; it patrolled the East Mediterranean waters. The members of the Order were grouped according to the languages they spoke. There were thus, initially, seven such groups of Langues (Tongues): Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon (and Navarre), England (with Scotland and Ireland) and Germany.
In 1462 Castile and Portugal separated from the Langue of Aragon and formed together the eighth Langue.
In the sixteenth century the Langue of England was suppressed and later, in 1782, temporarily re-established under the name of the Anglo-Bavarian Langue. Each Langue was composed of Priories or Grand Priories, Bailiwicks, and Commanderies. The Order was ruled by the Grand Master and the Council, minted its own money and maintained diplomatic relations with other States.
The Knights gallantly repulsed numerous Turkish assaults, until the Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent attacked Rhodes with a large fleet and a powerful army. On Christmas Eve of 1522 the Knights were forced to capitulate and, on 1 January 1523, left the island with military honours. For the next seven years the Order was deprived of territory, until the cession by the Emperor Charles V (in his capacity as King of Sicily) of the islands of Malta, Gozo, and Comino, as well as Tripoli in North Africa, in sovereign fief.
On 26 October 1530 the Grand Master Fra' Philippe de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam took possession of Malta, with the approbation of Pope Clement VII. Yet the war of defence of Christendom went on. The Turks attacked Malta, but in the Great Siege, from 18 May to 8 September 1565, were finally routed by the Knights led by the heroic Grand Master Fra' Jean de la Valette after whom the island's capital Valletta is named. The decline of Ottoman sea power dates from the defeat of 1565. The navy of the Order of St. John (or of Malta as it now came to be called) became one of the most powerful in the Mediterranean and took part in the final destruction of the Ottoman naval might in the great battle of Lepanto in 1571.
In 1798, Bonaparte, engaged in a campaign against Egypt, occupied the island of Malta and drove out the Order. The Knights again found themselves without a home. This was followed by what has been called the Russian coup d'état (1798-1803): The Emperor Paul I of Russia, who had shown himself a friend of the Order, now had himself proclaimed Grand Master by a handful of Knights then in Russia, in place of the Grand Master Fra' Ferdinand von Hompesch who had been obliged to abandon to the French. This proclamation of a married non-Catholic as head of a Catholic religious order was wholly illegal and void, and never recognised by the Holy See (a necessary condition for legitimacy). Accordingly, Paul I, who was accepted by a large number of knights and commanderies, can only be regarded as a Grand Master de facto, and not one de jure. His successor Alexander I, on the other hand, helped the Order to return to legitimate rule: in 1803 Fra' Giovanni Battista Tommasi was elected Grand Master. The British had meantime occupied Malta in 1801 and though the Treaty of Amiens (1802) recognised the Order's sovereign rights over the island, it has never been able to avail itself of them.
The Order finally established itself in 1834 in Rome, where it holds the Malta Palace at 68 Via Condotti and the Villa on the Aventine. From 1805 the Order was ruled by Lieutenants, until in 1879 Pope Leo XIII restored the Grandmastership and the honours of a Cardinal attaching to it. Hospitaller work, the original work of the Order, became once again its main concern. The Order's hospital and welfare activities, undertaken on a considerable scale in World War I, were greatly intensified and expanded in World War II under the Grand Master Fra' Ludovico Chigi della Rovere Albani (Grand Master 1931-1951).
The activities of the Order have been further expanded under the rule of Grand Master Fra' Angelo de Mojana di Cologna (1962-1988), who was succeeded by the Prince and Grand Master, Fra' Andrew Bertie (†2008), and recently by Fra’ Matthew Festing. It is a religious Order of the Catholic Church and at the same time a Catholic Order of Knighthood. The sovereignty of the Order is expressed in the diarchy of the Prince and Grand Master, who is the Supreme Head, and of the Councils: the Sovereign Council, the General Chapter and the Council Complete of State. The General Chapter is a Supreme assembly of the Knights, it convenes normally every five years, and elects members of the Sovereign Council; The Council Complete of State is convened for the purpose of electing a Grand Master or a Lieutenant. The Grand Master governs the Order with the assistance of the Sovereign Council, presided by himself and composed of the four High Officers of the Grand Magistry elected by the General Chapter: the Grand Commander, the Grand Chancellor, the Grand Hospitaller, and the Receiver of the Common Treasure - as well as of six Councillors.
His Most Eminent Highness the Prince and Grand Master of the Order rules, with the assistance of the Sovereign Council, a world-wide and supranational institution which, while never abandoning its aim of the defence of Christendom, is now dedicated to providing assistance in the sanitary, social and humanitarian fields in the widest possible meaning of these words. The Order rushes for the aid mainly of the victims of war, and of natural disasters.
