CHAPTER II.

THE KNIGHTS AT LIMISSO—COMMENCEMENT OF THEIR NAVAL POWER—SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLARS—ENTERPRISE OF THE HOSPITALLERS AGAINST RHODES—ITS FINAL SUCCESS—THE ISLAND AND ITS DEPENDENCIES—FIRST HOSTILITIES WITH THE TURKS—DEPOSITION OF VILLARET—COMPLAINTS AGAINST THE ORDER—DIVISION INTO LANGUAGES—THE POPE CHARGES THE KNIGHTS WITH THE DEFENCE OF SMYRNA.

THE LITTLE HANDFUL OF KNIGHTS whom we left covered with wounds in their single galley, directed their course towards Cyprus, which was looked on in those days as a resting-place on the road between Europe and Syria, and had been conquered years before, and granted to Guy de Lusignan by Richard Coeur de Lion in the beginning of his short crusade. The island was still held, together with the title of king of Jerusalem, by one of the descendants of De Lusignan, and seemed a fitting place of refuge for the soldiers of the Cross. We have said that there were but six who found their way alive out of Acre, of whom the grand master was one; but their numbers were soon increased, for knights flocked in from every country in answer to the circular which had been sent before the siege began; and Villiers soon found himself surrounded by a numerous and well-appointed body of his order. King Henry had granted the town of Limisso to him and the Templars as their temporary place of residence; and here a chapter of the Hospitallers was held to consider what best was to be done in the emergency. Never since the first day of their foundation had such an assembly been seen; for scarcely a man had remained in Europe, but all had hastened when the summons reached them, and had met in Cyprus on their road to Acre, though too late to proceed further on their way. The first act of Villiers was to submit himself to the judgment of the chapter, for the fact of his leaving Acre alive; and then a resolute vote was passed, in spite of all their losses, never to abandon the cause for which their order had been first created, just two centuries before; but to sacrifice their fives for the Holy Land whenever and however they might be called; and for this purpose, to fortify Limisso as they should best be able, as being nearer to the shores of Syria than any other residence which it was then in their power to choose.

The spirit of the order must still have been very fresh and vigorous; for though Limisso was old and half in ruins from the continual attacks of the Saracen pirates, and there were neither fortifications, nor even accommodation sufficient for the knights, yet their first care was directed to preparing some establishment for the reception of the poor and of the pilgrims. The Xenodochia of Jerusalem and of Acre could not indeed be thought of; but still the order might not exist without its hospital. The next step was one whose future results they themselves perhaps scarcely contemplated: it was the refitting of the galley which had brought them from Acre, and which they determined to keep in repair to assist them against the pirates; at the same time they also resolved by degrees to build other vessels, that the pilgrims who still found their way to the holy places, in spite of the presence of the infidels, might be protected on their journey by sea, since they could have their escort on land no longer.

This was the origin of their celebrated navy, which afterwards contributed more than any other single power to defend the coasts of Europe, and restrain the Moslems within their own shores. It was from the corsairs of Barbary and Egypt that the Christians suffered so much during the three centuries that followed; for not only was every vessel that plied on the Mediterranean subject to their attacks, but the towns and villages on the coasts of France and Italy were constantly ravaged, and their inhabitants carried into captivity; nor as yet had there arisen any maritime power bold and warlike enough to protect the highway of the sea. Very soon there appeared in all the chief ports of Europe little vessels of various sizes and construction, armed and manned by the soldiers of the Cross, collecting pilgrims and escorting them on their way to the Syrian shores, and guarding them, a few months later, on their return. The corsairs, accustomed to make an easy prey of the pilgrims, were not long in attacking these new galleys; but they found a different resistance from what they had expected; and few years passed without the Hospitallers bringing some of the captured vessels of the Saracens into the ports of Cyprus; so that their little fleet gradually grew considerable, and the flag of St. John soon came to be feared and respected in every sea. And here we can scarcely avoid observing, on the one hand, an example of that wonderful spirit of adaptation to be found in all the elder religious orders of the Church, which enabled them to take new shapes and assume new duties, according as the purposes for which they were originally instituted changed and shifted with the age; and, on the other hand, the wonders of God’s providence, which is ever bringing good out of evil, and turning what men call the disasters and failures of the Church to her greater glory. The Hospitallers, whilst fixed within the boundaries of Palestine, were able, indeed, to discharge a great work of charity, but one whose limits were necessarily prescribed; the very defeat, however, which drove them out of Syria, and seemed even to threaten their extinction, became the means of opening to them a new sphere of action, in which they may be said to have become the protectors of all Christendom. The numbers they rescued from captivity, or saved from falling into a bondage often worse than death, are beyond calculation; and if the crusades, though failing in their primary object, yet kept the Moslems at bay during two centuries, and thus saved Europe from that inundation of infidelity which overwhelmed the eastern nations, the maritime power of the Knights of St. John contributed in no small degree to the same end, when the old crusading enthusiasm had faded and died away.

As may be imagined, it was not with indifference that Melee Seraf, the conqueror of Acre, watched the resurrection to new life of an order he had thought to destroy. Its new enterprises and repeated successes against the commanders of his galleys stung him most sensibly; and he prepared a powerful flotilla to be despatched against Limisso, for the purpose of exterminating the insolent Hospitallers and razing their citadel to the ground. God, however, watched over His own cause. A civil war broke out in the sultan’s own dominions; he himself fell in the first engagement; and his successor had too much on his hands to be in a condition to pursue a distant expedition: thus the knights were saved from an attack against which they possessed scarcely any defences, and their naval power, instead of being crushed in its infancy, had time to strengthen and increase.

The residence of the order at Limisso lasted for about eighteen years; during which period the temporary success of the Tartars, under their great khan, Gazan, seemed at one time to give hopes of a re-establishment of the Christian power in Palestine. Gazan, though not a Christian himself, was always solicitous for the alliance of the Christian sovereigns. He had Christians from the Asiatic provinces among his troops, and to please them is said to have even placed the cross upon his banners. The better to pursue his hostilities against the Saracens, he entered into a league with the kings of Armenia and Cyprus, and the orders of the Hospitallers and Templars; and at the head of their united forces made himself master of Syria. Once more did the Christian knights find themselves within the walls of the Holy City; and whilst gazing on the ruins of their old home, or on the grassy mounds which were all that remained to show the fate of their brethren of Nicopolis, they doubtless thought the day was come for the Cross once more to triumph, and that they should behold the hospital of Jerusalem rise from its ashes in all its ancient splendour. But Gazan was recalled to his own dominions; and the forces of the Christians were too weak to hold the country they had conquered. The ambassadors of the khan were seen indeed at the court of Rome; and had Bonifice VIII., who then filled the papal see, been able to unite the European powers in a fresh crusade, it is probable that a greater advantage might have been obtained than had ever yet attended their arms,—for the Saracens had lost the prestige of success; but the pontiff was engaged in a quarrel with the most powerful of those princes who would naturally have lent their aid to such an enterprise, and whilst France was governed by Philip le Bel no undertaking preached by Boniface could look for support from that nation. The whole plan, therefore, fell to the ground; and the Hospitallers, whose continuance in Cyprus gave rise to many jealousies on the part of the sovereigns of the island, began to see the necessity of abandoning their hopes of returning to Palestine, and of looking out for some other settlement in the neighbourhood of its shores, where their independence might be undisputed.

There were many plans afloat at this time for the union of the two great military orders under one head; plans which, originating with Clement V., the successor of Boniface, may perhaps have been intended as a means of avoiding the more violent measures for the suppression of the Templars forced on him later by the French king. Molay was then grand master of the Templars, and William de Villaret of the Hospitallers: both were summoned to France, where the pontiff then resided, under pretext of conferring on the practicability of...