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 Cœur 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 lives 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 Melec 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
a new crusade; but Molay alone obeyed; Villaret excused his delay
by alleging the urgent necessity which lay on him to provide for
the settlement of his order. He had already fixed on the island
of Rhodes as the place most adapted for his purpose: it was but a
short distance from Palestine, provided with an excellent port, and
capable of being strongly fortified; whilst the circumstances of its
existing government seemed to justify the attempt at conquest. It was
nominally subject to the Greeks; but in the decay of their empire
the lords of Gualla had assumed the real sovereignty of the island;
and, the better to protect their independence against the court of
Constantinople, had introduced a population of Turks and Saracens,
whose lawless piracies they connived at and encouraged. The ports of
Rhodes offered a sure refuge for the vessels of the corsairs when
pursued by the galleys of the Hospitallers, or of other Christian
powers; and the island had come to have a bad reputation, as little
else than a nest of robbers. Villaret, therefore, felt little doubt
that his plan for erecting Rhodes into a sovereignty for his order
would meet with no opposition from the European princes on the ground
of justice: so, after reconnoitering the island, and coming to the
conclusion that the enterprise was beyond his strength without the
assistance of a larger force than he then possessed, he prepared to
set out for Europe, both in obedience to the pontifical summons, and
also for the purpose of collecting the requisite reinforcements. But
he died before putting his proposed voyage into execution; and the
Knights immediately elected in his room his brother Fulk de Villaret,
as being fully possessed of his most secret designs, and the best
capable of bringing them to a successful termination.
Fulk therefore hastened to France early in the spring of 1307, to
lay the plan before the Pope and the French king; Molay had already
preceded him, and was at Poitiers (then the residence of the papal
court) at the very time of his visit. The storm had not yet broken
over the head of the Templars, and the designs against them were
kept a close secret; yet it is probable that there were even then
sufficient tokens of ill-will and approaching disgrace to impress the
grand master of the Hospitallers with the belief, that France was
just then no safe quarters for the representative of either of the
military orders. Nevertheless, it would seem that Clement at least
entered favourably into his views; and though the real object of the
enterprise was kept a secret, yet the proposal for a fresh expedition
against the infidels, when publicly proclaimed, was received with
such enthusiasm, that Villaret soon found himself furnished with
men and money sufficient for his purpose. The money was principally
contributed by the women of Genoa, who sold their jewels to supply
the means of this new crusade, as it was termed; the troops were
chiefly from Germany; and thus provided, he hastened to return to
Cyprus, where he arrived in the August of the same year. Two months
later Molay was arrested, and that terrible tragedy was enacted which
ranks the suppression of the Templars among the great crimes of
history. Its relation forms no part of our subject; for whilst every
fresh investigation serves only to add new evidence of the innocence
of the accused, and to increase the infamy of their enemies, there
has never been an attempt to involve the Hospitallers in the charges
brought against them. Yet it can scarcely be doubted that they too
were included in the original design of the French king; and that,
had Villaret withdrawn his knights to Europe, and, like Molay, put
himself within the power of his enemies, the fate of both orders
would have been alike. But Providence ordered it otherwise; and at
the very time when the Templars were being tortured and massacred in
France, the brilliant fame acquired by the Hospitallers in Rhodes
placed them in a position of safety beyond the grasp of Philip.
Villaret’s movements were conducted with the greatest secrecy; he
remained at Cyprus only long enough to take on board his vessels
those of the knights who still remained in the island, and then
directed his course towards the coast of Asia Minor. Even they, as
well as the rest of the troops, were persuaded that the expedition
was about to be directed against Syria, and the real object was
suspected by none. Anchoring in the port of Myra, the grand
master despatched a secret embassy to the Greek emperor Andronicus
to solicit the formal investiture of Rhodes, under condition of
rendering him military service against the infidels. A compliance
with this request would have been every way advantageous to the
emperor’s interest; but the old jealousy of the Latins was too
strong, and he rejected the proposal with disdain. His reply,
however, made little difference in the course of events; without
waiting for the return of his ambassador, Villaret publicly announced
his real design; and taking the Rhodians by surprise, he disembarked
his troops and military stores with scarcely a show of resistance. In
spite of this first success, however, he found himself encompassed
by many difficulties: the corsairs assembled in great numbers from
the neighbouring islands at the first intelligence of the Christians
landing; and a desultory war began, which lasted for four years
with various success. The inhabitants, assisted by a body of troops
despatched by the Greek emperor, threw themselves into the city
of Rhodes, whose strength of position enabled them to hold out
against repeated assaults. On the other hand, the German and French
volunteers gradually dropped away, and left the knights unsupported;
so that their numbers were considerably reduced, and they, in their
turn, were obliged to stand on the defensive. But for the capacity
and unwearied exertions of their grand master, they might have found
themselves in a critical position; but whilst he succeeded in raising
fresh levies in Europe, he found means also to inspire his followers
with an enthusiasm which never failed them, in spite of every reverse.
No details have been left by contemporary historians of the final
struggle; we know only that it was most bloody; and that before the
banner of the order was planted on the walls of Rhodes, many of the
bravest among the knights were cut to pieces. Villaret, however,
found himself in the end master of the city and of the whole island;
and such of the Saracens as escaped alive, took to their vessels,
and were the first to spread the news of their defeat along the
coasts and among the islands of the Archipelago. The universal
joy and admiration excited throughout Europe by the intelligence
of the event, was a testimony of the benefit which all felt would
accrue to the Christian cause by the establishment of an independent
sovereignty in those seas, which had hitherto been entirely at the
command of the infidels; and the title of “Knights of Rhodes” was not
so much assumed by the order as accorded to them by the unanimous
voice of all nations.
The first act of the grand master, after the surrender of the
capital, and the submission of the Christian inhabitants to their new
sovereigns, was to order the restoration of the city fortifications,
that they might be put in a thorough state of defence; after which
he proceeded to visit the surrounding group of islets, which readily
acknowledged his authority. The territories now subject to the
order included, besides the larger island of Rhodes, nine others,
some scarcely more than fortified rocks, yet serving as outposts of
defence, and all of them inhabited. Others were richly wooded and
productive, and were granted on a kind of feudal tenure to certain of
the knights who had most distinguished themselves in the late war;
of these the most considerable was Cos, or Lango, which afterwards,
under the rule of its new masters, rose to an important position
among the islands of the Archipelago.
In the midst of these surrounding islets, not twenty miles distant
from the Asiatic coast, lay Rhodes—a fairy island on a fairy ocean;
and the soft southern breeze, as it swept over her fields, carried
far over the waters the scent of those roses which bloomed through
all the year, and from which she derived her name. The very rocks
were garlanded with them; beds of flowering myrrh perfumed the air;
and tufts of laurel-roses adorned the margins of the rivulets with
their gaudy blossoms. It is scarcely strange that Rhodes should
in old times have been the school of art; for men caught, as it
were naturally, the painter’s inspiration amidst scenes of such
enchanting loveliness. She was made, indeed, to be a home of peace;
her skies were ever cloudless and untroubled; her woods stood thick
with fruit-trees, and the velvet of her sloping lawns sparkled with
a thousand flowers. Her beauty was neither stern nor grand,—it was
entirely pastoral; and if you wandered inland round her entire
circuit, which was scarcely thirty miles, one verdant landscape every
where met your eye, woods and gardens breaking the sameness of those
lovely pastures; while all round, between the hills and through the
foliage of the trees, you caught the blue line of the sea, whose
music, as it murmured on the shore, was never absent from your ears.
In old times, as we have said, Rhodes had had her celebrity; she had
taught eloquence to Rome, and had claimed the empire of the seas; but
all her greatness had vanished under Greek misrule and the barbarism
of her Saracen masters; and when the knights took possession of their
new territory, they found nothing left of ancient Rhodes but her
beauty and her name. There were, however, great resources, and these,
under their hands, were not long in developing. The forests furnished
wood, and the island of Syma skilful carpenters for ship-building;
and these latter had the art of constructing galleys so light and
swift that no vessel on the eastern seas could match them with
either sail or oar. So on the summit of a high mountain in Syma a
watch-tower was built, and the inhabitants bound themselves to keep a
look-out over the ocean, and send the first news to Rhodes by their
swiftest galley of the approach of hostile fleets; and by their skill
the navy of the order rapidly increased in magnitude and excellence.
Then there was Lero, with her quarries of rich marble, which supplied
a commerce of herself; and Nisara, whose ships were known in every
city on the southern coasts, and whose inhabitants had retained
something of their old fame as artists, and encouraged by a free
and generous government, soon filled their towns with palaces that
vied with those of Genoa;—with rich columns, and statues, and marble
fountains, all brought together in a lavish profusion, and bespeaking
the noble tastes of her merchant lords. There were plenty of ports
and harbours on these island coasts, and a population of maritime
habits, accustomed to live on the sea, or well-nigh in it; in short,
every thing contributed to point out naval and commercial enterprise
as the road to the future greatness of Rhodes.
The first enemy who threatened the safety of the knights in their
new home was one of whom they were hereafter to hear more. The
Tartar Othman was beginning to lay the foundation of the Turkish
empire, and had established himself in Bithynia and other Asiatic
provinces, which he had conquered from the Greeks. It was to him that
the Saracens of Rhodes fled for refuge after being finally driven
out of the island; and he very willingly undertook their cause,
and despatched a considerable force, which besieged the knights in
their city before they had time to restore the walls or raise fresh
fortifications in place of those they had destroyed. Nevertheless,
in spite of their defenceless position, Othman received his first
defeat; and, obliged to retire with considerable loss, he contented
himself with plundering the neighbouring islands, from whence he
kept up a desultory warfare which lasted for some time longer. In
1315, however, the knights were enabled, with the assistance, as it
is said, of Amadeus of Savoy, to expel their Turkish neighbours,
and commence the work of rebuilding and fortifying. So soon as this
was completed, Villaret bent all his endeavours to the restoration
of commerce: the port of Rhodes was thrown open to all nations,
and many of the Latin Christians who had been driven from the Holy
Land, and were scattered about in various parts of Greece, hastened
to enrol themselves under the banner of St. John, which protected
all alike—Greek and Latin, mercantile or military; and out of these
various elements the new state rapidly rose to opulence and renown.
Its opulence was perhaps a doubtful good, to some at least among the
knights, who after their long hardships and sufferings were tempted
to make their restoration to better fortunes the excuse for a life
of ease and indulgence. The relaxation was far from universal; and
from the description left us of the general state of their dominions,
it is evident that a wise and enlightened policy directed their
government, and that the abuses, such as they were, were confined
to a minority. But unhappily the grand master himself was of the
number; hero and man of genius as he had proved himself to be, after
winning the applause of all Europe and a name among the great men
of the time, he was not strong enough to withstand his own success,
and his luxury and neglect of duty soon raised the voice of the
order against him. His irregularities must have been great, for
rarely is a successful chief unpopular among his followers; yet the
discontent even spread into revolt, and the majority of the knights,
after solemnly deposing Villaret from his authority, chose Maurice
de Pagnac in his room,—a man of stern and austere character, and a
zealous advocate of discipline. The matter ended in the interference
of the Pope, John XXII., who summoned the rival grand masters to
Avignon, where Villaret was obliged to retire on a rich commandery
of the order; and Pagnac soon after dying, Helion de Villeneuve was
elected on the recommendation, or nomination, of the Pontiff. On his
return to Rhodes from Montpellier, where he had convened a general
chapter for the reform of abuses, matters began to mend; laws were
passed obliging the residence of all the principal officers of the
order at the seat of government; all the islands were strongly
fortified, and such a spirit infused into the little commonwealth,
that many built and maintained war-galleys for defence against the
infidels at their own expense, in addition to those kept up by the
government; and, in spite of the vast expenses rendered necessary
by the circumstances of the time, the chief glory of Rhodes and her
knightly sovereigns lay in the happiness of those who lived beneath
their rule. They were still worthy of their ancient title, “Servants
of the poor of Christ;” “for,” says Vertot, “there was not a poor
man in all the territories of the order:” there were employment and
support for all; and for the sick there was the large and magnificent
hospital, where soul as well as body was cared for, and where the
grand master’s example of charity animated and kept alive the fervour
of primitive discipline in the hearts of his knights.
Yet the Hospitallers had their enemies; those who had plundered and
destroyed one order, and given it up to centuries of defamation,
would willingly have done the same by its survivor. It was said
of them that they never gave alms;—scarcely an accusation, had it
even been true, if indeed they kept their subjects from the need of
alms-giving; but false, unless we leave out of sight the hospital
and its vast system of charity daily dispensed in grand and lavish
profusion. And that they did not spare themselves in their exertions
to meet the expenses of that system, is evident from the law made
about that time limiting the table of the knights to a single
dish. The Hospitallers had been nominally declared heirs to the
unfortunate Templars; yet, save the odium attaching to the suspicion
of possessing enormous wealth, they gained little by the decree; for
in almost every country, with the exception of England, the property
of the suppressed order found its way into the royal coffers.
Villeneuve, and the grand masters who succeeded him, were unsparing
in their efforts to maintain the primitive and religious character
of the order; and though, doubtless, there were abuses to reform,
yet if we read the repeated remonstrances addressed to them from the
Pontiffs, the accusations do not come to much. “There is a general
feeling,” writes Clement V., “that you do not make a very good
use of your money; it is said you keep fine horses, are superbly
dressed, keen dogs and birds of prey, and neglect the defence of
Christendom.” It must be allowed that these charges are somewhat
vague. The real crime of the Hospitallers in the eyes of those who
incessantly endeavoured to poison the minds of the Pontiffs against
them, was their supposed wealth, which their accusers longed to
sequestrate, and which, though greatly exaggerated, was made the
pretence for throwing on them the chief burden of the Turkish war.
During its long continuance they bore a part which should at least
have acquitted them from the charge of slothfulness in the cause of
Christendom. A new league having been formed against the infidels
between the Pope, the king of Cyprus, the republic of Venice, and the
Order of St. John, it was Biandra prior of Lombardy who led their
forces in the attack on Smyrna, which he carried, sword in hand,
at the head of his knights. Later, when the league was falling to
pieces, it was revived by the grand master Deodato de Gozon. This
Deodato was a very hero of romance—a second St. George, were we
to credit the popular story of his combat with the dragon.[4] In
his own day he deserved to receive the title of the “Magnanimous.”
Immediately on his election he sailed in quest of the Turkish fleet,
which he found at the little isle of Embro, near the mouth of the
Dardanelles. Falling on it by surprise, he gained a brilliant
victory, and captured 118 of the enemy’s vessels; and on returning
from this exploit, he found the ambassadors of the king of Armenia
awaiting him at Rhodes, to implore his assistance against the
Egyptian Saracens. The king was a Greek schismatic; and at a time
when the jealousies between Greek and Latin were at their height,
many might have hesitated to risk the success of such an enterprise.
Not so, however, with Deodato the Magnanimous: “frill of zeal,” says
Vertot, “and animated with the true spirit of his institute, he would
not abandon the Christians to the fury of the barbarians.” So a
powerful force was despatched to Armenia; nor did it return till the
last of the Saracen invaders was driven from the country.
And yet at the very time of these achievements, whilst the treasury
of the order was being exhausted by its disinterested exertions, and
its blood was flowing freely on every coast of the Archipelago, the
old murmurs were being repeated, and representations were constantly
made at the papal court that the knights were idling away their
time in their luxurious palaces, employed in the amassing of vast
treasures, and the enjoyment of a life of ease. Nor was this all:
not a post or embassy from Europe but brought them a fresh budget
of advice. Rhodes was unfit for the residence of the order; they
ought to be somewhere on the mainland; they should be in the Morea,
which the Turks were threatening to overrun; and above all, why did
they not return to the Holy Land? This last suggestion was seriously
propounded in an embassy despatched from Rome, at whose head appeared
one of their own brethren, Heredia, grand prior of Castile,—a man
of consummate abilities, but who, for the gratification of his
boundless ambition, had separated himself from the interests of the
order, and had succeeded in gaining extraordinary influence in the
councils of the Pontiff, Innocent VI. This continual interference
from authorities in Europe, to whom the real state of affairs was
wholly unknown, caused the grand masters much embarrassment, which
was increased by the internal dissensions which rose out of the new
division of the order into languages. This division had gradually
been adopted for the convenience it afforded in several ways, but was
only formally acknowledged in the grand chapter held under Helion
de Villeneuve in 1322. Each language then had its inn, as it was
called, where the knights met for meals in common, and to debate
in their own tongue. But the evil effects of this arrangement were
soon felt in the growth of national jealousies, and the unity of the
order was severely injured by it. To it may be attributed the failure
and disappointment of many a noble plan: as when the heroic Raymund
Beranger, grand master of the order in 1365, after a bold and
successful enterprise against Alexandria, which he took by surprise,
entirely destroying the piratical fleet of the Saracens, addressed
letters to all the powers of Christendom to implore their assistance
against the threatened invasion of his island by the sultan of
Babylon, and appealed at the same time to the order in every country
of Europe to pay up the arrears owing from the different commanderies
and priories, and unite together to avert so imminent a danger. Not
only were the letters disregarded, but the jealousies between the
languages of Provence and Italy reached such a height that Beranger,
worn out with sorrow and disappointment, was only prevented from
resigning in disgust by the authority of Gregory XI., who finally
took the adjustment of the whole question into his own hands.
On the death of Beranger, in 1374, Robert de Juillac, grand prior of
France, was chosen as his successor. He was at his priory at the time
of his election, and setting out for Rhodes, he presented himself at
Avignon on his road, to offer homage to the Pope. The devotion of
the grand masters to the Holy See through all their difficulties is
very striking; and on no occasion did they offer a more noble example
of religious obedience than on the present. Smyrna was still in the
hands of the Christians; its Venetian governor was half-merchant,
half-soldier; and complaints were addressed to the papal court on
the part of the archbishop and inhabitants, that, in consequence
of his devotion to his commercial engagements and frequent voyages
to Italy, the place was left without defence, and almost without
a garrison. Gregory decided on committing the care of the city to
the Hospitallers; and when Juillac appeared at Avignon, the first
intelligence that reached his ears was that, in addition to every
other difficulty and embarrassment, the defence of Smyrna was to
be given into his hands. In vain he represented that Smyrna was a
forlorn hope, isolated in the midst of the Turkish dominions, and too
far from Italy to receive any succours from thence in case of siege.
“The situation of the city,” replied the Pontiff, “in the heart of
the infidel’s own country, is the very cause of my intrusting it to
your order; for the Turks will not advance farther so long as they
have so considerable an enemy at home; and I therefore charge you
under pain of excommunication, to despatch the necessary garrison
immediately on your return to Rhodes.” When this injunction was
communicated to the council of the order assembled in the island on
the arrival of the grand master, there was but one feeling as to
the nature of the commission intrusted to them. “All were very well
aware,” says Vertot, “that it was to send the knights to certain
death; nevertheless they took the part of obedience, and many of them
even generously offered themselves for a service whose dangers and
glory were equally certain. For it was not to be supposed that the
Turks, whose power daily increased, would long leave the knights in
peaceable possession of a place which was in the very centre of their
dominions.” For twenty-seven years, therefore, did the Hospitallers
succeed in holding Smyrna triumphantly against the Turks; and its
noble defence is said to have delayed the fall of Constantinople, and
possibly to have saved the rest of Christendom by drawing away the
attack of the infidels from other quarters. The event, therefore,
amply vindicated the sagacity of Pope Gregory, yet not the less
does it elevate the obedience of the knights to the dignity of a
sacrifice.