A Survey of the Houses and Churches etc of St John of Jerusalem including those earlier belonging to the Knights Templar
This book is the first comprehensive guide to the possessions of the Knights Hospitaller in the British Isles in 1540 at the time of their dissolution by Henry VIII. They were in 1540 the largest individual owner of land after the Crown.
The Knights Hospitaller were founded in the Holy Land in the 11th century as the Knights of St John of Jerusalem. Initially set up to look after the poor and the sick, they rapidly became a military order, building castles such as Krak des Chevaliers. After the end of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1291 they moved to Rhodes until evicted by the Turks in 1522. They moved their headquarters to Malta in 1531. They arguably saved Christian Europe from Turkish invasion at the time of the Great Siege of 1565. Evicted from Malta in 1798 by Napoleon they ultimately moved to Rome where they continue to function to this day as the Order of Malta.
In the Middle Ages the funds for the defence of the Holy Land and then Rhodes came from their huge, donated, possessions in Western Europe. In 1312 the Knights Templar were dissolved and the Knights Hospitaller were in the main given their lands, thereby roughly doubling their wealth. In 1540 the Knights Hospitallers in the British Isles had some forty “commanderies” through which they administered their possessions. They also had the advowsons of well over 200 churches.
Michael Hodges studied at Eton and Balliol before spending forty years as a banker focusing on the Middle East. He is currently Chancellor of the British Association of the Sovereign Military of Malta. He is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Deputy Lieutenant of Wiltshire.
Illustrated with more than 500 colour photographs. Published September 2018. Any profits will go to the Order of Malta
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