I just got back from Malta, and read up on the antics of this bunch, who were gifted the islands by the Pope and built the incredible fortifications of Valletta with funding and help from the King of Spain. They were a proper pan-European bunch - knights came from Lithuania and England and all places inbetween. I quite like the idea of a group like this, powerful and influential and in favour enough with actual kings and nations that they were basically given whole countries (they had Sicily and Rhodes too) and told to run them. It made me wonder if any group like that could exist on the same model nowadays.
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The good knight live on in various forms, most famously as the powerful order within the Catholic Church that has a massive nertwork of charitable works throughout the world. They even have their own passports!
Britain's St John Amblance also has its roots in that lot, though St John was refounded afew hundred years after the Reformation, so there's a broken lineage (but hence the Maltese cross)
The origins of the order were quite humble. They set up in Jerusalem in the 11th century before the Crusades to give medical care to pilgrims. When Christians had won power, they continued as a hospital for the locals and pilgrims, as well as becoming a military order to protect pilgrims on the way to Jerusalem. One iron rukle they hasd was hat patientswoukd get all the best food. Only once they were served could the monks eat whatever was left. Their health care was so good andso progressive, Saladin allowed them to stick around for a while after his conquest.
But then they were expelled, and first found refuge in Rhodes, and then went on to Malta where, as Rogin says, they did pretty well for themselves. -
I am on Rhodes right now and have just visited the Palace of the Grand Master so am up for this thread.
The Knights of Rhodes considered themselves to be a state, unified by a common language and an administrative centre (auberge). They ran Rhodes for just over two centuries from 1310 until the Ottomans conquered it in 1522.
Two other facts about Rhodes I learned today. You can get a great wet shave here for ten Euros and it has an excellent synagogue and Jewish Museum. The Sephardic Jews spoke Ladino, a mixture of Hebrew and Spanish.
The museum also contains a mikveh - Jewish ritual bath.Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 08-07-2019, 11:07.Comment
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There are still tens of thousands of native speakers of Ladino in Sephardic communities around the world, though most of them are quite elderly. As with many minority languages in the West, there is a reasonably active movement to preserve it.
The Judeo-Spanish language should not be confused with the 'ladino' spoken primarily in the Dolomites, which is a completely different thing (though also a Romance language). This threw me for a while on my first visit to the area.
The more recent examples tend to be corporate. For example, the US effectively did this with the United Fruit Company in Central America and it didn't work out well for the local population at all.I quite like the idea of a group like this, powerful and influential and in favour enough with actual kings and nations that they were basically given whole countries (they had Sicily and Rhodes too) and told to run them.Comment
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Don't tell us you can speak one Ladino but not the other, ursus, that's a stretch too far.Comment
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The Judeo Spanish version is a lot easier to follow . . .Comment
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Maybe the Eastern bloc satellite Comunist Parties could be viewed as parallels for the Knights, which Putin would probably like to replicate?
Another might be Protectorates run by sultans, as in Aden, perhaps initiating the current mess in Yemen?
The Americans of course had a client state in South Vietnam that went rogue.Comment
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That reminds me, I've been meaning to play a Knights game of EUIV.Comment
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