ART OF THE DAY: KNIGHTS HOSPITALLER VS SARACENS BY MARK STACEY

The origins of the Hospital in Jerusalem goes back to around 600 AD, when Abbot Probus of Ravenna was commissioned by Pope Gregory the Great to build a hospital in Jerusalem to treat and care for Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. This hospice was destroyed fourteen years later when Jerusalem fell to the Persian – Jewish armies: The Christian population was slaughtered, and their churches and monasteries destroyed. Rebuilt after the Byzantine reconquest, it was enlarged by Charlemagne. In 1009, Fatimid caliph Al Hakim destroyed the hostel again and a large number of other buildings in Jerusalem. In 1048, the Fatimid Caliph Al-Mustansir Billah gave permission to merchants from the Republic of Amalfi to rebuild a hospital in Jerusalem on the site of the monastery of St John the Baptist. The hospital was run under the auspices of the Benedictines monks of the Latin Church of Santa Maria Latina in Jerusalem. Throughout the new persecutions against the Christians after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Seljuk Turks in 1078, the Hospital continued to operate. 

The community which ran the hospital became independent during the First Crusade in around 1099, under the leadership of a monk called Gerard. After Jerusalem was taken by the First Crusade, Gerard adopted the policy of receiving all needy patients, irrespective of religion. He organized the Fratres Hospitalarii into a regularly constituted Religious Order under the protection of saint John the Baptist. The members of the Order became known as Knights of St. John or Hospitallers. The formal establishment of the Knights Hospitallers under Brother Gerard was confirmed by the Papal bull Pie postulatio voluntatis of Pope Paschal II in February 1113. All the Knights were religious, bound by the three monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

By then, the Hospital was an already wealthy and powerful organization within the kingdom of Jerusalem, and Gerard expanded its operations far beyond the limits of the city, establishing daughter hospitals at Bari, Otranto, Taranto, Messina, Pisa, Asti and Saint-Gilles, placed strategically along the pilgrim route to Jerusalem.

It was his successor, Grand Master Raymond du Puy (1083-1060), who militarized the Order. He organized the Order into three classes: To the nobles he assigned the profession of arms, for the protection of pilgrims; the ecclesiastics were to exercise the religious functions; the lay-brothers were to take care of the pilgrims and the sick. The military role of the Hospitallers really began in 1137 when Foulques I, king of Jerusalem, transferred possession of the castle of Bath-Gibelin in the east of Gaza to the Order.

From then on, the Order appears in all the wars that the armies of the kingdom of Jerusalem fights against the Saracens. Under siege, the Kingdom of Jerusalem found it increasingly difficult to stand against its enemies. Following the example of the Templars, Raymond du Puy then developed a system of protection for the pilgrims by providing them with security in their travels to the Holy Places. Little by little, knights and men of arms were hired and participated in the defense of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

-The artist’s website: http://www.markstaceyart.co.uk/

MILITARY LEADER OF THE DAY: ALP ARSLAN, 2nd SULTAN OF THE SELJUQ EMPIRE.

By Eric G. L. Pinzelli,
April 23, 2019

ʿAḍud al-Dawla Abū Shujaʿ Muḥammad ibn Dāʾūd Chaghribeg, (c. 1030—1072), was the second sultan of the Seljuq Turks, who inherited the Seljuq territories of Khorāsān and western Iran and went on to conquer Georgia, Armenia, and much of Asia Minor (routing the Byzantine army at Manzikert).
The Seljuq empire was a medieval Turko Persian Sunni Muslim empire founded by Tughril Beg in 1037. It controlled a vast area stretching from the Hindu Kush to eastern Anatolia and from Central Asia to the Arabian Gulf. They united the eastern Islamic world and played a key role in the first and second crusades.
To expand the influence of Islam in the neighboring territory, Alp Arslan ("Heroic Lion") marched into Armenia and Georgia, and finally subdued them in 1064 AD. Alp Arslan invaded the Byzantine empire in 1068 AD but during the first three campaigns, the Turks were defeated and driven across the Euphrates.
At the Battle of Manzikert, fought in 1071, the Seljuk Empire clashed again with the Byzantine Empire led by Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes. What followed was a disastrous defeat for the Byzantine army. The emperor was betrayed by his Cuman Turks as well as the contingents of Franks and Normans, the Byzantines totally routed. Romanos IV was captured and brought to Sultan Alp Arslan. Alp Arslan placed his boot on the Emperor's neck and forced him to kiss the ground. A week later, he was released by Arslan in exchange of a large ransom.
This large victory was followed by Seljuq conquest of most of Anatolia and marked the beginning of the end for the Byzantine Empire as a militarily viable state.
11 months later, the Sultan had arrested Yussuf al-Khwarezmi, the hostile commander of the Berzem fortress when preparing to march against Turkestan. He condemned Yussuf to death but was suddenly stabbed by him with a dagger and died shortly thereafter.
Sultan Alp Arslan died at the age of 43. Alp Arslan's conquest of Anatolia from the Byzantines is seen as one of the pivotal precursors to the launch of the 1st crusade.
Art by Mustafa Öner.

MILITARY LEADER OF THE DAY: SAMBHAJI, 2nd RULER OF THE MARATHA.

By Eric G. L. Pinzelli,
May 16, 2019

After a lifetime of exploits and guerrilla warfare with Adilshah of Bijapur and Moghul emperor Aurangzeb, the local lord Shivaji founded an independent Maratha nation in 1674, with Raigad as its capital. Shivaji died in 1680, leaving a large, but vulnerably located kingdom. His eldest son Sambhaji (1657-1689), after a bloody tussle with the party supporting his half-brother Rajaram (1670-1700), ascended the Maratha throne.
Brave and arrogant, he somehow lacked his father's statesmanship. Meanwhilc Aurangzeb was distracted by the unrest in Rajputana and the rebellion of his son, Prince Akbar. Instead of strengthening the Maratha state and army under those favorable conditions, Sambhaji chose to wage useless wars against the Sidi rulers of Janjira Island and the Portuguese of Goa. The Mughals organized a number of expeditions against the Marathas and forced them to abandon the siege of Goa.
In 1684-1685 the Mughal army undertook a new offensive against Maharashtra and succeeded in taking a few important forts and the Karwar port. Sambhaji, however, found it more important to fight not the Mughals but the Shirkes, a hostile Maratha clan. In 1686-1687 Aurangzeb diverted his armies from Maharashtra and used them against Bijapur and Golkonda. Both sultanates were vanquished and acceded to the empire. Sambhaji neither assisted the sultanates nor made an attempt to strike the Mughals from the back. After the two sultanates were conquered, Aurang zeb invaded Maharashtra again. In a covert operation, a Mughal force captured Sambhaji who was traveling with a small detachment. Brought to Aurangzeb, Sambhaji was sentenced to a slow torturous death on March 11, 1689. - War and Religion: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict, 2017.