ST JOHN, an island in the Danish West Indies. It lies 4 m. E. of St Thomas, is 10 m. long and 2½ m. wide; area 21 sq. m. It is a mass of rugged mountains, the highest of which is Camel Mountain (1270 ft.). Although one of the best watered and most fertile of the Virgin Group, it has little commerce. It is a free port, and possesses in Coral Bay the best harbour of refuge in the Antilles. The village of Cruxbay lies on the northern coast. Pop. (1901) 925.
ST JOHN, a river of New Brunswick, Canada, rising in two
branches, in the state of Maine, U.S.A., and in the province
of Quebec. The American branch, known as the Walloostook,
flows N.E. to the New Brunswick frontier, where it turns S.E.
and for 80 m. forms the international boundary. A little above
Grand Falls the St John enters Canada and Hows through New
Brunswick into the Bay of Fundy at St John. Its total length
is about 450 m. It is navigable for large steamers as far as
Fredericton (86 m.), and in spring and early summer for
smaller vessels to Grand Falls (220 m.), where a series of
falls and rapids form a descent of 70 or 80 ft. Above the falls
it is navigable for 65 m. It drains an area of 26,000 sq. m.,
of which half is in New Brunswick, and receives numerous
tributaries, of which the chief are the Aroostook, Allagash,
Madawaska (draining Lake Temiscouata in Quebec), Tobique
and Nashwaak.
ST JOHN OF JERUSALEM, KNIGHTS OF THE ORDER OF
THE HOSPITAL OF (Ordo fratrum hospitalariorum Hierosolymitanorum,
Ordo militias Sandi Johannis Baptistae hospitalis
Hierosolymitani), known also later as the Knights of Rhodes and the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Rhodes
and the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta. The
history of this order divides itself naturally into four periods:
(1) From its foundation in Jerusalem during the First Crusade
to its expulsion from the Holy Land after the fall of the Latin
kingdom in 1291; (2) from 1309–1310, when the order was
established in Rhodes, to its expulsion from the island in 1522;
(3) from 1529 to 1798, during which its headquarters were in
Malta; (4) its development, as reconstituted after its virtual
destruction in 1798, to the present day.
Early Developments.—Medieval legend set back the beginnings to the days of the Maccabees, with King Antiochus as the founder and Zacharias, father of the Baptist, as one of the first masters; later historians of the order maintained that it was established as a military order contemporaneously with the Latin conquest of Jerusalem, and that it had no connexion with any earlier foundation (so P. A. Paoli, De origine). This view would now seem to be disproved, and it is clear that the order was connected with an earlier Hospitale Hierosolymitanum.[1] Such a hospital had existed in the Holy City, with rare interruptions, ever since it had become a centre of Christian pilgrimage. About 1023 certain merchants of Amalfi had purchased the site of the Latin hospice established by Charlemagne, destroyed in 1010 with the other Christian establishments by order of the fanatical caliph Hakim Biamrillah[2] and had there founded a hospital for pilgrims, served by Benedictines and later dedicated to St John the Baptist.[3] When, in 1087, the crusaders surrounded the Holy City, the head of this hospital was a certain Gerard or Gerald.[4] who earned their gratitude by assisting them in some way during the siege.[5] After the capture of the city he used his popularity to enlarge and reconstitute the hospital. If, as M. Le Roulx surmises, he had previously been affiliated to the Benedictines, he now left them and adopted for his order the Augustinian rule. Donations and privileges were showered upon the new establishment. Godfrey de Bouillon led the way by granting to it in Jerusalem itself the casal Hessilia (Es Silsileh) and two bakehouses.[6] Kings, nobles and prelates followed suit, not in the Holy Land only, but in Provence, France, Spain, Portugal, England and Italy: in Portugal a whole province was in 1114 made over to Gerard and his brethren (Cartul. i. No. 34). In 1113 Pope Paschal II. took the order and its possessions under his immediate protection (bull of Feb. 15th to Gerard, Cartul. i. No. 30), his act being confirmed in 1119 by Calixtus II. and subsequently by other popes. Gerard was indeed, as Pope Paschal called him, the “instituter” of the order, if not its founder. It retained, however, during his lifetime its purely eleemosynary character. The armed defence of pilgrims may have been part of its functions, but its organization as an aggressive military force was the outcome of special circumstances—the renewed activity of the, Saracens—and was the work of Raymond du Puy, who succeeded as grand master on the death of Gerard (3rd of September 1120).[7]
Not that Raymond can be proved to have given to his order anything of its later aristocratic constitution. There is no mention in his Rule[8] of the division into knights, chaplains and sergeants; indeed, there is no mention of any military duties whatever. It merely lays down certain rules of conduct and discipline for the brethren. They are to be bound by the threefold vow of chastity, poverty and obedience. They are to claim nothing for themselves save bread, water and raiment; and this latter is to be of poor quality, “since our Lord's poor, whose servants we say we are, go naked and sordid, and it is a disgrace for the servant to be proud when his master is humble.” Finally, the brethren are to wear crosses on the breast of their capes and mantles, “ut Deus per ipsum vexillum et fidem et operationem et obedientiam nos custodiat.”[9] Yet that Raymond laid down military regulations for the brethren is certain. Their underlying principle is revealed by a bull of Pope Alexander III. addressed (1178–1180) to the grand master Roger des Moulins, in which he bids him, “according to the custom of Raymond,” abstain from bearing arms save when the standard of the Cross is displayed either for the defence of the kingdom or in an attack on a “pagan” city.[10]
The statesmanlike qualities of Raymond du Puy rendered his long mastership epoch-making for the order. When it was decided to fortify Ibelin (Beit-Jibrin) as an outpost against attacks from the side of Ascalon, it was to the Hospitallers that the building and defence of the new castle were assigned; and from 1137 onwards they took a regular part in the wars of the Cross. It was owing to Raymond's diplomatic skill, too, , that the order was enabled to profit by the bequest made to it by Alphonso I. of Aragon, who had died childless, of a third of his kingdom. To have claimed the literal fulfilment of this bequest would have been to risk losing it all, and Raymond acted wisely in transferring the bequest, with certain important reservations, to Raymond Berenger IV., count of, Barcelona and regent of
- ↑ Cf. the bull of Pope Celestine Il. to Raymond du Puy, in the matter of the Teutonic order, which describes the Hospital as “Hospitalem domum sancte civitatis Jerusalem, que a longis retro temporibus Christi pauperum usibus dedicata, tam christianorum quam etiam Sarracenorum tempore ....” (Le Roulx, Cartulaire, i. No. 154).
- ↑ This solution of the much debated question of the connexion of the Hospital with the Benedictine foundation of Sancta Maria Latina is worked out in much detail by M. Delaville Le Roulx in his Les Hospitaliers en Terre Sainte, chap. i.
- ↑ William of Tyre says that they erected in that place an altar to St John Eleemon, patriarch of Alexandria, renowned for his charities. This mistake led to the widespread belief that this saint, and not St John the Baptist, was the original patron of the order. A passage in the bull addressed by Pope Paschal to Gerard (Cartulaire, No. 30) would seem to leave the dedication in doubt: “Xenodochium, quod ... juxta beati johannis Baptistae ecclesiam instituisti.” The patronage of St John may thus have merely been the result of this juxtaposition, as the Templars took their name from the site of the mother-house.
- ↑ In spite of his fame, nothing is known of his origin. The surname “Tune” or “Tonque” often given to him is, as Le Roulx points out, merely the result of a copyist's error for “Gerardus tune ...”
- ↑ According to the legend, he joined the defenders on the walls and, instead of hurling stones, hurled bread at the Christians, who were short of supplies. Haled before the Mussulman governor, his accusers were confounded when the incriminating loaves they produced were discovered to be turned into stones.
- ↑ “Fours.” So the charter of Baldwin I. (Cartul. No. 20; cf. No. 225). In his Hospitaliers Le Roulx has “tours,” i.e. two towers, probably a misprint.
- ↑ The existence of a certain Roger as grand master between Gerard and Raymond, maintained by some historians, is finally disproved by Raymond's own testimony: “Reginmundus, per gratiam Dei post obitum domini Giraldi factus servus pauperum Christi” (Cartul. i. No. 46).
- ↑ The date of this can only be approximately assigned, in so far as it was confirmed by Pope Eugenius III., who died in 1153.
- ↑ For text see Cartulaire, i. No. 70.
- ↑ Cartul. i. No. 527.
