Désert, Montreal, Safita, Merqab and many others) were the strongholds of these Orders; and at times the Crusading Kings found the Knights to be as truculent and unruly in peace as they were valiant in war. The Knights Templar ruled Cyprus as its sovereigns from 1191–1192, and were dissolved by the Pope in 1312; the Knights Hospitallers, after reigning in Rhodes and then in Malta until the dawn of the nineteenth century, now reside in Rome, where they still maintain under their Grand Masters their sovereign status as the Order of S. John of Jerusalem. For the Crusading activities of this Order see Delaville Le Roulx, Les Hospitaliers en Terre Sainte et à Chypre (Paris, 1904). For the English Order of 5S. John of Jerusalem, see Part II., § 11.
§ 6. Palestine under the Mamelukes and Turks.
The Mamelukes.—For the ensuing two centuries Palestine practically disappears from history. With the final departure of the Franks in 1291 it loses all semblance of independence, and passes, together with Syria, under the Mameluke (Caucasian slave) dynasty of Egypt. The outstanding Mameluke figures in the annals of Palestine are the Sultans Bibars (1260–1277) and Qalaʾun (1279–1290), both equally famous as warriors and as builders. At the beginning of the fifteenth century the land was plagued by the Mongols under Timur-lenk ('Timur the Lame,' Tamerlane), but afterwards, under the Mameluke Sultans, enjoyed a farther period of immunity from external attack. In 1516 war broke out between the Mamelukes and the Ottoman Turks; and by 1517 Egypt, Syria and Palestine were in the hands of the latter.
Palestine under the Turks.—The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are on the whole unimportant in the history of Palestine, although it may here be noted that the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt in their present form in 1542 by Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. Two men alone emerge from an obscure multitude of Pashas and Beys. The first
