Military Orders In The Crusades Essay

For the righteous purpose of saving the holy land of Jerusalem from the evil control of the violent Muslims, non-Christians, and other religious pagans, a successive array of crusades had been launched by the Christian followers of the Western Europe, which spanned from 1095 onward to the 13th century. It was a historic fact that not all of the crusades achieved their purpose and attained success. Instead, defeat or failure was the usual result for most of the crusades, and victories were only a seldom or occasional visitor to the Christian crusaders who joined the mission with that common goal in mind. The crusading was more of a clash between two different religions and cultures, which proved to be the very source of most of the troubles
Actually, those military orders in the crusades could be regarded as those necessary and important resources which could enable the crusades to overcome various troubles and hardships in their war against the Muslims in their salvation of the holy land of Jerusalem from their hand. The establishment of those military orders played a very important role in enabling the crusaders to make full of the resources available to reach their goal. Among all those resources available for the crusaders, the most powerful were the Templars and the Hospitallers which tried their best to establish independent crusade states in the holy land by means of those various resources provided to them. According to Jotischky, endowed with a religious and spiritual role enabled by the privilege-offering church, those resources were turned into some “international conglomerations” the greatness of which had never been known before (Jotischky, 79). Long before the crusades, those hospitals had already existed for a long time. Founded by those Amalfi merchants in the early eleventh century, the Hospital of St. John was a very important military order recognized by the church as a military order by 1113, and long before that, it had been part of the monastery providing shelter or medical support to those pilgrims passing by its place (Jotischky, 79). Realizing the great help the hospital could offer to the crusaders, the church decided to regard it as one of the military orders providing support to those crusaders on their march to the holy land. Another important military order was the Templars which was established during the crusades. As an institution, the Templars came from those crusaders who stayed in the holy land of Jerusalem in 1099 after the crusade and who had their own military base in the holy land. Influenced by their leader Hugh of Payens, those remaining crusaders decided to dedicate