Biography
A native of Languedoc-Roussillon,France,his uncle was Grand Master Guillaume de Villaret. His uncle had done much to foster his early career in the Order,with Foulques being appointed Admiral in 1299,and Grand Commander two years later. By 1303 he was Lieutenant of the Master,and advanced to rank of Grand Master on his uncle's death.
Under his leadership,the Order launched the conquest of Rhodes,in the years 1308 and 1309. Other islands were also taken,including Kastellórizo and Bodrum. The Hospitallers then moved their headquarters to Rhodes.
However,despite the huge benefits to his Order from the suppression of the Knights Templar (the Templars' assets were assigned to the Hospitallers by the Pope in 1312),Villaret's campaigns of territorial expansion ran the Order heavily into debt,and these debts were not paid off until the mid-1330s. Villaret seems to have been a difficult and overbearing man,and eventually alienated his Order.
Allegations were made of increasingly arrogant,even tyrannical,behavior's,although none of the allegations are specific,and one Italian account of the lives of the Grand Masters claimed that he was treated unjustly. In 1317,the Order attempted a coup against Villaret. A group of knights went to assassinate him at his residence at Rhodini,but his chamberlain aided his escape. He fled to the Hospitaller castle at Lindos,where he was besieged by his own Order. They had,in the meantime,elected Maurice de Pagnac as Grand Master in his place,and wrote to Pope John XXII in July to justify their actions.
The Pope summoned both Grand Masters to his court at Avignon to settle the dispute. Meanwhile,Brother Giraud de Pins administered the Order in the Pope's name. The Pope reappointed Villaret –but only so that he could tender his resignation formally. Brother Hélion de Villeneuve was named as Master on 18 June 1319,the elderly Pagnac having died in the meantime. The Pope appointed Villaret as Prior of Capua for life on 29 June,but after more problems there,he was transferred to the Priory of Rome in 1325. That,too,seems to have been unsuccessful,and after April that year,he received only a pension. He returned to his homeland and lived as a mere Brother of the Order at his sister's home in Teyran,near Montpellier. He died on 1 September 1327 and was buried in the former Templar Church at Montpellier.
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a military order of the Catholic faith, and one of the wealthiest and most popular military orders in Western Christianity. They were founded c. 1119, headquartered on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and existed for nearly two centuries during the Middle Ages.
Year 1306 (MCCCVI) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.
Year 1309 (MCCCIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.
Jacques de Molay, also spelled "Molai", was the 23rd and last grand master of the Knights Templar, leading the order sometime before 20 April 1292 until it was dissolved by order of Pope Clement V in 1312. Though little is known of his actual life and deeds except for his last years as Grand Master, he is one of the best known Templars.
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Jerusalem, or Templars, was a military order founded in 1119/20.
The Dark Side of the Sun is a television serial written by Michael J. Bird and produced by the BBC in 1983.
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller, was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was founded in the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there until 1291, thereafter being based in Kolossi Castle in Cyprus (1302–1310), the island of Rhodes (1310–1522), Malta (1530–1798), and Saint Petersburg (1799–1801).
Guillaume de Villaret, was the twenty-fourth Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, a position he held from 1296 until 1305, succeeding Odon de Pins. He was succeeded by his nephew, Foulques de Villaret, whose career he had done much to advance.
The history of Rhodes under the Order of Saint John lasted from 1310 until 1522. The island of Rhodes was a sovereign territorial entity of the Knights Hospitaller who settled on the island from Palestine and from Cyprus, where they did not exercise temporal power. The first Grand Master was the French Foulques de Villaret (1305–1319).
Odo de Pins, also known as Eudes de Pin or Odon de Pins, was the twenty-third Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, serving from 1294 until his death in 1296, succeeding Jean de Villiers. He moved the headquarters of the Order to Limasso in modern-day Cyprus. Upon his death, he was succeeded by Guillaume de Villaret.
Jean de Villiers was the twenty-second Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, serving from 1285 until 1293. He was elected Grand Master after the death of Nicolas Lorgne. De Villiers was Prior of France beginning in 1282 and he remained in France to deal with existing problems of the Order. Jacques de Taxi became Grand Master ad interim, perhaps through 27 June 1286, while awaiting the arrival of the newly elected Grand Master in the Holy Land. De Villiers was present at the Siege of Acre in 1291, but escaped just before the city fell to the Mamluks. He was succeeded by Odon de Pins.
Albert of Schwarzburg, in contemporary sources also Albertus Alamanus or Albertus de Nigro Castro, was a member of the Saxon–Thuringian House of Schwarzburg who became a member of the Knights Hospitaller, rising to be marshal and grand preceptor of the Order, and fighting with success against the Turks.
Maurice of Pagnac was a member of the Knights Hospitaller who was briefly installed as Grand Master in 1317–19, after the Order overthrew Foulques de Villaret. His election was not recognized by Pope John XXII, who re-installed Villaret.
The Hospitaller conquest of Rhodes took place in 1306–1310. The Knights Hospitaller, led by Grand Master Foulques de Villaret, landed on the island in summer 1306 and quickly conquered most of it except for the city of Rhodes, which remained in Byzantine hands. Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos sent reinforcements, which allowed the city to repel the initial Hospitaller attacks, and persevere until it was captured on 15 August 1310. The Hospitallers transferred their base to the island, which became the centre of their activities until it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1522.
The Crusade of the Poor was an unauthorised military expedition—one of the so-called "popular crusades"—undertaken in the spring and summer of 1309 by members of the lower classes from England, Flanders, Brabant, northern France and the German Rhineland. Responding to an appeal for support for a crusade to the Holy Land, the men, overwhelmingly poor, marched to join a small professional army being assembled with Papal approval. Along the way, they engaged in looting, persecution of Jews and combat with local authorities. None of them reached the Holy Land and their expedition was ultimately dispersed.
The siege of Rhodes was a military engagement involving the Knights Hospitaller and Mamluk Sultanate. The Mamluk fleet landed on the island of Rhodes on 10 August 1444, besieging its citadel. Clashes took place on the western walls of the city and at the Mandraki harbor. On 18 September 1444, the Mamluks departed from the island and lifted the siege.
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The history of the Knights Hospitaller in the Levant is concerned with the early years of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, the Knights Hospitaller, through 1309. The Order was formed in the later part of the eleventh century and played a major role in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, in particular, the Crusades. This lasted until the West was expelled from the Holy Land, with the Order conquering Rhodes in the early fourteenth century. Among the most important internal events of the early years of the kingdom were the foundation of the Military Orders, which included the Hospitallers, the Knights Templar and the Teutonic Order. Unlike the Hospitallers' beginnings as a benevolent organization, the Templars and Teutonic knights began with a military mission. These three major Orders would play a major role in the military activities of the kingdom, sometimes cooperatively, sometimes not. On the battlefield they frequently shared among them the most important tactical roles, the vanguard and rear-guard.
Roger de Pins was the grand master of the Knights Hospitaller from 1355 to the 1365.
Knights Hospitaller 