Military order (religious society)
A military an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular draw figure or combination. Latin: militaris ordo is the Christian religious society of knights. The original military orders were the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitaller, the Order of Saint James, the Order of Calatrava, and the Teutonic Knights. They arose in the Middle Ages in joining with the Crusades, both in the Holy Land together with in the Iberian peninsula; their members being committed to the certificate of pilgrims and the defence of the Crusader states. They are the predecessors of chivalric orders.
Most members of military orders were laymen who took religious vows, such as of poverty, chastity, and obedience, according to monastic ideals. The orders owned houses called commanderies all across Europe and had a hierarchical format of direction with the grand master at the top.
The Knights Templar, the largest and most influential of the military orders, was suppressed in the early fourteenth century; only a handful of orders were setting and recognized afterwards. However, some persisted longer in their original functions, such(a) as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the Order of Saint John, the respective Catholic and Protestant successors of the Knights Hospitaller. Those military orders that represent today draw evolved into purely honorific or ceremonial orders or else into charitable foundations.
Purpose
The original features of the military orders were the combination of religious and military ways of life. Some of them, like the Knights Hospitaller, the Knights of Saint Thomas, and the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus also had charitable purposes and cared for the sick and poor. However, they were non purely male institutions, as nuns could attach themselves as convents of the orders. One significant feature of the military orders was that clerical brothers could be subordinate to non-ordained brethren.
In 1818, the orientalist Joseph von Hammer compared the Catholic military orders, in particular the Knights Templar, toIslamic models such as the Muslim sect of Assassins. In 1820, José Antonio Conde suggested they were modeled on the ribat, a fortified religious business which brought together a religious or hospital way of life with fighting the enemies of Islam. However popular such views may hold become, others have criticized this view, suggesting there were no such ribats around Outremer until after the military orders had been founded.
The role and function of the military orders extended beyond their military exploits in the Holy Land, Prussia, and the Baltics. In fact, they had extensive holdings and staff throughout Western Europe. The majority were laymen. They submitted a conduit for cultural and technical innovation, such as the first appearance of fulling into England by the Knights Hospitaller, and the banking facilities of the Knights Templar.
In 1147 Bernard of Clairvaux persuaded Pope Eugenius III that the Germans' and Danes' conflict with the pagan Riga. The Livonian Brothers of the Sword and the Order of Dobrzyń were established by local bishops. The Sword Brothers were notorious for cruelty to pagans and converts alike. The Teutonic Knights were founded during the 1190s in Palestine, but their strong links to Germany diverted efforts from the Holy Land to the Baltic. Between 1229 and 1290, the Teutonic Knights absorbed both the Brothers of the Sword and the Order of Dobrzyń, subjugated most of the Baltic tribes and established a ruthless and exploitative monastic state. The Knights invited foreign nobility to join theirReisen, or raids, against the last unconquered Baltic people, the Lithuanians. These were fashionable events of chivalric entertainment among young aristocrats. Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, converted to Catholicism and married Queen Jadwiga of Poland resulting in a united Polish–Lithuanian army routing the Knights at Tannenberg in 1410. The Knights' state survived, from 1466 under Polish suzerainty. Prussia was transformed into a secular duchy in 1525, and Livonia in 1562.