The concept of charity as professed and practised by the Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem : a study on the way the Hospitaller Order of St. John professed and practised this act of love from Jerusalem to Malta

Abstract

From their early beginnings in the 1070s, the brethren of the hospital of St. John of Jerusalem consistently professed themselves 'Servants of Our Lords the Poor and the Sick.' It is the purpose of the present dissertation to study the image and concept of the Order's charity and hospitality in their widest manifestations. The hospital of Jerusalem was the birthplace of the Order of St. John from where it initiated its charitable profession and practices that for a number of years it managed to sustain from different Mediterranean places. An in depth study of this profession and these practices still awaits scrutiny. The present study will attempt to analyse the establishment of the Order of the Hospital founded to cater for the poor and the sick in Jerusalem (Chapter 2); the study will then focus on whether the Order remained to its raison d'etre as it was forced to leave the Holy Land, first in Cyprus and then in Rhodes (Chapter 3); this practice is best tested during its eight-year odyssey and the Order's establishment on Malta (Chapter 4); a discussion will then follow on how the Order's original mission was in fact maintained till the end of the Order's rule over the central Mediterranean island (Chapter 5).