Knights Hospitaller: Sites and History
The Knights Hospitaller grew from a hospital serving pilgrims in Jerusalem into a military religious order with houses across Europe and the eastern Mediterranean. Their buildings served different purposes: care and worship, frontier defence, estate management and, later, government from Rhodes and Malta. The modern Orders of St John developed through distinct institutional histories.
The surviving collection includes castles in the Levant and Iberia, commandery buildings in Europe, and fortifications shaped by the order’s move to the islands. The map brings these places together, with individual site articles explaining their different building phases.
Explore Knights Hospitaller sites
More than 100 Hospitaller sites reveal castles, commanderies and later island strongholds built for defence, worship and administration.
Daily life
Daily Life under Hospitaller Rule on Rhodes and Malta
From the fourteenth to the eighteenth century, Hospitaller rule shaped two different island societies through its religious communities, ports, military demands and institutions.
- Food, Markets and Island Supply under Hospitaller Rule on Rhodes and Malta
- Homes and Living Conditions in Hospitaller Rhodes and Malta
- Hospitaller Hospitals: Admission, Accommodation and Patient Care
- Hospitaller Travel, Shipping and Pilgrimage in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean
- Hospitaller Work, Crafts and Port Life in Rhodes and Malta
- Households, Women and Property in Hospitaller Malta
History and society
Knights Hospitaller: A Religious Order of Hospital Care and War
Founded around a hospital in Jerusalem, the Knights Hospitaller developed into an international religious and military order based successively in Cyprus, Rhodes and Malta.
- Captivity, slavery and ransom in Hospitaller Malta, 1530–1798
- European Hospitaller Estates and Support Networks: Funding the Order
- Government and Law in Hospitaller Rhodes and Malta: Civil Authority, Courts, and Local Administration
- History of the Knights Hospitaller: From Jerusalem to Malta
- Hospitaller Fortresses, Hospitals, Churches and Art: Architecture of a Military Religious Order
- Hospitaller Government: Grand Masters, Langues, Priories and Commanderies