Hospitaller Travel, Shipping and Pilgrimage in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean

From the medieval routes linking western European ports with the Holy Land to the Order of Saint John’s island bases at Rhodes and Malta, travel by sea connected pilgrims, merchants and Hospitallers across the Mediterranean. The Order’s role in these journeys changed over time. It began with care for pilgrims and, in the twelfth century, took on the defence of travellers. Later, its own maritime power served the protection of its island territories and military campaigns, sometimes making the Order a source of danger to the same shipping it had once sought to assist.

This history has two main settings: Hospitaller Rhodes from 1310 to 1522, and Malta from 1530 to 1798. The Order’s presence in the Holy Land and its European houses also mattered, supplying care, religious services and resources. But movement between these places was shaped by more than institutional plans. Ships, port arrangements, competing carriers, weather and conflict all affected whether a journey could proceed as intended.

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Pilgrimage routes and the Order’s early maritime role

The Hospitallers developed from an institution that cared for sick and poor Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem. As the Order acquired a military role, it also became involved in protecting pilgrims. Sea travel grew more attractive as journeys overland became harder to make safely, and ports in Italy and southern France became departure points for voyages east. Marseille, Genoa, Pisa and Venice were among the cities whose merchants and shipowners organised transport.

Hospitaller shipping was part of this wider traffic, not its only channel. The Order chartered vessels from Catalonia, Provence and Italy. A record from 1216 describes permission for Hospitaller and Templar ships to sail from Marseille carrying goods, pilgrims and merchants to the Holy Land. The arrangements later faced opposition from Marseille’s shipowners, who objected to the competition. A reported restriction limited the orders to two such ships a year; the accompanying claim that each could carry 1,500 pilgrims is regarded as an overstatement by specialist literature.

From the mid-thirteenth century, the Hospitallers acquired transport ships for their own use and soon built ships at Acre. These vessels served the Order’s religious and practical needs, including the movement of people and supplies. The Order also maintained hospitals and hospices in some southern Italian port cities used by pilgrims. These institutions extended its charitable presence beyond Jerusalem and helped connect seaborne travel with care on land.

Rhodes as a waystation and an institutional centre

After the fall of Acre in 1291, the Hospitallers moved first to Cyprus and then established their base on Rhodes, which they took in 1310. Rhodes lay within the eastern Mediterranean routes between western ports, the Aegean and the Anatolian coast. It became a stop for merchant ships and, according to accounts of medieval pilgrimage traffic, a regular point on journeys towards the Holy Land. The island was both a destination in its own right for members of the Order and a place from which travellers and goods could continue east.

The Order’s position did not make passage to the Holy Land its exclusive business. Venetian carriers offered a competing service, including voyages to Jaffa. The Venetians benefited from arrangements with the Mamluk authorities and from favourable port charges, while their trading relationships could support more dependable commercial access. In contrast, the Hospitallers’ military conflicts and hostility to Muslim shipping made their relations with regional powers more difficult. By the later period on Rhodes, the Order’s own pilgrim transport had diminished as Venetian services drew passengers and Hospitaller ships were increasingly used for other purposes.

Religious connections with the Holy Land nevertheless continued. An agreement made in 1403 allowed the Hospitallers to station representatives in Jerusalem, Ramla and Damietta and to maintain a hospital and certain religious sites in and around Jerusalem. This provided an institutional presence beyond Rhodes, giving the Order places to support travellers under negotiated terms.

Ships, passengers and the limits of a sea journey

Travellers shared sea routes with merchants and cargo. Hospitaller vessels included galleys, while larger sailing ships could carry supplies and extend the range of galley operations. The Order did not always own the ships used for transport: it chartered vessels as well as building and acquiring them. Its naval resources also changed with circumstances, so the presence of an established fleet did not mean that a regular passenger service was always available.

Ships carried people with different reasons for travelling. Pilgrims sought access to holy places; merchants moved goods; and members of the Order travelled between its island convent and houses in Europe. The Hospitallers’ presence in ports could support these movements, but it also brought the Order into disputes with traders. Its ships attacked Muslim vessels, and conflicts with Christian merchants occurred too. Privateering, the seizure of ships and cargo under official sanction, further blurred the line between maritime protection and predation. For travellers, the political identity of a ship and the conditions in the ports along its route could matter as much as the distance to be crossed.

Weather could disrupt plans. One account of a Hospitaller-supported expedition describes a change of destination when unfavourable winds prevented the intended voyage towards Alexandria. Such a case illustrates the practical limits of planning a sea crossing: a route or timetable could not always be maintained when sailing conditions changed. Ports and sheltered island bases offered places to wait or regroup, but they could not remove the risks of delay, capture or conflict.

Hospitals and accommodation within the Order

Care for the sick remained a defining Hospitaller responsibility. After settling on Rhodes, the Order established a hospital there in 1311. Hospitals could serve sick travellers and other people in need, through the charitable arrangements of each foundation. The Order’s hospital presence connected its religious purpose with the practical consequences of travel, especially illness and displacement.

Members of the Order had their own organised accommodation. The Hospitallers divided their western European members into groups called langues, broadly associated with regions and languages. Each group shared an auberge, a house used for lodging as well as communal meals and meetings. These houses were part of the Order’s internal life, not ordinary inns for pilgrims. The arrangement was carried from Rhodes to Malta, where the Order established its headquarters first at Birgu and, from 1571, at Valletta.

Malta and the changing purpose of Hospitaller shipping

After losing Rhodes in 1522, the Hospitallers spent several years without a permanent base. In 1530, Charles V granted the Order Malta and Gozo, along with Tripoli in North Africa. The knights arrived in Malta by ship that October. Tripoli was lost in 1551, and Malta became the Order’s principal base. The change placed the Hospitallers in a central Mediterranean setting, but it did not restore their former position close to Jerusalem.

On Malta, the Order’s maritime activity increasingly centred on its own defence and on operations against rival shipping. Its corso, a state-sanctioned campaign of maritime raiding, became an important source of income and work for people on the island, particularly in the seventeenth century. This activity could harm Muslim shipping, but it also intensified the risks and diplomatic disputes associated with travel. Captains, merchants and passengers consequently had to consider the risks of seizure as well as weather and passage costs.

The Hospitaller world therefore linked pilgrimage, commerce, institutional care and maritime power without keeping them neatly separate. On Rhodes, the Order’s island base could assist journeys east even as competition and conflict limited its role as a carrier. On Malta, shipping served a different strategic and economic setting. Across both periods, the practical possibilities of travel depended on the ships available, the relations between ports and rulers, and conditions at sea.