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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 Kingdom of Jerusalem and from Cyprus , where they did not exercise temporal power.
After the Knights Hospitaller occupied Rhodes and some other Greek islands (such as Kalymnos and Kastellorizo) in 1309, they converted the fortress into their administrative centre and the palace of their Grand Master. In the first quarter of the 14th century, they repaired the palace and made a number of major modifications. [4]
The Knights of St. John, or Knights Hospitallers, had captured Rhodes in the early 14th century after the loss in 1291 of Acre, the last Crusader stronghold in Palestine. From Rhodes, they became an active part of the trade in the Aegean Sea, and at times harassed Turkish shipping in the Levant to secure control over the eastern Mediterranean.
The historian Sofia Zoitou has characterised the architecture and contents of the Church of St John as "eloquently articulat[ing] the Knights' political and religious essence". [9] It was built in the Gothic style, [10] 48–50 metres (157–164 ft) in length and 15–18 m (49–59 ft) in breadth.
Rhodes and other possessions of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John. In 1522, an entirely new sort of force arrived: 400 ships under the command of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent deployed as many as 100,000 men to the island, [ 32 ] and possibly up 200,000. [ 33 ]
The Avenue of the Knights. The medieval town contains a number of different architectural styles, due to its history. The town mostly developed under the Knights of St John, which accounts for its predominantly Gothic architecture. However, after the second Siege of Rhodes the medieval town was also developed in the Ottoman era.
The Byzantine era came to an end when the islands were rented and sold by Genoeses for the venue of the Knights Hospitaller (Knights of St John): Rhodes was reinforced in 1309, and in the rest of the islands the Knights gradually built castles and fortress over the next few decades, while the Genoese fleet remained in charge of the sea routes ...
In the Late Middle Ages, the bulk of possessions of the order were in the Holy Roman Empire, France, Castile, Aragon and Portugal, but they extended into Poland, Hungary, southern Italy, England and Denmark, with individual outliers in Ireland, Scotland, Sweden and Greece (the main seat of the order was in Rhodes from 1310 until 1522, and in ...