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The word knight, from Old English cniht ("boy" or "servant"), [10] is a cognate of the German word Knecht ("servant, bondsman, vassal"). [11] This meaning, of unknown origin, is common among West Germanic languages (cf Old Frisian kniucht, Dutch knecht, Danish knægt, Swedish knekt, Norwegian knekt, Middle High German kneht, all meaning "boy ...
Knights in western Europe left their horses and weapons to the Hospitallers in their wills in the 1120s, and in the early 1140s Pope Innocent II mentioned that the Hospitallers had "servants" to protect pilgrims. An account from a Hospitaller priest in 16th century stated that as the Order of St John became more wealthy it hired knights to ...
The Order of Saint John was expelled from its base in Rhodes during the Ottoman siege of 1522.After seven years of moving from place to place in Europe, the Knights became established in 1530 when Emperor Charles V, as King of Sicily, gave them Malta, [7] Gozo and the North African port of Tripoli in perpetual fiefdom in exchange for an annual fee of a single Maltese falcon, which they were to ...
The orders owned houses called commanderies all across Europe and had a hierarchical structure of leadership 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 established and recognized afterwards.
In the early 16th century, the Ottoman Empire started spreading over the region, reaching South East Europe. The Spanish king Charles V feared that if Rome fell to the Turks, it would be the end of Christian Europe. In 1522, Suleiman I drove the Knights Hospitaller of St. John out of Rhodes. They dispersed to their commanderies in Europe.
The Teutonic Knights had a strong economic base which enabled them to hire mercenaries from throughout Europe to augment their feudal levies, and they also became a naval power in the Baltic Sea. In 1410, a Polish-Lithuanian army decisively defeated the Order and broke its military power at the Battle of Grunwald .
In 1666, after the Knights had formally given up their control of the islands, fighting broke out between the French and the English on the island. In a battle at Cayonne, de Sales was killed, but the French held on to their settlements. [6] [12] By the early 1660s, frustration was growing that the colonies were not turning a profit.
Squires were generally not members of the order but were instead outsiders who were hired for a set period of time. The Templars did not perform knighting ceremonies, so anyone wishing to become a knight in the Templar had to be a knight already. [98] Beneath the knights in the order and drawn from non-noble families were the sergeants. [99]