On the Military Orders in Medieval Europe: Structures and Perceptions (review)

The Variorum Collected Studies Series has proved itself to be invaluable, because it republishes articles that have sometimes originated in journals and conference proceedings that are hard to find. Its success also is a commentary on an extraordinary growth in interest in the military orders. Fifty years ago there cannot have been more than twenty scholars seriously at work on the subject, whereas 238 contributed to a recent Dictionnaire européen des orders militaires (Paris, 2009). Jürgen Sarnowsky, who has written a magnificent book on Hospitaller Rhodes, has been one of the leaders of this renaissance, and it is good to be able to read twenty-one of his articles in this volume. Three have not appeared elsewhere. The dates of publication of the others range from 1986 to 2010. Six are in German; the rest are in English. Some deal with the military orders in general, but there is a particular focus on the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights, which have been Sarnowsky’s particular concern. Although Sarnowsky ranges throughout the period from 1100 to 1600, the bulk of his interests lie in the fifteenth century. The articles are grouped in four sections: general aspects, internal government, external relations (particularly those of the ordres-states of Prussia and Rhodes), and the experiences and careers of brothers. The inclusion of an index is welcome.

Sarnowsky, who is one of a new breed of crusade historians who focus on the later Middle Ages, is unusual in his breadth of interests, and it is this that makes his work so valuable. He has researched extensively on both the Teutonic and Hospitaller Orders. The period with which he is concerned witnessed a remarkable political development in the emergence of the “order-states” of Rhodes of the Knights Hospitaller and Prussia of the Teutonic Knights. Having some similarities to the papal patrimonies in Italy and on the east bank of the Rhône, and to the later Jesuit missionary settlements in South America, Rhodes and Prussia were theocracies governed by an elite class of celibate soldier-religious, who originated from outside the boundaries and isolated themselves from the indigenous populations. Established on Christian frontiers, their policies toward their non-Christian neighbors, although theoretically defensive, were highly aggressive in practice and were exemplified by the Reysen of the Teutonic Knights, the caravans of the Rhodian fleets, and the Hospitallers’ use of licensed piracy (the corso). The sources for the order-states are mostly unpublished, and a historian tackling both Rhodes and Prussia must take into account the differences between religious orders with their own traditions that operated in the distinct environments of the Aegean and the Baltic, relied on their own sources of funding, and experienced external political and ecclesiastical pressures. Sarnowsky can write authoritatively in comparative terms about their states. His special expertise is evident in the articles in this collection on “The Late Medieval Military Orders,” “Military Orders and Power,” “Ritterorden als Landesherren,” “The Military Orders and Their Navies,” “The Priests in the Military Orders,” “The Legacies and the Bequests of the Masters,” and “Gender-Aspekte.” This volume is a welcome addition to a very valuable series.