The Originality of the Anglo-Norman Hospitallers' Riwle

The Originality of the Anglo-Norman Hospitallers' Riwle The first Master of the Hospital, Blessed Gerard, was from the outset a custos or guardian of a hospice for pilgrims to Jerusalem founded by merchants from Amalfi and placed under the patronage of St John Baptist. It was located on the Muristan and stood near two other Amalfitan edifices, the Convent of St Mary of the Latins and the Convent of St Mary Magdalene. In the same neighbourhood was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. During Gerard's guardianship concerns for lodging travellers gradually gave way to concerns for succour to the sick and needy in general, on whom Gerard and his helpers waited in the manner in which servants would attend the needs of their lords. Raymond du Puy became the second Master in c. 1120. During his magistracy of some forty years the Order extended its operations from the Middle East to Europe, through the priory established on the continent at Saint Gilles in the South of France. The details of this expansion and the rising importance of the Order need not detain us, but Raymond's initiatives and leadership played a major part in it all. Another measure of his abilities was the codifying of the tenets and commandments of his Hospitallers into a Regula. The collection process must have been undertaken between the years 1120 and 1153, the first date being Raymond's election to the magistracy, and the terminus ad quern being a confirmation of the Regula by Eugenius III (1145-1153) towards the end of his pontificate. The oldest extant copy of the Latin Regula is in the Swiss cantonal library at Aarau where it is no. 7 among the archives from the Leuggern commandery. The date assigned to the codex is c. 1253. The nineteen clauses treat the three vows of profession (I-II), altar service and visits to the sick (III), alms collecting and preaching (IV-VII), varieties of self discipline required of brethren (VIII-XIII), observances at a brother's demise (XIV), an injunction to obey the tenets strictly (XV), attendance on the sick (XVI), altercations among members (XVII-XVIII), wearing the Cross on the habit (XIX). Whether this received structure, at least a hundred years later than the lost original, is the first, intermediate or final version from Raymond's hands cannot be determined with any certainty. Scholars have pointed out that clause X V is a logical conclusion to all that went before. One also wonders why clause XVI was not included with III, and the supervenient discipline of XVII attached to VII-IX. All indications are that XVI-XIX were added to an original structure, and this implies a later date; hence there were at least two stages of composition of the Regula. The wearing of the Cross is alluded to in Eugenius' confirmation c. 1153, suggesting that by that date the Regula had reached the extent it has in the Aarau codex. There is a late thirteenth-century version of Raymond's work, perhaps better known because of the circumstances surrounding its publication. 64 K.V. Sinclair Boniface VIII (1294-1303) issued it in 1300 as part of his confirmatory Bull Culminis apostoli solio9 to the Knights of the Hospital regrouped on Cyprus after the Fall of Acre. They had lost their archives in that ignominious defeat. The principal textual differences seem to reflect changes in practices within the Order in the intervening period. For example, Aarau clause VIII mentions Deinde pannos ysambrunos et galambrunos ac fustiana...prohibemus, while Boniface replaces the specific twelfth-century types of cloth by more general terms: Deinde pannos religione vestre non congenos...prohibemus. In clause IX the Aarau text identified the punished and the punisher. If the sinner is a cleric, then he is to be beaten by a cleric; if a lay person is the sinner, he may receive a beating from a cleric or his nominee: a magistro suo clerico, si clericus fuerit qui peccaverit, verberetur, si vero laycus fuerit a clerico vel ab eo cui clericus injunxerit, corrigiis vel virgis durissime flagelletur et verberetur. By 1300 punishment in this context was only by the commander or by other brethren...