The Service of Chivalries Throughout History in Relation to Pandemics and Wars

Abstract

The first orders of knights were formed in the royal courts in the late Middle Ages. When the ancient eastern Christian centres had all fallen following the conquests of the Seljuk Turks, by the end of the 11th century, Rome and Western Christianity were forced to take action. During the First Crusade, the first ecclesiastical orders were established on the model of monastic orders. Their creation was not a spontaneous process, but a conscious undertaking, for the members of these orders were also capable of performing tasks which an average soldier would not. It was then that the figure of the Christian warrior who fought against the conquering Islam was formed in order to liberate the Holy Land, who later became an example to many.2 The Crusades were consecrated as military campaigns by the Church, in which the ideal of the Christian soldier gained heroic character. The new orders uniquely combined military and monastic virtues.3 In this article, we examine the role of the Hospitallers (Johannites), the Templars, the Order of the German Knights and the Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in the light of the circumstances in which they were formed and their role in today’s armed and pandemic conflicts.