or Hospitallers in full (since 1961) Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta.
Religious order founded at Jerusalem in the 11th century to care for sick pilgrims.
Recognized by the pope in 1113, the order built hostels along the routes to the Holy Land. The Hospitallers acquired wealth and lands and began to combine the task of tending the sick with waging war on Islam, eventually becoming a major military force in the Crusades . After the fall of the crusader states, they moved their headquarters to Cyprus and later to Rhodes (1309). They ruled Rhodes until it fell to the Turks in 1523; thereupon they moved to Malta, where they ruled until their defeat by Napoleon I in 1798. In 1834 they moved to their present headquarters in Rome.