The Hospital of St John in Jerusalem

When the crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099, a hospice for Latin pilgrims in the city was being run by a man named Gerard, probably from Martigues in Provence. It had been under the Benedictine abbot of St Mary of the Latins. Gerard, who had been useful to the crusaders, freed it from Benedictine control and founded a separate order of Hospitallers, which Pope Paschal II confirmed by a bull in 1113. That is the account in E. J. King's 1934 edition of the order's rules.

Gerard's successor, Raymond du Puy, drew up the order's Rule, which at first had 15 clauses; four more were added later. The order also acquired castles and fighting brethren. Its principal hospital stood in Jerusalem until 1187.

John of Würzburg, a German pilgrim who wrote between 1160 and 1170, found it beside a church of John the Baptist, across the street from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Sick men and women lay in many rooms. He was told they numbered 2,000, and that on some days more than 50 were carried out dead in a single day and night while new patients kept arriving. The house fed as many people outside its walls as within.

Statutes issued under the Master Roger des Moulins, at a chapter-general that King dates to 1181, set out what the patients were owed. Four wise doctors were to be engaged who could examine urine, diagnose diseases and give medicines. Beds were to be long and broad, each with its own coverlet and sheets. Every patient was to have a sheepskin cloak, boots for going to the latrines, and a woollen cap. Small cradles were to be made for babies born to women pilgrims in the house, so that a restless mother could not endanger her child. The customs Roger confirmed add fresh pork or mutton three days a week, chicken for those who could not eat meat, and the care of abandoned children. The order's chronicle described him as loving his brethren and "our lords the sick".

Roger des Moulins was killed fighting Saladin's son al-Afdal at the Spring of Cresson on 1 May 1187. Two months later the army of Jerusalem was destroyed at Hattin, the city surrendered to Saladin that autumn, and the Hospitallers moved their headquarters to the castle of Margat.