Rhodes

The island of Rhodes (mod. Rodos, Greece) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands, strategically placed at the interface of the Aegean and Mediterranean seas. The town of the same name at the northeastern tip of the island is the largest settlement and the island’s capital.

The island of Rhodes has been of considerable economic and naval importance since antiquity and proved to be more so as crusading interest moved from the Holy Land and Egypt to Asia Minor and the Aegean Sea; indeed, in 1316 the Catalan writer Ramon Llull recognized the importance of Rhodes as a crusading base. Before that the islanders took an active part in provisioning the First Crusade (1096-1099), and during the Third Crusade (1189-1192) both Richard I of England (1189) and Philip II of France (1192) stopped at Rhodes on their way, respectively, to and from the Holy Land. After the conquest of Constantinople by the forces of the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204), Rhodes nominally belonged to the empire of Nicaea, but in practice the island was ruled by the Gabalas family, which took a free hand in the collection of revenue and the conduct of affairs.

Emperor John III Vatatzes attempted to exert Nicaean control over the island by sending expeditions there in 1233 and 1244, but it was no easy task, since in 1234 Leo Gabalas, ruler of Rhodes (1204-1240), signed a treaty with the Venetians directed against Nicaea. Leo was able to pass some control of the island to his brother John, who was last recorded in 1249, when Nicaean control may be assumed to have been complete.

In 1278 the lordship of Nanfio and Rhodes was granted to the Genoese freebooter Giovanni de lo Covo, and once again the island came under the control of elements only nominally acknowledging Byzantine overlordship. In an agreement dated 27 May1306, the Genoese lord of the island, Vignolo de’ Vignoli, sold Rhodes, Kos, and Leros to the Order of the Hospital, reserving for himself one-third of the revenues from Kos and Leros and the casale (village) of Lar-dos on Rhodes. The order was seeking a base to replace its former headquarters in Acre (mod. ‘Akko, Israel), lost to the Muslims in 1291, whereas Vignolo may have felt unable to exploit his lordships in the face of Venetian and Turkish

The Grand Vizier of Mehmed II conducting Turkish operations during the Siege of Rhodes (1480-1481). From Histoire du Siege de Rhodes (Descriptio Obsidionis Rhodiae urbis), by Guillaume Caoursin, c. 1483-1490. Ms. lat. 6067, f.50 v., Bibliotheque nationale de France, Paris, France. (Snark/Art Resource)

Pressure. Certainly Rhodes had to be conquered by the Hospitallers, which suggests that Vignolo’s control was limited.

On 23 June 1306, the Hospitaller grand master, Fulk of Villaret, left Limassol in Cyprus to conquer Rhodes with a small fleet of 2 galleys and 4 transports carrying 35 knights and 500 foot soldiers. The chronology of the conquest is unclear. Most of the island may have been in the hands of the Hospitallers by 1306, with the exception of Philerimos, which remained in Byzantine hands until 1310, when a crusading force arrived to assist the Hospitallers in their conquest. By 1320 the islands of Kos, Leros, Karpathos, and Kassos were conquered, the last two taken from the Venetians.

Rhodes became an entrepot for trade with the West and the Turkish emirates of southwestern Anatolia, activities that the campaigns of the Hospitallers did not greatly inconvenience. Merchants from Florence, Narbonne, and Montpellier, transferring revenues from the European commanderies of the order to its Rhodian headquarters, provided banking facilities. Particularly close contact was maintained with Cyprus, Crete, and Sicily; merchants from France, Italy, and Spain were prominent in the commerce of the island, particularly in the export of sugar, which was refined in factories such as that excavated at Haraki and which was second in quality only to that of Cyprus.

The Hospitallers fortified and adorned the city of Rhodes with miles of walls and many monuments, such as the old and new hospitals and the Street of the Knights. The city became the center of the island, both for exporting its products and for distributing goods to the rest of the island. Relations with the indigenous Greek population seem to have been cordial and cooperative. It is generally assumed that in the Rhodian countryside Greeks were left very much to themselves; indeed, little is known of the landholding policies adopted by the Hospitallers. The fate of Vignolo’s holding at Lardos is unknown.

Some of the coastal towers, such as those at Palati and Glyfada, bear armorial sculpture of the grand masters fixing both their dates and their builders, but other sites are built without dressed stones and have no armorial bearings, leaving open the questions of when they were erected and to whom they belonged. Many of the castles and coastal towers were built, refortified, or enlarged during the grand mastership of Peter of Aubusson (1476-1503). Plans drawn up in 1474 and revised in 1479 for places of refuge for the main centers of habitation in the island are a reflection of the growth and seriousness of Turkish raids on the island and the need to maintain the population base.

Raids turned to invasion with the first great siege of the city of Rhodes by the Ottomans (May-July 1480), for which we have a full and well-illustrated account by Guillaume Caoursin, vice-chancellor of the order. A further assault on Rhodes was prevented by the death of Sultan Mehmed II in 1481 and the disputed succession between Bayezid II and his brother Prince Cem (Djem), who fled to Rhodes in July 1482 and made a treaty with the grand master in return for protection. For his part, Bayezid II left the island unmolested as long as Cem was in Western hands. Cem died in 1495, leaving his family on the island, eventually to be executed in 1523.

Thereafter, Bayezid II was too preoccupied with other campaigns to concern himself with the capture of Rhodes. The respite thus gained was used to strengthen the fortifications of the city. The result, which is still visible today, incorporated the latest thinking in late medieval defense. The final Ottoman siege of Rhodes began on 28 July 1522, when a Turkish armada of 400 ships brought 200,000 troops, a large artillery train, and Sultan Suleyman I himself to the city. Despite being outnumbered almost thirty to one and decisively outgunned, the Hospitallers held out until the end of December and forced the sultan to offer terms that were eventually accepted. On 1 January 1523, the last grand master of Rhodes, Philippe de Villiers de l’Isle-Adam (1521-1534), the brethren of the order, and those Greek inhabitants who wished to go left the island for good.

The island remained in Turkish hands until 1911, when it passed to Italy. It became part of Greece in 1947.

-Peter Lock

See also: Hospital, Order of the; Ottoman Empire

Bibliography

Gerola, Guiseppe, “Monumenti mediovali dehe Tredici Sporadi,” Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene 1 (1914), 169-356; 2 (1916), 1-66.

Kohias, Elias, The Medieval City of Rhodes and the Palace of the Grand Master: From the Early Christian Period to the Conquest by the Turks (1522), 2d ed. (Athens: Archaeological Receipts Fund, 1998).

Luttreh, Anthony, Hospitallers in Cyprus, Rhodes, Greece and the West, 1291-1440 (London: Variorum, 1978).

-, The Hospitallers of Rhodes and Their Mediterranean

World (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1992).

-, The Hospitaller State on Rhodes and Its Western

Provinces, 1306-1462 (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999).

-, The Town of Rhodes, 1306-1356 (Rhodes: City of

Rhodes Office for the Medieval Town, 2003).

Nicholson, Helen, The Knights Hospitaller (London: Boydell, 2001).

Poutiers, Jean-Christian, Rhodes etses Chevaliers, 1306-1523: Approche historique et archeologique (Araya: Imprimerie Catholique, 1989).

Sorensen, Lone Wriedt, and Peter Pentz, Results of the CarlsbergFoundation Excavations in Rhodes, 1902-1914: Lindos, 4/2 (Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark, 1992).

Spiteri, Stephen C., Fortresses of the Cross (Valletta: Heritage Interpretation Services, 1994).

Triposkoufi, Anna, and Amalia Tsitouri, eds., Venetians and Knights Hospitallers: Military Architecture Networks (Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture, 2002).