Master of the Order of the Hospital (1305/1306-1317/1319).
Fulk (Fr. Foulques) came from a family that had associated itself with the Hospitallers, and he was a nephew of the previous master, William of Villaret. Little is known of his early life. He was appointed admiral of the order in 1299 (the first recorded instance of such an office). In 1301 and 1303 he held the office of grand commander, and in 1303 he was made lieutenant master.
On William’s death, Fulk was elected master and embarked at once on a series of ambitious projects that would permanently alter the character of the order. He sent a calculating proposal for a crusade to Pope Clement V, and together with the Genoese adventurers Vignolo di Vignoli and Boniface Grimaldi made plans in 1306 to seize the island of Rhodes (mod. Rodos, Greece) and establish a base there for the order. The crusade was eventually carried off, in modified form, in 1309-1310, and the conquest of Rhodes was completed around 1310, giving the Hospital an independent base and transforming it from a land-based knightly order to a Mediterranean naval power.
After 1307 Fulk had to deal with the stresses generated by the trial and suppression of the Order of the Temple. He spent the years 1307-1309 in the West, mostly near the papal court in Poitiers, in a dangerously exposed position but also well-placed to stay abreast of developments. Because of his swift and vigorous action in seizing an independent base for the Hospital, his persistent prosecution of the crusade of 1309-1310, and his evident political sophistication, he managed to bring about a successful acquisition of the property of the Temple and to prevent the French Crown and others from destroying the Hospital. Returning to the East, he became involved in the affairs of the kingdom of Cyprus. He was designated briefly as Henry II’s deputy in 1310, and he helped to arrange the marriage of Henry’s sister to James II of Aragon in 1315. But his character appears to have been deteriorating, and what had been vigorous activity became overbearing tyranny.
In 1317 the Hospitaller brethren on Rhodes rebelled against Fulk and tried to assassinate him in his bed; having deposed him and elected Maurice of Pagnac as master in his stead, they then besieged Fulk in Lindos castle. Pope John XXII summoned both Fulk and Maurice to Avignon in 1319 and confirmed Fulk in his magistracy, apparently on condition that he resign. He was then appointed prior of Capua, but after further trouble there Fulk seems to have lived as a pensioned brother from 1325 until his death in 1327.
-Paul Crawford
Bibliography
Luttrell, Anthony, “The Hospitallers at Rhodes, 1306-1421,” in A History of the Crusades, ed. Kenneth M. Setton, 6 vols. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969-1989), 3:278-339.
-, The Hospitallers of Rhodes and Their Mediterranean
World (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1992).
Riley-Smith, Jonathan S. C., The Knights of St. John in Jerusalem and Cyprus: c. 1050-1310 (London: Macmillan, 1967).
World History
